Hello, to all of you, folks!
don1reed wrote:
Quote:
The following is from Dr. Timothy P. Mulligan's book NEITHER SHARKS NOR WOLVES, here, speaking about duties in the Zentrale:
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...The captain, L.I., and Obersteuermann spent most of their time here or close by as a matter of course. A machinist's mate served as the Zentralemaat (control room mate), whose prime responsibility, assisted by one or two enlisted men (each designated a Zentralegast), concerned maintaining the boat's trim while submerged, alternately pumping or flooding small amounts of seawater into or out of the trim tanks. This in turn required precise data--daily updated in a separate logbook--on the weight distribution of fuel and foodstuffs on board. Other duties included managing the air supply while submerged (for example, pumping air from the engine room spaces to the more crowded forward torpedo compartment); maintaining the periscopes; and checking underwater salinity and temperature levels.
This leads me to believe that they had the wherewithal to compute Thermoclines, and the equipment.
btw OT: What a lot of folks don't realize is that the navigators on the U-Boats were mainly NCO's.(Obersteuermann)
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You might be right, don, but I think I have seen in some former Uboats commanders memoirs they lacked to have proper equipment to measure the under water temperatures and, if I remember right, that they also lacked the full "knowhow" about the undersea conditions (layers etc.) to have them used in full quantity. Sorry, but now I just can't remember what was the source. The other interesting part is, again if I remember this right, in USN they didn't have the equipment we are talking about, right in the beginning of the war (1941 for USN boats), BUT a little bit later. I'm not sure about this but it could be somewhere in 1942 or 1943.
MAYBE THERE IS SOMEONE WHO COULD CONFIRM THESE OR NOT TO CONFIRM THESE? I can try to find info, but I'm not able to do it in next few days.
Anyway, it seems to me pretty odd, if they lacked the equipment. But when you think they could just not to "tie" the normal temperature "tool" (what is that in english?) on the outside of the boat (would be broken when DC'd :rotfl: ) I can think this might be the reason. If I'm right they used somekind of "electric" system with cabels to measure the temperatures. Have to find it out.
What you wrote about the navigators on board, you are right don!
Greetings,
-RC-