WW1 U Boat Questions

[Harald_Lange]

After becoming engrossed in WW2 U-boats, I've read about the U-cruisers of WW1, and that some even attacked the US coast. I find this remarkable and would never have believed it possible with the technology available at the time.
I'm intrigued to find out more about this topic, such as how the heck did they power the underwater motors, and what about the torpedo technology? Surely they had no such thing as a TDC in 1914-1918?

My question is, are there any decent resources on WW1 U-boats/U-cruisers? I find the subject is very difficult to find on the internet.

[Torplexed]

Uboat.net has a whole section devoted to the Imperial German Navy's U-boats.

http://www.uboat.net/wwi/

Regrettably the U-boats of WWI tend to get overshadowed by the U-Boats of that other big war.

[Harald_Lange]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

Uboat.net has a whole section devoted to the Imperial German Navy's U-boats.

http://www.uboat.net/wwi/

Regrettably the U-boats of WWI tend to get overshadowed by the U-Boats of that other big war.

Awesome stuff. Don't know how I missed that! Spend a lot of time on that site Thanks.

[Platapus]

For some references I can recommend

The Uboat Wars 1916-1945 By John Terraine
The Uboat Offensive 1914-1945 by V. W. Tarrant

and if you can find it I can highly recommend

The Uboat: The evolution and technical history of German Submarines by Eberhard Rossler

For information on torpedoes, check out

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTGER_PreWWII.htm

I like the quote from the movie "Enemy Below"

You don't remember the first one [WWI].
I was a Fähnrich in the U-boats. And, oh, how proud I was!
it was a good game we played.
The captain would look through his periscope and sight a target,
and then he did arithmetic in his head and said "Torpedo los! "
And you know something? Sometimes the torpedo wouldn't even leave the tube.
And if it did, we were most lucky to hit something.
And now... now I look in the periscope and it gives me the distance and the speed.
I pass this information to the attack table, and the machinery turns and the lights flash, and we get the answer.
The torpedo runs to its target, and there's no human error in this.
They've taken human error out of war, Heini.

Awesome movie!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Platapus

The Uboat Wars 1916-1945 By John Terraine
The Uboat Offensive 1914-1945 by V. W. Tarrant

The U-Boat War 1914-1918, by Edwin Gray
http://www.amazon.com/The-U-Boat-191.../dp/0850524059

[Penguin]

Like Platapus said, the targeting in WW1 was all about manual arithmetrics. Though they already had a steadimeter to measure the distance of the enemy ship if they knew the correct mast height.
German torpedoes in WW1 were already capable to run in a +/- 90° angle from the boat.

Here is a German site about -boats in WW1: http://www.u-boot-net.de/index.php - it has a translate-to-english button. They also have a forum there, so you might want to ask some specific questions there. On most German boards it's no prob to write in English if you don't know the language.

Originally Posted by Platapus

The Uboat: The evolution and technical history of German Submarines by Eberhard Rossler

I can also recommend this book, the only downside of being the insufficent index, at least in my copy (2nd German edition from '96), so it can be a pita to look up something specific.
Rössler published a book about the U-cruisers in WW1, though it's available only in German. He also published a book about U-boats from 1898 - 1918 last year, so with some luck it might get translated.
I don't own the latter 2, but while looking them up on amazon to check if an english version is available, I found the cruiser book for an ok price! Yay! I was looking for it for some time!

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The U-Boat War 1914-1918, by Edwin Gray
http://www.amazon.com/The-U-Boat-191.../dp/0850524059

Woot! Abebooks had one copy of this for $3.60. Mine Mine Mine.

Thanks for the birddog.

[Sailor Steve]

I've been finding a lot of books these days that I thought I'd never have, some of them cheap like that. Feels good.

[Platapus]

I was also able to get a first edition of The Enemy Below, but that cost me a few bucks.

Money spent on books is never wasted.