Diving Depths - U-Boats and FleetBoats

[AhhhFresh]

Originally Posted by Chock

Ever since WW1, Germany was noted for being well in advance of other countries in techniques for metal fabrication (notably welding). This is remarked upon in many allied documents with regard to captured WW1 German equipment, so maybe this is also a factor.

I think this may be a big part of it... almost all of the US ships pre-Pearl were riveted instead of welded. The demand for fast ship construction changed that pretty quickly, but I don't imagine they were experts from the start. The S-boats had completely riveted hull constructions, and it wasn't until the Gatos that they started using fully welded hulls.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that the Germans had been using fully welded hulls since WWI in their U-boats.

EDIT: Whoops! Missed the important part of the quote!