Talk:Operation Deadlight

Salvage

More refs needed for the value of the steel for its use in technical instruments (no contamination from atomic/ nuclear explosions, accidents, etc) Folks at 137 06:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I have placed a "dubious" tag there, since although a supposedly not-worthless source site claims, it's a pretty farfecthed idea to claim that as if by magic, the fact that one nuclear bomb was detonated in the world meant that all new steel produced on Earth forever afterward would be radioactive, whilst every single piece of steel made before that moment was not, and additionally, somehow wasn't contaminated as well. Nottheking (talk) 06:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand this also. There is a related discussion at Talk:Scuttling_of_the_German_fleet_in_Scapa_Flow. I would like to see this explained somewhere. Drutt (talk) 20:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It's actually true - for manufacturing extremely-sensitive radiation measuring equipment, i.e., able to detect and measure very low levels of radiation, any normal steel produced since 1945 has minute traces of radioactivity picked up from the atmosphere due to fall out from nuclear tests, so this contamination makes normal currently-produced steel useless for these purposes. So steel produced before 1945 has to be used and one of the best sources of this steel is sunken ships that sank before this date as they were never exposed to any radioactive atmospheric dust.

IIRC, both the Scapa Flow wrecks and the Tirpitz were at one time mentioned as possible sources of uncontaminated steel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 14:34, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Russia & US

Why did Russia and the US oppose salvage of the subs? Drutt (talk) 20:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Further Explanation Requested

"When Operation Deadlight was activated, it was found that many of the U-boats were in an extremely poor condition as a result of being moored in exposed harbours while awaiting disposal."

How can a submarine, which by definition must be able to withstand harsh oceanic conditions, be left in extremely poor condition just by sitting in an unprotected harbor? Did the Germans make very low quality U-boats towards the end of the war? --The Vital One (talk) 00:26, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Any ship which is left sitting in salt water and spray without any maintenance or paint is going to come out of it rough. U-boats need to return to base periodically for paint and repairs. Leaving them sitting moored in a harbor with a lot of salt spray and wind, and UV radiation will make them rust rapidly. However I agree that it seems very strange to me that they would have rusted so badly they sank after sitting less than a year in harbor. I doubt it's because "low quality" - they need to be strong enough to withstand heavy seas and pressure at depth - but there must be more too it. Steel just doesn't rust that badly that quickly in my experience, unless it has more working on it than just sea salt. I mean, the LAST boats scuttled were less than 6 months after the war ended. Even if you assume that some had sat for a couple months due to the collapsing of the war effort (and I never heard they had), that's hard to believe. I could even believe that there were some older boats that Germany had set aside to use newer ones (still hard to believe), and they had sat even longer than the others, maybe up to a year...but this makes it sound like MOST of them sank. Did the Germans leave the hatches open when they left and they rusted in place? Sabotage? AnnaGoFast (talk) 00:42, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

What a waste.

Never mind the historical value; they wouldn't mean much if there was a ex-U-boat in every town along the coast...but think of all that good steel. And this is jut a small fraction of the good scrap they just dumped into the oceans rather than be bothered with cutting it all up. We could spend the money and effort to BUILD all these tanks and planes, but not to cut them up and melt them down again. Sad. Aircraft being bulldozed into big pits or dumped off of barges into the ocean. AnnaGoFast (talk) 01:08, 28 January 2018 (UTC)