PRINCIPLES OF NAVAL ENGINEERING 



one thing is already clear: the nuclear-powered 

 ship is virtually free of the limitations on steam- 

 ing radius that apply to ships using other forms 

 of fuel. Because of this one fact alone, the future 

 of nuclear propulsive power seems assured. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUBMARINES 



Although ancient history records numerous 

 attempts of varying degrees of success to build 

 underwater craft and devices, the first success- 

 ful submersible craft— and certainly the first to 

 be used as an offensive weapon in naval war- 

 fare—was the Turtle , a one-man submersible 

 invented by David Bushnell during the American 

 Revolutionary War. The Turtle , which was pro- 

 pelled by a hand-operated screw propeller, at- 

 tempted to sink a British man-of-war in New 

 York Harbor. The plan was to attach a charge 

 of gunpowder to the ship's bottom with screws 

 and to explode it with a time fuse. After re- 

 peated failures to force the screws through the 

 copper sheathing of the hull of the British ship, 

 the submarine gave up, released the charge, and 

 withdrew. The powder exploded without any 

 result except to cause the British man-of-war 

 to shift to a berth farther out to sea. 



closed automatically when the water reached 

 a certain level. 



In 1798, Robert Fulton built a small sub- 

 mersible which he called the Nautilus. This 

 vessel, which is shown in figure 1-8, had an 

 overall length of 20 feet and a beam of 5 feet. 

 The craft was designed to carry three people 

 and to stay submerged for about an hour. The 

 first Nautilus carried sails for surface propul- 

 sion and a hand-driven screw propeller for 

 submerged propulsion. The periscope had not 

 yet been invented, but Fulton's craft had a modi- 

 fied form of conning tower which had a porthole 

 for underwater observation. In 1801, Fulton tried 

 to interest France, Britain, and America in his 

 idea, but no nation was willing to sponsor the 

 development of the craft, even though this was 

 the best submarine that had yet been designed. 



Interest in the development of the submarine 

 was great during the period of the Civil War, 

 but progress was limited by the lack of a suitable 

 means of propulsion. Steam propulsion was 

 attempted, but it had many drawbacks, and hand 

 propulsion was obviously of limited value. The 

 first successful steam-driven submarine was 

 built in 1880 in England. The submarine had a 

 coal-fired boUer and a retractable smokestack. 



TOPPEOO SCREW- 

 VENTILATO«S- 



■VERTICAL 

 PROPELLER 



DEPTH 

 -GAUGE 



OUODER 



PUMPV 



BALLAST TANK-' 

 BALLAST- 



DETACMABLE BALLAST-^ 

 AND ANCHOR 



/./ TLOOOING 

 ',- VALVE 



■BALLAST TANK 



110.104 

 Figure 1-7.— The Turtle — the first submersible 

 used in naval warfare. 



The Turtle , shown in figure 1-7, looked some- 

 what like a lemon standing on end. The vessel 

 had a water ballast system with hand-operated 

 pumps, as well as the hand-operated propeller. 

 It also had a crude arrangement for drawing in 

 fresh air from the surface. The vent pipes even 



Figure 1-8.— The first Nautilus 

 (Robert Fulton, 1798). 



147.7 



In 1886, an all-electric submarine was built 

 by two Englishmen, Campbell and Ash. Their 

 boat was propelled at a surface speed of 6 knots 

 by two 50-horsepower electric motors operated 

 from a 100- cell storage battery. However, this 



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