The Ultimate Submarine Of World War One: Germany's Project 50

[@philorkill]

You draw those cutaways in MS Paint?! I want to see a timelapse one of these days! Amazing work as always. Thank you for sharing!

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpWunIWVocd_hJI

[@colchronic]

He has a video on it. The man is a legend

[@Iamthelolrus]

You are the submarine version of Drachinifel. I mean this as a compliment if you are somehow unfamiliar with him. I think your mspaint skills have him beat though. lol

[@TheLifeInMotion]

I was coming to say this, holy crap 😅

[@nustar1]

MS Paint 4 Ever!

[@dwavenminer]

I'm still amazed by your work on all your cutaways, they are great works of informative art!

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Thank you very much!

[@marcusfranconium3392]

Did you know that in late 1915 and early 1916 2 submarines where stranded in dutch waters . Brand new submarines at that . The german M1 and British H6 . Both where used by the dutch navy , where the H6 Had become the O8 and had its periscoops and other equipment replaced by german equipment of the M1 plus several dutch inovations . This submarine was still around in may 1940 as decomisiond training vessel . The germans captured it and used it for training duties for their own crews before decomisioned again in 1943 . finaly it got scuttled on may 3 1945 preventing it of falling in alied hands. A remarkable tale of a submarine that was build and used in britiain got german submarine upgrades was in service with the dutch navy after the invasion used in the german navy . One of the oldest and longest serving submarines that almost survived 2 world wars . At the rightfull age of 30 years .

[@ReZpawner]

... "I draw these cutaways in MS paint". You say that as if it's a common thing. I can't do a passable stick-figure in MS paint.

[@maximmatusevich3971]

This is epitome of german engineering. 1. Fancy 2. Needlessly complex 3. Only exists on paper :)

[@rawnukles]

I like your cutaways. When I watched your last video that Project 50 design caught my eye, so very happy to see a full video about it. Can you do the Nordfelt IV? It reminded me of a steam punk Type XXI when I saw it in the last video.

[@lokischildren8714]

Absolutely fantastic video. I love the cutaways drawings

[@riderstrano783]

10:04 due to the placement of the equipment, and with pr.50 being oil fired, I believe this gear is actually auxiliary to the boilers. Oil fired boilers, of any kind, need a lot of air flow, known in the field as “forced drafting”. Thus being stated, I believe the gear in these rooms to be blowers for the boilers.

[@3gunslingers]

In the original plans those two rooms are clearly labeled as "Heiz-Raum" which literally means "heating room" and can be loosely translated as "control room" in this case as it contains all the controls and fans for the boilers

[@riderstrano783]

@@3gunslingers thank you for the translations, my knowledge of f German is phonetic at best. Also I made my assumption from prior field experience rather than actually reading the drawing in depth

[@Headbreak1]

Being even longer than the K class I wonder whether it would have suffered from the same lethal control difficulties underwater. The fact that it has amidships planes suggests that they were at least somewhat knowledgeable about it, but it's a shame we don't know the diving depth to see if they gave the crew more margin.

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Other German cruiser subs had a depth of 75 m (246 ft). This would have been the same, or probably less due to the complex structures amidships.

[@alexhurlbut]

the biggest issue would be the crash dive time which is life or death for a submarine that is caught unaware.

[@johnnothe]

@@alexhurlbut that wasn't as important in ww1 compared to ww2 as aircraft were a much smaller threat to submarines.

[@alexhurlbut]

@@johnnothe except flying boats were being used more by end of WW1 and could carry small bombs as well machine guns and a long endurance time in air. Seaplane tenders began to appear before WW1 started. The time required to shut down the boilers so they don't suck out the air would add to the crash dive time as well. They may not always destroy a submarine like this, but they can harass and hamper its capabilities as a war submarine.

[@EllieMaes-Grandad]

The K class boats were built - this one wasn't. No story.

[@nukkinfuts6550]

Another kickass delivery, thank you H I Sutton!

[@TrangleC]

Your cutaways are all the more impressive, as you do them in MSPaint. I don't know whether there is a more advanced version that needs to be bought, but the basic version that comes with Windows seems very limited and bare bones in its functions. I used to play around with it a bit, drawing simple stuff and I found it very frustrating to use. There are also weird bugs that drove me up a wall every time I tried to do something with the program that wasn't just a pointless doodle. No idea whether I am the only one having those bugs and if so, what about my system could possibly cause them. They really make the program near unusable to me though. For example when I copy and paste something, parts of the pasted segment will just vanish and not just that, but sometimes parts of the copied original are suddenly gone too. It is as if the program would be actively fucking with me. The old versions that came with Windows XP and older were better. They were even more bare bones, obviously, but at least they were reliable and didn't fuck with me.

[@jggunner3944]

The three power source layout is very similar to a nuke boat. I imagine the diesels would be necessary backups in the event of a steam line rupture, as the steam plant would be down much longer than battery capacity would allow. Of course, maintaining electricity on a nuclear boat is much more important, so I’m not sure the analogy is completely accurate.

[@Heldermaior]

In the drawing room when this sub was being planned: Engineer: -So what type of power delivery should we use? Lead designer: -Yes.

[@tamasmihaly1]

Your illustrations look wonderfully detailed. Must have been painstaking work. Thank you.

[@vipondiu]

Amazing drawing and a very ambitious design, i love it, they went for everything in this one. It's just missing an autogyro or a small zeppelin, maybe a Paris gun or a giant mortar and it's the steampunk cousin of that Stalin submarine with mini-subs and both cruise and ballistic missiles. I'm confused about the torpedo tube turn-table at the bow. It sounds awesomely complex and very german, but it seems evidently impractical compared to the solution they went for at the stern, way simpler and safer. Having to connect/disconnect a couple of big tubes from an aperture in the PRESSURE HULL each time you want to shoot at something sounds dangerous and very slow to switch to the other openings at the other side... HI Sutton is still hands down the best submarine content you can find on the internet

[@Klyis]

If you look closely at the model shown at 5:49 there appears to be a small seaplane sitting between the fore guns and the conning tower. It's not shown on the plans so difficult to say whether or not that was actually an intended feature, but a seaplane would make a lot of sense for a commerce raider. Presumably if there was one it would have be designed to be completely disassembled so that it could be stored in small compartments in the deck when not in use.

[@jebise1126]

well auto gyro was very late idea... but submarine of this size should be quite stable platform for a tower that you can extend like a periscope and use on surface. or maybe they would do that and we just dont know about it

[@carlorrman8769]

Very, very good, mate. Never seen your show before. What a great watch. Thanks, man.

[@keys4147]

your channel deserves so much more recognition

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Thank you

[@SimonWallwork]

Fascinating. Your passion for the subject is clear.

[@diegoferreiro9478]

These videos are getting better and better! I only missed in the legacy bit a reference to WWII German never-built Type XI cruiser submarines. Maybe they deserve a video on their own. Keep on with the good work and your unscripted scripts!

[@samadams2203]

This is extremely interesting. I am of course an amateur, but that turn-table torpedo mount seems an incredibly bad idea. I suppose they wanted more forward torpedo tubes but did not want to increase bow tubes to 6 because of space or weight balancing problems perhaps? I cannot help but think about that most elusive class of narco submarines from your earlier video, the fully submersible type which have never been caught after launching. In WWI just being able to submerge would be incredibly powerful, the Atlantic Ocean is massive and ASW technology primitive. In this Project 50 you can run down almost any cargo ship, shell it and then disappear. If a warship arrives you simply dive shallow and probably escape. Is there any particular detailing on the blueprints of the funnel? I assume they have some way of making it watertight for diving, multiple louvres or bulkheads?

[@jebise1126]

there is german proverb that is roughly translated to. "why simple when it can be complex" why not made side fire torpedo tubes like some modern submarines? maybe they just didnt think of it.

[@3gunslingers]

When you look at the original plan you can see why they did it that way. They didn't have to space to load any tubes from behind. The room itself is roughly double the height of the torpedo diameter. Nobody can stand in there. They had to load the tubes from the magazine and then rotate them until the tubes lined up with the exit ports.

[@kreterakete]

@@jebise1126 warum einfach wenn’s auch kompliziert geht.

[@foowashere]

Thanks for making and sharing! Amazing designs really, but also maybe over-ambitious. Re 10:05 I would imagine the fan room also and mainly housing the forced draft fans for feeding air to the boilers, as for most contemporary high-power steam plants. It’s hard to see these boilers using natural draft only, with the limited space. (The air flows are very large.)

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Makes sense, yes maybe

[@robertdodd2087]

Chimney stacks would need to be extended a long way to get sufficient natural draft

[@TB9988]

These rooms seem to be boiler auxiliary rooms. There are also fuel oil preheaters and backup pumps for boiler water. I've read somewhere that the boilers where especially constructed to be flooded while diving. But I'm not sure at this point.

[@robertdodd2087]

@@TB9988 difficult to do without causing major maintenance problems. Hot steam boilers need to be cooled slowly to avoid stress which leads to cracks and then failure. They will also have a lot of refractory brickwork which wouldn't take kindly to being quenched with cold water

[@jayc3110]

A great video and beautifully Illustrated. Thank you and best wishes

[@SephirothRyu]

Another submarine to look up sometime if you like more unusual submarines: The French "Cruiser Submarine" Surcouf. A submarine with a twin 8 inch turret mounted on it. Edit: Ah, you briefly mentioned it at the end.

[@rolandcash5657]

Oh and so glad to see you branching out covert shores has been a must read for years

[@brucegibbins3792]

Years ago, I read someplace, that the Imperial Kreigsmarine agreed to change from unrestricted to restricted warfare. Meaning that a UBoat would surface, allow the crew of the soon to be sunk freighter to disembark via the ships life boats thus saving lives while denying their enemy the benefit of the ships cargo. However, Germany had perfidious enemies that took tactical advantage of this Teutonic largesse by declaring open season on UBoats. Not really in the spirit of the thing, so the Kreigsmarine saw no other option but return to unrestricted warfare with its corresponding increase in loss of life. If true, then the allies seemed to have scored an own goal here.

[@Dog.soldier1950]

Any ship under attack has the right of self defense. The Germans suspended unrestricted Submarine warfare to avoid drawing the USA into the Great War. They went back to unrestricted in a last despite attempt to win the war-it almost worked

[@timonsolus]

The main problem for the Germans and the restricted version of submarine warfare (surfacing and ordering the merchant ship’s crew to abandon ship and take to the lifeboats) was the British introduction of Q-ships. British Q-ships were merchant ships converted into disguised warships, like the German armed merchant raiders. The idea was to lure an enemy U-boat to the surface with the ‘innocent merchantman’ disguise, then drop the disguise revealing the batteries of large and small calibre guns, and turn the U-boat into Swiss cheese before it could dive. These Q-ships made the U-boats paranoid. Any lone merchant ship they sighted might be a Q-ship. So the U-boats had no choice but to open fire on Allied merchant ships without warning (unrestricted submarine warfare). The existence of Q-ships made it too dangerous for the U-boats to do anything else.

[@thomasblackwell9507]

Beautiful job all around!

[@battonfive]

Really brilliant work, thank you for the tours, you have some stunning design skills 🙂 keep up the great work, truly impressive.

[@farisshaikh1026]

An amazing drawing Mr. Sutton.

[@AndreasMarx]

Supposedly Projekt 50 was inspired by a steam launch that sank in Kiel without exploding - so the Germans were confident they could design a boiler that would never explode. One of Wölke's patents even suggests simply putting the boilers in the dive tanks!

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Thanks, was not aware of that

[@jamesricker3997]

If your submarine sinks and exploding boiler is the least of your concern

[@allangibson2408]

Exploding steam boilers is mostly a myth once water tube boilers displaced low pressure fire tube Lancashire boilers anyway… What a lot of people thought was a “boiler explosion” was a reaction between hot coal and water which generates large quantities of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (town gas).

[@fidem15893]

Another amazing work thanks Mr. Sutton.

[@NerdishNature]

Been following your analysis of RN activity on twitter for a while now but only now discovered your YT channel. Very well done.

[@nebfer]

Nice vid I ran across this ship years ago, but I never really paid attention that the boilers are not quite in the main pressure hull but in their own little compartments, nor did I notice that it had a optical range finder tower... So I learned something new... Though Im surprised you did not mention the Crews lounge that is above the forward torpedo room, seemingly only usable when above the water.

[@hmmjedi]

An excellent video on a rather unknown submarine and the fact you do all the drawings in MS Paint is amazing.

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Thank you so much

[@anumeon]

Just imagine what the Kriegsmarine could have accomplished with that torpedo layout in WWII if they had designed something similar for that conflict.. That is a lot of torpedoes to send towards a convoy, as well as for when you break of the engagement...

[@josefernandez6226]

Could you discuss how the boilers are “quenched” when the submarine needs to submerge?

[@thomaswormald3503]

If they were going to dive wouldn't they just cut the air intake which would smother the fire?

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Only seen the plans and general descriptions. But I expect it is part of the reason that steam submarines in general took minutes to prepare to dive.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

@@thomaswormald3503 i think that might create Carbonmonoxide Gas (very poisonous)

[@nonna_sof5889]

@@HISuttonCovertShores You mentioned they were oil fired not coal right? In which case you could shutdown your fuel sprayers. I'd think the main limiting factor on the speed there would be avoiding the fluid hammer. Probably some method of forcing extra air through the system after shutdown to vent any harmful gas that might still be there. Coal would pose a lot bigger problem.

[@Shaun_Jones]

@@nonna_sof5889 it’s possible that’s what the Diesel engines were for, to run the blowers.

[@marymason77]

Great job with your animation and presentation, please keep them coming. Battleships?

[@fabienleguen]

Awesome boat ! Great presentation, Thanks !

[@thesuit4820]

Admidships torpedo room looks like a complete liability, just don't understand the benefit either. Suggested for you: I think Drachinifel is planning a deep dive on the evolution of torpedoes - would be really cool to see you two collaborate on something like that and maybe go through the cold War and modern developments too.

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Drachinifel has a really cool channel, looking forward to his piece on torpedoes. Would be nice to collaborate some time but not sure if its practical, and doubt that he needs me

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

@@HISuttonCovertShores I actually think Drachinifel has mentioned you in at least one of the Dry Dock episodes, eitherway, I'm pretty sure knowing Drachinifel that'd he be happy to collaborate with you especially since you are someone who is so knowledgeable on Torpedoes and other technical aspects.

[@mortified776]

Amazing as always!

[@pssolutede]

@13:34 In WW1, torpedo control was limited: you couldn't fire from the front tubes on ships behind you, and vice versa. This necessitated aft torpedo rooms, even though they were hydrodynamically disadvantageous. (Over two decades later, Type XXI could finally be made into a better shape b/c of advances in torpedos, esp. T5 Zaunkönig as well as LUT and FAT.) The second forward torpedo room is labelled "Torpedo-Breitseit-Raum" (broadside room) in the original drawings. This suggests the idea of firing on targets perpendicular to the sub, requiring quite a strong slant. Those torpedos were about 7m long, so with such a heavy slant, there simply isn't enough room behind the tube to get the reload torpedo in, as seen @12:06. That being said, I agree that this is completely over-engineered: complex, hard to manufacture, slow to operate, and dangerous.

[@demos113]

Nice work indeed. :-) edit: that's seriously good work on MS Paint!

[@daszieher]

Thank you for your excellent work!

[@TheTrueOrion]

Damn, that was quick! That's awesome work, really impressive- And i'll admit, i've been pouring over the Dreadnought Project's file of the plans ever since hearing of this utter madness of a submarine design. I'd love to hear back on this, but i interpreted the machinery below each gun not as a Shell Hoist, but rather a mechanism to retract the guns lower against the hull, presumably for diving. There might still be shell hoists, the cylindrical things between the two front guns, they lead right into the lower sitting magazine room.

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Interesting, I see what you mean. I don't think that the guns can retract at all though. And not confident re the hoist. Especially at the stern set. But intriguing trying to decipher the plans. I am sure we both have plenty of experience looking at plans like this and submarines in general, but we are likely both equally guessing! That is part of what makes it so interesting.

[@foowashere]

@@HISuttonCovertShores Interestingly, guns B and X (2 & 3) are shown with what I interpret as a hydraulic piston for power traverse, at the very bottom of the the pivot. This is not shown for the other two guns. But my interpretation may be wrong, but it seems to be a part of the gun installation, as there’s no other commonality.

[@TheTrueOrion]

@@HISuttonCovertShores I mean, i'm definitely not the expert here, that'd definitely be you! I just wanted to share what i thought i saw. Thanks for weighting in on my thoughts! I think you're definitely right on the stern set. Also, i think i've heard about it before but the fact you do these Cutaways in MS Paint is just, boggling my mind every time i hear it. Just, awesome.

[@Klyis]

I think the machinery below each gun is a power traverse mechanism, not a lifter. If you look at the fore most gun you'll see that the barrel extends past the breakwater on the deck which would prevent it from being lowered by any meaningful amount. I do believe that the cylinders between the forward guns are indeed shell hoists. The best explanation I can think of as to why there are none for the aft guns is that, as a commerce raider, the fore guns would be used more often as the submarine chased after targets. Presumably the designers thought that having rapid access to ammunition was more beneficial to the fore guns while passing shells up through the hatch by hand was sufficient for the aft guns.

[@Schlipperschlopper]

This project 50 looks so fuckin modern and even futuristic! Elegant too! Some years later they could have used chemical Walter steam turbines instead of boiler steam turbines. Walter made some very fast test submarines during WW2 for the German Kriegsmarine (V80 class).

[@markuk8253]

“Why not have fixed slant launchers [instead of the turntable]?” My guess is that you wouldn’t have space behind the launcher to reload a[nother] torpedo - the pressure hull would be in the way (at least thats how it looks in the diagram at 13:39).

[@kek207]

A Video of the Type 21 in detail would be really cool! Since Adam from Dub brief already covered a lot of Cold War Stuff it's time to move to the War ^^

[@blairm3683]

great artwork

[@Fortunes.Fool.]

Great video, I love these things.

[@hallstuart6604]

Excellent! I love your content Mr Sutton! I have a question though regarding these steam powered submarines. Once they surfaced after a long dive wouldn't they be very vulnerable? I am assuming that it would take a long time for sufficient steam to be generated to propel the vessel? Even if you can ignite the boilers instantly as with the case of oil fired boilers. Water does not boil instantly. To generate enough steam for propulsion of other steam powered machines of the era from a cold start up is measured in hours! I assume they would have operated using the diesel engine while they built up sufficient steam pressure.

[@jebise1126]

maybe thats why diesel... also drach... drach... um something made videos about development of boilers and those boilers can get hot very fast actually

[@hallstuart6604]

@@jebise1126 Oh yes Drachinifel! Thanks.

[@jebise1126]

@@hallstuart6604 yes him. history of boilers should be title. also boilers on this sub used oil so it had lot of automation.

[@nilo70]

Cheers from your newest subscriber from California !

[@rare_kumiko]

Would be cool to see a video on the American armoured submarine design, S-584-166, if that thing even made any sense.

[@illiaflannery7312]

Fantastic video, well put together presentation presented well and I think others have stated the marvel taht is making those cutouts in MS Paint. Something that's irked me though, I find the explanations of the propulsion systems a bit lacking. Initially I was wondering about the arrangement of the 4 turbines since you said they drive the two screws directly. Initially I assumed you were mistaken and that there was a turbine-electric set up at play, not unlike the set up used on some US Standard battle ships and bearing a general similarity to the diesel to generator to battery to electric motor to screw seen on other diesel powered subs. It just didn't make sense how the four turbines and two electric motors were effectively driving two shafts. Pouring over the schematic, I'll admit I don't know a lick of German, my laptop screen is lacking in both size and resolution, and I'm not a naval architect; you're right. The electric motors and turbines do seem to be on the same two shafts. Looking at the second deck layout (Stauungsplan?), the aft two turbines seem to be attached directly to shafts that head into the front of what I believe are the electric motors through a set of drum like structures you labeled as gear boxes on your cutaway. The shafts then continue from the electric motors to another set of what appear to be gear boxes before extending under the batteries, out the back of the ship, and into the sea to the screws. However, the fore set of turbines, are set further inboard and seem to feed into some kind of other assembly? As I said I can't read German and the text is rather difficult to see at all but there appear to be a set of structures directly aft of these turbines, are they simply some kind of gear boxes to account for the off sets or are they something else? Maybe generators? Additionally, I've been wondering if the electric motors couldn't double as generators to charge the batteries when the turbines are driving through them. I don't know anything about the electric motors used in WW1 submarines so that might not have been possible, but it did occur to me. The diesel generators also sound like they would be immensely helpful just providing power to assist with firing the boilers of the steam power plant given that they would have a start up time in the minutes after surfacing unlike the boilers in addition to being an auxiliary power source. Of course, I've already been looking at this schematic for half an hour and just noticed that the profile perspective shows the turbines being much higher in the ship than the electric motors so the shafts don't actually line up that well and most of my understanding has been uprooted again. I don't mean to be confrontational, you made a fantastic video and cutaway of a wild design I'd never heard of and it just stirred up a lot of interest and questions in me. I'm just wondering if there's any light to be shone on my musing about the particulars of this designs propulsion or if my speculation is as best as can be done. And sorry if you've already responded to a similar comment and I missed it, youtube has been weird with how it sorts it's comments recently.

[@garyhooper1820]

Mr , Sutton , something that I'm curious about is the development of sound gear aboard submarines. When did the first appear? How did it evolve to what it is today. I'm sure many of your followers would also like know .

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Someone like Aaron at SubBrief might be better placed on Sonar

[@johnbig8962]

How can I get drawings of the he www cruiser subs​@@HISuttonCovertShores

[@Bronasaxon]

It’s beautiful...

[@tylerlawrence1997]

This art is amazing.

[@thedaftestnameicouldthinko8233]

Totally fascinating.

[@michaelmoses8745]

This is all done in MSPAINT! I'm impressed.

[@ghostindamachine]

Hello H.I. Sutton, firstly your MS Paint skills are just amazing. I really like these documentaries on these vessels. Can you explain how the mine laying works from such a submarine?

[@MarktheRude]

Any chance of you making a video about those under-appreciated mine laying submarines? Love your videos.

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Great suggestion! Was thinking the same. But long list of video ideas

[@rizalardiansyah4486]

MS Paint???? Like *The MS Paint* ??? How??? Those cutaways are certainly expensive encyclopedia books class. I agree with other commenter that ask for a timelapse or anything that show how you draw these masterpieces. That would be very appriciated. Amazing!

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpWunIWVocd_hJI

[@rizalardiansyah4486]

@@HISuttonCovertShores Wow... Thank you for the link!

[@conservativemike3768]

Brilliant work. Truly.

[@Hcb37]

This is a fun way to spend 20 minutes, but you have to wonder if a British agent was behind this monster. I have Rossler’s book that describes this project so I know it’s real, but given Germany’s economic situation in May 1918 it was madness to even start work on this project. I like your art, but I think the drawings on the Dreadnought Project are just modern guess work based on sketches for Project 47 and written descriptions.

[@JohnnyWishbone85]

10:00 - I don't think those fans are just, or even mostly, for cooling. Boilers are combustion machines, after all, and need a HELL of a lot of air in order to do their job. 10:20 - I would imagine that a significant portion of those generators' job is to run those fans when boilers don't have stream up. A steam powered submarine has unique challenges for a steam-powered ship, in that it must totally shut down all steam production at irregular intervals. Historically, steam ships around this time would have small boilers to maintain power from the turbo generators when the main plant wasn't running, or took shore steam when tied up alongside. That power would energize the air intake and feed water circulation systems to get the main plant going. This boat can't maintain steam at all times, so I'm guessing the diesel generators were added to have an "instant-on" power source to energize the main steam system when surfacing, and to have some level of propulsion while it built up steam.

[@paulloveless4122]

Not sure you will see this comment Mr. Sutton but I think it would be VERY cool if you showed us a time lapse of you drawing a sub in Paint. It's not that we don't believe you instead it's completely amazing what you are able to do in paint!

[@paulloveless4122]

Whoops! After posting this I saw the comment indicating you have already done this! Thank you!

[@dunno_112]

Nice

[@randomuruguayan]

Great video, it would be interesting to hear the story behind the surcouf, I bet that it was so complicated that it was not worth the effort to build and train a crew to operate it. On a slight tangent, would you consider the fleet submarines built by the US Navy from 1936-45, a further development of the cruiser submarine concept? High surface speed, good endurance underway, heavy armament and the general mission of operating alone and as a fleet scout?

[@jebise1126]

would it be possible to extend periscope on surface so it can go 10 maybe 15 meters above water level for finding ships much further away?

[@Sbiper]

Any idea what the beam of the Pressure Hull was? AFAIK prior to HY-80 pressure hulls had to be quite narrow to avoid becoming too heavy. From reading Rossler the widest pressure hull I can find of any WW2 or earlier German U-Boat is 5.8 meters.

[@jamesngotts]

It’s fascinating how in this time period everything had to have some type of relevant calibered gun. It’s understandable as that was the most reliable weapon’s platform of the time but still fascinating. We even see this continue into the development of the interwar aircraft carrier designs where some designers just could not let go of the concept that a warship needed to have armor and guns even though a carrier should be escorted, far removed from a ship on ship fight and would have something far more destructive and far reaching on board than any gun they could reasonable fit.

[@yes538]

As a former Auxiliary mechanic on a submarine this just looks like a nightmare all around.

[@captainexcabier]

How would they have kept water from going down the funnels when they submerged?

[@guidor.4161]

Amazing sub and amazing work!

[@philip48230]

Interesting. Well done.

[@AlRoderick]

Conceivably they could have designed the ship to run on steam when submerged. They'd just need a liquid oxidizer that could be stored on board, like a modern rocket propellant. Maybe not easy but within the limits of 1910's chemistry I would think.

[@wolf310ii]

It sounds easy in theory but has a rat tail of problems in praxis. They would need to store huge amounts of oxygen and would still run out of oxygen very quickly, unable to refill at sea. Just look at a steam powered torpedo like the G7a, its around 7m long and almost half of it is the compressed air tank wich is around 3m long (676 L at 200 bar) followed by a tiny 6,5 L fuel tank, thats 135200 Liter air (or ~27000 Liter oxygen) to burn 6,5 Liter fuel.

[@CATASTEROID934]

The concept you're thinking of was employed in experimental German vessels known as the Walter boats utilising Walter turbines which essentially employed concentrated hydrogen peroxide (likely high test peroxide) as an oxidiser for air-independent operation. The issue is that many metals, including those used in the construction of torpedoes, munitions and the vessel itself will cause catalytic decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide yielding heat and oxygen which is an extremely hazardous predicament- oxidiser fires can be ferocious and very difficult to fight, in a confined and potentially pressurised environment such a situation becomes even more calamitous. The benefits of being able to employ air-independent combustion motors were however very attractive with such engines promising very good submerged maneuvering speeds. Personally I'd be terrified having to live next to a tank of angry concentrated peroxide but maybe I'm just not cut out for submarine work.

[@Zebred2001]

My Grandmother's cousin by the last name Neville drowned in K-13 (later raised and recommissioned) as K-22.

[@kiiiisu]

brolliant video thanks!

[@joek6791]

Could it run submerged under steam power for a short period after diving.

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

good question, don't know. Do not think so tough.

[@foowashere]

Older types of fire-tube boilers would have some accumulated capacity, due to the large water volume. These water-tube boilers would probably have a very small water volume, for both space and rapidity of startup.

[@bigsarge2085]

Awesome!

[@Penryn87]

Well the ability to fire torpedoes 45 degrees off the forward probably has something to do with allowing the ship to speed up to a target, not have to actually get a head of the target and be able to maintain a more parallel course and allow the torpedoes to catch up to the target over the remaining distance? Or, I suppose you could have the forward tubes fire at one target and then the 45 degree tubes at a target behind your forward target? Idk. There was clearly some operating objective here for them to want this pretty complicated design.

[@gzcwnk]

Fan room for cooling? No, more probable is its the fan room for the forced draft air to feed the boilers. This is a fascinating design. Ive been looking for a RC submarine modeling project, I think I just found it :D TY now if only the plans with the website worked!

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

thanks

[@gzcwnk]

@@HISuttonCovertShores It seems these 4 boilers were incredibly outside of the pressure hull and were flooded on diving so the stresses on the water tube boilers on flooding would have been terrible. That space is it seems to flood so flotation as well!

[@WildBillCox13]

Perhaps the turntable was meant for surfaced attacks against merchants traveling in convoy? It might simplify calculations, while steaming parallel to the column.

[@johnbig8962]

In your video on the steam sub peel you held a sheet of drawings for the steam cruiser sub do have similar drawings for theu149and u142cruiser subs of eel and can they be boughr bought and how much for each please

[@allangibson2408]

The fan room was not for cooling. Boilers use a LOT of air and the easiest way to force the air in is to pressurise the firing face of the boilers. The most dangerous part of air breathing engines on a submarine is the air intakes and exhausts. Isolation of these functions in sealed smaller compartments would make the submarine safer from accidental flooding that has killed a lot of submarine crews over the years.

[@robertd.shannon9007]

How do you douse the fires and their accompanying CO when diving, especially an emergency?

[@Alex-cw3rz]

What were the dimensions of the submarine or are they unknown? Or was I not paying attention when you said it

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Try kzbin.info/www/bejne/bGiso5yqnLJqb7c

[@Alex-cw3rz]

@@HISuttonCovertShores ah brilliant thanks thought I must have missed something

[@b.griffin317]

One major disadvantage to a 6"/15cm gun on a submarine is the ammunition would always be binary, considerably slowing down loading of the guns and hampering the submarine's stealth. The only reason for bigger guns is either armor penetration (but a submarine is certainly not going into a gun fight with a cruiser or battleship!) or longer range. The latter is at best an odd motivation for an ambush hunter / commerce raider vessel.

[@_tyrannus]

Excellent video! On the pronunciation of "Surcouf", the sound of the first "u" has no exact match in English so you're as close as you could get ; the "ou" at the end is almost invariably pronounced as "oo" in French, not "aw". So, you could pronounce the whole name as "sir-coof".

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

Cool, thanks!

[@FirstDagger]

13:44 Maybe the aim was to be able to do deflection "drive by" shots on ships as they might have thought that such a large such would be unwieldy.

[@allangibson2408]

A number of British submarines had beam (broadside) torpedo tubes (like the E-Class) as well as bow and stern tubes.

[@juanpecan7089]

The Surcouf reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Homer tried to design the perfect car with all the features...

[@jakubstrumillo]

Wiated for some historical sub designs! Please make video about Exolorer "Submarine" 🤙🏻

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

HMS Explorer, the AIP boat?

[@jakubstrumillo]

@@HISuttonCovertShores XIX century Explorer :) One of the first succesfull designs.

[@georgelincolnrockwell14]

13:40 re: launchers on a turntable. if they're fixed on a slant, wouldn't it be impossible to reload from inside the boat? it would be impossible/very difficult to maintain the torpedoes while underway if you cannot reasonably remove them from the tubes i believe

[@robertdodd2087]

Excellent vid, especially the drawings. Re turntable torpedo tubes, doubt if they could be fixed in place as you suggest, since it would make it impossible to load a torpedo unless the boat was a lot wider, or the torpedo a lot shorter.

[@mattmiller4613]

Yes sir, thank you! I agree. What a potentially badass ship for the British!😎

[@YOUPIMatin123]

MS PAint??! WOW. Impressive.

[@summerkagan6049]

I don't see any recoil mechanism on those 15 cm. guns how was recoil handled?

[@christianjunghanel6724]

Very interresting ! A very innovative design! Never heard about it before , and i am german!😅

[@nfarrar]

Could the rotating torpedoe tubes turn around so far that they could be loaded from their rear via the forward magazine? Could they rotate 360 degrees?

[@HISuttonCovertShores]

No, there are tanks at the sides which would get in the way. Also, the torpedo reloads would be facing aft in the plans if that was the case.

[@coldwarchemical7857]

My idea on way it may rotate the torpedo doors is possibly so you can fire fore and aft guns when surfaced and fire a finishing blow at the same time while utilising the effectiveness of both guns it would make sense like a battleships broadside

[@jebise1126]

uc-1 had vertical launchers... interesting

[@shamanbhattacharyya9285]

Yeah. Those mine launch tubes look similar to VLS cells

[@briananthony4044]

Thankyou for that. I couldn't clear up those schematics on the Dreadnought site. What a silly arrangement for the midship tubes. Beam tubes without reloads would have been more sane. Auxiliary diesels for electricity generation was normal for the larger submarines. This is the "small" diesel used for charging the batteries. The compressor for the fuel injection is at 4:50 kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6DTn5ucfJhosNE