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Wilhelm Bauer
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Wilhelm Bauer
Wilhelm Bauer (German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈbaʊɐ]; 23 December 1822 – 20 June 1875) was a German marine engineer and inventor who built several hand-powered submarines.
Wilhelm Bauer was born in Dillingen in the Kingdom of Bavaria. His father was a sergeant in a Bavarian cavalry regiment. After an apprenticeship as a wood turner, Bauer also joined the army. Working as an artillery engineer, he witnessed the German/Danish war for Schleswig-Holstein between 1848 and 1851.
Seeing how the Prussian coast was easily blockaded by the Danish navy, Bauer quickly developed a plan to build a new type of submersible ship to help break the blockade. He began studying hydraulics and ship construction. However, before his studies could get very far, the troops of the German Confederation decided to withdraw and surrendered Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark. However, Bauer was determined to realize his plan and left the Bavarian Army to join the forces of Schleswig-Holstein.
It proved very hard for Bauer, who held only a low military rank, to get his plans through the military bureaucracy, not to mention obtaining funds to build his submarine. He finally succeeded with the help of Werner von Siemens and others, being granted a small sum to build a model of his proposed u-boat.
Incendiary ships were a well known concept in blockade-breaking. A ship was loaded with explosives and set free to drift into the enemy fleet, exploding at contact. The incendiary diver was planned to work on a similar principle: It would dive under an enemy vessel, fix an electrically triggered mine to its hull and escape, igniting the mine from a safe distance. More or less the same technique was employed by all military submarine designs of that time, like Julius Kröhl’s Explorer, the U.S.S. Alligator by Brutus de Villeroi and the famous Hunley, which became the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel.
After the model of the submarine, built by Bauer himself, proved to be working, he was granted sufficient funds to build a full scale submarine. But the military authorities still were largely against Bauer’s plan and forced Bauer to change his designs in order to reduce costs.
The finished Brandtaucher, built by August Howaldt of the later Howaldtswerke was 28 feet long, weighing about 70,000 pounds. As at that time no suitable mechanical power system was available, the submarine was powered by two sailors turning a big tread wheel with their hands and feet. The third crew member, the captain, was positioned at the stern of the submarine. His job was to operate the rudders and other controls. Having arrived under the target ship, the captain would reach out through a gutta percha (rubber) glove fixed to an opening of the hull, grab the mine located within reach on the hull of the submarine and fix it on the target.
Had the Brandtaucher been built according to Bauer’s original designs, it would have achieved submersion by filling several tanks with sea water. But in the changed version the vessel itself was to be partly flooded with water, thus rendering the submarine dangerously unstable. Also the thickness of the hull and the dimensions of the pumps had to be greatly reduced.
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Wilhelm Bauer
Wilhelm Bauer (German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈbaʊɐ]; 23 December 1822 – 20 June 1875) was a German marine engineer and inventor who built several hand-powered submarines.
Wilhelm Bauer was born in Dillingen in the Kingdom of Bavaria. His father was a sergeant in a Bavarian cavalry regiment. After an apprenticeship as a wood turner, Bauer also joined the army. Working as an artillery engineer, he witnessed the German/Danish war for Schleswig-Holstein between 1848 and 1851.
Seeing how the Prussian coast was easily blockaded by the Danish navy, Bauer quickly developed a plan to build a new type of submersible ship to help break the blockade. He began studying hydraulics and ship construction. However, before his studies could get very far, the troops of the German Confederation decided to withdraw and surrendered Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark. However, Bauer was determined to realize his plan and left the Bavarian Army to join the forces of Schleswig-Holstein.
It proved very hard for Bauer, who held only a low military rank, to get his plans through the military bureaucracy, not to mention obtaining funds to build his submarine. He finally succeeded with the help of Werner von Siemens and others, being granted a small sum to build a model of his proposed u-boat.
Incendiary ships were a well known concept in blockade-breaking. A ship was loaded with explosives and set free to drift into the enemy fleet, exploding at contact. The incendiary diver was planned to work on a similar principle: It would dive under an enemy vessel, fix an electrically triggered mine to its hull and escape, igniting the mine from a safe distance. More or less the same technique was employed by all military submarine designs of that time, like Julius Kröhl’s Explorer, the U.S.S. Alligator by Brutus de Villeroi and the famous Hunley, which became the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel.
After the model of the submarine, built by Bauer himself, proved to be working, he was granted sufficient funds to build a full scale submarine. But the military authorities still were largely against Bauer’s plan and forced Bauer to change his designs in order to reduce costs.
The finished Brandtaucher, built by August Howaldt of the later Howaldtswerke was 28 feet long, weighing about 70,000 pounds. As at that time no suitable mechanical power system was available, the submarine was powered by two sailors turning a big tread wheel with their hands and feet. The third crew member, the captain, was positioned at the stern of the submarine. His job was to operate the rudders and other controls. Having arrived under the target ship, the captain would reach out through a gutta percha (rubber) glove fixed to an opening of the hull, grab the mine located within reach on the hull of the submarine and fix it on the target.
Had the Brandtaucher been built according to Bauer’s original designs, it would have achieved submersion by filling several tanks with sea water. But in the changed version the vessel itself was to be partly flooded with water, thus rendering the submarine dangerously unstable. Also the thickness of the hull and the dimensions of the pumps had to be greatly reduced.
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