[Siara]

Originally Posted by U796

Originally Posted by sanddjr
Fantastic pictures, I look forward to each update as they are very interesting and thank you for sharing them with us.

Do you happen to know when the picture below of U-553 was taken? as it looks like they removed the net cutters and left the brackets.

My son and I hvae the Revell 1/72 kit which he will radio controll and we are tryign to find out when the net cutters were removed from the VIIC's that had them, we think early 1941.

Following Dougie Martindale`s research:
"
Net cutters (parts 111 to 114)
Two net cutters were present at the bow of the very earliest VIICs - one on the deck and the other below the waterline on the stem. On 1st March 1941 the order remove the net cutters was issued. As a result, most of the net cutters were removed in March and April 1941.
However, the net cutters were not removed from all boats in this period. For example, U 96 still had net cutters when arriving back from patrol on the 22nd May 1941. Similarly, U 94 still had net cutters when returning from patrol on the 4th June 1941. U 94 had been in port throughout March, and again for 11 days in April. But there are a variety of reasons why the net cutters were not removed from U 94 during these two periods. One reason may have been the necessity to get the boat back to sea as quickly as possible.
Opinions on whether the lower net cutter was removed at the same time as the upper net cutter vary. Some hold that the lower one may have been left in place (too difficult to remove cheaply and easily), while others hold the view that both would have been removed at the same time.
Some or all of the earliest VIICs built at Germaniawerft (U 69 to U 72, and U 93 to U 98) had the lower net cutters when launched, but not the S-G. Certainly this was the case with U 70. Presumably the S-G device was fitted to U 70 and others when it became available. Fitting the S-G may have meant removing the lower net cutter.

Breakwaters (parts 115 & 116)
The earliest VIICs all had breakwaters fitted to the top of the hull casing to protect the 88mm deck gun crews from waves. It appears that the process of removing the breakwaters usually occurred during the April/May/June 1941 period. Prior to this the breakwaters were generally present, while after this they were generally absent.
A pattern of small, round free-flooding holes usually replaced the breakwaters. This was intended to help the boat dive slightly faster, but any improvement must have been marginal. Some boats, and indeed all of the late war VIICs and VIIC/41s, did not have any holes in this area at all.

Wind deflector (parts 121 or 124)
Another modification was the wind deflector. Fitted around the outside edge of the top of the tower, this flange was intended to block some of the wind and spray that hit the lookouts’ faces. Note that this wind defector is not to be confused with the spray defector that featured halfway up the tower on every VIIC.
The earliest VIICs did not have the wind deflector. The process of fitting this feature seems to have been between December 1940 and December 1941 or so – a far greater time period than the process of removing the net cutters or breakwaters. One of the first boats to be fitted with this feature was U 69: it was present during the boat’s commissioning ceremony on the 2nd November 1940. Other early examples of boats with the wind deflector are U 651 (December 1940), U 71 or U 72 (January 1941), U 69 (March 1941) and U 96 (April 1941). But most boats during this period did not have this feature. It began to appear very slowly throughout the course of 1941. By July 1941, U 203 and U 701 did not have this feature. U 201 did not have the wind deflector in July either, and may not even have had this in September 1941. Nor did U 559 have this feature by late October 1941, while U 564 appears not to have had a wind deflector in November 1941. Unusually, the VIIB U 73 did not even have this feature in September 1942, but this appears to be an exception. By 1942 it was almost universally present.
Generally speaking, therefore, the wind deflector appeared as early as November 1940 but was still not present on some boats in November 1941.

Combinations on popular boats
Net cutters = nc, breakwaters = bw, wind deflector = wd

U 96 –
1st Aug 1940 nc-yes bw-yes wd-no
Apr-May 1941 nc-yes bw-no wd-yes
27th Oct 1941 nc-no bw-no wd-yes
Note that the combination featured on U 96 in April and May 1941 (4th patrol) was quite unusual.

U 201 –
7th Dec 1940 nc-yes bw-yes wd-no
Jan-May 1941 nc-no bw-yes wd-no
Jun-Aug 1941 nc-no bw-no wd-no
Later in 1941 nc-no bw-no wd-yes

U 552 -
14th Sep 1940 nc-yes bw-yes wd-no
1941 nc-no bw-yes wd-no
Later in 1941 nc-no bw-no wd-yes
The addition of the wind defector to U 552 may have occurred during the same refit as the removal of the breakwaters or, as in the case of U 201, during a later refit.
"

Hope it helps.