One more thing to add to that excellent write-up. The Germans didn't stop with their experimentation with the failed midget sub. The Type XXI uboats had a heavily reworked shape meant to be more hydrodynamic than previous designs. It wasn't a teardrop shape like the albacore but was much lower drag and allowed for submerged speeds almost double what had been available before. This design was highly influential post war. The guppy conversions, Tang class, skate class and USS Nautilus all had type XXI type hulls. The Soviets also used that design for many of their early cold war designs, all of the SSKs through the Tangos used that hull type and several of the early missile boats like the Juliet also took inspiration from it. The albacore teardrop made it obsolete though. The USN adopted it fully and didn't look back and the Russians followed suit for the most part.
|