
German submarine U-1206 - mmoez
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-1206
======
i_am_proteus
First, it wasn't sunk by its toilet, it was sunk by a combination of operator
error and allied bombs.

Second, there's a lesson here for design. Correct operation was complicated
and required special training, and the implications of failure were
potentially fatal. The toilet failed because of operator error, but having a
toilet that complicated _and_ in a location where failure put seawater into
the battery is a design error. The 'old' system was fine and something similar
remains in use. I'm a former submariner-- I've seen myriad shitty things
happen from sanitation tank operational errors, but an uncontrolled seawater
leak is not one of them.

~~~
duxup
I don't necessarily disagree with your theory on design, but every complex war
machine ... has some level of controls that if used improperly could be fatal.
They are inherently dangerous systems.

Designing fail safes for such things has to be a sort of balance between added
complexity / options for failure, and safety.

In the military there are plenty of "don't touch that, let the person who
knows how to do it touch it" and I suspect that is often the right design.

~~~
jupp0r
> don’t touch that, let the person who knows how to touch it

Practically, how would that work for a toilet?

~~~
raldi
It could be designed in such a way that multiple people could use it with
reasonable comfort with a small holding tank and then periodically someone
comes along and flushes it.

~~~
i_am_proteus
Indeed, that's more or less the current system!

------
chewz
Someone Left a Hatch Open and Crippled India’s $2.9 Billion Submarine Water
damage put the submarine out of action for ten months.

[https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-
ships/a147838...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-
ships/a14783891/someone-left-a-hatch-open-and-crippled-indias-
dollar29-billion-submarine/)

~~~
sandworm101
>>> Not leaving hatches open that could potentially sink a ship, particularly
a submarine, is basic common sense.

Hatches are left open all the time. This sub was not at sea but in harbour. A
sub is an enclosed/confined space. While in port it would have been undergoing
all sorts of maintenance work. Hatches are left open for ventilation, access,
even to run power cords for electric tools. It is not unusual for someone
welding stuff inside a ship to require the nearest hatch to be left open for a
long period of time.

~~~
nerdponx
Do submarines have "lockout-tagout" procedures for this kind of thing?

~~~
sandworm101
They are supposed to. Whether such safety procedures are actually used is
another matter. Submarines, like everything else in the military, are great at
looking very professional on the outside while being total chaos on the
inside.

------
MrGilbert
It's interesting how the english version only notes the official report, and
puts the alternative story in a single sentence. The german versions also
reads (before citing the official report):

"When the Commander, Lieutenant Captain Schlitt, operated the flushing of the
toilet on April 14th, he ignored an order according to which the flushing was
to be triggered exclusively by the specialist on board.

Sea water, mixed with Schlitt's excrement and urine, poured into the submarine
at high pressure through the open valves.

The toilet specialist was no longer able to close the toilet closures.
According to reports of a survivor, the boat sank 'like a stone' into the
depths."

To the incident itself: Shit happens. (scnr)

~~~
Lowkeyloki
They needed a toilet specialist?

~~~
trhway
reminds about enterprise systems, at least the ones i've worked with and the
roles i've performed. The Sales and the high PMs and suits helicopter in and
take a huge [censored] what we're supposed to deal with. Since the early
morning today has been doing emergency plumbing on 3 Fortune500 class
battleships from corporate navies across the world (and clock). Probably
should update my LinkedIn with such an informative title.

------
arbuge
> On 28 March 1945 the submarine departed from Kiel for its first training
> patrol in the North Sea, returning on 30 March.

I find it amazing that at this point in the war when the end was imminent,
they were still going through the motions of doing training patrols.

~~~
toomanybeersies
I would imagine it was less of a "training patrol" and more of a 2 day
shakedown to ensure that there were no critical issues before sending it into
combat. It's the nautical equivalent of a test drive or QA.

Consider that the same process usually takes months for a modern warship, even
of a proven design.

~~~
mannykannot
Indeed - clearly the training was cursory and did not effectively cover at
least one important issue...

------
Daviey
Similar to HMS M2, which was a submarine aircraft carrier. Likely cause of the
sinking was opening of the hanger door to try and beat their personal best for
launching an aircraft. This wreck is accessible to scuba divers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_M2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_M2)

------
kryogen1c
See also the thresher, one of the reasons us nuclear subs are so safe today
they can be run mostly by 24year olds

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_\(SSN-593\))

------
ryanmercer
Only semi related:

If you are ever in Chicago, find time to go to the Museum of Science and
Industry and pay extra to go on U-505, she's beautiful and if you like
technology and engineering at all it's well worth the cost to walk through
her. Even just walking into the cavernous room she's in, is an awesome
experience itself.

About 3/4 of the way down this post I have a phone of her in the massive room
[https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2019/3/4/21ad-
after...](https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2019/3/4/21ad-after-dad-
letter-to-my-father-2019)

------
lgrebe
FTA:

> The site survey performed by RCAHMS suggests that the leak that forced
> U-1206 to surface may have occurred after running into a pre-existing wreck
> located at the same site.

~~~
jandrese
I was wondering about that. Did they run into the wreck and then make up the
toilet story for a scapegoat?

------
tim333
Word on the Water, London's only floating bookstore was also sunk by its
toilet [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london-
canal...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london-canal-
bookstore.html)

------
blumomo
"misuse of the new toilet caused large amounts of water to flood the boat"

Misuse of available tools and then sinking the whole product sounds like a
quite familiar story in software engineering.

------
alexpotato
For those interested in a book about both management AND nuclear submarine
safety I highly recommend this book:

[https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers-
eb...](https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers-
ebook/dp/B00AFPVP0Y)

One great example: Junior folks kept hitting the wrong buttons during safety
evaluations so the crew instituted a "positive action" e.g. "I am about to
turn on this device" before they did anything.

During the safety review, the reviewers came back and said:

"You performed fewer errors than anyone we've ever tested. Actually, we take
that back, your crew was ABOUT TO make as many mistakes as normal but the
verbal call out meant that everything was double checked leading to such a
lower error count"

~~~
jotm
Sort of like Japanese train operators who point at everything. I guess it
works well.

------
dukoid
The History Guy has done an episode on this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfr0nsh0Ghc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfr0nsh0Ghc)

------
TomAnthony
> When submerged, the boat could operate for 80 nautical miles (150 km; 92 mi)
> at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph); when surfaced, she could travel 8,500
> nautical miles (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)

I always pictured submarines would spend most of their time submerged, but how
is that possible if its maximum submerged range was 92 miles?

Was it really possible its surfaced range was over 100 times greater? Or was
it just that it needed to surface occasionally then it could submerge again?

~~~
jonathanp88
You are thinking of nuclear submarines.

Submarines of this era would have a bank of batteries, using 1940's
technology, which they could use to run the boat whilst submerged. Once they
were flat, they would have to stay at or near the surface long enough to
charge them again(they could run at the surface using a 'snorkel' to bring in
air for the engines.

They would submerge only to attack or to hide. So looking at it from a range
perspective is perhaps not the best way. They could have stayed submerged
under water for a long time, but they couldn't be cruising flat out whilst
doing it.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Which explains the shapes of submarines in the two eras: they're optimized for
their preferred mode of operation. Diesel submarines were shaped approximately
like a regular ship, with a angled and tapered prow to cut the waves. Nuclear
subs are shaped like a torpedo, roughly cylindrical with a rounded prow, to
move through deep water.

~~~
brandmeyer
The shift in thinking about submarine hulls occurred at about the same time as
changes in propulsion, but they were separate developments. USS Albacore was
the first to prototype the hull shape. A short-run class of diesel-electrics
were designed to that shape before being completely overtaken by nuclear
propulsion in the US.

All modern submarines, including AIP, diesel-electric, and nuclear, use hull
forms optimized for underwater operations.

~~~
rtkwe
There are some neat ones employed by Sweden that use Sterling engines powered
by liquid oxygen and diesel which is pretty neat and makes them really quiet.

------
PhasmaFelis
I've been wondering for a while, is there a reason that U-boats all had
numbers instead of names? German surface warships had names, as far as I know.

~~~
Krasnol
As I heard it once it was an order by Kaiser Wilhelm II. He didn't like them
much and thought they were cowardly weapons and did not deserve names.

------
SEJeff
Wonderful talk on engineering failures from Pete Cheslock on the Vasa:

[https://pete.wtf/vasa/](https://pete.wtf/vasa/)

[https://vimeo.com/221068308](https://vimeo.com/221068308) \- direct video
link.

Engineering fails on seafaring vessels is a very old thing.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> U-1206: The Nazi submarine that was sunk by its toilet.

Iiiish. More precisely, the leak forced it to surface and it was sunk by
allied bombs once on the surface.

Edit: And like lgrebe says, the toilet may not have been the sole reason for
the leak - they may have struck an older wreck.

------
romaaeterna
The boat was very likely not an SA assault troop nor an SS secret police unit
(both paramilitary branches of the Nazi party), but rather a normal Wehrmacht
naval unit. So a "German U-boat", instead of a "Nazi U-boat".

Someone will perhaps reply with their more encompassing definition of Nazis,
etc., but I don't mean to engage with whatever discussion that generates. I
only point out the standard terminology that you'll see in most books, etc.

EDIT: Looks like someone has changed the title from "Nazi U-boat" \-- thanks!

~~~
tatersolid
A boat designed, built, and operated at the order of the Nazi government is a
“Nazi boat”. Even if most of the crew weren’t party members.

Similarly, many American military bases around the world are built and staffed
by mostly locals. But this is done at the direction of the American government
(usually with the incentives of payments to and defense of the local
government). But we still call them “American bases” because the Americans
exercise most of the control.

~~~
dmurray
Right, we call them "American bases" rather than "Republican bases" or
"Democrat bases" depending on which party is in power at the time. That's the
point the GP is trying to make.

~~~
tatersolid
Okay so this would be a “Third Reich boat”? Because the nation wasn’t really
anything resembling “Germany” at that point.

~~~
dmurray
It was officially called the German Empire or Greater German Empire, and the
usual adjective was "German". So normally this would be a "German boat". In
the same way, for example, the _HMS Belfast_ would be a "British ship" even if
it was built outside Britain or some of its crew came from the rest of the
British Empire.

------
omnimkar69
the ship laid down on 12 JUNE 1942 at danzing and then went to service on 16
march 1944 & the boat's emblem was whte stork on a black shield with green
break & legs.and it wasn't sunk by allied bombs it had accident near scotland
& sum of them survived.

------
throwaway925
16 days in operation, no victories. Should be in a book of greatest enterprise
failures.

~~~
zelon88
It's important to note that most of the advanced technology that Germany gets
credit for in WWII was designed, built _and_ destroyed all in a matter of a
decade or two.

The Bismarck is another good example. It was the largest, heaviest, strongest,
most advanced battleship of it's time. There was no single allied ship that
could match it's performance or firepower or withstand combat against it for
very long.

And the Bismarck was sunk 9 months after she was commissioned. Not by a
toilet, not by inexperience; but because the entire British navy identified
the gargantuan risk and superflous symbology of destroying the pinnacle of
German tech. That, and it sunk the symbolic HMS Hood (arguably second best
warship at the time) battleship in an almost comedic display that lasted mere
minutes. The Titanic took hours to sink but the Hood, a ship of similar size
and weight, was gone in mere seconds after being hit by the Bismarck's deck
guns. After that the Bismarck was the only thing Britain cared about.

The reason German tech didn't last wasn't because the tech was inferior. It
was because for every one unit Germany built, there were 5 allied units with
crosshairs trained on it. The hunting was simply better for the allies than it
was for Germany towards the end of the war, after Germany had been crippled by
allied carpet bombing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait)

~~~
foldr
>There was no single allied ship that could match it's performance or
firepower or withstand combat against it for very long.

This is something of a myth. The Bismarck was roughly comparable to
contemporary British battleships (e.g. the KGV class) in terms of protection
and firepower. The Hood was a much older design, and the Bismarck got a lucky
hit.

~~~
C1sc0cat
And the Hood was a Battle Cruiser

~~~
foldr
Kind of. It's arguably more accurate to call it a fast battleship, as its
armor protection was equivalent to that of a post-Jutland British battleship.
At the time it was built, the Hood was both fast and heavily armored. Its
armor protection scheme was somewhat dated by the 1940s.

~~~
zelon88
With light deck armor, larger plunging shells would drop down from the top
rather than piercing through the side (like hood was designed to withstand).
Had the fatal shot been lower and closer she might have taken the blow, but
alas, they fell right into her magazines.

Also I'm not a history major or anything so there will be inaccuracies in my
posts. I'm just the son of a WW2 buff who himself is a WW2 buff, repeating
most of this from memory. It's been a fun conversation so far though!

~~~
foldr
The Hood's deck armor was dated, but the range was too close for that scenario
when the fatal shot was fired. The shot must have pierced Hood's main belt (or
somehow snuck around it).

