Section I - Torpedo room
| Volume: | 288 m³ |
| crew: | 10 men |
| Torpedo length: | 8,14 meters |
| Torpedo weight: | about 2 tons |
| Torpedo speed: | approx. 60 kn |
| Torpedo number: | 24 pieces |
| Torpedo tubes: | 6 pieces |
| Torpedo caliber: | 533 mm |
The torpedoes were brought in via an upper deck ramp through the torpedo hatch and transported below deck to the laterally movable storage and loading devices using a further ramp with a chain drive and a hydraulic cable winch.
With this special loading device it was possible to load two torpedoes at the same time, in a time of 6-8 minutes, and to prepare them for action. 3 men were required for this operation and 1 man was sufficient for the shooting. Before firing one or a maximum of two torpedoes at the same time, the torpedo tube had to be evacuated and flooded with water to ensure bubble-free leakage. Likewise, the resulting weight loss when the torpedo ran out and when the torpedo tube was evacuated had to be compensated for by flooding the ballast tanks in order to counteract any change in course of the ship.
Section II – Accommodations and Aggregate rooms
| Volume: | 267 m³ |
| Crew: | 5 men |
| Officers mess size: | 8 seats |
| Officers mess function: | Dining room for officers (emergency: operating room) |
The commandant and officers ate in the officers' mess, spent their free time and held meetings. But the table was also used for other purposes. It also served as an operating table for the 2 doctors on board.
was ensured by a doctor on board who was of course also entrusted with other military tasks. He had a kind of pharmacy (dispensing medicine) and an isolation room (for treating infectious diseases). The officers' mess is also the medical emergency operating room.
Section III – Command Center
| Volume: | 230 m³ |
| Crew: | 32 men |
| Boat draft: | 6,60 meters |
| Max. Depth of the boat: | 400 meters |
| Boat Depth of Destruction: | 600 meters |
The control center is still inside the pressure hull. The technology was extremely functional, extremely robust and was probably state-of-the-art at the time of the “Cold War”. In front is the steering position, the seat of the commander and the helmsman or helmsman. They controlled the speed and the depth. The telephone exchange, which connected the bridge with the entire boat for communications, and the engine telegraphs which are connected to the engine room, are located in the central office.
Was e.g. preselected on the bridge which speed is required, a bell sounded. As soon as the engine room had received the order, the order was confirmed from there, both pointers were then congruent again and the acoustic and optical signal went out. In the back of the bridge is the map room and in the corridor the electrical control and control panel.
Section IV – Accommodations and Aggregate rooms
| Volume: | 170 m³ |
| Crew: | 8 men |
| Electric drive: | 3 x 1740 hp |
| Sneak machine: | 1 x |
| speed: | 16 kn (submerged) |
The crew consisted of a maximum of 84 men. 16 officers, 16 NCOs and up to 52 sailors were on board. The Russian Navy drove in two watches, ie. she drove in two-shift systems. The officers and NCOs lived in single and multi-man cabins (max. Up to 4 men).
With the two-layer system, e.g. a 4-man cabin occupied by 8 men. The lower-ranking sailors did not have a cabin for reasons of space. They were housed in a kind of camp bed facility on the lower deck with no privacy. In the galley, 3 cooks were also employed in a two-shift system. They made sure that all crew members could have a warm meal twice a day.
Section V – Diesel engine room
| Volume: | 211 m³ |
| Crew: | 11 men |
| Diesel engine drive: | 3 x 1733 hp |
| Speed: | 13 kn (surfaced) |
The control room of the chief engineer for the diesel engines is located in Department V; the "remote station" for the machine telegraph is also installed here, as well as the 3 control panels for the 3 turbo diesel engines.
There are three 6 cylinder "turbo diesel direct injection" engines, each with an output of 1733 HP. Each motor has its own shaft with a drive screw. These diesel engines are still state-of-the-art today. They are to be regarded as ultra-modern, as they are very compact, powerful and fuel-efficient. Each individual cylinder of the engine has a so-called pump nozzle injection technology, which is now installed in modern trucks. An air supply snorkel made it possible to operate the diesel engines even when the journey was submerged, in what is known as the periscope depth.
Section VI – E-machine room
| Volume: | 170 m³ |
| Crew: | 8 men |
| Electric machine drive: | 3 x 1740 hp |
| Sneak machine: | 1 x |
| Speed: | 16 kn (submerged) |
The control cabinets for the 3 electric motors are located in Department VI, they each have 1,740 hp. A maximum travel time of 90 minutes was possible under full load. Three powerful electric motors and an additional crawl speed motor, which is particularly quiet, made it possible to go diving. The electric motors were powered by accumulators with a total capacity of 16,000 ampere hours (a car battery has approx. 60Ah). The accumulators were housed in 4 battery rooms, two each in compartments 2 and 4. When driving with the diesel engines, the 3 drive electric motors were used as a generator to charge the batteries. There is also the control cabinet for the creeping machine. This is an electric motor with 180 HP that only drives the central propeller and runs extremely quietly, so that you could enter the espionage area unnoticed.
Section VII - Aft
| Volume: | 104 m³ |
| Crew: | 4 men |
| Displacement (emerged): | 2800t |
| Displacement (submerged): | 3630t |
| Number of drive screws: | 3 pieces |
| Drive screw weight: | 650 kg each |
The last compartment contains no torpedo outlet pipes aft, i.e. in the stern, instead the rudder hydraulic system for the rudder and depth rudder is installed here, a manual emergency control station for the rudder system, a central fire extinguishing system (a special fire extinguishing system that worked with chemical foam, you could use water do not extinguish here, as salt water conducts electricity), the drinking water tanks, and a special noise-insulated heating system (not typical on hunting submarines).
The boat was propelled with a 5-blade propeller. The more blades a propeller has, the less noise it makes.
Cross-section overview
Pressure hull
Gyrocompass
Decryption calculator
Bilge pump
Converter room
Command bridge
Ballast water tank
is the successor to the Foxtrot class, the first Soviet diesel electric boat with an anti-sonar coating. It was the conventional counterpart to the Victor II-class nuclear submarines and was originally designed and built for anti-submarine combat. For the first time, the following innovations were used in this Soviet submarine type: a sonar complex instead of individual systems, a connection of the sonar complex with a combat command system, automatic data input into the torpedoes before the shot, an automatic ballast control system and automatic depth control incl. Autopilot. In contrast to the Foxtrot class, these submarines had a better streamlined shape, which made them even more useful for underwater use. Due to the cylindrical shape, which extended over the entire hull, the capacity of the batteries could be increased and a further developed electrical system (e.g. bow sonar and fire control system) could be installed. This special rubber coating made it almost impossible for the sonar equipment of the western secret services to locate this espionage submarine.
For this reason, the tango would probably not have been an easy target for submarine defenders in shallow water. The secret military project 641b, the Tango class, was used by the Soviet Navy on long patrols and submarine hunts from 1976. Due to the little concrete information about this ship, almost hardly any photos and reports made it to the public.
A particular problem with submarines is the air supply on dives lasting several days. A closed system was therefore installed in the accommodations and on the combat stations, which regulated the air supply and air regeneration in a separate circuit.
U-434 was armed solely to defend the Soviet "bastions". The areas in which Russian submarines armed with SSBN missiles patrolled or waited for America to be shot down were designated as bastions. Due to the long range of these missiles, it was no longer necessary to cross the open ocean and carry them to America's doorstep.
For this reason they were located in the heavily defended areas of the Barents Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, where surface ships and submarines took care of them and the domestic ports were not far away. Due to the various tasks involved, care was taken during construction that the submarine could have a long sea life.
When surfaced, portable anti-aircraft missiles could be fired; 24 torpedoes with a torpedo fire control device installed in the bow were available underwater. Depending on the order, the torpedo tubes could optionally be equipped with anti-submarine torpedoes, anti-ship torpedoes, anti-submarine missiles SS-N-15 or mines.
Overall, this new class was “only” an improved submarine of Project 641b and not a completely new type of submarine.
The Tango class was first observed by the Western powers in the Sevastopol naval report of July 1973. From the late 1980s, the Russian Northern Fleet owned 15 tangos and the Baltic fleet at least three, although it should be noted that the Northern Fleet at least one until two boats were constantly patrolling the Mediterranean.
After 1995 most of the boats were taken out of service. The Kilo class was used as the successor to the Tango class.
amounted to around 110,000,000 US dollars. The “U-434” was in the Russian Navy reserve until 2001.
General information about the U-434
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, more than 150 submarines were decommissioned, most of them in 1995. The Russian government, in consultation with the secret services, seldom hand over them to museum operations.
U-434 (Russian designation B-515) was used for special purposes, secret espionage missions off the east coast of the USA and long patrols in the territorial waters of the Soviet Union.
in service with the Russian Navy. After a contract negotiation that was short by Russian standards, it was purchased by the U-Bootmuseum Hamburg GmbH in 2002. The U-434 is one of the last Tango-class submarines in the world. There were probably 20 of them, 3 of which belonged to a special series, including the U-434.
The Cold War
After the Second World War, the NATO states initially had very weak naval forces in the Baltic Sea area. The Soviet Navy could assume that it would be able to quickly fight for free access to the world's oceans from its traditional main base in the Baltic Sea. Only after the German rearmament in 1956 did the situation change so that NATO forces, above all the German Federal Navy together with the Danish Navy, would be able to defend the Baltic Sea exits. This meant that the Soviet Navy would no longer be able to use submarines and other forces to disrupt NATO reinforcement traffic in the North Atlantic.
Therefore the bases in the North Sea were expanded. With Murmansk and a few nearby ports, ice-free bases were available there from which one could advance into the North Atlantic. Around the same time, from the end of the 1950s, the Soviet Navy began building its fleet of nuclear submarines. These boats, mainly built in Severodvinsk, had to have secure access to the open oceans and were stationed in large numbers with the Northern Fleet.
The Northern Fleet became the most important of the four Soviet fleets. The strategic nuclear submarines formed part of the nuclear power of the Soviet Union. The nuclear hunting submarines were able to penetrate the Atlantic and attack US carrier groups. Their surface forces, above all a large number of cruisers and destroyers, later individual aircraft carriers, on the other hand, mainly served to protect the base region in order to secure the aforementioned forces.
With the amphibious forces, attacks against NATO areas would have been possible, above all in close proximity, i.e. in Northern Norway. The transfer of the main power of the Soviet Navy to the North Sea was a great strategic success.
As a result, NATO was forced to set up strong naval forces to secure its sea routes in order not to be cut off from reinforcements and supplies from North America in the event of war. On the other hand, it was very expensive to build and maintain the basis for the largest of all Soviet fleets under extreme weather conditions and at a great distance from one's own industry.
Origin U-Boat 434
MYPMAHCK - MURMANSK
Construction of the Russian submarine, the U-434, began in the Russian submarine shipyard KRASNOE SORMOVO in Gorki (now Nizhny Novgorod), about 400 kilometers east of Moscow, in September 1975 and took only 8 months to complete Construction period started on April 29, 1976, fully operational.
U-boat type designation: | |
| U515 (Buki) | |
| Tango class | |
| Serial number: | 105 |
| Project: | 641B |
| Board number: | 434 |
The idea
It was the tragic sinking of the Russian nuclear submarine "Kursk" on August 12, 2000, during a maneuver by the Russian Northern Fleet in the Barents Sea. Offers of help came from all sides in order to save any surviving crew members. Russian rescue teams tried, among other things, to carry out a rescue with rescue submarines of the Pris class in vain. When Norwegian divers went down to the wreck over a week later, they could not find any survivors.
Who has ever seen a Russian submarine to understand such a disaster? So the idea for the museum submarine was born.
in which the visitors can "immerse themselves", develop their own feelings, absorb smells of oil and sweat and empathize with the people who served and lived there. And ultimately draw conclusions about science, technology and responsibility. What does the Russian submarine technology look like, how does it work? What are torpedoes, how are they shot down?
Chr. Angermann contacted his friend J. Wagner GF of a helicopter company and partner at the Russian company Bald-Impex, based in Kaliningrad, about how to proceed. Already in November 2000 there was a meeting mediated by Bald-Impex in the Admiralty shipyard in St. Petersburg. At which Angermann and Wagner were able to sign a Russian declaration of intent to deliver. The contact was very friendly, but aloof.
Mr. Angermann submitted countless documents and confirmations, then negotiations came to a standstill. During talks in Moscow, the Russians noticed that the two were serious, that they didn't want to buy junk, but to present something. With respect and dignity! Only then did Russian foreign trade intervene and we were offered two submarines in service.
Mr. Angermann, Mr. Wagner and the Russian mediator, Mr. Metzger, who acted as negotiator between the Russian state and us, the Hamburg submarine museum, drove to Murmansk, which was still a restricted military area, to sign the contract. Security officers escorted you and monitored your stay.
Despite the friendly reception, skepticism prevailed, generated by the general media coverage. They were tense and had little of the cultural program that is part of Russia's business evenings. They only wanted one thing, the submarines!
Then you drove along the Murmansk coast towards the Barents Sea, to Polyarny, a submarine base. Finally, you'll see the submarines! Inwardly, you were deeply moved when you stood in front of U-434.
After the long and successful negotiations, the contract was signed and afterwards a festive meal.
was discussed. It was important to them that this submarine remains authentic. Because it is an irretrievable museum piece, the U-434, the submarine from the "Tango" class.
Just two days later, U-434 was decommissioned. The boat was demilitarized, that is, the weapon systems were expanded and batteries and pollutants were removed. The machines and the entire technology on board were completely preserved and thus the U-434 is theoretically roadworthy.
After the military secret service checked the “giant fish” for sensitive innards for a week, it was released “for museum purposes”.
Christian Angermann had realized his idea with negotiating skills, fairness and a noticeable sense of community.
The last mission
Clear air, cool water, lush green trees, cliffs over 300 meters high - the Kola Bay near Murmansk. Here was U-434, ready for its last great journey through the Barents Sea and the European North Sea to Hamburg. In August 2002 the time had come: a Finnish deep-sea tug slowly pulled the 90.16 meter giant into the open sea, towards Hamburg.
However, it was not long before U-434 was stopped by the Russian secret service. He searched the boat for five days, after which the voyage continued. Due to this delay, the boat did not appear on the Norwegian Coast Guard's radar.
Fear and hope were the result, until I received an email from Mr. Jens Hoilund (officer of the Norwegian NATO air reconnaissance): "... your submarine has now left my areal ..." (... has your submarine just left my territory ...). "Sending you some pictures taken by one of our units last Thursday night. Have a nice day." (Send you some photos that one of our units took last Thursday night). Mr. Angermann could breathe a sigh of relief.
In the meantime he got in touch with the Waterways and Shipping Office to have the traffic of an extraordinary towing unit approved on the Elbe area.
However, the Russian sea tug had to be exchanged for another suitable sea tug that knew the area on site.
On August 15, 2002, the owners flew by helicopter to the German Bight to attend this event.
U-434 came straight from the Russian Arctic Ocean. From there it was an arduous 3,700 kilometer journey behind it. It had been 14 days and the seagulls had left blobs on the bow and stern. In some places the panels of the outer skin were missing.
Two German tugs took over the 90.16 m long submarine off Heligoland from Russian custody. The tugs reported at the Finkenwerder pilot point at 9.00 a.m. sharp. And an hour later, U-434 was moored at Dock 10 from Blohm + Voss.
An exciting time began at Blohm + Voss! A sworn team of experts attacked U-Boat 434. The motivation was indescribable. It was welded, painted, assembled and restored. Domes were set up so that visitors can comfortably descend into the interior of the boat. The submarine was left in its original state and thus its authenticity was preserved.
The conversion was completed in 6,000 working hours. The former captain of U-Boat 434 Anatoly Germatenko, the flight engineer Alexander Beslepkin and Igor Metzger actively accompanied this phase. Step by step we were initiated into the secrets of the Russian submarine fleet in order to pass them on to our visitors.
Opening of the U-Boat 434
On October 21, 2002 the time had come. It worked on the third attempt. U-434 was hauled into Baakenhafen. We were glad that the Oberhafenamt approved the shipment after it had to refuse twice because the water level was too low.
U-Boat 434 arrived safely at Baakenhafen. The U-Boat 434 team, led by Harald Büttner, started work.
On November 9, 2002, the submarine museum opened its hatches to visitors. Previously, the priest Ambrosius Backhaus baptized U-Boat 434 with the name "Buki".
Relocation in 2007
Five years ago, in 2002, the submarine U-434 came to Hamburg!
Much had happened to and around U-434 during this period. Many hardworking hands and clever minds had made the submarine museum a tourist attraction in Hamburg. The former free port, the new port city, was revitalized by the submarine.
Where once no tourist got lost, visitors came the long way, even on foot.
U-Boat 434 was supposed to be at the same berth in the port of Hamburg for 10 years. The U-Boat Museum had to move in 2007 due to the new construction of the U4 (Subway) in HafenCity.
The move was a new challenge! The owners and management of the U-Boat Museum decided to take this step in order to preserve the U-Boat Museum for and in Hamburg.
On March 14, 2007, the world's largest hunting and espionage submarine started moving again to head for its new berth (250 m east of the old berth) in Baakenhafen, in Hamburg's new HafenCity.
The submarine, the submarine shop, the catering facility and the submarine hangar (17 mx 15 m) were moved to the “new” berth in 11 days.
With the help of a tugboat, two floating cranes, a pontoon, other cranes and many hard-working helpers, the move was completed in a very short time. It took a lot of work before U-434 was able to open its hatches again on March 24, 2007.
The U-Bootmuseum thanks for the good cooperation with:
HafenCity GmbH, HHLA, Knaack Krane, Helmut Polnau, Taucher Knoth, Garant, Michael Riccius building services, Mathea building service, A. John, P. Tanner, J. Zenker and many others unnamed helpers.
Relocation 2010
It worked on the third attempt: U-434 was escorted to the new berth in St. Pauli Fischmarkt on April 15, 2010 by an escort of 2 tugs after it had been in Hamburg's Baakenhafen for 7 years.
Due to the low tide it was not possible to lay U-434 twice.
With great effort, one of the largest massive stilt excavators was floated onto pontoons especially for U-434 in order to dig a platform for the new berth. After flooding the diving tanks, U-434 lies aground, so that when the tides change, the impression is created that it is diving up and down.
The past 7 years in Baakenhafen have already shown that the mixture of adventure, museum and memorial against the Cold War attracts all age groups. Since then, almost a million visitors have seen the interior of U-434 and been introduced to its technical and historical secrets.
- Start of construction on March 25, 2010
- Floating in a pontoon with MP27 stilt excavator on 03/29/10
- Relocation of U-434 on April 15th, 2010
- Reopening May 7th, 2010
The U-Bootmuseum Hamburg thanks for the good and successful cooperation with:
- Elbmeile Hamburg e.V.
- Hamburg Port Authority
- Taucher Knoth GmbH & Co. KG in Zusammenarbeit mit Schleppkontor Meyrose GmbH
- Firma Josef Möbius Bau AG
- Knaack-Krane
- Helmut Polnau GmbH
- Fassmer GmbH & Co
- Bauschlosserei Michael Riccius
- Knabe Beratende Ingenieure GmbH
- X2 Group
and the many unnamed helpers.
