Submarine class 201

Class 201
Overview
Type	Conventional submarines
units	U 1 U 2 U 3 (KNM Kobben)
Shipyard	HDW , Kiel
Order	March 16, 1959
period of service	1962-1967
home port	Kiel
Whereabouts	All scrapped
Technical specifications
displacement	350 t surfaced 450 t submerged
length	42 m
width	4.6 m
crew	21st
drive	1,200 HP diesel generator 1,200 HP electric motor
speed	10.7 kn above water 17 kn underwater
Range	3,800 NM above water 230 NM underwater
Armament	8 × 533 mm torpedo tubes with 8 torpedoes or 16 sea mines

The class 201 submarines were the first submarines in the German Navy after the Second World War . The main task of these submarines was to fight opposing surface warships .

history

Framework

The establishment of the Bundeswehr was subject to a number of arms restrictions, which were agreed in Protocol No. III, Section V to the Paris Treaties on the Western European Union of 1954. The standard displacement for submarines was set at a maximum of 350 t . This limit was raised several times, initially to 450 t in 1962 and to 1000 t in October of the same year on the recommendation of NATO . From 1973 to 1980 1800 t. In 1980 the shipbuilding restrictions according to Section V were generally lifted.

The intention of the German Navy and the shipbuilding industry was to build on the experiences of World War II to build the world's most modern submarine of this size. The main innovation was the use of non-magnetizable steel . This was intended to reduce the vulnerability to mines and the detection by magnetic sensors of anti- submarine aircraft . The Lübeck engineering office under Ulrich Gabler was responsible for construction and development . The order for the construction of twelve boats of this class was given to Howaldtswerke AG in Kiel on March 16, 1959 .

Technical development

New military requirements arose during construction, which led to extensive changes to the design. These were connected with an extension of up to 1.9 m and an increase in tonnage to 450 t, which was realized from the fourth boat. As part of this further planning, a stern torpedo tube was temporarily installed on U 1 for test purposes, but this was not introduced on later boats. The boats of the modified design were given the designation class 205 .

Corrosion and strength problems

As early as the summer of 1962, shortly after the first U 1 boat was put into service, the first cracks appeared in the diving cells, which were soon discovered on other boats. It quickly became apparent that the steel used with the designation AM 10 from the Austrian Schoeller-Bleckmann steelworks was unsuitable for submarines. When this problem became publicly known, the German Navy had an armaments scandal known as the steel crisis, in which errors in the preparation and execution of this construction contract became apparent. In particular, the test methods used for submarine steel proved to be inadequate.

When the problem was identified, all three Class 201 boats were completed, as were the first Class 205 boats . A construction freeze was imposed for this class, which affected the last four boats U 9 to U 12 , while U 4 to U 8 were completed and put into service. The two test boats of class 202 were also affected by the steel crisis .

As a consequence, several steels were tested on Class 205 boats . As a result, a steel from the Phoenix-Rheinrohr company with the designation PN 18 S2 was selected, which has since proven itself on all later German submarines including the 212 A class .

Units & whereabouts

- Federal Navy

Class 201 boats were the first new submarines in Germany after the end of World War II. The German Navy planned to procure twelve units of this type in the early 1960s. However, due to changes in the tactical requirements (including the possibility of overwater travel in mine areas), only three submarines of class 201, which was optimized for pure underwater travel, were actually built. The service life of these units was also greatly reduced by the above-mentioned corrosion problems. So did U 1 and U 2 just over one year's service in the German Navy. The U 3 , which was loaned to Norway for two years after its acceptance by the Navy , then remained in service for another three years and thus had the longest period of service in class 201 at just over five years . The U 1 , which had already been decommissioned, was also put into operation again for a year after being converted into a test vehicle for stern drainage pipes for wire-guided torpedoes. All class 201 boats were scrapped.

Identifier	Surname	Keel laying	Launch	Commissioning	unit	Decommissioning	Whereabouts
S180	U 1	June 8, 1960	October 21, 1961	March 20, 1962 (March 4, 1965 as test vehicle)	1st submarine squadron in Kiel	June 22, 1963 (March 15, 1966 as a test vehicle)	converted into a test vehicle for stern torpedo tubes (drainage pipes for wire-guided torpedoes), later cannibalized and scrapped for replacement construction class 205
S181	U 2	September 1, 1960	January 25, 1962	May 3, 1962	1st submarine squadron in Kiel	15th August 1963	cannibalized and scrapped for replacement class 205
S182	U 3	October 12, 1960	May 7, 1962	June 20, 1964	Submarine teaching group in Neustadt	15th September 1967	After partial demolition, the pressure hull in the pressure dock was destroyed and scrapped for test purposes

- Royal Norwegian Navy

The submarine weapon of the Kongelige Norske Marine (Sjøforsvaret) consisted in the first years after the Second World War of three loot submarines of the German type VII C and five left British submarines of the U- and V-class . Norway was interested in replacing the WWII boats with a modern type and received financial support from the USA for this . Since they could not deliver a suitable small submarine type, a connection to a European submarine construction program was sought. Norway decided on a modified design of the German class 201, which was designated as class 207 and represents the first submarine export of the Federal Republic. It is noteworthy that the order for class 207 was made shortly after the first boats of class 201 were launched, when there was no experience with them. Norway borrowed the recently completed U 3 for testing and training purposes before it was used in the German Navy and put it into service for two years under the name KNM Kobben S310 . After being returned to Germany, KNM Kobben was put into service with the German Navy as U 3 S182 .

Identifier	Surname	Commissioning	unit	Decommissioning	Whereabouts
S310	KNM Kobben	July 10, 1962	1. Undervannsbåtskavdron in Haakonsvern	June 16, 1964	returned to Germany after service, see U 3 (S182) ,

History of boats

U 1 (S180)

U 1 was christened on October 21, 1961 by the wife of the submarine commander Otto Kretschmer and commissioned in the 1st submarine squadron on March 20, 1962. The boat took over the tradition of U 99 , Kretschmer's boat. A horseshoe that was open at the top was attached to a blue background as a coat of arms. The boat was decommissioned in June 1963. It was replaced by a largely new class 205 of the same name, which was put into service in June 1967.

Commanders of U 1 (S180)

Rank	Surname	from	to
Corvette Captain	Baumann	March 21, 1962	June 22, 1963
First lieutenant	Siegfried Kramp	April 3, 1965	March 15, 1966

U 2 (S181)

U 2 was christened on January 25, 1962 by the wife of U 98 commander Wilhelm Schulze and put into service on May 3, 1962 in the 1st submarine squadron. It also received the black tomcat from U 98 as a coat of arms. It was decommissioned on August 15, 1963 and also replaced by a largely new class 205 building with the same name, which was put into service in October 1966.

Commanders of U 2 (S181)

Rank	Surname	from	to
Lieutenant captain	Hanns Freytag	May 3, 1962	15th August 1963

U 3 (S182)

U 3 was baptized on May 7, 1962 and received as a sponsored town St. Georgen in the Black Forest and its coat of arms. Immediately after completion, it was loaned to the Norwegian Navy from 1962 to 1964 under the name KNM Kobben (S310) for trials. Under the name Kobben , U 3 should not be confused with the KNM Kobben (S318) of class 207, which was later put into service . Due to the corrosion problems of the amagnetic steel identified at U 1 at the end of 1962, the permissible immersion depth for cobbs was initially reduced to 40 m. In the autumn of 1963 the German side decided to subject Kobben together with U 5 and U 6 to a lowering attempt in the Oslofjord . The boats were lowered to the floating cranes Energy and Endurance without a crew on board with flooded diving cells in the fjord. Kobben reached a depth of 114 m without damage. As a result, the permissible diving depth was increased to 100 m. She covered a total of 12,100 nm under the Norwegian flag . That is about five times that of German submarines in the same period. The Norwegians complained about the same disadvantages as the German Navy in the 201 class. The large turning circle at low speed levels caused problems , especially in ports in Northern Norway without tug assistance, due to the rugged coast with its numerous archipelagos . The low bridge, protected only with canvas, without display and control elements for course and speed, proved to be particularly disadvantageous in rough seas because the tower hatch could not be closed because of a cable required for communication with the control center. Thus water constantly penetrated the control center through the open tower hatch. After returning from Norway, U 3 was put into service with the German Navy on June 20, 1964 and used as a school boat for the submarine teaching group in Neustadt in Holstein until September 15, 1967 . Then it was decommissioned and used for strength and stress tests. In 1970 it was pulled in a final stress test in the pressure dock of the naval arsenal in Kiel until it was destroyed and then sold for scrapping.

Commanders from KNM Kobben (S310) or U 3 (S182)

Rank	Surname	from	to
Captain	Sivert Andreas Farstad	July 10, 1962	June 16, 1964
First lieutenant	Mauch	June 20, 1964	September 29, 1965
First lieutenant	hammer	September 30, 1965	15th September 1967

See also

• List of German submarine classes
• List of Bundeswehr submarines

Web links

• U. Rodewald: The submarine weapon of the German Navy. U-Boot Kameradschaft Hamburg e. V., accessed December 17, 2008.

literature

• Siegfried Breyer, Gerhard Koop: The ships and vehicles of the German Federal Navy 1956-1976. Munich 1978, ISBN 3-7637-5155-6 .
• Heinrich Schütz: Just the past or already history? - The steel crisis in German submarine construction. In: Marineforum. 7 / 8-2009 p. 38 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Decision of the Council of the WEU of July 21, 1980.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Heinrich Schütz: Just the past or already history? - The steel crisis in German submarine construction. In: Marineforum. 7 / 8-2009 p. 38 ff.
3. ^ ^{A b c} Siegfried Breyer, Gerhard Koop: The ships and vehicles of the German Federal Navy 1956-1976. Munich 1978, ISBN 3-7637-5155-6 .
4. ↑ Armor: U-Boats - Rostwärts . (Cover story). In: Der Spiegel . No. 22 , May 29, 1963, pp. 20–32 ( online [accessed May 28, 2013]).
5. ↑ Alexander Bredt (Ed.): Weyers Flottentaschenbuch 1959. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1959, p. 60.
6. ^ ^{A b} Hans Knarr: Type compass German submarines. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 2014, pp. 26–27.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Lutz Nohse, Eberhard Roessler: Modern coastal submarines (=  Military Scientific Reports . Band 12 ). JF Lehmans Verlag, Munich 1972, p. 88 .
8. ↑ Alexander Bredt (Ed.): Weyers Flottentaschenbuch 1959. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1959, pp. 106-107.
9. ^ Hans Knarr: Type compass German submarines. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 2014, p. 94.
10. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o} Hannes Ewerth: The U-flotilla of the German navy , 2nd revised edition, Koehler Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 1995, pp 88-93.
11. ↑ ^{a b c d} Bjørn Erik Strønen: Kobbenclass undervannsbåt 1964 - 2002 , Marinemuseet, Horten 2005, pp. 14-16.