Deepest depth ever achieved and survived by a U-boat?

[Felix C]

I recall reading one of the tankers was depth charged at 700ft.
Jean Noli in Admiral's Wolfpack mentions another boat at 900ft.

Do not know if the above are correct? Any verifiable depths?

[Zapphod]

In the book "So war der U-Boot-Krieg" by Harald Busch there are reports of U 331 under Freiherr Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen reaching 260 meters (853 feet) in an uncontrolled dive.

Survivors of U 175 claim to have reached 320 meters (1050 feet) before correcting, surfacing and being abandoned but I would consider that "not surviving" as such.

[hucks216]

Just a question out of curiosity really but what was the maximum depth reading on the Depth Gauge and if the boat went beyond that point how would they know what depth they reached? Was there any other way of knowing what depth they reached?

[Larry D.]

Compare to published maximum safe depth specifications for:
Soviet/Russian titanium-hulled K-278 attack submarine: 1300 meters (4265 feet);
USN Seawolf Class attack submarines: 731 meters (2400 feet).

Seems like we haven't come quite as far as we should have compared to the U-boats of some 70 years ago.

[hucks216]

Compare to published maximum safe depth specifications for:
Soviet/Russian titanium-hulled K-278 attack submarine: 1300 meters (4265 feet);
USN Seawolf Class attack submarines: 731 meters (2400 feet).

If those are the published depths for the Akula & Seawolf than I think it is safe to say that they go a fair bit deeper than that. It is amazing to think that anything as large as modern submarines can safely operate at such crushing depths. Then again, it is probably more amazing to think that living organisms can!

[Felix C]

I found this. First para is interesting http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTBNotesDiv ... dition.htm
and this

http://uboat.net/forums/read.php?3,2801 ... #msg-28019

[Zapphod]

I found this. First para is interesting http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTBNotesDiv ... dition.htm
and this

http://uboat.net/forums/read.php?3,2801 ... #msg-28019

Record Depth There is good evidence that one U-Boat in the summer of 1943 involuntarily dived to 340 m. (1,115 ft.) without breaking up.

I looked at that but I figured that the term "good evidence" indicated that while likely it was unproven.

I think that boat was U-175 and the reason it was capped at 320 meters was that the pressure gauge on the boat broke at 32 Atmospheres which is roughly 330 meters (I hope ).

[Larry D.]

The messages in the second link provided by Felix have depth claims that are all over the place and it's impossible to know which to believe. As usual, they are rarely sourced. Claims without sourcing are immediately discardable.

L.

[Felix C]

Well, please disregard my reference to the Jean Noli book. Latest searches on my part shows the author fabricated information. Pardon that.