Steeper dive angle in the control room please

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

only in crash dive or emergency surface would a sub be at such a steep angle

Or in a faked picture.

"Hey, guys. Lean way over and I'll tilt the camera!"

On the other hand it's interesting that the bow planes are apparently at full down while the stern planes are almost flat.

[BlueFlames]

On the other hand it's interesting that the bow planes are apparently at full down while the stern planes are almost flat.

Damaged/malfunctioning boat out of control, perhaps? Might be time to tell the DC team to be more aggressive.

[Ducimus]

Old PR Kreigsmarine photo. I recall reading somewhere, that that photo is staged. Heck, Nazi Germany's PR ministry made several full length PR fillms, let alone still photo's. You'll find PR photo's on both sides of the war, some of them are rather amusing. I particuarlly like the ones on the US side. I think one is on the book cover of Silent Running. Nice crisp uniforms, they tilt their hats back and up their collars to try and look like they've been busy. Officer at the periscope wearing a Tie.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Or in a faked picture.

"Hey, guys. Lean way over and I'll tilt the camera!"

On the other hand it's interesting that the bow planes are apparently at full down while the stern planes are almost flat.

The pic may or may not be posed but thinking about it for a second and the zero angle on the aft planes makes perfect sense for the initial stage of the dive.

With both sets of planes at hard-dive the boat should tend to pitch down rotating around the centre of gravity (or perhaps the center of pressure which one would think would start forward and move aft to the CG as the boat achieves equilibrium in the dive.*) This might well cause the entire stern to come out of the sea and result in losing control of the rudders, aft planes and now free-spinning props. Good arguments to avoid big angles.

On the other hand with aft planes at or near zero, they should become the pivot point and so the props and control surfaces stay safely submerged.

If you can get hold of Submarine Commander by Paul Schraatz, he goes into great detail about the problems and pitfalls associated with big-angle dives in diesel boats.

<*My background is in ballistics not hydrodynamics so this is a guess and anybody familier with pitch behaviour of vessels in water may freely debunk as necessary.>

[Sailor Steve]

Good points, and I wasn't actually suggesting that it was posed - just that it was one of many possibilities.