Germany's CURSED Schnellboots | Sails and Salvos

for centuries navies and shipping companies have sought to improve their ship designs in order to achieve higher entire top speeds this has seen the change of ships from being powered by sails to steam to diesel and the overall design of ships going from large tub-like shapes to sleek and thinner styles during the 1920s and early 30s the fastest ships could go at most about 39 knots which was respectable but still not as fast as many would prefer however during the 1930s and 40s the german kriegsmarine worked to try and remedy this through the designing and testing of various projects some incorporating some truly strange techniques from ancient times mankind has yearned to master the seas both for trade and for warfare as centuries passed we learned and adapted our seafaring vessels to be stronger and more well-equipped to face off against anything they could encounter from the ships of the line during the age of sale to modern nuclear submarines this is sales and salvos before we set sail on today's topic i have to once again give a special thanks to established titles for sponsoring this portion of the video thanks to a historic scottish tradition with the purchase of just one square foot of land from their site you can become a lord or lady whether you're looking for a last minute gift for someone or you just want to help preserve the natural landscape of scotland this is a great option for you with every order you not only preserve a plot of land but established titles will also work with global charities to plant a tree with every order head on down to the link in the description and use the code cone10 to save 10 on your order and drive your friends and family crazy with your new title they also told me that the first 200 people to make a purchase with my link will have their plot located close to mine meaning we can create a mini cone kingdom together thanks again to them for sponsoring now let's dive into what you clicked on this video for while many of these boats we look at today are just that boats let's start with the largest project that aimed to design a completely new type of ship the main problem when it comes to the speed of ships is how their holes react with the water with the conventional design being a bow that is used to cut through the water and waves in order to streamline the ship's movement but what if you could make a ship that could go even faster than conventional ships and at the same time not be a massive target this was the idea of rudolph engelman in the 1930s to develop a hull that could be used for a new class of destroyers or torpedo boats that could reach the speed of 39 to 50 knots in march of 1934 engelman submitted his design to the patent office which depicted a strangely shaped semi-submersible ship as you can see in the drawing most of the ship's hull was placed under the water with a small superstructure above it this presented an extremely streamlined shape and in 1935 the design would be finalized to the vessel which was eventually built with these updates engelmann caught the attention of the kriegsmarine due to the ship's revolutionary unique design in 1938 it was decided that there was potential for a ship that could attack its target at high speeds with little to no detectability and therefore a prototype was ordered the ship was built in 1940 and launched in 1941 with the name versus schnellboat v she was powered by four man l-117 19-30 diesel engines and was 160 feet long with a draft of 11 feet 10 inches her superstructure only extended 12 feet 6 inches above the water with the ship only displacing 292 tons it was projected to reach engelman's goal of 50 knots for weaponry it was planned to be armed with two torpedo tubes and two 20-millimeter cannons some sources state that she was capable of sinking herself like a submarine but would not be able to move if done so while a revolutionary design vs5 was quite ahead of its time and as a result she had many issues that the kriegsmarine did not have time to deal with during the heat of world war ii the small size of the superstructure meant that the ship would often go under waves in heavy seas which is not preferable due to the potential for sinking if the ship was not prepared ahead of time another problem stemmed from its single propeller which in conjunction with her cigar-shaped hull and small superstructure would cause the ship to list 14 degrees to either side unfortunately these problems would not see engelman's proposed fixes such as the implementation of two propellers nor the ship itself go any further she was abandoned in 1942 and subsequently disappeared at the same time as engelmann's development of the vs5 other designers around germany worked on another type of ship that was capable of reaching impressive speeds this design would be known as the tragfluge boot otherwise known as hydrofoils the concept of a hydrofoil is relatively simple as it works to give boats high speeds by lifting the entire body out of the water and gliding on one or more fins that are still in the water the propellers are kept in the water by the use of very long drive shafts or they are attached to one or multiple of the fin struts with the benefits brought about by the inclusion of hydrofoils the boats themselves could be given more unique shapes to maximize them for different tasks let's take a look at some of the more interesting ones these next two might be familiar to war thunder naval players they are two prototype boats known as vs8 and vs10 built by the sexenburg shipyard from 1940 to 1942. vs8 and vs10 departed from the normal convention of the previous hydrofoil boats due to them being much bigger with vs10 being 76 ft long and vs8 being 104 feet with a longer ship also came a heavier weight with vs10 displacing 46 tons and vs8 a hefty 70 tons vs8 was originally meant to be a new class of these hydrofoils and its larger size is due to it being ordered as a form of landing craft for africa core units it would be able to transport materials and vehicles under 26 tons but not be at the same risk due to their high speed and smaller size than regular transport ships in order to load a vehicle the aft bay would be flooded in order to allow for a specially designed pontoon to be floated this pontoon was equipped with two 40 horsepower engines which would allow for it to be driven to shore or a dock and then a vehicle would be driven on it it has been stated that this would be either cars or tanks such as the panzer 38t or even the panzer 3 or 4. when testing the pontoon it was found that it only took two minutes to load and less than a minute to unload it is unknown how a vehicle such as either of these may have affected its hydrofoil and capabilities as tests were either never conducted with simulated vehicles or the records were lost another proposed use for the boat was as a mine layer where it would use its high speed to reach critical locations and drop its load of 15 to 20 mines both versions included four 15 millimeter mg151 machine guns and four plexiglas turrets for defense vs8 was completed and commissioned for testing in 1943 but quickly ran into issues first off she was supposed to be equipped with two 2500 horsepower mb511 diesel engines but these were replaced by two 2 000 horsepower mb501 engines that caused the ship to lose its speed from a projected 41 to 45 knots to only 37 knots she was also found to not be tall enough under sail and that her hull was not reaching high enough out of the water to clear waves in moderate to rough conditions further hindering her performance on top of this the boat was also found to be heavier than designed by five tons and that sea spray quickly started corroding her forecastle the boat continued to be tested by the kriegsmarine until september of 1944 when she ran aground and was abandoned it is unknown what happened to her after the war another boat similar to vs8 was vs10 but this one was ordered for a more conventional role as a torpedo boat it was equipped with four 1500 horsepower asm 185 engines and reportedly able to reach a top speed of 58 knots she was armed with two torpedo tubes and six 15 millimeter mg-151s in single turrets it is unknown what exactly happened to her after testing now at this point you may be thinking that these past few vessels were not too weird but now we have reached the truly crazy designs we saw earlier that one of the planned benefits of engelmann's vs5 was that it would be hard to detect but what if you tried even harder to be undetectable without using a submarine well this is where the bhagavad company the same ones that made the goliath mine came in in 1944 the germans knew that the allies were planning to land somewhere in france and bogvard was tasked with the creation of boats that could be used in the defense it was a very small frameless boat only reaching 22 feet long with a minuscule draft of only one foot they were made of sheet metal and designed to be mass-produced quickly due to its shape the boat was called the schlitten or sled and was equipped with a 90 horsepower engine it was armed with two torpedoes that would be attached to either side despite its small size the engine was very underpowered and the torpedoes did not help it the prototype only reached 12 knots without torpedoes it could only reach 18 knots much lower than the projected maximum speed of 25 knots due to these disappointing results a second version was created named the schlitten 2. it was about the same size and draft and had a much better speed due to a more powerful 600 horsepower bmw aircraft engine it had two crew members and carried two torpedoes it could reach 30 knots with its armament and after releasing would speed up to 48 knots to escape 48 knots might be a nice speed but what if you wanted to go even faster there have been plenty of designs incorporating aircraft engines in history but what if you took it a step further and strapped on an engine from a cruise missile yes you heard that right the kriegsmarine and the cave verband were not finished with their crazy plans for ultra-fast attack boats one of these was the springboat tornado a catamaran that was to be connected by a center section that held the argus aso14 pulse jet from the v-1 missile the concept of this boat was similar to the japanese shinyo boat in that each pontoon would be packed with 770 pounds of explosives and driven into a target however unlike the shinyo the boat was to be radio operated one was built in 1944 and was reportedly able to reach 48 knots but was hard to control at that speed a smaller version more resembling the shinyo was built in 1945 and named the sitracha the pulse jet was more successful with this design allowing it to be tested up to 60 knots but at the cost of making the boat so unstable that it could capsize at any time both boats were destroyed after the surrender in 1945. arguably the most interesting of the jet designs was the project 5b which returned to the hydrofoil concept this was arguably the craziest looking of the hydrofoils with very tall struts and a design differing from many patrol boats of the day the 5b was to be powered by either two pulse jets from the v-1 or juncker's umo-004 turbo jets mounted on either sides of the boat these would provide over 2 000 horsepower and propelled the ship over 40 knots some sources stating even up to 70 knots the boat was to be armed with a top turret consisting of two to four fifteen millimeter or twenty millimeter cannons with some sources showing the boat with additional mounts to give a total of over 10 cannons and machine guns it is not known if the boat would be given torpedoes but given the necessity for anti-ship capability at the time two torpedoes would likely be mounted in the rear the project 5b did not go any further than the drawing boards but a hydrofoil with very similar characteristics was created in 1954 by friedrich vendel and is currently on display at the german maritime museum it is well known that throughout history wartime conditions have caused some of the most interesting technological developments to be created from attempts to gain battlefield superiority this was no different in the case of world war ii especially when it came to germany as we have seen through this video the kriegsmarine was willing to try anything to create an ultra-fast attack boat that could engage the enemy without detection this saw the creation of a semi-submersible ship the relatively new concept of hydrofoils and even strapping a pulse jet from the v-1 onto boats to throw at the enemy fortunately for allied ships but unfortunately for naval history none of these designs got past their testing phase and nearly all of them disappeared after the war we may never know how they would have performed if deployed but we can certainly marvel at the wacky designs of german shipbuilders hopefully you enjoyed today's video if you did and you want to see more ship related content like this be sure to let me know in the comments and check out the full sales and salvos playlist thanks as always to my channel members who help support my content and a final thanks to established titles for sponsoring a portion of this video make sure to check out that link below and use the code cone10 to save on your order i'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: ConeOfArc

Views: 95,459

Keywords: ConeOfArc, sea mines, Germany's CURSED Schnellboots | Sails and Salvos, schnellboot, schnellboot documentary, kriegsmarine, Germany's CURSED Schnellboots, vs-8 war thunder, vs-10 war thunder, vs-8, vs8, vs8 boat, vs-8 boat, german hydrofoil, ww2 hydrofoil

Id: kfio0VHXUmw

Length: 13min 18sec (798 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 30 2022