4 



MANNED SUBMERSIBLES: 

 1948-1974 



The construction and performance charac- 

 teristics of 88 submersibles built or under 

 construction during the period 1948 through 

 1974 are presented in the following pages. 

 Not all submersibles built during this period 

 are represented, but only those for which 

 sufficient details are available to provide an 

 adequate description. In some cases there 

 are several vehicles of one type; for example, 

 the K-250 is one of nine vehicles built to a 

 design of Mr. G. Kittredge; 10 additional 

 pressure hulls of this design were con- 

 structed, but there is no indication that they 

 saw completion to a final vehicle. The 

 SPORTSMAN 300 and 600 series are other 

 examples where some 20 models are alleged 

 by various sources to have been constructed, 



but only 3 can be accounted for in the litera- 

 ture and from personal communications 

 within the field. In all then, over 132 sub- 

 mersibles, not including the Soviet bloc, were 

 built to at least the pressure hull stage of 

 completion in this 26-year period. For ready 

 reference and from a historical aspect. Table 

 4.1 lists all known vehicles and their perti- 

 nent characteristics. 



The great majority are one-of-a-kind and 

 show little commonality in design and perfor- 

 mance. This diversity of design is matched 

 by diversity in definition of terms used to 

 describe the various vehicles and their per- 

 formance characteristics. "Payload" and 

 "Endurance," for example, may be defined 

 quite differently by the owner and the user, 



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