U.S. Submarines: Run Silent, Run Deep...On Diesel Engines?

The National Interest ^ | September 18, 2014 | James Holmes

[thackney]

I’m still thinking that I don’t want folks willing to be cut off from “civilization” for a couple decades, given the power over a military sub. Even if they they are stable now, they won’t be in a couple decades.

Fun “what if” discussion, more suited for a flight to Mars, far away from the rest of us.

[John S Mosby]

Critically missing in this 3rd world retro WWII technology “what if” discussion is the fact that diesel boats are noisy. Noise= death. So it wouldn’t matter how many could be deployed, they’d provide a target rich environment for the silent, fast killers of ASW and AS killer subs (the, uh, nuclear ones).

Now, there are some extremely quiet new electric subs that are providing a bit of a scare. But the people who know about them, can’t talk freely about them. And they are being acted upon.

Incidentally, the system that makes fresh water onboard- using a catalytic reaction of sea water— that has a lot of danger in its design and technology, have heard from many inside.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

I'm not a naval tactician so you veterans can correct me, but with planes and satellite surveillance looking for subs, it's not going to be as easy to hide them as in WWII.

Also it wouldn't be really hard to not develop a pattern of snorkeling or refueling making them very predictable and vulnerable targets. Nuclear boats have the advantage of disappearing when the submerge not surfacing till they return.

Question for our active/armchair naval buffs:

Having the diesel running is to be a sitting duck. The article doesn't talk about it, but wouldn't the noise of the diesel hamper the subs passive sonar and make them deaf/blind sitting duck? Helicopters use active noise suppression are there similar systems that function that could cancel the noise of the engines.

[MasterGunner01]

Observations on U.S. submarines in WW2.
1. Outside of teaching submariners the basics, most but not all American subs went to the Pacific.
2. Torpedoes in the submarine service, Mk 14, and surface fleet, Mk 15, were equally bad. The multiple deficiencies of faulty magnetic exploders, faulty depth keeping mechanism, and faulty contact exploders weren't solved until mid-1943. Then the Japanese really stated to lose ships.
3. Of the total numbers of merchant vessels and warships afloat on 7 December 1941, at the time of surrender on 2 September 1945, Japan had lost 1/3 of its warships and 2/3 of its merchant marine.
4. Most of the pre-war O, R, and S-class boats were used for training. The pre-war built boats — a few S-class, Barracuda-class, Argonaut and Narwhal-class, Dolphin and Cachalot-classes, P-class, Salmon-Sargo class, Tambor-Gar class, Gato-class, Balao-class, and Tench-class — were boats that bore most of the Pacific fighting.
5. A total of 52 submarines were lost, with 374 officers and 3,131 enlisted men. These personnel losses represented 16% of the officer and 13% of the enlisted operational personnel. Of the 52 losses, two submarines, Dorado and R-12, were lost in the Atlantic, S-26 was sunk in a collision off Panama and S-28 was an operational loss in training at Pearl Harbor. The remaining 48 were lost either directly or indirectly as a result of enemy action, or due to stranding on reefs during combat operations.S-39, S-36, S-27 and Darter were lost as a result of such strandings. In all of these events, all personnel were rescued.
6. U.S. World War II Submarine Operational Summary:
•Maximum number of U. S. Submarines in the Fleet = 288
•Number that made war patrols = 263
•Number of War Patrols made by Submarines in the Pacific = 1,474
•Number of days at sea by those Submarines = 70,838
•Number of Japanese ships attacked by submarines = 4,112
•Total number of Japanese ships sunk by submarines = 1,392
•Average number of merchant ships sunk/war patrol = 0.80
•Average number of naval vessels sunk/war patrol = 0.145
•Average number of all types of ships sunk/war patrol = 0.945
•Number of airmen rescued by Submarines = 504 by 86 Submarines
•Number of Submarines lost on war patrol = 41, or 1 out of every 6.41 submarines = 15.59%
•Number lost due all causes = 52 out of the 288 in the Fleet, or 1 out of every 5.54 Submarines = 18.06%
•Number of U.S. Submarine Commanding Officers = 465
•Duration of the war = 1,347 days

[MasterGunner01]

The latest diesel-electric, air independent propulsion subs are very hard to find and kill. One of the very best designs is the German U-212A design. The German Type 212A-class, also Italian Todaro-class, is a highly advanced design of non-nuclear submarine developed by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG (HDW) for the German and Italian Navy. It features diesel propulsion and an additional air-independent propulsion (AIP) system using Siemens polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) hydrogen fuel cells. The submarine can operate at high speed on diesel power or switch to the AIP system for silent slow cruising, staying submerged for up to three weeks without surfacing and with no exhaust heat. The system is also said to be vibration-free, extremely quiet and virtually undetectable.

Type 212A is the first of the only two fuel cell propulsion system equipped submarines ready for series production in 2007, the other being the Project 677 Lada-class submarine designed by the Russian's Rubin Design Bureau.

[Sparklite]

Additionally, the WWII silent service spent a good portion of the war firing useless torpedoes.

http://www.historynet.com/us-torpedo-troubles-during-world-war-ii.htm

[John S Mosby]

Your comment is on target— noise is the problem. The article is not well informed, or informed for the “last” war, and for lesser countries than the US. IMHO, it presupposes “cheap” alternatives that will just not do in a major conflict, which it would be with the USA.

Commented on the newer long battery super quiet electric boats— they are pretty sophisticated and scary.

Family member was lifetime submariner— pre WWII to the Nautilus and then reservist from then on until too old really. Knew everybody including the famous ones (and the nut jobs, LOL).

[X Fretensis]

and groceries

[schurmann]

“... diesel boats are noisy. Noise= death. ...

Incidentally, the system that makes fresh water onboard- using a catalytic reaction of sea water— that has a lot of danger in its design and technology, have heard from many inside.”

Most of the people who might know (and deign to talk) describe hybrid submarine power systems (diesel/electric) as quieter than nuclear power systems.

Missing from this thread so far is the truism that detection and masking technologies and tactics are not static. Professor Holmes - like most sea power apologists - assumes that remote (above surface, airborne or orbital) detection of subs will never be possible. Don’t count on it.

Only nuclear power can provide the electricity needed to run the catalytic cracking devices and desalinators that supply air and water for the sub crew. This still guarantees that nuclear boats will continue possess range and endurance no hybrid power system can yet match. If increased cost is the price of outlasting an enemy, we must recall that success might be priceless.

[logi_cal869]

The fleet really threw a punch once the Navy got torpedoes that actually blew stuff up. The early torpedoes were terrible.

If it weren't for the war, people would have been gone to prison for what happened as a result of the shoddy work, pathetic bureaucracy and defective torpedoes. TWO YEARS. Imagine if any other service had defective shells/bullets with the same failure rate for the same term in the rest of the war...

http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/torpedo-scandal-rear-adm-charles-lockwood-the-mark-14-and-the-bureau-of-ordnance/

[schurmann]

“The Radar equipped B24’s helped a little bit.”

By the time Allied war planners noticed that Imperial Japan’s war effort was critically dependent on merchant vessel traffic (from China/Korea, mainland Asia, East Indies etc; and in Home Island coastal waters), USN’s submarine force had already caused a major impact, and by war’s end accounted for the great majority of Japanese merchant ships destroyed.

But anti-ship campaigns conducted by air took their toll.

Night attacks by USAAF bombers (many by B-24s, as noted) and USN patrol aircraft (many by PBY “Black Cat” units) were by far the most daring, and likely the most unnerving, from an aircrew standpoint. But most of these attacks were carried out far away from Home Island waters, simply because no Allied aircraft had the range to carry the fight to the enemy’s front yard.

Quite late in the war, it was decided that USAAF’s B-29s (the sole Allied aircraft with the range and payload to get the job done) would haul naval mines from the Marianas to lay minefields in Home Island waters, to interdict local merchant vessel traffic.

In terms of effort applied versus result, this final campaign was the most effective, cutting total transported tonnage by some 90 percent, eventually accounting for some eight percent of the Japanese merchant vessel tonnage lost.

See the US Strategic Bombing Survey for additional results.

[John S Mosby]

Got a lot of them sunk by their own torpedoes, and some of the bolder fighters, like Richard O’Kane (who survived, but a lot of the Tang’s crew did not). Circular torpedo runs— and even into the later part of the war.

The dud/non-exploding torps were somewhat corrected eventually. Hell of a note with all the risk to set up a shot.