Short History of Submarines

From the Internet, DJ is printing an interesting and knowledgeable history of submarines

Submarine, naval vessel designed principally for underwater operations and equipped with missiles and torpedoes as its basic weapons. The modern submarine is a watertight craft with a welded, cigar-shaped hull, most of which is occupied by an inner chamber known as the pressure hull, designed to withstand the tremendous pressures at great ocean depths, and the remainder by an outer chamber that houses ballast tanks. Rising from the hull is a structure called the sail. Known as the conning tower on older submarines, the sail of a modern, nuclear submarine houses periscopes, radar and radio masts, snorkel, and diving planes. During surface operation, the sail serves as the vessel's bridge. When submerged, the functions of the bridge are transferred to the control room, located in the pressure hull, directly below the sail.

To submerge the submarine, water is admitted to the ballast tanks in sufficient quantities to sink it to the desired depth. Resurfacing is accomplished by the use of compressed air to force the water out of the tanks. At the bow or sail, and at the stern, are horizontal rudders, known as diving planes, which give the vessel longitudinal stability when diving or rising.

The main tactical weapons of the U.S. attack submarines are the torpedoes, launched from the torpedo tubes in the bow, and cruise missiles fired from torpedo tubes or special vertical launch tubes slightly behind the bow.

Early History

The first successful underwater craft was a leather-encased wooden rowboat, built in England in the 1620s by the Dutch inventor Cornelis Van Drebbel. According to contemporary accounts, the vessel carried 12 oarsmen and several passengers below the surface of the Thames River in a series of trips lasting several hours. Drebbel reputedly used air tubes supported on the surface of the water by floats to replenish the oxygen supply while the boat was underwater.

The first submarine to be used as an instrument of war was an egg-shaped craft, which carried only one person. Called 'Bushnell's turtle', it was invented in the 1770s by the American engineer David Bushnell. This craft was propelled by hand-operated screwlike devices, submerged when a valve admitted seawater into a ballast tank, and rose when the tank was emptied by a hand pump. Lead ballast kept the boat upright. Because it lacked an underwater supply of oxygen, the boat could remain submerged for only a half hour. During the American Revolution it was used in an unsuccessful attack on a British ship anchored in New York Harbour.

In 1800 the American inventor Robert Fulton built a 6.4-m (21-ft) submarine named the Nautilus, which was similar in shape to the modern submarine. Fulton introduced in this vessel two important innovations: rudders for vertical and horizontal control and compressed air as an underwater supply of oxygen. When submerged, the Nautilus was powered by a hand-operated, four-blade propeller. On the surface the boat was propelled by means of sails attached to a folding mast.

Four submersible vessels were built during the American Civil War by the Confederates for use against the federal fleet. In 1864 a Confederate submarine, the Hunley, blew up the USS Housatonic in Charleston, South Carolina, Harbour, but was itself destroyed by the explosion.

In the latter half of the 19th century many attempts were made to develop an adequate means of submarine propulsion. Inventors experimented with compressed air, steam, and electricity as power sources. The first practical submarine with an efficient source of power was developed by the American inventor John Philip Holland, who used a dual-propulsion system. Launched in 1898, his submarine was equipped with a gasoline engine for surface cruising and with an electric motor for underwater power. The boat, which had an overall length of 16.2 m (53 ft), was purchased by the U.S. government in 1900 and named the USS Holland.

20th Century

The American engineer Simon Lake made several contributions to the development of the modern submarine, notably by designing in 1898 the free-flooding superstructure. In 1906 the Germans adapted the diesel engine to the submarine. With the development of the periscope and the self-propelled torpedo, the submarine became a formidable factor in naval warfare. The effectiveness of the underwater craft as a deadly weapon was first demonstrated during World War I, when German submarines, known as U-boats, were used extensively against Allied warships and merchant vessels. Their success led to the development of depth charges.

Between World War I and World War II various improvements were made in submarine design and operation. Underwater sound devices were developed for communications and for detection of enemy ships. Rescue devices, such as the lightweight breathing apparatus called the Momsen lung, became standard equipment for crew in case of emergency. By World War II a typical U.S. submarine had a surface speed of about 18 knots using diesel engines and a submerged speed of 8 knots using electric motors. In operating submerged the range was limited by storage-battery power, and the submarine was forced to surface periodically in order to recharge its batteries.

During World War II the German navy developed a device, called the snorkel, which permits the submarine to recharge its batteries while cruising at periscope depth. The snorkel consists of a long tube extending above the surface of the sea; in the tube are inlet ducts to supply air to the diesel engines and outlet ducts to carry off the engine-exhaust gases. The snorkel increased the underwater range of the submarine enormously. In 1950 a snorkel-equipped submarine set a distance record for underwater navigation by sailing submerged from Hong Kong to Honolulu, a distance of about 8370 km (about 5200 mi) in 21 days.

A new type of hull, shaped like a blimp, was introduced in the USS Albacore, launched in 1953. This hull design proved so successful in providing greater submerged speeds that the teardrop-hull configuration was utilized in nearly all subsequent submarine construction.

In 1954 the British navy launched the submarine HMS Explorer, powered by turbines using hydrogen peroxide fuel, which greatly extended the underwater range.

Nuclear Submarines

The most revolutionary development in the science of underwater navigation was the application of nuclear energy to submarine propulsion. The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched in 1954 and commissioned in the following year. In a trial run conducted in 1955, the Nautilus sailed totally submerged from New London, Connecticut, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, a distance of 2170 km (1350 mi) in 84 hours. Its cruising speed submerged was more than 20 knots for an almost unlimited range. Early in August 1958 the Nautilus made the first undersea transit of the North Pole, cruising under the polar ice pack from Point Barrow, Alaska, to a point between Spitsbergen, Norway, and Greenland. Later in the same month the USS Skate, another nuclear-powered submarine that was launched in the previous year, together with the USS Seawolf and USS Swordfish, reached the North Pole during an exploration trip. The Seawolf set an endurance record for underwater operation of 60 days between August 7 and October 6, 1958.

In 1956 the USS Skipjack was launched. The Skipjack combined nuclear propulsion with the blimpish hull form of the Albacore and a single propeller. Advanced versions of this submarine, known as the Thresher class, were placed in operation in the early 1960s. On April 10, 1963, the USS Thresher was lost, with 129 men aboard, during deep-diving tests in the Atlantic about 200 miles east of Boston. The tragedy prompted extensive investigation and resulted in innovations in submarine design and undersea rescue technology.

In 1960 the first submarines incorporating a battery of solid-propellant submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) with nuclear warheads were built in the U.S.. Known as the Polaris missile, this weapon is capable of striking targets about 4000 km (about 2500 mi) from a submerged submarine. In the mid-1960s, the U.S. Navy developed a long-range, inertially guided antisubmarine missile that could be launched underwater from the torpedo tubes of a submarine. In the late 1960s, the Polaris missile was replaced on some submarines by a new longer-range SLBM, called Poseidon, capable of carrying up to ten nuclear warheads.

In the early 1970s the U.S. accelerated the development of the Trident I system, a successor to the Polaris-Poseidon, including the new Ohio class of nuclear submarine equipped with 24 launching tubes, each containing an ICBM with a range of 7400 km (4600 mi). The first vessel of this class, the USS Ohio, was launched and commissioned in 1981.

By 1988, the U.S. had 132 submarines in operation, almost all of them nuclear-powered. Most are equipped with a reactor designed to provide propulsion for at least 640,000 km (400,000 mi) without refuelling. The Soviet Union was estimated to possess about 120 nuclear submarines, 48 of which were equipped with cruise missiles; most of the remainder had guided missiles designed for antisubmarine warfare.