Submarine definition5/15/2023 The cruisers were used either for long-range operations or to refuel the smaller vessels at sea. Most of these submarines were improved 500- to 700-ton U-boats supplemented by larger 1,000- to 1,600-ton U-cruisers. ( See also World War I.) World War II submarines.ĭuring World War II Germany again employed large numbers of diesel-electric submarines against British and American shipping. Had Germany been able to employ submarines in greater numbers, Great Britain might easily have lost the war. Later U-boats were also equipped to lay underwater minefields.Īllied vessels had no reliable way of detecting submarines underwater, and by 1918 U-boats had sunk more than 11 million tons of shipping. For greater endurance at sea, the Germans used diesel engines for surface cruising and equipped their U-boats (short for Unterseeboot, undersea boat) with at least one medium-caliber deck gun. World War I submarines.Īt the beginning of World War I Germany challenged British seapower with a large ocean-going submarine fleet. Holland were purchased by the United States Navy, and others built by Holland and a rival American inventor, Simon Lake, were used in Russia and Japan. Several such vessels designed by American inventor John P. In addition, these submarines were armed with self-propelled torpedoes-cylinder-shaped underwater missiles propelled by small electric engines. Many were constructed with double hulls, which provided space for larger ballast tanks as well as a cushion from underwater explosions. These craft used a dual system of propulsion: for surface cruising they were powered by gasoline or steam engines and for underwater movement they used electric engines. The first true submarinesīegan to appear at the end of the 19th century in France and the United States. Both steam and reciprocating engines needed a constant supply of oxygen, and hand-turned propellers, the only solution left, were too weak to propel the craft far. However, the lack of a power source while underwater remained a problem. Ballast tanks and a system of weights helped submerge these cigar-shaped craft, and their armament generally consisted of a spare torpedo, an explosive device fitted to the end of a long pole, or spar. Fulton’s vessel also had a horizontal rudder to steer the craft underwater.ĭuring the American Civil War the Confederate Navy employed submersibles in an attempt to break the Union Navy’s blockade of Southern ports. Built of copper sheets over iron ribs and driven by a hand-powered, geared propeller, the Nautilus submerged by letting water into ballast tanks, which could later be pumped dry to achieve the buoyancy necessary to ascend or surface. More sophisticated was the Nautilus, a military submergible designed in 1800 by Robert Fulton, the famous American inventor better known for his river steamboats. Although the craft itself worked well enough, the armament device proved unsuccessful. Powered by hand-turned propellers, the vessel was designed to approach anchored ships while it was at least partially submerged and to attach an explosive charge to the target’s hull with an external screwlike device. The first submergible used for military purposes was David Bushnell’s Turtle, a one-man, wooden, barrel-like craft employed during the American Revolution against British warships. Drebbel’s submergibles, which reportedly traveled for short distances beneath the surface of the Thames River, consisted of wooden frames covered tightly by sheets of waterproofed leather and propelled by oars that extended through the sides of the boat. William Bourne, a British mathematician and naval writer, outlined plans for a practical submergible vessel in 1578, and many of his ideas were incorporated into a series of experimental boats constructed by Cornelis van Drebbel, a Dutch inventor, in the early 17th century. The philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome were captivated by the possibility of constructing diving bells and other devices for exploring what was an enticingly close but inaccessible realm. Mankind’s attempts to penetrate the surface of the ocean undoubtedly predate written history.
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