Soviet submarine D-2 (my pics, 56k warn!)

[CCIP]

Some tech data on the sub -

She's about 900t in displacement, so about the size of a Type IX, but has much shorter range. She did about 18kt on the surface and 9 underwater. Her rated diving depth was about 90m. Armement includes deck gun (105mm?), flak (40 or 37mm?), and 8 torpedo tubes (6 fore, 2 aft. The aft tubes could only be reloaded in port).

A lot of her equipment was operated completely manually, including flooding valves and dive planes.







to be continued...

[CCIP]

Some closeups of the hull, screw and rudder. Love that old metal texture

The sub was operated as a training vessel after WWII, I can't remember until when exactly but possibly even until the early 80's. She was converted as a museum ship during the 90s.








To be continued...

[CCIP]

Some paintings on display in the adjacent building...







The last one depicts her in the pre-war period, assisting as a radio relay ship.

To be continued...

[HunterICX]

Nice pics mate,

she really is a good looking

[CCIP]

Now onto the interior tour, starting in the aft compartment.

The aft compartment is an odd combination of living quarters, torpedo room and motor room. The electric motors are underneath the forward part of the compartment (for display purposes, the flooring over one of them was removed).

Interesting story behind the boxes on the floor at the back of this picture - D-2 was the first sub to test these, they were an early air recycling apparatus. In 1936, D-2 spent 30 days submerged on the Baltic sea floor in a successful test of those. Not very useful for WWII, but eventually they came in handy on nukes :P







To be continued...

[CCIP]

Still in the aft compartment, with tubes 7 and 8. They could only be reloaded in port.




Here's one of the electric motors:


Russian subs, including D-2, boasted some of the most sophisticated escape gear of that period. There was equipment for every member of the crew to reportedly escape from depths up to 100m.


Electric motor controls in the forward part of the compartment:



To be continued...

[CCIP]

Diesel room in the next compartment!



The diesel engineer's station. Next to it are tools and machines for making repairs at sea.


Serious Das Boot vibes from this one!


Just forward, an odd little compartment, the compass room. Most space in it taken up by the huge gyrocompass.


Looking forward from the compass room to the control room. Note that unlike many museum ships, D-2 has all the circular hatches preserved, and you have to duck like a submariner to go through them (not great for those of us with low mobility, but a thrill for a healthy sub fan )


Looking aft from the compass room into the diesel room. (Das Boot vibes again!)


To be continued...

[CCIP]

I believe this is the air ventilator, in the compass room. Is that what it looks like?

Whether it is or not, the tourguide captain happily told us that the main ventilator - the noisiest machine on board according to him - still functions, and at the hit of a switch it indeed roared into action.

Likewise, all the alarms and speaking tubes on the boat are fully functional, as he also gladly demonstrated.



Controls in the very cramped central compartment. It's tiny compared to the Zentrale on U-boats or the control room on US fleet subs.


Kids playing with the observation scope.


Me playing with the observation scope . All I could see was light.


They let me climb up the conning tower ladder and peer in to take a picture. It was neat.


To be continued...