Otto Weddigen

(b. Sept. 15, 1882, Herford, Westphalia, Ger.—d. March 18, 1915, at sea off the Moray Firth, Scot.)

Otto Weddigen’s feat of sinking three British armoured cruisers in about an hour, during the second month of World War I, has made him one of the most famous of German submarine commanders.

Weddigen entered the German navy in 1901 and participated from the beginning in the development of the U-boat force, which he led by the beginning of the war in August 1914. Off the Dutch coast on Sept. 22, 1914, Weddigen’s U-9 torpedoed first the Aboukir and then, when they stopped to rescue survivors, the Hogue and the Cressy, with a combined loss of 1,400 men. On Oct. 15, 1914, the U-9 also sank the cruiser Hawke off Scotland, costing the British 500 more lives. Afterward, Weddigen commanded a more modern submarine, the U-29, which was lost with all hands, including Weddigen, when it was rammed by the British battleship Dreadnought off the Moray Firth, Scotland, in March 1915.

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Soviet-Era Submarines in Cutaway I

Although taken by surprise at the speed with which the Polaris missile system was tested and introduced into service, the Soviet Navy did not wait long to provide a response. In 1963, the first Project 651 (NATO’s ‘ Julie”‘) appeared: the K.I56. Sixteen of these diesel-electric submarines (SSGNs) were built, armed with four launch tubes for P-6 Progress (SS-N-3A ‘Shaddock’) missiles in the casing. These were raised to the firing position, a system repeated in the nuclear-powered Project 675 (’Echo’) class.

In 1948 the design bureau TsKB-18 (later Rubin) developed a draft design for Project 621 - a landing ship-transport submarine to carry out landings behind enemy lines. This was to be a large submarine with a surface displacement of some 5,950 tons. This underwater giant - with two vehicle decks - was to carry a full infantry battalion of 745 troops plus 10 T-34 tanks, 12 trucks, 12 towed cannon, and 3 La-5 fighter aircraft. The troops and vehicles would be unloaded over a bow ramp; the aircraft would be catapulted, with the launching device fitted into the deck forward of the aircraft hangar. Both conventional diesel-electric and steam-gas turbine (closed-cycle) powerplants for both surface and submerged operation were considered for Project 621.

TsKB-18 also developed the draft for Project 626, a smaller landing ship-transport ship intended for Arctic operations. The ship would have had a surface displacement of some 3,480 tons and was intended to carry 165 troops and 330 tons of fuel or four T-34 tanks for transfer ashore.

Simultaneously, interest in specialized mine-laying submarines was renewed. In 1956, the Soviet Navy's leadership endorsed a TTE for a large minelayer capable of carrying up to 100 of the new PLT-6 mines and transporting 160 tons of aviation fuel (gasoline or kerosene) in fuel-ballast tanks. This was Project 632 at TsKB-18.