Early German Submarines

Columnist Col (Retd) EAS BOKHARI goes back into history.

It is a matter of rightful pride to be a gunner as a bright idea in the realm of tactics, strategy and weapon fabrication is not the monopoly of the services alone. Anyone, with the right orientation and sagacity can produce a good idea and a workable piece of defence equipment. In fact, some of the best military ideas have come from the unconventional soldiers and the civilians whose thinking is not grooved and whose reactions are not ‘over disciplined’.
In the particular case of the submarines and the German earlier boats in particular the credit of discovering and the pioneer work on submarines/German submersibles must go to a brother artilleryman who discovered that his Bavarian Artillery Regiment was helpless and could not engage a distant off shore target and the only way of engaging it was through the use of a submersible which could literally close up with the target without being seen.
This short presentation provides a glimpse of earlier German submarine development. This clearly debunks the shibboleth that the user is always the best designer of a piece of military equipment. In most cases this may be the other way round.
Submarine is no doubt, the newest and the most potent of the naval armaments. Its endurance, especially of the nuclear powered boats, stealth, and lethality makes it a weapon of outstanding tactical and strategical utility. Germany has a remarkable history of submarine building of about 150 years and the earlier German product, the U-Boat is known world over for its efficiency and robustness. This short presentation deals with the evolution of the submarine construction in Germany prior to the introduction of the new state of the art submarines i.e. the Third Generation Submarines with such sophistication as the AIP (Air Independent Propulsion) and some other refinements.
Ironically, the idea of submarine (and its submersible operation) first came to Wilhelm Bauer, the father of ‘Brandtaucher’ (literally fire diver) who was neither a naval hand nor a North German citizen. He was a Bavarian and had enlisted in the Royal Bavarian Artillery Regiment. He served in the 10th Field Battery as a corporal (almost the same rank which Adolph Hitler had.) Yet another eccentricity of his character is that he was a carpenter by training, and often dabbled in such sports as fencing, riding and sports teaching.
His Regiment was a part of the German Alliance and had been sent up North to help Schleswig-Holstein in the conflict with somewhat hostile Danish neighbours. This I should suppose is a dramatic beginning of the idea of a submarine. It was something like this that “On 13th April 1849 from his position (perhaps the gun position) on the entrenchment known as the ‘Duppler-Schanzen’ Baur observed the ineffectivity of land-based artillery against ships at sea. The idea of using ‘underwater vessels’ against ships caught his imagination.”
This is the real beginning of the German submarines and the man behind the submersible boats was not even a naval hand. He was just a plain but an imaginative ‘gunner’ NCO.
Baer was released from the Bavarian Artillery on 23 January 1850 with a very good chit and good personal conduct report, and only six days later he joined the Schleswig-Holstein Army. He immediately started developing his passion of building a submersible, the ‘Brandaucher’.

“ He consulted with senior officers, attended lectures in the University of Kiel and was transferred to Navy to implement his ideas. After demonstrating various models, Wilhelm Bauer managed to gain support of Karlshutte, a foundry and ironworks company in Rendsburg... But construction work on the first submarine began in Kiel on the premises of Messrs. Schweffel & Howaldt....”

The first German submarine ‘Brandtaucher’ entered its elements on 18 December 1850. This launch forced the Danish ships to abandon their blockade of Kiel in retreat from the narrow straights of Friedrich sort in the Kiel Bay to an anchorage further out at sea. This is a sufficient evidence that the mere possibility of submarine operation can force the hostile naval assets to take defensive or evasive action.
Baer was not very lucky with the testing of his brainchild and during winter training the ‘Brandstaucher’ was lost during a dive on 01 February 1851. Here is an account of this rather unfortunate accident. “The accident can perhaps be attributed to financial restrictions laid down by the Navy... The boat’s diving and compensating tanks had been deleted from the drawings, the 6 mm hull planking proved to be too thin...” Bauer and his two sailors were rescued, but this misadventure put a stop to further experiments for several decades.
The next venture in this direction of submersibles was as late as early 1902, and this time again, the idea came forth from a Spanish engineer d’Equevilley who wanted to put his special expertise of manufacture of submersibles at the disposal of the great German steel manufacturers Krupps. The German Navy even at this time was feeling skeptical about the use of submersibles.
Krupp had purchased the Germania Shipyard in Kiel recently and hoped for a big order from the navy specially of the submarines. The first test-submarine was clandestinely built under the cover name of Leuchtboje (Light Buoy) and later renamed Forelle (Trout). The Germania Shipyard wanted to use the vessel for research and hoped to learn more about the science and other parameters governing submerged navigation. Leuchteboje/Forelle had a surface displacement of 16 tons and was armed with two torpedo tubes located outside the hull. The first trials took place in 1903 and a few months later the trial submarine carried out an attack against a ship at anchor from a distance of 3 nm which was successful.
In the autumn of the same year the Forelle was presented to the German Emperor and Prince Heinrich of Prussia was the first blue-blooded guest to be on board on 23 September 1903 during a dive. The submarine was a great success, but the German Navy was not sufficiently impressed and the submarine was later sold to Russia who were preparing for a war against Japan.
The real German interest in the emerging submarines was only shown when the Naval Secretary of State, and later the First Lord of Admiralty Alferd von Tirpitz ordered a submarine from the German Shipyard in 1904. The keel was laid for the German Navy’s first “U-Boat”, UI. After initial delays the submarine was commissioned in a ceremony held on 14 December 1906. At that time the boat’s first commander Lt Commander Boehm-Bezing and Lt Commander Bauer (later Commanding Officer 1st Submarine Flotilla), were the only two officers in the new submarine arm.
The design and size of this submarine was particularly suited to domestic German requirement. And as per navy “... with its displacement and its good surfaced capabilities (it) should be particularly able to cope with the sea area and the weather conditions in the German Bight.” Its credentials were:
* Crew: 12 men
* Displacement: 238 t
* Length: 42.4 m
* Beam: 3.8 m
Its twin petroleum Daimler engines delivered a surface speed of 10.8 knots and permitted a mission range of 1.500 nm. UI’s ordnance consisted of a single bow torpedo tube, which was armed with three torpedoes.
While the U-I was still under construction in Kiel, the order to build U2 was placed with Danzig’s Imperial Shipyard. This boat and its successors had a greater displacement and larger engines. It could run at the surface speed of 12.5 knots. Though not a very successful design, but it did prove a trendsetter. It is on record that by the time the First World War broke out some 45 submarines had been built or were under construction.
Interestingly, in the early years i.e. from 1906 to 1914, it was evident that the submarine technology was under constant development. The original and basic petrol engines were being replaced by powerful diesel engines, the ordnance had been increased and the grid plated batteries were replaced by large area plate batteries delivering higher loads.
Consequently, the target of about 400 submarines of sort was set to be achieved by the end of the First World War, and to implement this gargantuan order, almost all German shipyards had to be taken under contract. Some of the bigger names involved were: the Vulcan, Blohm+Voss, Schichan, Tecklenborg, Neptun, Atlas-Werke, Seebeck, and Nordeseewerke.
Finally, it is surprising that the initial idea of the submersible did not come from the users i.e. Navy but from an outsider and Southern ‘gunner’ NCO and later the boats were built of course in Germany by a Spanish engineer. And it took some time before these boats were really accepted by the German Navy, and once that has been done there was no looking back.