These photos of the interior of a ventage 1940's American Submaine are truly amazing for anyone . You can place your mouse on the picture and click and drag it for a full 360 degree view. You can go up and down looking at up at the overheads and down at the decks. And you can even zoom in on individual objects. If you'll "click" on the index page you'll see all the sections of the boat that have been photographed and you can go right to the section of interest.





http://www.nonplused.org/panos...mpanito/html/01.html

Way cool!

Very neat, thank you!

What stuns me is that these ships were designed and built without the aid of CAD drafting, as were all ships and airplanes of that era. Look at the piping and wiring and tubing in the third picture. All of that had to be designed without ever seeing it as a digital model, like we can do nowadays with even simple drafting software. I saw a few years back on TV a documentary about how the new Boeing jetliners were built. They used CAD, of course. One scene showed the computer checking for interferences between piping, ducting, et cetera and yes, they had more than one. Boeing is under time constraints to get a plane built to make a profit in selling it. We were under far more important constraints in World war II. I'm amazed that those designers were able to churn out the Liberty boats and submarines at the rate they did when no computer existed to help them do it so quickly...

Nice & cozzy huh?

Color pics of one of my all time fave B&W WWII films, the classic 1958 "Run Silent, Run Deep."

Ah-ooo-gaaa Dive Dive!!!

That fictitious pig boat was named the Nerka and patrolled that part of the Pacific known as the Bungo Straits.

Or are only German subs named pig boats?

BTW, if anyone is interested in passing around a DVD copy of that flick, let me know. I'd be happy to mail out a copy to those on a waiting list.

quote:

Or are only German subs named pig boats?

I assumed the German subs were named pig boats because they had no systems aboard that scrubbed the air of carbon dioxide, at least this is what I have read. They also had no heat aboard. Imagine what the place smelled like in there with eighty or so men aboard who never showered. When they needed to clean the air, they surfaced at night to run the diesel engine and fire up some sort of air exchangers, possibly some sort of system of multiple fans that would push out stale air and then fresh air would come in from outside. The stuff I've read about German submarines leads me to believe that life aboard one was nowhere near pleasant...

quote:

Originally posted by D Humbarger:
Nice & cozzy huh?

You don't realize how cozy, till you've been in one. Had the priviledge of touring the Wilhelm Bauer, formerly U-2450, in Bremerhaven, a couple of years ago.

Grizz

The 3D views are really cool. While not in 3D if you scroll down to the bottom of the page on this site there is a really good photo tour of the WWII German sub "Wilhelm Bauer". It is amazing to me how similar the designs of the American and German u-boats are.

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/m...detail_uboot_xxi.htm

Brilliant, thanks!

There's also a U Boat in Chicago. I don't remember which museum, but the public can board it. It's very interesting.

Submariners.

They're, well, different.

I met guys who took the surrender of various Japanese units' surrender.

Within days the submariners were talking in terms of "us" versus "them."

They didn't mean Japanese v. Americans.

They meant submariners, both Japanese and Americans as opposed to targets. Surface ships. Submarines were "us." Surface ships were "them." Any surface ship. It didn't matter if it was flying the Rising Sun or the Stars & Stripes.

quote:

Originally posted by onefunzr2:
That fictitious pig boat was named the Nerka and patrolled that part of the Pacific known as the Bungo Straits.

The Bungo Strait (Bungo Suido) isn't fictitious. It's the outlet from Japan's Inland Sea, between Shikoku and Kyushu directly south from the western tip of Honshu.

"Run Silent, Run Deep" is a great flick. It's one of the few movies about the Nav that isn't painful to watch if you spent more than a few hours in.

Matthew McConoughey & Harvey Keitel in "U-571?" Steven Seagal as an ex-SEAL/Cook on a a battleship? Denzel Washington in "Crimson Tide?"

Puh-leaze! They're unwatchable. There's no point to renting a movie that has you doing a double-face palm every time Gene Hackman's dog pees at the base of a missile tube.

The choice of getting bludgeoned to death actually runs a close second to putting up with that crap.

I've had all kinds of skippers. Good, bad, and in between (and there wasn't a hell of a lot of difference). I never had a skipper that found it remotely amusing for any living creature to eliminate bodily waste on their deck.

Sure. OK. A Seagull can get away with it. On the weatherdecks. You can't do much about those.

But somebody's got to clean that up.

Edward L. Beach, on the other hand, could write a script that makes for a movie you can actually watch.

I know of at least 3 you can tour, Chicago, Philly, and N.Y.. Those things were really tight, very claustrophobic. You want to know what the German u-boats were like read 'Das Boat' (sp??).
C.G.B.

Lots to see, besides subs:
http://www.hnsa.org/index.htm

quote:

Originally posted by Harley Deuce:
There's also a U Boat in Chicago. I don't remember which museum, but the public can board it. It's very interesting.

That's the U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was captured off the west coast of Africa in WWII by a sub hunter/killer task force commanded by Admiral (then Captain) Daniel V. Gallery. It was the first enemy man-of-war captured since the War of 1812. It has recently been moved to a new display which gets it inside and out of the weather. It was completely overhauled after it arrived in Chicago and everything is still fully operational. If you can find Admiral Gallery's book about capturing the U boat, it's a great read.

scojac,

the book is available at the museum bookstore. I was in that baby two years ago. Quite a story behind it.

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
scojac,

the book is available at the museum bookstore. I was in that baby two years ago. Quite a story behind it.

Rich

That was a different breed than we have today. I don't know if you've read the account of the capture, but did you know that Captain Gallery actually had drills to practice boarding and capturing a submarine? His crew thought he was nuts, but Gallery had noticed that often a U-boat skipper would surface and give his crew a chance to get off the boat. The sub would often linger on the surface for a while before it sank, many times being shelled by surface ships to sink it. He decided that there might be an opportunity to capture a sub and get an amazing intelligence haul. The chance finally presented itself and the announcement that had not been heard for almost 130 years was once again heard; "Away all boarding parties!" They got all the charts, messages, code books, and an intact Enigma machine and instruction manual. Amazing!

GO CARDINALS!

quote:

Originally posted by scojac:
That was a different breed than we have today. I don't know if you've read the account of the capture, but did you know that Captain Gallery actually had drills to practice boarding and capturing a submarine?

You should read up on the New Zealand "bird class" Corvettes that fought in the Solomons in 1942. Two of them, the Kiwi and the Moa I believe, tag teamed a Japanese sub to death.

It's impressive when you can't depress your guns to hit the target. And your crew is slinging wrenches or whatever else they can find.

http://www.worldnavalships.com...howthread.php?t=4107

http://bellsouthpwp2.net/e/a/ea_herr/SwordFight.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvette

http://www.navymuseum.mil.nz/c...nship/hmnzs-kiwi.htm

Take that then.

That's one of them.

They punched way, way above their weight.

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:


That's one of them.

They punched way, way above their weight.

That is the KIWI

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:

quote:

Originally posted by scojac:
That was a different breed than we have today. I don't know if you've read the account of the capture, but did you know that Captain Gallery actually had drills to practice boarding and capturing a submarine?

You should read up on the New Zealand "bird class" Corvettes that fought in the Solomons in 1942. Two of them, the Kiwi and the Moa I believe, tag teamed a Japanese sub to death.

It's impressive when you can't depress your guns to hit the target. And your crew is slinging wrenches or whatever else they can find.

God Bless everybody who stands a post in defense of freedom!

quote:

Originally posted by scojac:

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:

quote:

Originally posted by scojac:
That was a different breed than we have today. I don't know if you've read the account of the capture, but did you know that Captain Gallery actually had drills to practice boarding and capturing a submarine?

You should read up on the New Zealand "bird class" Corvettes that fought in the Solomons in 1942. Two of them, the Kiwi and the Moa I believe, tag teamed a Japanese sub to death.

It's impressive when you can't depress your guns to hit the target. And your crew is slinging wrenches or whatever else they can find.

God Bless everybody who stands a post in defense of freedom!

I don't recall the story in precise detail. One of the two Kiwi ships spotted the I-1 off-loading troops and stomped on the gas to ram her. The first hit did some real damage. Then the Kiwi backed off, and tried it again. She rode up on the I-1's back, but didn't actually do much except get stuck in that position. After a bit of work, she got unstuck.

Eventually the first boat backed off. After throwing just about every tool in the machine shop or engine room at the Japanese, the Kiwis discovered every gun they could bring to bear was overheating.

So she let her sister go in for the kill.

I don't think it matters much if the first ship was the actually the "Kiwi" or the "Moa." Any man on either one had huge brass cajones.

I've always wondered why these stories never get made into movies.

For all anyone knows, who never was in the Navy and only went to public school, New Zealand wasn't even involved in the South Pacific naval war.

The only problem I ever had with Kiwis is the same one I have with diggers. There just aren't enough of them around.

But then, maybe you don't really need that many.

Reminds me of one of my favorite WWII naval movies - "The Cruel Sea" - British frigates doing convoy duty.

GREAT SITE XGRUNT

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