GIANT SUBMARINE.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17662, 13 August 1929, Page 6

GIANT SUBMARINE.

GERMAN SECRET REVEALED

Germany, towards the close of the

war, was building a submarine of enormous size and power, specially designed to attack shipping in distant oceans (states the London Daily Telegraph). This striking disclosure is made by Herr Rasenack, a German naval constructor, in the current issue of a Berlin technical organ. The submarine cruiser in question was laid down in Kiel dockyard, but owing to the termination of hostilities was never finished. The vessel had a surface displacement of 3500 tons, and would thus have been larger than any submarine in existence at that time or designed since the war. Its dimensions exceeded those of the French boat Surcouf—now on the stocks at Cherbourg, the American V 4, and the British XI, which are, in that sequence, the largest undersea craft in the world. This giant German submarine cruiser, it is understood, would have had a speed of 19 knots and a cruising endurance of 10,0000 nautical miles.

She was to have mounted three 6in. guns, besides lighter guns and tor-

pedo tubes. Her upper deck and con-

ning tower would have been heavily

armour-plated. (,

A submarine-, raider of this type might have proved a most formidable menace, since she could have engaged, and probably sunk by gunfire alone.

the armed escort ships which accom-. panied the Allies’ ocean convoys.

Moreover, her great radius of action would have rendered her independent, of shore bases for weeks-, if hot months, at a time. Herr Rasenack, who was engaged in submarine construction throughout the war, divulges many other new facts about German, submarine building policy. In the final year of the war a large number of U-boats of a special type were under construction, known as the F, or Flanders, class. Although displacing but 3GO tons, they were considered to be ideal for opei-ations in the North Sea and the English channel and its approaches, since they incorporated all the les-

sons suggested by three years! of experience, and were specially planned with a view to preventing British-anti-submarine methods. No boat of this new class was completed before the armistice.