Experimental submarine (1897)
The test submarine was built by Howaldtswerke in Kiel in 1897/98 and is considered a failed attempt at building submarines .
history
Since Wilhelm Bauer's pioneering work with the Brandtaucher , built by the machine factory and iron foundry Schweffel & Howaldt in Kiel in 1850, the development of submarines in Germany had largely become quiet. In other countries, much more intensive research was carried out, for example in Spain , Russia , England , Sweden and the USA . Several inventors worked on the development of submarines in France . It was typical for this early period of submarine building that the boats were often built on the inventors' own initiative, as was the case with the Howaldtswerke. The interest of the respective navy of the country could only rarely be aroused.
Construction number 333
The Kiel shipyard designed and built an experimental submersible under construction number 333 based on a design by the German naval officer and torpedo engineer Karl Leps.
technical description
The cylindrical hull of the 40-ton test submarine had a torpedo tube at the front and ended in a spindle-shaped manner to the four-bladed screw at the rear . The length of the boat, smooth on the outside, was 13 to 14 m, the largest width is given as 2.40 m. It was driven by a reversible 120 HP electric motor, which ensured a speed of 6 to 7 knots when sailing above water . The accumulators for the power supply were on the ship's floor. The diving and trim cells were located in the box-shaped keel under the hull , and could be flooded individually and drained with compressed air from a torpedo air tank. In addition, there were also iron ballast weights that could be released from the inside .
The boat had a watertight collision bulkhead at the front and rear, which also served as a support bulkhead for a torpedo drain pipe at the front. The muzzle cover could be operated from the inside.
The control was carried out via two horizontal rudders at the end of about 400 mm wide stabilization plates , which ran halfway around the hull and a rudder, which was located in front of the screw, which was protected by a rudder guard.
Due to a diving helmet with four portholes riveted in the middle of the ship , the ship's command only had limited opportunities to observe. The boat had no ventilation system and must have been very wet inside, which is probably one of the reasons for the many accidents with the electrical system. The hatch for entry was behind the lookout helmet. Judging by the photo sources, the boat has still been rebuilt and has been given a slightly larger structure instead of the diving helmet serving as a “ tower ”.
Captain Arp was in command of the boat, and the boat was driven with another 2 - 3 crew.
Test drives and the end
In open waters, only overwater trips were carried out, whereby Kaiser Wilhelm saw the new building in 1901 on the Kiel Fjord when the boat passed his yacht Hohenzollern .
During the test drives, the fjord to the torpedo shooting range of the Berlin company Schwartzkopff in Düsternbrook often had to be crossed to renew the compressed air . Because the construction was not considered safe to operate, we never tried our own diving. In order to test the tightness of the hull, it was simply lowered with a floating dock , during which the crew remained in contact with the surface via a ventilation pipe.
There was obviously no interest in this inefficient boat. When it later sank due to the erosion of the bottom plate due to leaked battery acid, it was placed behind a wooden crate after it had been recovered and probably scrapped around 1902.
Only with the submarine Forelle , built in 1903 in Kiel at the Germania shipyard , did the continuous development and subsequent series production of submarines begin in the German Empire .
literature
- Christian Ostersehlte: From Howaldt to HDW . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-782209168
- Bruno Bock: Built at HDW: 150 years Howaldtswerke - Deutsche Werft AG . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herford 1988, ISBN 3-7822-0450-6
