Was The Titanic Destroyed By A German Submarine?

The U boat conspiracy has been pretty much sunk i think, there are still questions regarding the damage as seen on the wreck. The entire wreck has been photographed now for historical recording. This needs to be done because of the current and alarming rate of deterioration. Some sources say there will not be much left apart from a heap of rust on the ocean floor in a little less than 50 years, so it was important at the time of it's discovery that everything was documented, and this did require further visits to the wreck site.

The icerberg damage is hidden from view as the Titanic's front section ploughed itself under the soft mud as hit the bottom There are areas on the hull, sections of plate torn and twisted (mostly under the well deck section), some people refer to them as holes, but these are the result of' impact damage as the Titanic hit the ocean bottom' i.e stresses exherted on the hull plates as the bow nosedived at a steep angle into the mud and the aft part of the forward section settled back and came to rest level on the bottom; and fractures and splits or holes further to the rear of the forward section where the ship broke apart at the surface.

This is all fully documented in 'Titanic an illustrated history' Don Lynch, Ken Marscall, Robert Ballard.

reply to post by FLaKK


hi - the alledged " hole " is this image

just IMHO i do not accept that this is a damage hole

here is my annoted version :



i see structure "A" - as a formed metal frame - added to the plates as a strenghtener / support for an additional absent structure

this reinforced by structure "B" - clealy - the box section can be seen as a seperate addition to the plates , with a void inside it - to be filled by a hatch, door , seachest screen , window etc

its my opinion that this is a hatch , sea chest or upper level window - to offer further analysis - i would need to review the ships schematic , and the exact location of the pic

but i contend it is not damage - either from ice impact or alledged torpedo

all deformations visible are from the aftermath of sinking & the entropy of 99 years

edit to add - oops - add a paragraph :

the " hole " has no consistant deformation damage in any direction - nor rivet failure evidence - also a second rectangular penetration of the plates can ve seen in the bottom left corner of the image

reply to post by ignorant_ape


That's the hole matt was refering too on this thread i from the starboard side under the well deck. There were many companionways and hatches leading into the ship from when she was docked. I can't remember them all, there were entrances for crew on D deck, steerage via E deck level and the kitchen staff had their own companionway further aft. It is likely these hatches were opened as the panic ensued once the ships list became alarmingly great.

A good illustration which shows such a hatch being opened that also appears in one of my books is this one: -

Titanic sinking

If such door hatches were used and maybe left unsecure/open, chances are they would almost certainly have been corroded away at the hinges leaving a hole? speculation however.

Hi,
Go further to your right from arrow B, I believe those are rivets showing.
I also believe the outgrowth of material at bottom left of the hole (or opening) is molten metal.
This is referred to as a 'hole' from the National Geographic website where I found this computer image picture.

reply to post by FLaKK


I see you are an author on the subject. Please list them so I can find them. Thank-you for your many inputs.

Regards,

reply to post by Matt1951




the hugue problem with the allegation of an insurance scam is the fact that titanic was underinsured

Originally posted by Matt1951
Hi,
Go further to your right from arrow B, I believe those are rivets showing.
I also believe the outgrowth of material at bottom left of the hole (or opening) is molten metal.

If you mean the pic directly above, it looks like a coral growth.

reply to post by buddhasystem
Is it so hard to understand that the military of every country on earth keeps secrets that it shares with no one and germany was no different in the early 1900's and if they launched the U-17 earlier than they told everyone and i am convinced thay they did,it would have been Top Secret and 99.9% of people would not have been told about it...

reply to post by buddhasystem


I see a hinge there, so it probably was a door. Just to the left of his A arrow. I can't see inside well enough to see if there is any way to ascertain height relative to the ship.
Coral growth? If that is what it is, then there is no mystery here.

Originally posted by blocula
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

Is it so hard to understand that the military of every country on earth keeps secrets that it shares with no one and germany was no different in the early 1900's and if they launched the U-17 earlier than they told everyone and i am convinced thay they did,it would have been Top Secret and 99.9% of people would not have been told about it...

and,

the U-17 may have been able to sail faster too !!

that boat was pretty successful during WW1.

reply to post by Matt1951


Getting large detailed copies of complete blueprints for R.M.S Titanic mainly for modelling purposes, is easy but you have to purchase them. The best one i can find which you can zoom in on, is provided on the rigging plan link, which does show the various door/ hatch arrangement along the starboard side of the ship above the waterline.

Titanic Rigging Plan

Try to look again at the image you provided of the hole along the starboard side, and look left away from the hole. There appears the 'bent out' deformation along the hull. I still think this is part of the much larger stress fracture opening below the well deck. This is the only significant damage along the starboard side we can see, until we get to the tangled mess at the break point.

Titanic Wreck

reply to post by xuenchen


U-17 or SMU-17? the reason these were coastal boats is they were small 500 ton vessels with very limited range at normal surface cruising speeds of around 14 knots. blocula keeps refering to the fantastic 6700nm range! a completely theoretical limit achieved by travelling in a straight line on the surface at a speed of 5 knots, quoted on the technical data as 6700/5 sf for the submarine SMU -17.

As the working load of the engines increases to drive the propellors harder more fuel is consumed and the range drastically decreases. Its more like 1000/12 and around 900/14 at maximum surface speed. U boat commanders very often were, 'cut short' when unpredicted evasive manouvres used more fuel and caused them to further reduce their operational range.

I have a novel explanation of the sinking of the Titanic -- it was an attack by reptilitans who wanted to shift the balance of power. They used supersonic phonon torpedoes to create the gash in the hull. Some of the people who supposedly perished when she went down were actually captured by tractor beams and then sold to the greys for a large amount of interstellar currency.

My theory has about just as much justification in facts as the one involving German U-boats. And I think it's way more cool, so let's consider it final.

reply to post by buddhasystem


Dare i say possibly more believable than bloculas ridiculus U-boat theory on this thread.

reply to post by Drunkenparrot


Submarines of that time were essentially short range vessels.

I did not see any kind of evidence given that the submarine U2 was on anykind of patrol outside of her home waters.

A torpedo at that point in time also would have created more than a 12 square foot hole in the thin skin of Titanic. The 12 square feet of "hole" was by glancing blows along her right side. There was also some evidence that showed a larger gash thru her double bottom.

reply to post by Submarines

I did not see any kind of evidence given that the submarine U2 was on anykind of patrol outside of her home
waters.

I must have missed something, i thought the U boat in question here on this thread was the U-17, but then later realised the data being quoted by the OP was for the SM U-17 built for the Austrio-Hungarian navy.

Originally posted by muzzleflash

Originally posted by blocula
the Japanese Navy devastated the Russian Navy in 1905 with torpedos fired from submarines,so a torpedoe could very easily have sank the Titanic 7 years later in 1912...

The history of the "torpedo" goes back to before 1800.

Do you understand that you were replying to a post that contained 100% false info?

Originally posted by FLaKK
reply to post by Submarines

 

I did not see any kind of evidence given that the submarine U2 was on anykind of patrol outside of her home
waters.

I must have missed something, i thought the U boat in question here on this thread was the U-17, but then later realised the data being quoted by the OP was for the SM U-17 built for the Austrio-Hungarian navy.

No, the range appears to be way different. As correctly stated, the maximum quoted range for the "big" U-17 is still not applicable because it assumes a royal speed of 8 knots. But the nominal numbers are different. I'm not sure how much commonality existed between U-17 and SM U-17.

reply to post by buddhasystem


well SM U-17 was a much smaller vessel, 92ft in length with 125 ton surface displacement and a standing crew of 17. However it makes no sense keep going over this ground. Regardless of what U-boat is mensioned, none could have been responsible for sinking the Titanic in April 1912. Even when you look at all the plots for all of the U-boat sinkings of WW1 they are all dotted around coastal areas,inland waters, and coastal approaches. I can't find the plots online but they all lie in the 1917 war zone.

U boat operational war zone 1917

So here we have it, U boats with limited range due to the rates of fuel consumption and no technology to extend operations further out to sea.

Originally posted by buddhasystem

Originally posted by muzzleflash

Originally posted by blocula
the Japanese Navy devastated the Russian Navy in 1905 with torpedos fired from submarines,so a torpedoe could very easily have sank the Titanic 7 years later in 1912...

The history of the "torpedo" goes back to before 1800.

Do you understand that you were replying to a post that contained 100% false info?

I missed that earlier...

Yep, no submarine fired torpedoes at Tsushima.

It was all surface action.