Shipping U-Boats by rail?

[Matt B.]

Hi guys,

After watching the movie "Das Boot" awhile back, I got to thinking (or maybe this was brought up earlier on this site...don't know) about why the U-Boat in the movie had to slip past the Strait of Gibraltar? Would it not have been less risky to have to the boat shipped by rail from its port in France, across France, to a German-occupied Mediterranean port? Given that the mission to thread the Strait was considered suicidal, I'm thinking that would have been a relatively easier thing to do (indeed partisans, the logistics and expense would have been big factors not to do it). Does anyone know if this was in fact done or even considered?

Thanks,
Matt B.

[TPMM]

I can tell you, that a small number of Type II U-boots was transported (by canals and rails) to the Black Sea. Then, these U-boots (exactly: U-18, U-19, U-20, U-23, U-24, U-9) were normally used in this area, sinking not a few Soviet ships.

[phylo_roadking]

Overland transport to the South of France or elsewhere would only have been possible up until 1943 or so, when long range photo recce missions started to be flown across the Med by the Allies, such as Antoine Saint-Exupery's final mission over the coast and into the Rhone Valley. After that they may as well have painted a target on them

[Matt B.]

Thanks for the input guys!

[sid guttridge]

Hi Guys,

The Vichy government did allow the sending of S-boats down the Rhone to the Mediterranean in 1941-42. I have seen pictures of them at Lyon.

The U-boats shipped to the Black Sea down the Danube were small coastal types. It was probably impossible to transport ocean going types by rail until the late war construction of U-boats in multiple sections was begun.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Andy H]

It was probably impossible to transport ocean going types by rail until the late war construction of U-boats in multiple sections was begun.

The Germans experienced frequent problems with there multiple sectional building programme, and one can only imagine these problems being harder to rectify if the boats were to be finally completed hundred/thousand(s) of miles away from the fabrication points.

Regards

[Patrick]

Does anyone know if this was in fact done or even considered?

Would a U-boat or sections thereof even fit through a railway tunnel?

[Ludwig]

Transporting das UBoots by rail vould haf been very risky if Papa Bull had come across such trains mit UBoots!
Papa Bull, French rail road engineer portrayed in der movie Das Train would have surely sabatoged such trains!
The real Papa Bull was eventually caught placing Suiez in wheels bearings of engines and railroad kars!

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[phylo_roadking]

Patrick, we're used to seeing U-Boats "sliced" like a cucumber in pics of the late-model boats sitting ready to be welded up in late 1944...but I'd assume that if boats were to be moved prefabricted then the design would be broken down into sections that could be moved. For sections that couldn't and be assembled safely...then I'd assume they could be shipped in the form of cut plate ready-marked and sized, and welded up wherever.

Would take a long time to do of course...but the important thing would be getting a U-Boat to sea in the right place, not that the extra work meant assembly took four months instead of three, for example.

[tallus83]

Patrick has already stated the obvious.

One has to get the sections through tunnels and either through or over bridges. Railroad bridges do have weight limits also.

Size limitations would have been the main reason for not being able to do this.

[phylo_roadking]

if boats were to be moved prefabricted then the design would be broken down into sections that could be moved

As I said, we are NOT talking about late war Type XXI boats here like we are all used to seeing pics of, like the one below, instead much smaller coastal boats. Long-range boats would be wasted in the Med.

[Benoit Douville]

That's interesting. What about Allied attacks by Bombers against those U-boats transported by rails, did that happened?

[Paulus II]

Found an article on the Kriegsmarine operations in the Black Sea that has some information about the transport of 6 submarines from Hamburg to the Black Sea.
Though these were the small coastal Type IIb boats it does give an impression of the time and effort involved in moving submarines overland and by river.
The full article can be found here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... 99487/pg_1

Below you will find some excerpts from the article cut and pasted into one story for easy reading:

When, in the fall of 1941, it became clear that the war against the USSR would not be a Blitzkrieg, but that a long war must be expected, the German’s high command decided in December 1941 it was a matter of highest priority to transfer submarines to the Black Sea. A seemingly daunting task, much of the trek would require imaginative methods of sea and overland transportation. According to this project, the submarines had to be at first partially disassembled in Kiel and then loaded on shallow-draft pontoons. These were to be towed via the North Sea - Baltic Canal to Hamburg, and then on the Elbe to Dresden. There the submarines were to be shifted from the pontoons to low-bed motorized trailers. Then a drive of 300-mi over highways to Ingolstadt on the Danube was to follow. There the submarines were again to be shifted on pontoons and towed by tugs to Linz or the Romanian Galatz, where they would finally be re-assembled.
To carry out this unique project, a team of 600 men comprising shipbuilders, truck drivers, traffic policemen and other specialists was organized. The transport and auxiliary vehicles comprised heavy towing trucks, multi-axle low-bed trailers with a load-carrying capacity of 60-tons, a great number of trucks, tank trucks for fuel, communication vehicles, truck-mounted workshops and others.
The six Type IIB submarines to be transferred to the Black Sea would form the 30th U-boat flotilla with two groups. The first group comprised U-9, U-W and U-24 and the second group - U-18, U-20 and U-23.
The preparations for the transfer of the submarines began in the spring of 1942. Because of the limited depth of the waterways, all heavy equipment such as diesel engines, power batteries, guns and torpedoes, were removed. In order to reduce the height, the conning towers were partly dismantled. Once in the dry dock, five pairs of pontoons were fastened side by side vertically on the side of each submarine (the size of each pontoon was 10-ft by 4.5-ft). After filling the dock with water, the submarine with the pontoons was overturned at 90-degrees so that its hull was lying on the ten pontoons, the draft being 4-ft. In this most unusual manner the submarines were transported over water.
For the road transport, each low-bed trailer was towed by two or four towing trucks, which were arranged in tandem, or in pairs in two rows. Driving under and over bridges was most diflicult, requiring high precision and strict attention of the drivers. All bridges were examined in advance and, if necessary, they were reinforced or reconstructed. The distance of 280-mi from the Elbe to the Danube was passed in 56-hrs at a speed of about 5-mph. The change of drivers and the refueling of the towing trucks were carried out without stopping the convoys.
The submarines of the first group were assembled in 42- to 45-days in Linz, and the boats of the second group in Galatz. They were then towed to Sulina in the Danube delta and from there they continued to the Black Sea and their base at Constantsa.
The duration of the transfer of the submarines from the preparation in Kiel to reaching the Black Sea had been ten months. The last boat of the 30th flotilla ( U-20) reached Constantsa in July 1943.
The submarines eventually took part in 57 military missions and in the process sank the following Soviet ships: U-20-tank ship Vaillant Couture (16 January 1944), cargo ship PesteK19 June 1944); U-23- schooner Tanais (23 October 1943), harbor tug Smely (29 May 1944); U-24 - tank ship Emba (30 June 1943).

[Paulus II]

Sorry, double post

[TPMM]

Nice article, Paulus.
One question: why was one of the Type IIb called "U-W"?