RC Model
During World War II the submarine’s principal roles were commerce destruction and hunting enemy surface warships. The antisubmarine forces of the United States and the British Commonwealth comprehensively defeated the submarine campaigns of both Germany and Japan against both merchant shipping and naval forces with a combination of superior tactics and technologies. Nevertheless, it was clear that new submarine technologies could potentially negate this superiority. In particular, the advent of the German Type XXI submarines, the elektroboote, was especially worrying. They combined high underwater speed, rapid maneuverability, substantial submerged endurance, deep diving, and long range without needing to surface. These attributes resulted from the installation of greatly enlarged batteries and more powerful electric motors in a shorter, deeper, stronger, streamlined hull, and the use of snorkels to operate the main diesel engines underwater. While the Type XXI did not represent a mature technology, its potential was clear, and its design features powerfully influenced submarine development after World War II, especially in the United States and the Soviet Union.
The advent of the Cold War forced a thorough reappraisal of the role of submarines in the fleets of the United States and its allies. Maintenance of maritime commerce, the movement of troops, munitions, and equipment across the oceans to Europe and the Far East, and the forward deployment of powerful naval surface forces, centered mainly on aircraft carriers, all were vital components of the West’s strategy for containing the Soviet Union and for conducting operations should a war break out. The deployment of mature submarines with the capabilities of the elektroboote potentially could jeopardize the West’s ability to undertake all three. One part of the solution to countering fast, true submarines was the deployment of fast, effective surface and aerial antisubmarine assets, but that addressed only containing and defeating submarines once they had reached the open ocean. The other, and potentially more efficient, option was to deploy the West’s own submarines to hunt and kill enemy submarines before they could reach the oceans, and that therefore became one of the submarine’s primary missions.
The Soviet Union also had to re-evaluate the purpose of its submarine force. One primary role quickly emerged: defending the nation’s coast and ports against attack through offensive operations against the West’s surface maritime assets—especially carrier forces and oceanic lines of communications—and defensive operations against submarines attempting to prevent the egress of Soviet boats. Both sides in the Cold War quickly came to view enemy submarines as the primary target of their own boats, especially as both began deploying submarines as platforms for strategic missile attack against the other’s homeland; in addition, the Soviet Union also placed great emphasis on offensive missions against the West’s carrier groups.
At the beginning of the Cold War, all operational submarines used diesel-electric drive. This required submarines either to surface frequently to recharge their batteries, or that they be equipped with a snorkel breathing device. The initial primary focus of submarine development, especially in the United States and the Soviet Union, was the integration of experience from analyzing and operating the German elektroboote into their fleets.
The U.S. Navy took a three-track approach to this task. The first, longer-term approach was to explore new propulsion technologies that would free submarines from the limitations of diesel-electric drive; this led to the introduction of nuclear-powered boats. The second was to develop new designs that embodied the principles of the Type XXI boats within the framework of U.S. requirements. New long-range submarines of the Tang class and short-range hunter-killer types emerged, but their numbers fell far short of the fleet’s requirements. To a great extent, however, budgetary constraints forced the U.S. Navy to pursue most vigorously the least attractive option: modifying, through the GUPPY program, as much as possible of the large existing fleet of new but obsolete submarines built during World War II for greater speed and underwater endurance. Large numbers of almost new Gato, Balao, and Tench class fleet submarines received more streamlined casings and sails, enlarged batteries, snorkels, and improved sensors to suit them for submerged operation for more extended periods.
The United States also undertook research on improved hull forms for extended high-speed submerged operation, leading to the construction of the experimental Albacore by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1952–1953.
The Albacore was revolutionary: the hull was a teardrop shape, optimized for underwater operation; there was a single propeller; and the installation of a massive battery permitted very high submerged speed, albeit for only short periods. The new hull form demonstrated great maneuverability, and exploiting it led to substantial improvements in subsequent submarine control systems, making them more akin to flying an aircraft than operating a boat. The Albacore also was subject to many modifications, especially to the stern, which eventually received an X-tail that increased overall length to 210960; several different types of propeller and rudder arrangements were tried, and the boat also tested new configurations for sonar installations.
The new shape demonstrated by the Albacore quickly found its way into operational submarine service, both for diesel boats and for n u c l e a r-powered submarines, in the United States and elsewhere. Its wide adoption marked the completion of the process of transformation from submersible surface craft to full submarines. In the United States it found its principal application in the development of nuclear-powered boats; only the three diesel-electric submarines of the Barbel class took advantage of its characteristics.
