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Comment by pferde | Hacker News Reader

Wow, just reading about the cramped conditions inside a submarine got me breathing faster due to my latent claustrophobia. And this was a fairly modern submarine, I can't imagine how much worse it had to be in WW2-era subs...

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Oh yeah. Quite some years ago my wife and I went on a tour through a WW II era submarine. Luckily for us, the docent leading the tour had served on an identical subs in the Pacific theater. Anyway, about 1/2 way through the tour, my wife went top-side. She isn't normally claustrophobic, but has a slight touch of it. The sub was triggering.

The docent was great. "All submariners are pillow-huggers." Everyone but the commanding officer hot-bunked. You shared a bunk, and just about everything else. The things you didn't share were your pillow, your toothbrush (when there was water enough to use it), and the clothes you were wearing. Said clothes being a tee-shirt and shorts which you wore until they rotted off of you and then discarded -- no water to waste on laundering clothes.

Fresh water was made by desalination. Desalination took fuel.

"The things you didn't share were your pillow, your toothbrush (when there was water enough to use it), and the clothes you were wearing. Said clothes being a tee-shirt and shorts which you wore until they rotted off of you and then discarded -- no water to waste on laundering clothes."

I'd be tempted to cauterize my nostrils under such circumstances. I don't know how they could bear it, but presume fart and BO jokes must have been flying 24/7 during their whole deployment.

Based on my experience, once everybody is smelly, nobody is.

And fecal jokes are your #2 source of entertainment. Pissing off your friends is #1.

Though to be fair, my experience is based on many weeks of unwashed outdoor shenanigans, and not stuck in a tube underwater.

Sensory adaptation. It’s why your house smells weird when you come home from a long trip, or why people with horrible smelling breath often have no idea.

My dad and I toured the USS Pampanito in San Francisco. We're both over 6 foot tall and it was quite cramped (even with very few people moving around). We wondered at the time if they had a height/size limitation for crew members.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pampanito_(SS-383)

The WW-II era USS Clamagore is on display in Charleston South Carolina, and I went through it while I was talking to the local Navy recruiter about going Nuke. I hit my head on just about everything bolted to the overhead, and banged my shins on all the hatch coamings. Even though the modern boats are much roomier, that was enough for me to stop talking with the Navy and switch to the Air Force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Clamagore_(SS-343)

Made me think I wanted to see a 360 panorama, and you can find a few

https://www.360cities.net/image/vladivostok-submarine-56-cen...

https://www.360cities.net/image/norway-horten-navy-museum-su...

Don't watch Das Boot.

Actually do watch it if at all possible.

It is a great movie, but it is intentionally shot to evoke feelings of claustrophobia -- it may be great art, but I would not recommend it to a true claustrophobe.

I had the great pleasure to walk through one of the original models used for shooting exhibited at Bavaria Filmstadt [0].

I believe the guide said that it had to be scaled up by ~25% to fit the cameras at the time and it was still incredibly claustrophobic.

[0] https://goo.gl/maps/uEKtGzQ4wHd78CWW9

> it had to be scaled up by ~25%

Wow, that's kind of nuts.

Watch the full Director's cut, in German (not dubbed, with subtitles in your language as necessary). The original (USA) theatrical release dropped a lot.

Civil war subs...

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