Spiny Norman wrote:
Not only was Das Boot brought to America, it came over in two versions. One was subtitled, and one was dubbed.
The dubbed version received much more care than is usual for foreign films. The film’s original director produced the new vocal track, and he brought the whole original cast into the studio to dub their own lines into English. The result is quite satisfying.
There was also a “Director’s Cut” version of Das Boot, which actually is the only version I saw. I’m pretty sure it was dubbed.
About a week ago I watched the Director’s Cut of Das Boot on DVD. Best settle in - it’s three and a half hours long.
They took full advantage of all the niftiness that DVD allows with soundtracks and/or subtitles. You can hear the audio in English, German or Spanish, and you can see subtitles in English, Spanish or French (or none at all).
We chose German sound with English subtitles.
They sell it at express.com, among other places.
It was. And it’s also true that, compared to modern standards, it was pretty stinkin’ primitive. 
I believe that US subs had both active and passive, but very rarely used the active since it’s like walking through the woods at night with a flashlight - somebody will see you coming long before your light illuminates them.
There were passive sonar heads outside the hull, and they rotated to give bearing information on sounds. There wasn’t any computer processing, so the sonar guy’s ears were awfully crucial filters. They could pick out individual ships and give approximate bearings and estimates of distances. They could also hear depth charges splashing as they were dropped into the water overhead.
I THINK that destroyers relied more on active sonar when pursuing subs. Subs were pretty quiet, and the destroyers themselves were pretty loud (somebody correctly pointed out that they didn’t have towed arrays). I’ve been led to understand that destroyers pretty much had to go dead in the water to get use out of their passive sonar, and they occasionally did just that.
I’m no bubblehead, so any of the above information might be wrong. I welcome any corrections or additions.
A couple of really good books on WWII submarining are by Harry Homewood. They’re called “Final Harbor” and “Silent Sea” (SS is a sequel to FH). Homewood served on subs in WWII, and goes into a fair amount of detail in his novels. I believe they are out of print, but one can probably still find them through amazon.com and similar sources.
I just watched the recent Das Boot rip-off, and they did indeed have the guy at the headphones reporting how many depthcharges were dropped, presumably by counting splashes.
I wonder why the charges were set to a particular depth, rather then, say, triggered by metal like mines were. After all, it’s not like you could build much of a sub out of wood…
The US did try magnetic triggering of depth charges during WWII. They were apparently pretty successful at obtaining kills on the rare occasions when they didn’t totally malfunction. The reliability problem sounds like the only reason they didn’t get more widespread use.
For reference, see U.S. Navy Depth Charges.
The US subs were also plagued by magnetic exploders in their torpedoes at the start of the Pacific campaign. The idea was that the fish would travel below the keel of the target ship and detonate there, triggering off the magnetic field of the metal target. Since most of the explosive force gets directed upwards, this is far more effective than an explosion against the side of a ship’s hull.
But the things just didn’t work. Mk.6 Contact & Magnetic Exploder.
The best submarine book from WWII, bar none is Run Silent, Run Deep by Capt. Edward L. Beach, a WWII submarine officer and respected naval historian, the book that practically invented the genre. Beach also wrote two sequels, Dust on the Sea and Cold is the Sea, as well as a great deal of other naval non-fiction.
If you want non-fiction WWII submarine stories, you should check out the two books by Rear Admiral Richard H. O’Kane, one of our most distinguished submarine skippers and winner of the Medal of Honor for his exploits. His first is Wahoo : The Patrols of America’s Most Famous World War II Submarine, which details his service on the U.S.S. Wahoo including his time as executive officer under the legendary Dudley “Mush” Morton. The second is Clear the Bridge! : The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang, the story of the submarine he commanded during the war.
Three and a half hours ? It’s intense, but even so. The original original German version was a TV series, so they presumably had plenty of material.
Dubbing is, IMHO, most often barbaric, but I guess sometimes necessary. When I watched the series, one of the things that really got me was the “everyday” German spoken by the characters. I suppose I’ll have to find the DVD.
[H3 thread hijack]
Five, I run with Hamburg - I haven’t met Little Sister (not that I recall), but then again I’ve never been to Frankfurt to hash, and I didn’t make it to the last Eurohash. Used to visit West Rhine H3 (Munich) all the time. You’re running with ?
[/H3 thread hijack]
If they can dampen out the noise of the propulsion and its supporting systems, then it’s very hard to believe a whisper wouldn’t also be dampened out somehow. What if someone sneezed? Maybe someone can elaborate further…
I should clarify. My reply refers to modern times. And, I know you’re gonna say they cut the propulsion when they need to be silent. Still, there are some supporting systems you cannot afford to cut off. I can only WAG that a constant droning sound, the frequency of which is probably easily determined, may be easier to cancel out somehow as opposed to a sneeze with a sound signature perhaps all over the audio spectrum!
So, I ask in light of today’s technology: Would one stray noise, a sneeze for example, blow 'em away, literally?
The most famous American WWII submarine was called the Wahoo?
I’m having another Monty Python moment.
Sure thing. Some links:
http://www.csp.navy.mil/ww2boats/wahoo.htm
http://www.twics.com/~mackinno/wahoo-home.html
http://www.subnet.com/fleet/ss238.htm
http://www.warfish.com/warfish/index.html
For a thread on the definition of the name of the fish wahoo:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=2591
Jeff_42 wrote:
The British used hunter-killer submarines quite a bit in WWII. British subs sank at least seven German and Italian submarines if I recall correctly.
Also, WWII-era subs spent almost all of their time on the surface because of their slow submerged speed, limited endurance on batteries and generally unpleasant effects of a lack of ventilation. Sure, schnorkels were extensively used later in the war, about they were loathed by German submariners.
Andrew Warinner
Mr Lunasea says that the biggest culprit is the metal toilet seats banging down on the metal toilets. The noises that will really give them away are things that are connected to the hull, dropping a wrench, using the loudspeaker, running etc.
I’m in Atlanta, which is a veritable Hash Wonderland. There are several local hashes; as listed here:
http://www.atlantahash.com/otherhashes.htm
I’ve never hashed outside Atlanta, but I have been to Muenchen, so I bet there’s great hashing there at least.
“Psssst…hey Buddy…the First Mate is a schnook…pass it on!”
I thought that the Tang was the most decorated ship in WWII, with the most kills. (Its last kill, alas, was itself.)
As for the MAD detection of the Alfa’s, I’ll ask my brother when I talk to him next, he is an S-3B Viking pilot, and a graduate of ASW school. (Fun thing there, both his roommates at VMI are now submariners. )
i’m shocked that no one mentioned that classic kelsey grammer film where he plays captain to a bunch of rag-tag submariners who are in a wargame. the movie was so classic that i forgot the name, and don’t care to go to IMDB to look it up. anyway, they go silent for a bit…no one talks…something happens (a guy farts, i think) so they get busted, right? NO! they start singing “louie louie” to give the impression that they are a pleasure boat and having a party (i think there was a fishing trawler nearby) and they avoid detectance! classic!
for brad_d and Jeff_42
According to Anti-Submarine Warfare p. 10 (sorry I don’t have a complete cite; I photocopied the page from the library and didn’t record the author or publisher)
I don’t the scale on which these were issued, or to what kinds of vessels. I don’t think the UK had a dedicated class of small sub-hunters in WWI, so I imagine they fitted them to ordinary fleet destroyers.
The US, on the other hand, had its class of 110-foot subchasers. According to Jane’s Fighting Ships of World War I
So I suppose not all 331 USN subchasers were fitted with hydrophones in the first place. Anyway, I am surprised at both the claimed “acoustic radius” (radius for detecting what? a submarine? what type? at what speed? what depth?), which seems very optimistic, and the fact that they were fitted to 85-ton wooden motorboats. Unfortunately, Janes’ didn’t discuss ASW sensors of American fleet destroyers.
Anyway, I hope this clears up some of our questions about anti-sub capabilities in the early part of the Century. I don’t have any stats on the acoustic radius for a K-tube fish to detect a sneeze though. sigh
Thank you, Uke.
And I’m very disappointed to find out what “Hash Wonderland” means these days.