Ballast Indicators

[Etna]

I've been longly searching for answers but unsuccessful.
The question is : there were on board of uboats few indicators,gauges or manomethers able to inform on the quantity of ballast on board ?
It's hard to believe that Engineer or Captain had no instrument on board
indicating exact quantity of seawater ballast in each moment.
Is there anyone who knows the answer ?
Danke
Etna

[siege00]

I don't ever recall seeing ballast or trim tank indicators in any of the SH series. I don't even recall seeing them in Sub Command or 688i. I don't think the developers went into that specific level of detail. Would be interesting to have those controls though.

[Tupolev]

Aces of the Deep had a gauge showing the level of water in the bilge. That was a super handy gauge.

Of course, that's not exactly a ballast gauge or SH3. Sorry.

T

[bstanko6]

Don't quote me, but I thought the valves next to the planes men were opened particular order to allow a set quantity of water into the ballast? As long as I know what valves were opened, I knew how much water was there. Besides, as long as the boat was trimmed (an amount of water every man knew on board) you would only use the dive planes to maneuver? Am I correct? U-505 didn't seem to have indicators that I could recall.

[Rambler241]

Indeed - the boat was trimmed to positive buoyancy on the surface, set to neutral to dive, and the planes did the rest. Maintaining level buoyancy trim was crucial while at periscope depth, and the planesmen had the important responsibility of maintaining depth - a loss of trim or depth on entering fresher (less dense), or more salty (denser) or warmer or colder water could result in the bow (or stern) breaking water.

In Das Boot, remember the crew running for'ard to compensate for the loss of weight in the bow when a torpedo was fired? I thought I'd spotted a technical error in an early (post WWII) British sub movie - there was no such rush forward on firing torpedoes, and no obvious action taken by the crew to compensate. Turned out, after a little research, I was wrong - most British boats of the period had automatic ballast shift to compensate for the loss of weight.

[bstanko6]

Interesting you said that. My grandfather was a submariner in the old diesel electric boats just before they switched to nuclear. He said US would never rush the front and risk serious injury!

Wonder how many Germans got hurt rushing forward like that.

[Fahnenbohn]

Originally Posted by Rambler241

most British boats of the period had automatic ballast shift to compensate for the loss of weight.

... and german submarines had this device too !