Quote:
Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
That's something that's always bothered me. I've read that they really did that, but I wonder why, given that the diving tanks were capable of transferring up to 20 tons of water between fore and aft trim tanks, many times the weight of the entire crew.
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Steve, the U-Boats did that because they were an older design than the US Submarines. American subs had fore and aft trim tanks to perform weight adjustments, U-Boats did not.
So they used the ballast they had--the crew. Their boats were smaller than the US boats and the crew forward trick did a great job of pitching the sub down for a quicker dive without all the plumbing and pumps the American boats had. Well, maybe it wasn't so great, but it was the best they had and they could dive mightily quick.