U-776: Torpedo Timer StopWatch

[WULFPAK]

Regarding this black anodized kriegsmarine stop watch from U-776 (which surrendered at England in 1945)...

Can anyone with the knowledge give me an idea as to what the work number 1225 means on this stop watch, and if theres any research that can be done with this information?

Ive found it hard to find pictures online for these kind of stop watches and how they were used for calculations, etc. Does anyone have links to share?

Thank you,

Wulfpak

http://militarytrader.co.uk/kri1.jpg

http://i21.ebayimg.com/04/i/04/e5/9c/15_1_b.JPG


Edit

found this about manual targeting on this forum:
http://www.paulwasserman.net/SHIII/

Maybe this ole watch will sink some tonnage after all...

[don1reed]

Hello Wulfpak,

I suggest you try to do research through the Manufacturer first, then www.uboat.net re Nr. 1225.

The stopwatch during those times had many uses. i.e., the Funkmaat would receive radio time hacks and transferred to the watch which the steuermann would use for making a round of stars with the sextant. Correct time was/is essential for accurate navigation (Longitudes).
Here's a site that might help:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/celnav.html

As you know already, the watch is used for timing the torpedo run, and timing the distance between target bearings.

[Kalach]

I have a watch very similar to this. The differences are that on the front 'Junghans' is written in itilacs, and on the back is the eagle with KM stamped below.
I'm not sure what these were used for, having a timer of 30m?
Let me know what you find :up:

[WULFPAK]

Thank you both for your replies.

Im pretty sure the brit I bought this from story that it came from U776 (type VII-C) is more likely to be accurate than this being from U1225. Reason being the former surrendered itself close to where this guy is from, plus the latter uboat was lost at sea. Not likely the stopwatch would have survived in that case. http://www.uboat.net/boats/u776.htm

Ive tried Uboat.net and Uboatwaffe.net and so far its stumpted all the stars thus far. Who knows what we may find though. My guess is the Nr. 1225 is just an issue number to keep track where it went and to whom - which would be a great verification trail to track down.

If you noticed in the pics I posted, the Kriegsmarine eagle and swatika are whited out under the Junghans logo for sensitivity reasons.

Sounds like Kalach's watch is early war, and mine is late war make;
when prettiness gave way to practical and cost consciousness.

The 30 minutes could be there for alot of reasons that I could think of:
- timing of passing ships
- depth and diving measurements
- torpedo measurements... multiple shots might be spread over 10s of minutes.
- sextant navigational measurements as aforementioned
- crew task performance measurements
- other surface ship (kriegsmarine) uses, other than just for uboats
- just because the manufacturer made it that way?
- other stuff that ive never thought of, which is why I asked

Id like to see pictures of yours if you dont mind.

[Kalach]

Here;

http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/7383/front6oj.jpg

http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/5828/back7bu.jpg

I blurred out the eagle and swastika to not offend anyone.
There's no other numbers or anything on it though, so I cant think of any easy way to track down its history. I'll have a look around for this type of watch.


<edit> through a quick search I found this thread, it seems to be used as a navigation instrument. Over the 2 pages there are several variations of these.
http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=633

[don1reed]

I must congradulate the both of you for possessing such fine artifacts of history. I presume that both time pieces are still in good working order. Their value as collectors items will no doubt increase.

I just thought of an additional use, Wulfpak, that being to time a range.

Most Navies have nautical mile ranges set up near their ports. They run the "mile" coming and going and time it (stopwatch) to determine speed. Once armed with the info, it gave the navigator a basis to conduct his DR (deducted reckoning) measuring when celestial observations were impossible due to poor visibility. They also timed the known distance between buoys for the same purpose.

As you might expect, it gave the Kaleuns an indication when to have their hulls scraped due to marine growth that was slowing them down. The outgoing time was always faster than the incoming due to growth on the long cruise...even the Boat was growing a beard.

I use a modern German stopwatch manufactured by Hanhart. It also is a 30 min. timer.

Cheers,

[WULFPAK]

Kalach:
Thank you so much for your pictures of your watch.
It kinda makes us brethern in some collector's kind of way.
I typically only collect WW2 aviation (avionics and pilot items)

Yet Silent Hunter series grabbed this flightsimmer (since 1985) and
now I really like uboots as well. My tiny uboot collection include:
night goggles, crewman's cap, laughing sawfish hat emblem (brought back from Brest at the wars end - I heard that crewmen threw all their emblems away at the end of the war to protect themselves from persecution), and a wonderfully made type IXc uboat model that won some contests (i didnt make it, im not that good).

DonReed:
Im sure Kalach and I share in your appreciation of our hobby collectable.
As you can guess, I fully intend to get mine cleaned and in accurate timing
condition again so I can use it for SH3 - as you are with yours. U776 never sunk a ship in wartime anger, rather is was a training ship that ran for about a year before surrender. So the only tonnage this watch will sink will be virtual.

As for value on these watches, Ive not really researched it beyond knowing that they range anywhere upto 5000 USD depending upon historicity and condtion. I really dont care, as I collect for my own enjoyment. Its nice to know they do gain value over time, but if I wanted to spend for investments - real estate is the place to go.

I will say this much, just getting this watch has reinvigored my desire for playing SH3 again (dropped it for about 6 months or so) and to learn manual targeting of torpedoes. Just saw my callsign is no longer listed at the WPL, so I guess Ill have to figure out what to do about that.

If you dont mind, what MUST have mods/addons should I get?
Especially related to anything manual torpedo targeting.


Thank you in advance

[don1reed]

Don't know if you've been reading the "smoke-signals" in this threads, but if you have DSL I highly recommend the Improved UBoat by oRGy. DL from

http://u-boot.realsimulation.com/

it's 181MB

it'll do anything you ever wanted to do with SH3. :up:

[WULFPAK]

Yes I d/l that today after hours of reading all the threads I could, so that I dont do the wrong thing. 120kbs d/l rate that hung up in the last 5%. So I cancelled it and restarted the d/l. It picked up where it left off and finished normally. Not bad.

Problem for me is, I play 95% online. So when onliners say we do SW with v1.04b, Im betting that oRGy-uboat realism addon isnt what they are referring to.

And even if I play online with other oRGy addon players, if people have different addons enabled and others not, that is sure to make for multiplayer instability, right?

[don1reed]

Quite so. With MP, everyone must be on the same sheet of music, having the exact same mods or the "great venture goes west" (as we used to say while reading the last part of electronic resistor markings)( t'was a mantra recited by ET's)

I tried MP with SH2...didn't care for the experience; but, I'm sure there are better MP platforms out there in cyborland.

Later,

[oRGy]

Cosmetic mods probably wouldn't affect MP (don't know though, never tried mp).

It would be good if Improved U-Boat offered a solid base for multiplayers, but it will be updated as time goes on. (And the current version is a beta so I'll be releasing a patch pretty soon!)

[don1reed]

...Greeting ORGY. Great job on the compilation.

...so far it's working flawlessly.

Best of luck,

[WULFPAK]

oRGy,

Again, as one that plays SH3 almost exclusively online, I have to say that SH3 really shines online. Nothing like a wolfpack of players going after a convoy. Ive done 6-8 players online often. If someone has a slow system it does slow things down some, but usually they drop off soon anyways.

The WPL used to do this alot online with SH2. Problem there, was the long long waits to get into a game. Also, the MP code for SH2 wasnt very stable and a few people (DD players) controlled who got to be in games as there were many more Uboat than DD players. It became a social club and not very friendly or fair environment. With Ubi's MP server, this is rarely the case. Now with SH3, there are usually pick up games round the clock because of the large number of Euros playing as well as in North America. The only real problem seems to be SH3 MP code not allowing direct IP hosting (have to use Ubi's server) and it doesnt allow hosts to server behind NAT routers. Both are very short sighted choices IMHO.

But perchance you could make your future Uber Uboat Upgrade (U3 for SH3?) with a Multiplayer's Mode option. Where one tested set of options are tested to be good for online game play. Then when this version of the upgrade (or switch selection) is used, everyone is on the same page.

This would require a MP testing team. Im sure I could help with that.

One more thing, If i were a VB programmer, I would make a SH3 Version manager utility that would allow users to have multiple installs of SH3 and switch between them before invoking the sim. This would facilitate quick changing between Multiplayer and Solo versions of SH3 installs that would have different patch versions or even different oRGy addon versions. Is this something worth while to do?

[Floater]

I'm a VB programmer - if anyone wants to PM me (or, better, email me) with a specification of exactly what needs to be done to achieve this, I'll have a look and see if it's feasible for me to have a crack at it.

[WULFPAK]

Floater,


For starters, you would need a method of reading the install path from the registry. Then have a user's multiple installs link to that original install path in the registry, switchable by the program that allows multple installs.
Sort of a shell game, where what the current version that the user want is linked to the registry's game path.

The GUI would allow the user to point the utily to each of the SH3 install paths, and link it to the original install path.

For example: 4 installs, original under program files folder, and 3 others under games folder

Install Path #1 (In Registry) = c:\program files\Ubi\Sh3

Install path #2 = c:\games\sh3-v104b

Install path #3 = c:\games\sh3-v104b-oRGyv1.43

Install path #4 = c:\games\sh3-v103


Email me and Im sure I can help you figure it out and test it.

fsimav8r@hotmail.com