Attack periscope...who is right?

[andyn]

Hi, a longtime lurker (and mostly a DW player) here. Sorry for bumping an old thread, but Wikipedia has it wrong. I actually found that confusing quote there and found this thread while I was looking for a proper source. This is probably a case of an editor overinterpreting stuff and then mixing up information regarding the Type VII sub when making corrections.

The plans, 3D render, mods and the CV707/IIA museum are all correct. The attack periscope is the higher forward one and it passes through the middle of the conning tower, where it is operated alongside the torpedo repeaters. The one in the museum lacks the cover tube inside the control room, but you can clearly see the mounting flanges for it.

The aft observation periscope is used in the control room and the periscope mast passes through the rear of the conning tower superstructure but not the pressure hull of the tower itself. For reference, the hatch to the bridge is in the very rear end of the tower. There was never room for a new scope in the conning tower itself. This is the case of mis-/overinterpretation I mentioned above – neither did the editor provide any sources with that edit.

If you look at detailed pictures of various designs side by side, you can see that the enlarged bridge superstructure in the IIC design has been extended forwards and the scopes have not been moved wrt. the hull. This makes it just too easy to think that the newer models actually got a new aft scope.

it looks like the rear tube is the attack periscope. Some photographs show a raised fixed housing in the rear, and the plan seems to show that as well. It also looks as if the viewing positions of both 'scopes are in the control room, not the conning tower.

The plans clearly do not support those claims...