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Type X-BAfter extensive re-work of the plans and drawings of the Type X-A, German designers came up with the improved Type X-B ocean going mine laying U-Boat. Many of the changes included adding two stern tubes, redistribution of the mine tubes with six internal shafts forward which projected above and below the pressure hull (carried three mines in each shaft) and twelve external shafts on each side (carried two mines per shaft). The torpedo reloads were carried both internally and externally. Since laying of mines in an enemy's harbor had become fruitless due to the sophisticated sweeping capabilities of the Allies, the Type X-B U-Boats were used more for very long range supply missions than mine laying.
Displacement................ 1,763 tons surface; 2,177 tons submerged
Dimensions..................... 294' 9" x 30' 3" x 13' 6"
Engines............................ twin shaft diesel and electric
Power (diesel)........... 4,200 hp
(electric)....... 1,100 hp
Speed (diesel).......... 16.5 knots
(electric)...... 7 knots
Bunkers........................ 368 tons of fuel oil
Radius (diesel)..... 14,550 miles @ 12 knots
(electric).. 93 miles @ 4 knots
Tubes (fwd)........... None
(aft)............ Two 21 inch
(carried fifteen torpedoes and sixty six mines)
Guns.......................... Single 4.1 inch deck gun
AA Guns.................. Single 37mm and
Single 20mm
Crew........................ 52 men
Later in the war, snorkels were added, the AA armament was increased to two twin mount 20mm and the 4.1 inch deck gun was removed.
The Type X-B German U-Boats built were: U-116 thru U-119, U-219, U-220, U-233 and U-234, all built by Krupp's Germania Werft in Kiel.
Interesting historical notes - U-219 was transferred to the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1945 and renumbered I.505. U-234 was outfitted as a cargo carrier for her one and only mission, and departed Germany in April 1945 with a very unusual cargo - the new Chief of the Luftwaffe for the Far East, a Kriegsmarine judge advocate, a top level German scientist, two Japanese weapons experts, two Me 262 jet fighters in crates with all the technological data for the Japanese to build their own.....and 560 kilos of uranium oxide, consigned to the Imperial Japanese Army - for their atomic bomb! The Japanese had test fired their first atomic weapon one week EARLIER than the United States, but were lacking in fissionable material. Several German U-Boats were dispatched to Japan with uranium but, due to the broken codes, were intercepted and sunk before leaving the North Sea. Kapitänleutnant Johann-Heinrich Fehler, Commander of U-234, figured that he probably should not stick to the route he was given because all the other boats who did - were sunk. While this was his first command aboard a submarine, he was no stranger to the sea or to warfare. Prior to the war, he was Skipper of German merchant ships and in the early stages of the war, he was the Demolitions Officer aboard the raider ATLANTIS. U-234 was in the Atlantic when Germany surrendered and Fehler took the boat into Portsmouth, NH in the USA. No one seems to know what happened to this uranium that U-234 unwillingly brought to the United States, but many theorize it was used in the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.......but all those records seem to have disappeared.
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