U32 - German Submarine Soldiers | Full Documentary

it can filter naval base along with recording crew alpha with you 32 alpha crew heads towards the maneuver through two diving stations the crew of the four hundred million euro submarine is constantly on alert up to 30 people live here in the most crimped conditions for weeks on end script that some have problems with smelly feet of course but you just have to put up with it the mood on board can quickly change the food has to be good I don't think I prepared 136 meals from the crew today it conferred a naval base in schleswig-holstein the German Navy's only deepwater port on the Baltic Sea and this is where the six German Navy submarines are based not very many but they're ultra-modern besides the submarine errs combat swimmers and the crews of fleet service and support boats are also based here the total personnel of 1,900 8:00 p.m. the crew of the youth 32 gather for the roll call the submarine is to sail the following day commander Rudolph lenta and Lieutenant Commander Beck swear the crew in tomato salute the commander eyes left for commander lente it's the first maneuver with this crew which has the name crew Alfa the 28 members belong to the first submarine squadron a confer de and are part of the elite band of sailors because in the German Navy there are only around 80 active submarine errs in four separate crews [Music] the crew have been through two months of intense preparation for this maneuver you 32 will sail from a confer de across the Bay of keel to reach the hull to now lock in the keel Ford the lock marks the beginning of the Kiel Canal one of the busiest waterways in the world after almost 100 kilometers in the narrow canal the submarine passes through the lock at buns button here the cameras have to leave the vessel as the u32 is on its way to a top-secret NATO maneuver off Plymouth in southern England [Music] you 32 is a class 212 a submarine the world's most modern non nuclear-powered vessel type the hull is made of non-magnetic steel this makes the submarine almost invisible to military tracking devices and virtually undetectable underwater even for sonar 1,500 tons of special steel was used the interior is pure high-tech much of it top-secret a submarine of this type costs around 400 million euros [Music] in a war scenario these torpedo tubes contains six wire-guided heavyweight torpedoes there are 21 beds on board and the up to 30 men and women in the crew sleep alternately in shifts the almost two square meters of private space also have to be shared u32 has the NATO designation s 182 the Steel Colossus is 56 metres long 7 metres wide and 11 and a half metres high it generates 4240 horsepower you 32 can dive to at least 250 metres officially in a defense scenario it is armed with six torpedoes the crew and control rooms are located in the central part of the pressurized hull in this very limited space the up to 30 men and women often have to live and work for several weeks at the rear is the modern hybrid drive consisting of a diesel engine and a fuel cell this makes the you 32 one of the quietest submarines in the world the propeller too is particularly silent it was specially developed and his top-secret before departure the vessel is refueled the fuel cell needs hydrogen and oxygen and so the tanks are now filled with the so called reactants [Music] inside the vessel the marine engineer officer VIP galoot Vic is in charge principally this is where the reaction between oxygen and hydrogen takes place from which we generate a proportion of our electricity this box is simply covered up and everything behind the cover is confidential we're not allowed to talk about it and we don't want everyone to be able to see what's installed there either basically we are an electric battery powered vessels meaning that we draw our energy from the battery and this battery of course has to be charged at some point principally the propeller is powered by the battery if outside air is available it's operated by a generator driven by a diesel engine when submerged and cut off from outside air the oxygen and hydrogen in the fuel cell react the energy this produces is again fed via the generator into the battery which powers the submarine this revolutionary fuel cell technology enables the u-32 to travel underwater for weeks on end at the base commander rudolf lenta is making the final preparations so that you 32 can leave ports safely and on time the 35 year old has been the commander of crew alpha for only two months and this is their first mission together each tag ad Fonfon tones I'm responsible for overall safety I can in fact for every single life on board most of my job requires full concentration because final decisions rest with vanes and anything like things goes wrong ultimately falls back on me that's why I'm extremely conscientious about double-checking everything especially because it's the first major mission with this crew [Music] now the most important thing has to be dealt with you 32 is being loaded with provisions for submarine crews food that's said to be good for the nerves is very important so there's no shortage of soft drinks chocolate and hearty snacks where others see nothing but chaos Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Beck has everything under control this isn't chaos at all everyone knows exactly what to do and when and where to do it it's teamwork got the final thing it's any different when people bring the shopping off everything just stands around in the kitchen until it's all put away and it's just the same here the diameter of this round access hatch is just about one meter and now hundreds of liters of drinks a good 220 kilos of meat as well as boxes of vegetables have to be carried through it the crew passes the food from hand to hand and what they call them the supplies chain until it reaches the storage location three hundred and twenty kilos of fruit and vegetables and 300 kilos of frozen foods are taken on board ships cook mustn't feed la puts the fresh goods into cold storage now we check the best before dates to make sure they'll last till the end of the trip and then we know everything will be fine storing the supplies will take another few hours the work on a submarine is often exhausting first mate Matanzas knows just how important it is to have foods for nerve health onboard okay I'm now meeting at all the sweet stuff and the drinks are essential really because they help lift the mood we're not actually allowed to carry our own sweets with us on board but just having a chocolate bar every so often is actually quite important otherwise I think you definitely have people at each other's throats Aniki Legon a number of crates of beer are also stored onboard referred to affectionately by the crew as Vasa or watch relief you can have a beer occasionally theoretically every soldier is entitled to have two bottles of beer a day but they rarely do hardly anyone drinks beer at sea and it has to be sanctioned by the commander anyway [Music] nevertheless sonar technician Phillip Angus looks forward to having the traditional beer on arriving at their destination every inch of free space on the cramped submarine is used for storing food and drinks u-32 takes on provisions to last three weeks food and more food wherever you look in a war situation these torpedo tubes would contain torpedoes but now they're being used as storage space for beer in this case one of the crew pushes the crates down to the end of the tube with his feet so now pills beer is stored where otherwise deadly missiles would await their launch [Music] it's definitely quite stressful you can see that there's not a lot of space on a submarine so you need to make sure that you don't take one big four key Latino on board but lots of little ones as they're easier to store how exciting this cart and this should really be left behind the homeport to reduce waste my so I make everything out of the packaging and just keep the instruction part that tells me how to do something vitamin and put that away somewhere thanks for baking after six hours all the food has been stored away Maas and Fiedler takes a short break [Music] outside scuba divers are getting ready it's their job to check the submarines for explosives or damage below the waterline before they leave port the offenders in zone on this is part of what the underwater combat defense unit does my first dive always involves looking for limpet mines or anything else intended to prevent our departure from Hindon zone [Music] the search for deadly explosives and possible damage is routine procedure before every vessel leaves port even in times of peace the divers carefully examined the entire hull of the submarine metre by metre before moving on to check the anchor [Music] all clear they find neither damaged nor limpet mines on the hull of u-32 back at the base commander who doth lenta has called his officers together for the navigation briefing to discuss the precise route u-32 will be sailing through the extremely busy areas of the keel canal before passing through it a major challenge for the young captain and his crew but while there are 14 fairies in the area and we don't have a person I scheduled because they go back and forth all day long there are eight bridges - but they're all high enough at 42 meters so we can easily pass unto them if you look at this point here in particular we don't have much space so if any vessel comes toward us and we'll have to navigate very carefully will operate special navigation here meaning we won't just rely on technology but navigate visually as well because the acre is clear for dropping so our force comes to worse we can halt the vessel on the spot immediately all the emergency rudder is also in so if there's a rudder failure we can react as quickly as possible Bianca [Music] before you 32 can leave port the crew has to make sure all technical devices are functioning properly chief electronics technician Gustav Sheila is carrying out the final checks u-32 has two periscopes the larger observation periscope with a thermal imaging device and the smaller more inconspicuous attack periscope I'm now testing the various mechanisms in the periscope that means I switch on when the rotary drive is connected and this allows me to operate the periscope with this button here and rotate it with this button here I can check whether the horizontal angle works that means we can go up and down now I simply adjust the height switch on the zoom and that's it [Music] after months of preparation the time has finally come you 32 is about to leave port the crew is ready now we've all gradually realized that we're actually going to see up to now we haven't really had that feeling even when packing our cases and things because when you've done it so often it just becomes routine at some point but I think it's about time we get going I'm looking forward to it it's a kind of anticipation of what's to come that's what we've been trained to do so now of course we want to show that we can do it the boat's ready for sea and we're happy that we can finally leave and just go to sea again in follow items and preparations are completed the big day has arrived we're heading to England on the manoeuvre we've been training for four months so now we can show and we'll get through this manoeuvre very well good morning alpha eyes front you know this is not fun and games this is the way we'll do things commander and that's why I have to tell you this it's serious business and if things go the way we want them to it could even be fun at something be prepared for this and be respectful and polite in the normal manner curr alpha attention to maneuver stations for 35 year-old who doth lenta this is his first mission as commander everything now has to run smoothly the crew is well trained we've got everything on board and already have our first information for the schedule next week we're leaving port with a good feeling [Music] the mission begins u32 leaves port at maneuver stations boat is ready to sell do we cast off yes cast off you 32 leaves the Naval Base at a confer de [Music] the passage to England alone is a challenge for both vessel and crew a confetti Bay it stretches 17 kilometers inland there are numerous marinas and jetties here and a lot of traffic u32 constantly has to avoid other seagoing vessels such as yachts and fishing boats using sonar radar and the periscopes first watch officer Beck and its staff constantly observe their surroundings and we always use the periscopes just to compare the contacts we have on the radar because we can't say for sure whether the different blips on the radar as we call them our vessel a barrel or just interference a rain shower for example or a larger bird flying by can always show up briefly on the screen you thirty two is about to submerge and will then be virtually invisible for other skippers the crew now has to be especially careful to avoid collisions that's a fruit to diving stations the long drawn-out intonation of the commands ensures the crew can recognize them from the melody that's particularly important in emergency situations the commander is the last person on the bridge before the submarine dives he goes up once more to check whether the vessels upper decks really are ready for diving he alone is responsible for the safety of his crew [Music] [Applause] only when the commander is satisfied that the submarine can dive safely does he return to the control room to give the order dive down to periscope depth [Music] the helmsman is responsible for course speed and depth after the watch officer has given the command the helmsman steers the submarine down to the given depth [Music] you 32 begins to submerge [Music] for the submarine to submerge completely and go down to periscope depth takes 60 seconds [Music] yeah [Music] you thirty two has reached its periscope depth of 13.5 meters [Music] but how does diving work technically [Music] between the pressure hull and the outer hull submarines have large ballast tanks when the vessel is on the surface they're filled with air for diving these tanks are flooded with water the submarine becomes heavier and it sinks to resurface the ballast tanks are filled with compressed air which displaces the water in the tanks allowing the submarine to surface [Music] using the periscope commander lenta checks the surroundings to avoid any collisions the periscopes are among the most essential items of equipment on board yes we have two different ones FC was that this one is the observation Paris will shine at this time the difference is that the outlook at alone the part that's above water surface is much larger vehicle is than the one from the front periscope as young as you can hear I keep getting messages that I have to answer but there are communication points everywhere so I can speak at any time it's to this periscope has a much larger outlook head than the front periscope we call this one here the observation periscope the alarm if I see with this observation periscope we have a number of different devices a thermal imaging device which enables infrared vision so we can use this periscope at night one you can move it it also has radar to get out the ships bearings the drawback is when the periscope is up we're easier to find so if we really only want to look through the periscope we tend to take the front water because it's much smaller the submarine crew constantly scans the environment not only optically but also acoustically sonar technician Phillip Angas and his colleagues have to make sense of a massive different engine sounds from boats and ships of all shapes and sizes officials and phones and fishermen are very interesting for us as you can often hear a winch or something like that Marus working noises are the sound of nets you have to be able to differentiate a bit if a fisherman is making these working noises we are interested in how he's travelling and in what direction so we don't cross behind them and can avoid the net somehow otherwise we also have vehicles with lower rev speeds 80 rpm propellers for example they are usually larger merchant vessels that we needn't worry about too much since they just travel their normal routes from A to B and so are much easier for us to avoid when fish are a fisherman is constantly changing course going right or left and maneuvering so that's something we have to take a greater interest in yachts in particular present a big challenge on sonar they're scarcely audible the sonar technician must be able to recognize all other seagoing vessels such as fishing boats freighters passenger ships or motor boats from their sound alone [Music] but amend let somebody help my mother if it's a merchant vessel you can hear it better because they often have four blades in the propeller and one blade is always distinctive and sounds a bit like that very clearly please check bearing 305 in its submerged state u-32 is currently traveling at 5 knots which is about 10 kilometers an hour so far everything's going smoothly but then an emergency announcement [Music] diesel engine on tire drive motor a pressure pump as quickly as possible the firefighting crew has to put on their protective clothing and gas masks on all sections of the submarine ceiling there are emergency air manifolds which the fire crew can connect to the commander is putting his crew to the test he wants to know exactly how resilient they are this may be only a drill but advancing through the narrow corridors to the stern of the submarine wearing full protective gear and oxygen masks is an extremely strenuous task in a real situation first mate Matanzas would have already extinguished the fire but here he is simulating smoke poisoning and has to be rescued as quickly as possible despite the urgency the fire crew transport the victim with extreme care the injured man is taken to the officers mess which has meanwhile been converted into a sick bay this is where he will be stabilized you've just taken the pulse okay then connect the pulse oximeter the yellow would just to check the oxygen saturation and then we'll insert another cannula diagnosis suspected smoke inhalation he's still unconscious we assume he's inhaled smoke we're just stabilizing him now and then he'll leave the vessel rescued but that was only a drill in front of the injured man's doing well now the treating was successful but nevertheless he had really received the injuries we've just simulated mr. SAS would definitely have had to be taken from board time at least we'd have requested a helicopter to get mr. SAS off the submarine and taken to a hospital on land in war the injured man could not have been taken off the vessel whether he would have survived under those circumstances is not clear the drill just now went very well the soldiers did exactly what I expected of whom they worked fast and fully focused and this gives me confidence about actually continuing on our way to this manoeuvre I'd have thought ships cook myself ela is busy in the galley the trained chef learned his trade in a restaurant kitchen online and even after seven years he still finds cooking on board a submarine can be a challenge sometimes [Music] reminding us when we're doing practice drills like water or fire on board that reduces the time frame and things get pretty tight then you just have to do one thing after another to make sure the meals are ready on time and that the food is warm and everything's ready at exactly the right time because it's such a small room here plus the smell of the food and the ship is rocking it doesn't take long for me to get seasick so that's a bit of a problem for me and for the crew as well that sometimes makes it difficult to get meals ready on time [Music] each crew member should consume about 3000 kilo calories a day the lack of space on board allows little room for exercise so the cook needs to make sure that the soldiers don't put on too much weight a healthy balanced diet is what's required but the crew have other preferences the god of knowing flushed amid aha doesn't matter if it's breakfast lunch or dinner or even the midwatch meals at night it's all a question you know what you're looking forward to whether on coming watch or off going ouch and if there's really no meat and where something's wrong with the food it puts everyone in a bad mood and the whole atmosphere on board can change quickly so like I say the cooks got a really important job David himself an important and a hard job because ship's cook is the only position without any backup he's at work almost round-the-clock it's time so that we do six hour shifts so there are meals every six hours and 5:20 there's breakfast 11:20 is the first sitting for lunch and then there's dinner at 19:20 and at around 20 3:30 there's the midwatch meal and that's the way it goes day after day in a few minutes chef Marcel Fiedler will be taking a good hour's break in the control-room veep galoot vick is preparing for the submarine to surface she's the marine engineer officer twelve meters 11 meters D ballasting ballasting D ballasting fills the ballast tanks with compressed air which then displaces the water in the tanks making the submarine lighter than the water so the vessel can resurface [Music] the ballast tanks have been thrown out make the bridge ready for sea the German Navy has six submarines they are all of the 212 a class and are mainly deployed for reconnaissance and the presentation of operational situations no German submarine has sunk since 1966 life as a submariner is meanwhile relatively safe but with lots of restrictions sonar technician Phillip Angas doesn't have much luggage but he always has a little more than many of his colleagues because I have to be up on the bridge I need to take a few more pairs of pants where I'm on the veteran has there's always the chance of a wave coming over because why have the ones I'm wearing and for others that should be enough probably chefs here I've got my mother's homemade jam that's very important because you can't go anywhere without something to remind you of home it brings the images to mind and jams always special something you had for breakfast at home or I don't know some people bring a cuddly toy from home just so they have something and apart from that I don't have that many things with me Submariner czar often cut off from their families and friends for weeks but at least on board they're never alone the crew becomes a replacement family up to 30 people in a very small space sharing 21 beds having your own place to sleep is luxury well this is my bed here as we say my bunk and I share it with first mate kitna he's the other sonar technician on board there are four of us all together and he's on the other watch we're divided up into starboard and port watches and we change over every six hours but such close proximity isn't always pleasant skip that there there are some of course who don't bring enough shoes and then have smelly feet you get that sometimes but it's not too bad let's come on all ha ha when you're really tired and have to sleep you can be something you can put up with of course you do mention to your comrade that you might want to do something about it and without either by bringing a few more pairs of shoes along or using the foot spray that we have especially for this like that might help a little only one person on board is occasionally allowed the luxury of a little privacy commander who doth lenta never does I'm the only one lucky enough to have my own room so I can close the door and actually have a bit of peace and quiet along with the marina engineer officer and others on permanent watch in a montage to design I'm on call all the time if anything happens or goes wrong I'm always the person to contact the thing that's why I have something special here my own communicator so if I'm actually asleep in here and someone needs to contact me I have something that I can speak through we should make you know basically I have a little more storage space than the others this here might suggest that I have lots of shelf space but I don't because like everywhere else on board there's technology in here so I can't put anything inside so I only have a few small compartments above us now but one interesting thing is that under my little bed is where our weapons and ammunition is stored and I sleep on them I'm not the only one with the key this is where we keep the diancie and she hasn't had but apart from that it's actually quite a comfortable place to sleep I was on some mystic tascioni but things are not usually comfortable on board for very long staring cops all failed rudder put in emergency operation [Music] rudder failure this means the rudder can no longer be controlled from the control room in this area there's a lot of shipping a collision would be a disaster helmsmen macaw bye talk now has to get to the emergency rudder in the stern as quickly as possible in busy areas the emergency rudder is always manned marco bott clock now takes over communications with the control room the submarines large X shaped rudder is now being controlled manually using the four levers fast evasive action is needed to prevent a collision 1,500 tons of steel are maneuvered manually away from the other vessel we carry out these exercises relatively often and I wouldn't really want to experience it in a genuine emergency but if it happens it would be no problem to get to the back and steer the vessel from here the first stage is completed fresh air again at last [Music] after four hours you 32 has reached the Kiel fjord the crew now prepares to enter the hotel now lock the Gateway to the Kiel Canal this federal inland waterway is the busiest man-made waterway for seagoing vessels in the entire world [Music] a tugboat is already waiting to help the submarine through the narrow entrance members of the crew attach a tow rope to the stern of the u-32 the tugboat will accompany the submarine on its entire passage through the Kiel Canal the four hundred million euro Steel Colossus sails into the Loch not an easy task since you thirty two isn't particularly maneuverable and in the narrow Loch collisions can easily occur [Music] once the submarine is moored it's then just a matter of waiting the rise of no more than half a meter here takes around 30 minutes the tugboat constantly pulls the stern of the submarine into the middle of the lock to prevent the rudder touching the sidewall if it were to be damaged the mission would end right here and the cost would be enormous the giant lock gate opens again but the 56 meter submarine can't leave its position just like that a second tugboat is needed carefully and with a little difficulty it pulls the u-32 out of the lock the entire procedure takes one hour [Music] a newcomer on board is the pilot who will guide the vessel through the Kiel Canal he knows the area very well and advises the commander since 1948 the Kiel Canal also known as the Nord OS a canal or an okay has connected the Baltic Sea with the North Sea at the Elbe estuary more than 32,000 ships pass through it every year in the canal you 32 sails without the tug top speed is 8 knots around 15 kilometers an hour the slower the u-boat travels the more difficult it is to steer it passing through this busy canal requires maximum concentration from all involved by valve there are a lot of bends here more than we normally have and we have to negotiate these bends so that we don't interfere with oncoming traffic then in general it's fair to say that the N okay is quite narrow compared to other waterways that we know [Music] the 100 kilometer waterway runs through the picturesque landscape of schleswig-holstein first mate Matanzas is enjoying his short break on deck when you stand here you can really enjoy having a bit of time to yourself but even up on the towers when you're out at sea it's great to have some time in your hands I've always dreamt of working on a submarine I grew up with it to some extent because my father was on a submarine back then and I wanted to do so too that's why I joined the Navy and I would have been a bit disappointed if I hadn't been posted on a submarine [Music] you 32 has now been traveling through the Kiel Canal for three hours the time is 1700 hours time for sonar technician Phillip Angas to get some sleep his first shift is now over we are here in the upper head that's the toilet and for me it's time to go to sleep we can sleep now for about three hours before we were woken up again in submarine jargon head means toilet and there are only two of them on board we have two bathrooms well that's what I'll call them for around 30 people on and whenever the watch changes you've got 12 to 15 people all going to brush their teeth get washed have a shower go to the toilet all at once so sometimes there's a bit of a line at the heads and then people getting each other's way you just have to wait your turn sonar technician Angus will now sleep for three hours before his next shift begins nice [Music] ships cook Masson fiddler can only take short breaks well I've slept for a good one and a half hours now and I'm at the stage where I've prepared part of the midwatch meal like the kebab meat here it's a tradition on submarines that when they leave port the crew gets kebab no idea why that was well before my time so I'm just carrying on the tradition YK Bob after leaving port a mystery just like so many other traditions and the German submarine errs very own language [Music] setting the table here is referred to as faking it and once it's been baked they can bench meanings sit down and eat their meal baking and benching takes place every six hours and the ship's cook works almost around the clock I've prepared a hundred and thirty-six meals for the crew today at dinner in the officers mess commander lenta is absent he has to stay on the bridge until the submarine has successfully passed through the canal and depending on how busy it is the journey can take up to 15 hours [Music] every now and then there are places in the canal that allowed me to go below deck and since we had to wait in the keel for a bit longer today time to eat below otherwise it would have eaten up here quite a lot of oncoming traffic this evening things are a bit busy in the canal today for the helmsman that means you'll need to be especially careful but the boat can of course move slightly to the left and Wars to the right if anything comes towards us as helmsman first mate Martin's us is currently sitting at the steering console guiding the submarine through the canal with great concentration even the slightest course deviation could be catastrophic in a multi-million euro simulator prospective submarine helmsman learned not to make mistakes in such situations they're trained to steer class to 12-8 submarines on identical controls and equipment [Music] via Homme we have the simulator which also works with emotion system so it can display everything very realistically including malfunctions environmental influences all kinds of things so all for training our future steering console operators or depth control officers we know that here people are allowed to make mistakes and that's what we want to provoke but they're not allowed to make any onboard every Submariner from the cook to the commander has to go through this training program just like 22-year old Christian Petersen [Music] best moment at first when we came in here I remember that in the first few hours none of us could control the submarine we just went up them down uncontrollably and caused problems that were completely off the charts but meanwhile would more or less manage to come to grips with it only very few get through the demanding training course and actually become submarine helmsman back in the Kiel Canal ships cook myself feed lies preparing the night meal the so-called midwatch even in that experienced Submariner like him the first signs of fatigue are beginning to show you feel most tired when you've been in a deep sleep and then have to get up to make the midwatch or the dough for the breakfast rolls I'd say that's when you feel quite groggy and then you really look forward to just being able to take a shower and get off the boat masa fiddler can now lie down for about an hour before he then has to serve the night meal you 32 will soon reach the boons but to lock the journey through the canal has taken 8 hours commander lenta has been on the bridge the whole time how long have I been here I'd have to check but it definitely seems like quite a long time so far I've just split up here as an officer on watch so I could get someone to relieve me but I feel we've another 45 minutes here in the canal before we reach Bruns bottles and then we'll look made it you only need to go down the Elba and then my days finished it's my tax on alcohol that's a good 18 to 20 hours if I'm not mistaken the new commander is very satisfied with his crew and sonar technician Phillip Angus is proud to be part of it there are more Bundesliga footballers in Germany than submarine errs at the moment we've got about 80 active submarine personnel which isn't a lot so it seems that you've obviously got to work hard to make it and you have to really want to do it coming onboard here and not being fully committed wouldn't be any good at all so you might as well forget it comments on plastic [Music] passing through the Kiel Canal crew alpha and their commander who deflected have mastered the first stage of their operation you 32 will soon set course for England where a NATO maneuver is planned from now on their mission will be top secret [Music]

Channel: WELT Documentary

Views: 2,448,777

Rating: 4.7309036 out of 5

Keywords: full documentary, full documentaries, hd documentary, hd documentaries, free documentary, welt documentary, welt documentaries, full length documentaries, documentary film, top documentaries, reports, factual film, german navy, german navy seals, documentary, navy documentary, submarine documentary, german soldiers

Id: CcgDyxADsiM

Length: 49min 0sec (2940 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/RumBox]

"Good for the nerves" food and drinks - also, I note, cases and cases of Beck's beer, and numerous cartons of cigarettes.

[u/cville13013]

Why take sub down a canal? Is that really to fastest way to England?

Edit: checks out. Shortest way out to the North Sea.

[u/Joshbaker1985]

Canada has really good submarines, with well trained crew. Among the many problems they have faced, is they required a painstaking overhaul to bring them back to service and Canadianize them with our specific equipment and systems.

They are poorly suited to the demands of our geography, mainly for use under Arctic ice or high endurance missions, however they are top notch in their designed role.

They have received much bad press over their limited availability and accidents, which has greatly tarnished their reputation with Canadians but I wouldn't underestimate one when deployed.

No German submarine would offer any tangible benefit to what we already have. If the Government wants to take the submarine program, and the growing threats posed in the Arctic seriously, the next submarines would be French nuclear boats, exactly what the Victoria's should have been.

[u/CheeseburgerSmoothy]

I was really surprised by the cases and cases of canned soda and drinks they were loading! I wonder if that’s all there is to drink (besides water, coffee, tea) or if they also have drink concentrate stuff, like bug juice on US submarines. Any German submariners to elaborate?