Fantastic photo's! Havn't seen em before.What book did you get em from?

The milk cows were extremely useful and thus made the U-boats even more lethal. U-boats at sea could stay on station longer, thus increasing their tonnage sunk per patrol. The milk cows also made it possible for shorter ranged U-boats to hunt further afield. Typically, one third of U-boats were on station, the other two thirds en route to or from patrol or laid up for refitting, repair or training. As the milk cow enabled the one third on station to be even more deadly, they were targeted by the Allies with a very high priority. The main assist to hunting them down was Ultra, the project of decrypting German Enigma coded radio traffic. Reading decoded signals, the Allies were able to determine their operating areas and hunt them down. One by one, all ten were destroyed. As you said, those under construction were cancelled once Doenitz knew the writing was on the wall.

Internals could and were reloaded during rough weather....the boat went deep (50+ metres).
As for food storage, I'll try to remember to post some pictures at the weekend :up:

http://www.itsnature.org/forums/imag...s/wolfmoon.jpg


http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/d...de/wolf-38.gif

A bit of thread necromancy here.
I'm interested in technical stuff, but don't know too much about submarines. So bear with me.
As I see it, the pressure hull is a tube, the rest is just stuck on. Now, for that tube to be the strongest, it should have as few openings/hatches/etc. as possible.
My question is: how exactly were torpedoes loaded? Try not to fall off your chair, but for a long time I thought they were loaded through the tubes, slid backwards into the hull (the fewer openings the better, remember?). Then I saw a movie about ORP Orzel's* escape from Tallinn and there was a scene I clearly remember (the only one unfortunately... I watched it a loooong time ago) when the crew sabotages the disarming operation of the boat. They work a bit on a winch cable, it snaps and a torpedo slids nose forward, at some angle (less than 45 degrees I think), into the hull. So there were additional openings in the pressure hull? I'd very much like to know more about the torpedo loading/handling procedure.

* Orzel class, 'oceanic' submarine bigger than a Type IX.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORP_Orzel

There are indeed numerous openings (through hull penetrations) of the pressure hull. The conning tower hatch, forward and aft escape trunks, for and aft torpedo loading hatches, gun ammo chutes, the main engine induction trunk, toilet outlets, engine exhausts, seawater cooling inlets, prop shaft openings, periscope wells, electrical conduits to bridge controls, etc, etc, etc. There's just no way to not have a whole bunch of various sized openings in the pressure hull. These are all reinforced penetrations, but absolutely necessary.

Some Google Book's reading on the subject

There was a torpedo loading hatch in the main deck, one forward for the bow tubes and one aft for the aft tubes. It was angled and the torpedo slid through the hatch and into the torpedo room.

Link below shows a picture. It is a US sub but the principle is the same. This was the easy one I found. I know there are a ton of pictures of U-boats loading torpedoes out there though

http://wzus.ask.com/r?t=p&d=us&s=a&c...Ftorpload.html

Nice photos jimbuna! I also agree that internal reloads are quite possible in bad weather so long as you're deep. And I also play by the Honour rule that if I can't use my deck gun, I don't reload my torps. So far, it hasn't been a critical issue, but I have come close to running out of useable torps because of it.

So that's how they did it! Thanks for the enlightenment!

New rule:
No external reloads during rough seas!:up:

One question:
In GWX 2.1, the deck and flak guns can still be used in 10 kt winds, why?:hmm:

There are some good pictures here:

http://www.war44.com/forum/u_boats/9...-pictures.html

Wow, thanks guys. Seems I remembered the scene right.

i came upon this video and remembered reading this post, just thought i'd share it with you

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=MLlYyj...eature=related

In the stock game the restriction is 7 m/s winds, or about 15 knots. This is a relatively calm sea, and in stock looks like a flat calm. Many players complained that they wanted to use the gun in heavier seas. this was especially true of the flak guns mounted on the wintergarden. Someone figured out how to change that to anything right up to the max 15 m/s, but since they are all controlled by the same function you get either one or the other. GWX opts for being able to use the guns in slightly heavier weather.

I use SH3 Commander waves set to x2, so for me it looks a lot rougher. I just don't use the deck gun if I can see waves washing over it. I never use the flak guns anyway, but it's nice to know I can if I have to.

Amazing...the full operation it self, to transfer torpedos and man!
Outstanding pics! :D

Speaking of resupply......can we resupply torpedoes from the Milk Cows? If so, how do you do it?

Don't feel bad about reloadin torpedoes in bad weather. Destroyers cheat too! What DD in WWII could pick you up on hydrophones after a dc attack? Or pick you up on ASDIC immediately after a dc explosion? It's madness! Or Sparta.......