The Silent Service: SUBMARINE EVOLUTION

This page takes you on a brief journey through the evolution of the Submarine.

The idea of a vessel that could travel below the surface the water has been around since the time of the ancient greeks. The first attempts to actually build a submersible ship used wood and animal hide to construct the hull and a hand powered propulsion system for manuevering. Unfortuneately most of these early attempts ended in failure and quite often death to the operator.

It wasn't until the 1620's when a Dutch inventor working for King of England succesfully put together a submersible ship that dove beneath the surface and then rose again succesfully. The hull was made of oak and sealed with greased leather.

One of the first attempts at a submersible vehicle by an american was during the American Revolution. David Bushnell invented the "Turtle". The turtle was propelled by two hand cranks and steered using a hand operated rudder. The depth was controlled by a foot operated floodable ballast tank. A corkscrew sticking out of the top of the vessel was designed to attach "under water" bombs to British ships that were blockading Boston Harbor. Unfortunately, the hulls of the British ships were unable to be penetrated by the corkscrew and the Turtle's mission was a succesful failure.

Over the next 100 years, inventors such as Robert Fulton ("The Nautilaus") and William Bauer ("The Diving Incendiary"), tried to perfect the submarine. As iron became more readily available, it was used to line the wooden hulls instead of animal hide. Unfortuneately, all of these designs had the same major drawbacks. The first draw back was the human factor. These vehicles could only travel very short distances becuase the operators at the hand cranks would become exhausted. Which also by the way used up all of the air in the underwater compartments. The second factor was technology. The wood, iron and other material at the time made it virtually impossible to build a water tight boat or even a structure that could withstand the water pressure at over a few meters deep.

William Bauer. of Baverian descent. was the first modern day submarine catastrophe survivor. Bauer had taken his ship, "The Diving Incendiary", out on trials but descended to far. Due to leaking valves and blown rivets, the boat took on water and sank to over 14 meters. Bauer and the two crewman sat in their chamber of almost six hours while they waited for the pressure to equalize and then where able to open the hatch and float to the surface in an air bubble.

Towards the end of the 1800's, the industrialization of North America and Europe helped to unite science and technology. This unification helped to eliminate stumbling blocks that impeded earlier submarine development. The use of steel (Bessemer Process) allowed for stronger hulls and tools of higher precision allowed for creation of tighter seals and leakproof valves. As the steam engine was refined, engineers began to incorporate them into submersible vehicles. This eliminated the use of manpower to propel the subs thus allowing for longer travel distances. The drawback is that the steam engine needs a furnace and the furnace needs air to burn its fuel. To get this engine to work, the crew had to extinguish the furnace on the surface and use the existing pressure in the boiler to propel the vehicle. The heat from the boiler eventually would suffocate the crew and the boat would need to surface.

The internal combustion and kerosene engine were also experimented with but it was the Diesel engine that provided the safety and efficiency needed for the backbone of a propulsion system. The electric engine or battery powered engine also became practical at this time. A battery could power an electric engine for long periods of time. The combination of these two technologies led to what we now call a diesel/electric submarine. On the surface, the submarine is powered by the diesel engine which charges the battery. When the boat submerges, the sub switches to its battery powered engine. When the battery runs low, the sub is forced to surface.

Just before the onset of the great war, many of the world navies began to order/produce submarines in high quantities. Most of the submarines were used to patrol littoral (near shore) waters and defend their country's harbors from larger war ships. All along, the submarines were being equipped with early torpedo systems as well as surface mount guns. The first submarine involvement of the Great war was with a German U-boat and a British war ship. The U-Boat fired a torpedo and missed. A British cruiser chased it down and rammed it to pieces. Less then a month later, the Germans got their revenge by succesfully sinking a British cruiser with a torpedo. Of course, the Germans had been torpedoing merchant ships in the Atlantic for awhile and it was U-boat that sunk the Lusitania and consequently dragged the US into World War I.

By the beginning of World War II, the Germans had developed a substantial submarine fleet. The U-boats (short for Unterseeboote) were a lethal and deadly force. During this time, other world navies began to bulk up their submarine forces as well as their anti-submarine warfare capabilities. In order to maintain an edge over the surface ships, the submarines needed to go through a "tech re-fit" as well. One of the most paramount technologies utilized by submarines was the development of SONAR or SOund Navagation And Ranging. This allowed submarines to detect other submarines underwater by listening to noise patterns in the ocean.

Another major technological advance was the development of long range radio. This allowed submarines to embark on missions and still transmissions indicating new/changing mission directives. It could also be used to orchestrate attacks from multiple ships in the fleet. The propulsion and weapon systems had also been improved over this time. The snorkel was invented for diesel engines so boats could travel just below the ocean surface and still use the combustion engine. This allowed submarines to travel farther from shore and stay submerged longer.

Submarines played a much larger role in the second World War. The U-boats were causing havoc in the North Atlantic. From February through March of 1943, German U-boats sunk over 300 allied ships. The British sunk 24 German subs while losing only five of their own. In the pacific, US submarines had their way with the Japanese Navy. The Japanese Navy lost one battleship, 8 aircraft carriers, 11 cruisers and over 130 submarines to US fired torpedo's. The Japanese sunk 55 US subs.

The post war era saw the development of the "Fast Submarine", the nuclear bomb and missile launch systems. The major navies of the world all wanted these technologies and they all wanted them on their submarines. The fast submarines could travel submerged at speeds up to 17 knots. (twice as fast as before) This made them impossible to track and hunt down. Submarines became equipped with missile launch systems that were capable of launching strategically guided missiles. These missiles could be armed with nuclear warheads. A submarine could slink its way towards the enemy coast and then launch a sneak nuclear attack of monumental consequences on the enemies most strategic sites.

The one disadvantage still to the submarine was that its battery powered engine, still required it to surface at least once every few days. The invention of the nuclear reactor and engine, gave the submarine its missing piece to world sea supremecy. With nuclear power, no oxygen is required for combustion so the submarine does not have to surface and with no battery to wear out, it did not have to surface to recharge. In fact, a submarine's nuclear reactor can supply a sub with the power, fresh water and air it needs to stay submerged for years. It is the human factor that does not make this happen. There is not enough room on a sub to supply more than a few weeks worth of food for the crew. It is the nuclear propulsion system that gives a submarine the distinction of being a nuclear sub, not the warheads in the missiles. The first nuclear submarine was built by the US Navy in the 1950's. ("The Nautilus" SSN = Submersible Ship Nuclear).

The invention of submersible launched ballistic missiles allowed a submarine to launch a nuclear warhead from below the surface of the ocean and never have to surface. This made a launch virtually undetectable until it was far too late. Submarines were also made to operate much more quietly to combat against improved sonar techniques. These submarines were known as Ballistic Missile Subs or SSBN's. It was these deadly leviathan's that kept the cold war mysteriously real for so long. Neither the Soviets nor the Americans knew where each other or more importantly, where each other's nuclear weapon's were beneath the ocean at any given time.

There will always be a need for submarines whether it be nuclear, to patrol the dark depths of the ocean or diesel/electric to patrol littoral waters. The US is building a new fleet of nuclear attack subs which utilize new technologies such as 10BaseT and touch panel displays to reduce the amount of crew necessary to operate the ship and launch a weapon. The Austrailian navy is looking to build themselves a more advanced fleet of diesel/electric submarines to help them patrol the waters surrouding their continent. And of course, submarines are also used for non military purposes such as research, but that is a topic for another day.

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