tonight on discovery canada

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by reallydedpoet

Anybody watch Sea Hunters on Discovery, a lot of shows has them looking for wrecks of U-Boats

RDP

This is on right now: 5:20 Atlantic Time, , on the History Channel, about U-215, minelayer involved in Operation Drumbeat He, he, quoting myself.

Anyway, check it out if you can.

RDP

[DirtyHarry3033]

Capt. Shark Bait, thanks for the heads-up Caught it this afternoon on Discovery, very informative and entertaining.

Though I might have preferred a straight documentary relying on interviews with historians, and archival photos and newsreel footage as opposed to a hollywood-style "docu-drama", I'll take whatever I can get on Lusitania. Her fate holds almost as much fascination for me as Titanic.

My biggest problem with it was how every time the "docu-drama" Schwieger wanted to dive to periscope depth, he'd order "Blow ballast!!!" :rotfl:Well in my attempt to "rationalize" this discrepancy I thought how in those days the order "Hard a'starboard" resulted in a turn to port. So maybe in those days the order to "Blow ballast" would cause the boat to submerge??? :hmm:

DH

[Capt. Shark Bait]

Originally Posted by DirtyHarry3033

....in those days the order to "Blow ballast" would cause the boat to submerge??? :hmm:

DH

i'm thinkin that could be a translation thing, but yeah, "blow ballast" would result in submerging. in U571 the order givin was the same or blow all ballast, or something similar

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Capt. Shark Bait

i'm thinkin that could be a translation thing, but yeah, "blow ballast" would result in submerging. in U571 the order givin was the same or blow all ballast, or something similar

I don't know about WW1 Germans, but in WW2 and later "blow ballast" is the order given to empty the tanks, forcing the boat to surface.

In U-571 Harvey Keitel also gave three blasts on the klaxon and said "Dive, dive!" Three blasts is to surface, two is to dive. I wouldn't use that movie as an example of anything, except maybe how to make a bad movie.

[Capt. Shark Bait]

oh, right, he he

[DirtyHarry3033]

Originally Posted by Capt. Shark Bait

i'm thinkin that could be a translation thing, but yeah, "blow ballast" would result in submerging. in U571 the order givin was the same or blow all ballast, or something similar

Let's think about it. There are "ballast tanks" on every sub. The purpose of such a tank is to make the sub float, or to sink, or to have neutral buoyancy in order to maintain a certain depth (such as periscope depth).

The way this is done is by flooding the tanks with ballast (water) to make the boat sink, blowing compressed air into the tanks to make the boat rise by forcing out ballast (water), and by fiddling around with taking on and blowing out ballast (water) until neutral buoyancy and trim has been achieved.

Bottom line is, "blowing ballast" involves expelling water out of the ballast tanks and replacing it with air. This causes the boat to rise.

U-571 was an entertaining movie, but it had more to do with action than with submarines. The submarine was just a convenient location for the action to be set

DH