Excellent Type XXVI

[neitosub]

Isn't she pretty?

I didn't unlock the Type XXVI in the game, but seeing gameplay footage of her in action was also part of the reason for me starting the build.

Nate

[Albacore 569]

Isn't she pretty?

I didn't unlock the Type XXVI in the game, but seeing gameplay footage of her in action was also part of the reason for me starting the build.

Nate

I am writing an article on HMS Meteorite and the Walter system for the Sub Committee Report. It details maybe some new evolutionary side tree branch about Hydrogen Peroxide in submarine evolution in general. . Focusing on the Russian interest in H2O2 propulsion and how they acquired their German scientists and information as well as the British United states side. Nothing is really written about it. I did find a excellent US Naval Institute article on the Russian Project 617 (whale class) and I have the original British intelligence report that fills in some of the blanks. Everywhere on the net in the west we only read about the British end of the story.

Significantly a tremendous amount of information of the Walter system & specifically the Type XXVI boat design was not in the western sectors postwar (we always think of Cuxhaven Hamburg, the Walterwerks in in the British section). The British extremely detailed intel report on the Walter submarines propulsion system describes the lack of complete sets of drawings on the Type XVIIB & the Type XXVI boats. In the western occupation sectors the drawings available on these submarines were "a motley collection ink tracings, pencil tracings, prints, microfilms, photostats and photographs". The British did have a physical example in the form of U-1407 as well as Professor Walter himself and his design scientists.

All German submarines used in WW2 were designed in the Ingenieurbüro Glückauf (known as the IBG) - a department of the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, which during the Second World War was the design office of the Hauptausschuß Schiffbau. It completed construction and production plans for U-Boats of the Kriegsmarine. This Bureau was located in the picturesque cities known for their health spas of Blankenburg and Halberstadt. Blankenburg and Halberstadt were located in the general center of Germany inland and you guessed it, - in the Russian sector.

To aide in the rapid industrial mobilization ot fast tracking the production of the Type XXVI - not all but a significant number of Walterwerks engineers and scientists were also in Blankenburg when Germany capitulated. Two complete 7,500 shp Watter turbines existed, one at the Walterweks in Kiel (British secrtor) , and the other identical turbine at the IBG (Ingenieurbüro Glückauf) in Blankenburg. (Soviet sector). You might say.... the race was on! lol.

No wonder researching the British shenanigans around the Potsdam Treaty the Russians didnt protest too much regarding their under treaty legal access to the U-1407 later HMS Meteorite. They already had all the designs & designers with a complete turbine plant in Blankenberg. The Russians would eventually build a single test submarine Project 617 (S-99) and the Brits HMS Meteorite and later aroujnd the same time as the Russian prototype the HMS Explorer & Excalibur. Not surprisingly The Russian sub suffered a violent explosion in its engineering plant after 89 trips to sea operationally in 1959 (a 31-inch diameter hole in the pressure hull from dirt in one H2O2 line into the catalyst chamber. The expense repairing was too great and soviet progress in nuclear propulsion was well advanced by then. After the Kursk disaster hydrogen peroxide propulsion finally was put to rest, replaced by other safer air independent propulsion systems.


I think it is beautiful paint scheme and submarine.

[neitosub]

Looking forward to that article!