Winter garden (ship part)
In German submarines of the Second World War, the winter garden was the platform that was attached to the tower aft . She served for holding a machine gun or anti-aircraft guns for air defense . This was necessary because the submarines were mostly on the surface of the water at that time and had to be able to react quickly to detection by reconnaissance aircraft or torpedo bombers if there was not enough time to dive into alarm.
The platform was surrounded by an outwardly inclined railing and was accessible via a corridor leading aft from the tower. In the case of modifications, especially of Type VII in later years of the war, two "winter gardens" were sometimes built one behind the other, the rear one being set a little lower. This can be clearly seen in the only surviving Type VII boat U 995 in Laboe .
Nevertheless, these measures remained only a relatively low level of protection against the threat from the airspace, among other things because the anti-aircraft cannons and machine guns were very susceptible to rust.
With the appearance of the type XXI boats , the winter garden became obsolete, as the air defense on this boat was now housed in the larger flak tower . This measure is primarily a result of the endeavor to optimize the flow resistance during the submersible run, and the housing in the turret also offered the gun operators more protection.
A disadvantage was a restriction of the gun's freedom of movement compared to the "free" accommodation in the winter garden. However, since the Type XXI boats were able to operate longer under water through various modifications and much larger batteries, they were less exposed to the dangers from the airspace than earlier series.
The term winter garden is still used today for the aft part of the tower on German submarines. Today are in the rather bead-shaped construction, such. B. Class 206 , life-saving appliances.
From the winter garden, motorless, small gyrocopes towed by the submarine, such as the Focke-Achgelis Fa 330, were launched for observation tasks .
Web links
- The German submarine types of World War II (drawing).
- U-boot 7c Thai paperwork (model maker forum with pictures).