So, arrived in Bremerhaven, found a hotel at the right price - Hotel Columbus fairly close to city centre with plenty of restaurants nearby. Maybe not the most salubrious area of town but clean, comfy and with some covered parking. There was a Persian restaurant just over the road and the only thing I recognised on the menu was kebab. It was excellent!
Next morning, rode down to see Deutsches Schiffahrts Museum (German Maritime Museum) which was undergoing reconstruction, hence only 3 euros admission. I thought it was going to be crap but one of the guides told me about a Virtual Reality experience centred on the Polarstern, a German Antarctic survey vessel. The display was brilliant, first time I'd done a VR. Outside, there were loads of other ships of all ages which you could clamber aboard so all in all, a well spent 3 euros
Across the river was what I'd really come to see - a Type 21 U-boat, the only one of its kind still in existence. Had to stump up another 3 euros but again, well with it.
The Type 21 were the first submarines designed to operate primarily submerged, rather than spending most of their time as surface ships that could submerge for brief periods as a means to escape detection. They incorporated a large number of batteries to increase the time they could spend under water, to as much as several days, and they only needed to surface to periscope depth for recharging via a snorkel. Looking at the Type 7C in Laboe, this was light years ahead, like a cruise liner compared to a barge.
Everything was streamlined, no unnecessary protrusions which made it very much more difficult to detect. Look how sleek she is:
Inside, plenty of headroom especially in the control room. The periscope was state of the art, new Carl Zeiss optics with increased magnification
She had 62 huge battery cells with an output of 5400 Ah. Some poor bugger had to lie on this sliding platform and top 'em up (and don't drop the spanner). You can see another bank of batteries below this one
And at the back there was a 34 hp silent 'creeper motor' which drove the single screw at low revs via a series of belts. Again, undetectable
After the war, the Yanks took one of these subs and based their first nuclear submarine on the design.
Fortunately (or unfortunately for the Kriegsmarine) the Type 21 came just too late to make a difference to the outcome of the naval conflict. Had they been introduced a year earlier, who knows?
Next morning, rode down to see Deutsches Schiffahrts Museum (German Maritime Museum) which was undergoing reconstruction, hence only 3 euros admission. I thought it was going to be crap but one of the guides told me about a Virtual Reality experience centred on the Polarstern, a German Antarctic survey vessel. The display was brilliant, first time I'd done a VR. Outside, there were loads of other ships of all ages which you could clamber aboard so all in all, a well spent 3 euros
Across the river was what I'd really come to see - a Type 21 U-boat, the only one of its kind still in existence. Had to stump up another 3 euros but again, well with it.
The Type 21 were the first submarines designed to operate primarily submerged, rather than spending most of their time as surface ships that could submerge for brief periods as a means to escape detection. They incorporated a large number of batteries to increase the time they could spend under water, to as much as several days, and they only needed to surface to periscope depth for recharging via a snorkel. Looking at the Type 7C in Laboe, this was light years ahead, like a cruise liner compared to a barge.
Everything was streamlined, no unnecessary protrusions which made it very much more difficult to detect. Look how sleek she is:
Inside, plenty of headroom especially in the control room. The periscope was state of the art, new Carl Zeiss optics with increased magnification
She had 62 huge battery cells with an output of 5400 Ah. Some poor bugger had to lie on this sliding platform and top 'em up (and don't drop the spanner). You can see another bank of batteries below this one
And at the back there was a 34 hp silent 'creeper motor' which drove the single screw at low revs via a series of belts. Again, undetectable
After the war, the Yanks took one of these subs and based their first nuclear submarine on the design.
Fortunately (or unfortunately for the Kriegsmarine) the Type 21 came just too late to make a difference to the outcome of the naval conflict. Had they been introduced a year earlier, who knows?
This was the Arnhem War Museum, another private collection with loads of stuff that the owner had found in and around the town, as well as some other donated artefacts like this Harley
