The Hecht (German: "Pike"), also known as Type XXVIIA, was a two-man all-electric German

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 midget submarine

Midget submarine

A midget submarine is any submarine under 150 tons, typically operated by a crew of one or two but sometimes up to 6 or 8, with little or no on-board living accommodation...

 created during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

History

The origin of the Hecht began with the salvage of the two British X class submarine

X class submarine

The X class was a World War II midget submarine class built for the Royal Navy during 1943–44.Known individually as X-Craft, the vessels were designed to be towed to their intended area of operations by a full-size 'mother' submarine - - with a passage crew on board, the operational crew...

s HMS X6 and X7 which had been sunk during Operation Source

Operation Source

Operation Source was a series of attacks to neutralise the heavy German warships – Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Lutzow – based in northern Norway, using X-class midget submarines....

, an attempt to sink the German battleship Tirpitz

German battleship Tirpitz

Tirpitz was the second of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the Imperial Navy, the ship was laid down at the Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and launched two and a half years later in April...

. Hauptamt Kriegschiffbau subsequently produced a design for a two-man submarine based on inspection of the British boats, designated Type XXVIIA and named Hecht ("Pike")

Like the British X class boats, the Type XXVIIA was designed to carry explosive charges to be laid beneath enemy ships, but it was markedly smaller and had substantial differences from the X class. It dispensed with a dual diesel/electric propulsion system, relying instead solely on electrical power in the form of a 12 hp AEG

AEG

Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in 1883 by Emil Rathenau....

 torpedo motor, on the basis that since it would operate submerged there was no need for a diesel engine. However, this resulted in a very low endurance of 69 nmi (127.8 km) at 4 kn (2.2 m/s).

Since the boat would need to be able to pass through anti-submarine nets and similar obstacles, it was designed without hydroplane

Planing (sailing)

Planing is the mode of operation for a waterborne craft in which its weight is predominantly supported by hydrodynamic lift, rather than hydrostatic lift .-History:...

s or fins, her trim being controlled with adjustable weights within the pressure hull. In practice this proved totally ineffective since the weights could not be moved quickly enough and hydroplanes and fins were subsequently fitted. Submerged control was still poor, since Hecht was not fitted with ballast tank

Ballast tank

A ballast tank is a compartment within a boat, ship or other floating structure that holds water.-History:The basic concept behind the ballast tank can be seen in many forms of aquatic life, such as the blowfish or argonaut octopus, and the concept has been invented and reinvented many times by...

s.

Even though Hecht had been designed to transport an explosive charge, Karl Dönitz

Karl Dönitz

Karl Dönitz was a German naval commander during World War II. He started his career in the German Navy during World War I. In 1918, while he was in command of , the submarine was sunk by British forces and Dönitz was taken prisoner...

 insisted that a torpedo be carried so that attacks could be carried out on vessels in coastal waters and Hecht was designed to be armed either with an underslung torpedo or an underslung mine, and a limpet mine

Limpet mine

A limpet mine is a type of naval mine attached to a target by magnets; they are so named because of their superficial similarity to the limpet, a type of mollusk....

 in the nose.

Externally, Hecht resembled the British Welman submarine

Welman submarine

The Welman submarine was a Second World War one-man British midget submarine developed by the Special Operations Executive. It only saw action once and was never particularly successful.-Design:...

. The detachable explosive charge was fitted to the nose of the submarine, while the forward section held the battery and a gyrocompass

Gyrocompass

A gyrocompass­ is a type of non-magnetic compass which bases on a fast-spinning disc and rotation of our planet to automatically find geographical direction...

, the first to be fitted to a German midget submarine and considered essential for navigation if the craft was to operate submerged. Behind this was the control compartment with seats for the two man crew arranged one behind the other on the centerline with the engineer in front and the commander behind him. The commander was provided with a periscope and a clear acrylic dome for navigational purposes.

Since the craft was intended to operate almost exclusively below the surface, it was decided that it needed to be fitted with a Gyrocompass

Gyrocompass

A gyrocompass­ is a type of non-magnetic compass which bases on a fast-spinning disc and rotation of our planet to automatically find geographical direction...

 and was the first German midget submarine to be so equipped.

On 18 January 1944, Dönitz discussed the new design with Adolf Hitler who expressed his approval, and on 9 March contracts were placed with Germaniawerft of Kiel

Kiel

Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

 for construction of a prototype, followed by a further contract for 52 submarines on 28 March.

Fiftythree Hechts were built in total between May and August 1944, but their unsatisfactory performance meant they never saw action, and were mostly used for training Seehund

Seehund

The Seehund , also known as Type XXVII, was a successful series of German midget submarines created during World War II...

crews.

The submarine could also carry a diver in the nose rather than a magnetic mine.