BTW - in the German Navy, three thick stripes is a LCDR, not CDR. I like the beard too.
... and yes, I noticed the picture in the Wardroom/Chiefs Mess at the 3:00 mark.
Hat tip Boquisucio@Argghhh!!!
54 minutes ago
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
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Eh, what picture? I seem to have seen a photo of a UBVII-class but without a visible swastika flag. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It would have been another thing if there had been a flag, or worse, if there had been a photo of Doenitz.
Who said there was anything wrong with it? U-33 from WWII - a Type VIIA there natch, had a very honorable war record.
Heck - I once was in the office of a German Army General who had a photo of Field Marshal Rommel on his wall. Nothing wrong with that either.
Now, a Belgian officer with a picture of Remy Schrijnen on his wall ... that would be news! ;)
I was VERY disappointed when Greek Type 214s were eventually funded by Greeks and didnt end on offer to the Polish Navy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-33_%281936%29
Nice boat, like the way they have things laid out. 28 men? Impressive.
As to the painting in the Goat Locker, wish I had one like that. Met a U-boat skipper when stationed in Naples, as to be expected, they seem to have their act together.
Lovely little boat. I wish we had 20 like her.
Agree that they are lovely little boats. Don't agree that we should have any in the U.S. Navy. What would we use them for? Where would they be stationed? And how cost effective would they be? I don't think there are any good answers to those questions.
As someone who has dealt with quite a few EuroDiesels over the years - whistling shi'ite cans comparded to a 214 - Seawolf; your intentional ingorance and prejudice makes me sad.
For start, they could be used for intensive ASW in littorals training, as OPFOR. Send them in pairs, fives or sixes agains CVBG to check readiness level. Try out SSN sonar arrays in detecting SSKs. Plus in a scenario where CVNs get taken out by some foe who isnt above creating actual warfighting capability and challenging the USN, subs of all kinds would be extremely useful. (WW2 Pacific Sub War revisited, anyone?)
Wow-did you see the war record of the WWI U-33? 84 ships sunk, 8 damaged, and a prize! Total of over 230,000 tons. And survived the war.
Toured an Italian sub of the same type. Their most impressive feature.... An expresso machine!
I like ewok's answer and I'll add regional engagement with our allies. Put 6 in San Diego and 6 in Mayport for ASW training, counter narcotics and also for UNITAS. 4 more in the Med (with a subtender, maybe a modified T-AKE with an MSC crew and a Navy crewed IMA facility, sorry couldn't resist) and 4 in Japan/Singapore/Guam, again for ASW training, NATO exercises and CARAT. Much less political issues to deal with in homeporting SS vs SSN overseas (though with the GW in Japan some of the legwork has already been done). That comes to 20, which was what Grampa Bluewater asked Santa for. :)
I cannot answer the cost effective question as I make zero claim to being an economist. Someone much smarter than me will have to answer that portion. I will say that our NATO allies already have a training pipeline, which we could leverage.
What kind of special OBAs/SCBAs/EEBDs do the Germans have access to that we don't that allow for a seal when having a beard? I can't believe we haven't been able to engineer those yet.
Why pick Remy Schrijnen when there's Remy Van Lierde: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remy_Van_Lierde
About Rommel: maybe, maybe, maybe.
Well, it's still not clear whether he really was involved in the plot. He MAY have known about it. Like Von Kluge. And decided to see how things developed.
Now that we're talking about the Kriegsmarine. I think it's generally agreed that they had the cleanest record of all armed branches of Germany during WWII. Exemplary service, I think, except for a couple of rogue captains. The captain of the Widder e.g., IIRC.
I bet they have beer in the fridge too.
I bet the Germans have some good beer in the fridge too.
Built for business, isn't she? About twice the size of the Type VIIB from WWII.
Anyone know unit cost?
Nice subs they are....but.
Yes i know you hate me now. They dont have the legs really for fleet ops or some other areas.
Not against subs like the 214 just not the same design. I'm of the mind Nuke subs rule the deeps and open ocean diesels and such are masters at littorals.
So get some yes. But dont go crazy and make sure its designed to our needs.
AFAIK it is about 500 million$ a piece - making a 4 for a price of single Virginia class SSN...
As a veteran harpooner I know all too well disadvantages of the electric boats (you are sooo slow...) but even fastest SSN cant be in 4 points of ocean at the same time...
As our Amphibian host always reminds its good to have diverse (no pun intended!) mix of capabilities, and some numbers (hulls in the water).
Dunno who "guest" was, but he wasn't me.
Opinions vary. I favor a high lo mix of 100 SSN's and 20 SS. Lot of ASW and ASUW to do, nobody else has the big warhead weapons.
The SS's would be stationed whereever their tender with embarked squadron deployed to, and deploy to patrol areas in range. This is a war of attrition weapon or an on sta at D-day -1 weapon, you are going to have to be patient about transits.
I suspect they would be cost effective due to low life cycle costs from small crews; much lower engineering plant initial costs, way less lost motion due to less burdensome training and repair part pedigree keeping. Plus less acreage.
While high quality is still required, the most nit picking (and justifiably so) parts of "kosher for nuclear power"wouldn't be necessary and those are the pricey bits. The only conversions I see as needed is tweeking fire control and torpedo tubes for a MK 48, changing the bore on the signal ejector to accept NAE's and their descendants vice pillenwerffer und whatever came since, and converting ballast tanks to fuel ballast tanks to extend range a bit. If you want to sneak some of our elex and sonar gear onboard as an upgrade and we can afford it, fine, if not, not a deal breaker.
Use? ASUW: Inshore in vicinity of choke points, harbor penetration, "frogman" delivery, and ASW: SSK for our own waters, and sub transit lane delousing (ours) and resident louse (theirs). Coastal photo, life guard, and generally undermine the manicuremaintenence of any enemy task force commanders. In peacetime, train our own asw guys.
Officer manning would be volunteer second dept head tours and a split XO tour as CO. The XO could fleet up from the dept heads. Enlisted, volunteer already with dolphins - only.
Kind of like NR1...sorta. If you want to make a few all girl and a few all boy and let 'em compete, fine. Wolf packs, oh, yes...please, please, please.
In other words, free up the killer whales for the large prey. Scavengers, bottom feeders inshore, force multipliers.
Old and creaky as I am, if I could get one (fantasy dreams of an over the hill old man, I know), ANY TIME, ANY OCEAN, it's your funeral. I'll be happy to take that little lady to the ball.
Trim above the seal line and you are fine. He was in spec by that standard.
Nimitz wrote to the Court at Nuremburg, said Doenitz didn't do anything he hadn't.
Good enough character witness for me.
Not to nitpick, three stripes in the German Navy, while NATO classified as OF3, is more of an equivalent to the USN Commander (junior half of the list) than to the Lieutenant Commander. The German Navy does have a tendency to underrank and underpay compared to the Army and most other NATO navies but for the nordics. My usual counterparts with like posts aboard in the USN and RN wore the same number of cuff rings on their sleeves as I did, only mine read "officially" as a lower NATO standard rank. It's nearly the same with all other "nordic" navies. The Norwegians went so far as to change the official translations of their ranks to what the cuff rings read for the english speaker and adjust most naval ranks upward by one grade in NATO classification when serving aboard ship (read STANAG 2116). It's just that we lost against the Army when the paygrades and relative seniorities of naval and army ranks got standardised. The official translation for the U33 CO's rank is Commander j.g., which is kind of a compromise...
The lowest rank you'll find in a commissioned officers posting aboard ship is the "Oberfähnrich zur See" with one half cuff ring. Courtesy translation is Ensign, though the rank is officially non-commissioned, as many LDO's pass as much as one to two years on their first officer posting aboard before being promoted to "Leutnant zur See" with one full cuff ring. When the "Oberfähnrich zur See" rank was created, mostly for budgetary reasons, after WWI it pushed all other officer postings up by one rung, meaning they got combined with a lower rank, i.e. post WWI Leutnants zur See had the same status and postings aboard as WWI and earlier Oberleutnants zur See and so on.
TBR,
Actually, you are wrong. NATO OF3=USA O4 ... which is a LCDR. That is also how their offices, parking spaces and privelages are distributed.
... this I actually know first hand.
Thank you for trying to be helpful, but you are not correct in your observations.
I've never denied that the German Korvettenkapitän is coded OF-3, but stated that he usually inhabits postings which are internationally those of Commanders due to the German Navy's irregular tendency of post-to-paygrade assignment. It's the Norwegians who do class their naval officers, with the same kind of "misaligned" cuff rings, one NATO rate higher when on sea postings than when on land postings.
But for the German Korvettenkapitäne, unlike as for the Kapitänleutnante, this is mostly a transitory state. Because most officer postings in that bracket, like that of the U33 CO, actually have dual paygrade assignment, i.e. German A13 and A14 available on the same posting with A14 being the paygrade of the three-and-a-half ring Fregatttenkapitän, which is coded OF-4. Promotion is usually more or less automatic and mostly only depends on time in grade and the years federal budget. The German Navy treats the three-stripe Korvettenkapitän and the three-and-a-half stripe Fregattenkapitän (in paygrade A14) basically (with very few exceptions) as equals in personnel assignment. It's actually a far bigger step for a Fregattenkapitän to be elevated in paygrade to A15, which comes without promotion, than the promotion to Fregattenkapitän A14 from Korvettenkapitän was since he is now eligible for A15 paygrade commands. Many if not most German regular officers retire with paygrade A14. Germany has a very weird system of officer ranks and paygrades because after WWII the armed forces were disbanded and upon the founding of the Bundeswehr the civil service paygrades got somewhat haphazardly mated to military ranks, with sometimes two military ranks having the same paygrade and other ranks being divided into two paygrades (where elevation in paygradewithout promotion, such as for a Kapitänleutnant from A11 to A12, is actually far more significant for the career than the preceeding promotion). Personnel assignments are paygrade and not rank based. This gets further complicated when paygrades are paired while crossing military ranks, such as A13 and A14, meaning almost all postings with those paygrades are either/or and can be inhabited by both paygrades with the owners of the lower one earning credit points for elevation to the higher one and the conversant military promotion.
Gosh, I'm starting to sound like an accountant. I'm sorry if this comes over as boring and riding a hobby horse.
Or an European.
I will chime in on the picture-I have one just like it. In fact, in the mid 80s in Norfolk, I believe many CSS8 boats gave one to newly qualified officers. Do not think I was the only one. Have to admit it may seem odd-I know that now we rightfully honor the guys on our side. I took it as a sign of the sacrifice and courage required to take a submarine to sea. Submariners recognize what the German Uboat Navy accomplished, and what their efforts cost. They set a high standard-so did we. Glad they lost, but it was not because their crews were second best.
That is a cool looking sub. Looks like the BatSub would
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