Dive Alarm?

[Bubblehead1980]

So did U Boats use a dive/surface alarm along the lines of the American and British klaxons? Did they use the ringing bells or ?

[derstosstrupp]

They used a ringing bell, as can be heard in Das Boot. On a U-boat however, that bell was only for an alarm dive and was not used at any other time.

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by derstosstrupp

They used a ringing bell, as can be heard in Das Boot. On a U-boat however, that bell was only for an alarm dive and was not used at any other time.

I thought so. Interesting. I wonder why they only used alarm for emergencies, not to signal all when diving/surfacing.

[Mad Mardigan]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

I thought so. Interesting. I wonder why they only used alarm for emergencies, not to signal all when diving/surfacing.

Not completely strange... when you consider the size difference between Uboats & U. S. fleet boats.


For general dive situations, the crew were... in very much, close proximity to each other, so.. preparing to dive to say... peri depth, really didn't require fancy bells & whistles to do.


Now, take an emergency situation... the bell, was perfect to grab the crews attention to danger & react to it, like... a bat outta Hades.


At least, that's My take on it all.








M. M.

[Fifi]

Furthermore I think the bell was ringing only for crash dives because this way all the crew knew instantly they had to run at the front torp room… gaining few seconds more

[derstosstrupp]

True, however the all hands forward maneuver was not standard practice, it was only if the L I could not get the bow down in time. Normally the flooding of MBT 5 and the bow buoyancy tank, and the forward planes being hard down was enough to get the bow down quickly. If not, the all hands forward was an option but not part of a standard crash dive, although the movie makes it seem that way. Was a dangerous maneuver since the LI could easily lose control of the dive.

[Rhodes]

In present day, when a u-boat dive, when the officer says the order, all of the command center crew repeats that order.

One can see on the youtube videos from U-31 patrols. I do not know if this come from previous times or not.



In terms of media, Das Boot does not gives us this scene in dives (not consider alarm/ emergency dives) but the series does gives this.

From readings, divings where normal standard routine, diving during the day, surface running during the night.

Otto Kretschmer has as normal patrol procedure/tactic diving 2 hours before sunrise and surfacing 2 hours after sunset. So during that routine, the officer of the watch would give the order, normally the watch crew would be the dive planes crew and so on.

[derstosstrupp]

That’s exactly right about the repeating of the orders. This was very important and known as “BÜ” (Befehlsübermittlung). This was practiced heavily and had a set of very specific protocols.

The Kretschmer thing was diving for a period of two hours before sunrise (To rest the crew, to clean the boat, and to trim), but he was surfaced during the day. During his slice of the war, they had really no reason to stay submerged during the day nor was it German protocol to do so.

[Pisces]

Bubblehead1980, you might enjoy reading this translated WW2 diving regulations document. Stosstrupp probably has some issues with certain parts of the translation, but does get this process of command transmission across.

https://www.uboatarchive.net/Diving/...egulations.htm

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by Pisces

Bubblehead1980, you might enjoy reading this translated WW2 diving regulations document. Stosstrupp probably has some issues with certain parts of the translation, but does get this process of command transmission across.

https://www.uboatarchive.net/Diving/...egulations.htm

Thanks for sharing