The Type 202 submarine was a short lived class of German submarines. Design of these very small submarines started in 1957 by Ingenieurkontor Lübeck (IKL). It was intended to build 40 Type 202 mini submarines with a six-man crew but technical difficulties and doubts about their usefulness reduced them to three, and of those three for trials, to be further reduced to two. The boats were in service only a few months and were scrapped shortly after.
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Builders | Atlas Werke, Bremen |
| Operators |  German Navy |
| Built | 1961–1966 |
| In commission | 1965–1966 |
| Planned | 40 |
| Completed | 2 |
| Cancelled | 38 |
| Retired | 2 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Midget U-boat |
| Displacement |
|
| Length | 23.10 metres (75 ft 9 in) |
| Beam | 3.40 metres (11 ft 2 in) |
| Draft | 2.7 metres (8 ft 10 in) |
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed |
|
| Range |
|
| Test depth | 100 metres (330 ft) |
| Complement | 6 |
| Armament |
|
They were one of the few military U-boats not bearing "U-numbers", probably since they were never intended for combat use. Instead they were named after important German engineers in submarine constructions (like Wilhelm Bauer).
Hans Techel was built with traditional propeller and rudders (similar to the Type 205 submarines), but Friedrich Schürer had a rotatable Kort nozzle instead.
List of ships
edit| Pennant number |
Name | Laid down | Launched | Com- missioned |
Decom- missioned |
Fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S172 | Hans Techel | 10 October 1961 | 15 March 1965 | 14 October 1965 | 15 December 1966 | scrapped |
| S173 | Friedrich Schürer | 10 October 1961 | 10 November 1966 | 6 April 1966 | 15 December 1966 | scrapped |
References
edit- Karr, Hans (2014). Deutsche Uboote seit 1956 (in German). Stuttgart: Motorbuch. ISBN 9783613037083.
- Die U-Boote der Marine seit 1955 - Spiegel online (in German)
- Die deutsche U-Boot Waffe Archived 2008-12-07 at the Wayback Machine - www.die-marine.de
- Klasse 202 oecd.de