In most submarines, the air conditioning systems weren't broken, they just didn't exist!! Air conditioning was a new technology in the 1930's and 40's and was looked upon as an unnecessary luxury in most navies. Most of the world's submarines did not have any sort of air cooling or dehumidification systems at all until after the war.

The USN had a requirement of conducting long duration patrols in the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean. In the closed environment of a submarine in warm waters, condensation was a huge problem. The condensate dripped into electrical systems and caused constant shorts and fires. It also caused mold, mildew, and heat rash problems for the crew. Seeking a way of mitigating this problem, the USN installed the first air conditioning system in the USS Cuttlefish (SS-171) in 1934. The experiment was entirely successful and A/C systems were installed or retrofitted to all subsequent submarines. These systems were mainly intended for de-humidification, but had the pleasant side effect of cooling the air. This proved to be a key factor in the mechanical reliability of the USN fleet boats.

Those early systems were quite noisy however, and were quickly shut down during evasion to avoid giving away the boat's position to enemy sonars. This is what you were reading about.

A/C systems are of a benefit in any operating theater, but curiously few of the other navies installed them in their boats. This resulted in the sometimes deplorable living conditions that were very accurately portrayed in Das Boot.

Nice bio Davey.:up:

Could you go over the histroy of the dreaded circle run that could occur with the mk.14 and mk.18 tropedos?

Circular torpedo runs were a dangerous and frustrating problem for our submarines, but it did not occur with the frequency of the other problems. There was a great deal of debate as to what was the exact cause of the circular runs. Some claimed it was mechanical in nature, others pointed to tactics.

The material that was used in the manufacture of the rudder posts was discovered to corrode rather easily. After the fish left the tube and the gyro swung the rudder to turn the fish it to its preassigned heading, the rudder could jam in that position due to the corrosion on the rudder posts. It was a practice of the time to flood the tubes and open the outer doors well in advance to save time in the firing sequence. This tended to exacerbate the corrosion problem. Once it was realized what was happening, the practice was changed to flooding the tube and opening the outer doors only just before firing, keeping the fish dry as long as possible. There was also a renewed emphasis on proper and careful maintenance of the fish prior to firing.

Later production runs of both types of torpedoes corrected this problem by substituting a corrosion resistant metal in the construction of the rudder posts.

Another possible cause of circular running was forcing the fish to turn too far by putting a large gyro angle setting on it. The gyro would hit its stops and tumble. USN skippers came to favor shots that used little or no gyro angle setting and this helped to mitigate the problem

The Mk. 18 Mod 1 electric torpedo was rushed into production and was very buggy. It suffered terribly from corroded rudder posts among other problems and circular runs were a big issue. For once, feedback from the fleet was listened to and the Mk. 18 Mod 2 corrected most of the problems, but was not available until late in the war.

After the war, with the advent of homing torpedoes, an anti-circular run device was built into the control electronics of all torpedoes. This device would shut down the fish if it detected a turn of more than 180 degrees from the original firing heading.

Hey Dave,
When you would go out for patrol did you guys go through Angles and Dangles? Since there was not a war on at the time did you guys have to go down to or below test depth a lot?
Thanks!

Thanks Davey for the torpedo reply.

The Fleet Submarine in the U.S. Navy by John D. Alden (ISBN 0-85368-203-8) is a great book but a heads up it is very rare and out of print so I would go for a used copy which can be had for around $40.00 at Amazon.
Most sites are asking $160.00 for an uncirculated copy.:o

The aurthor served on fleet boats during and after the war and he wrote the book to answer some of his own questions about fleet boat design.It also covers the post war GUPPY and Fleet Snorkel programs.

Aaahhh, angles and dangles. This is the closest thing to an amusement park ride you can get on a submarine. It was a lot of fun with a strong hint of danger.

Angles and dangles was the process of putting the boat through rather large up and down angles while changing depth. We would at times get as high as 35 degrees. The angle indicator bubble gauge in the Control Room stopped at 45 degrees and we tried to keep it well below that. Anything greater and you risked spilling the battery acid and that would cause a lot of problems.

The planesmen and the Diving Officer had to be pretty careful because you could go out of control pretty quick. If you lost it going up you could broach and risk a collision. If you lost it going down...well, I think you could guess what happens.

One of our skippers liked to pull a large down angle on our first dive after leaving port. It was his method to see if the boat was neat, squared away, and stowed for sea. If it wasn't, anything that wasn't stowed properly would go flying, and if you weren't holding on, so would you.

One day when we were down deep, one of our cooks wanted to bake an angel food cake. He poured the batter in the pan and called up to the Diving Officer to see if we were going to change depth. Assured by the Dive that we were staying right where we were at, he opened the oven and put the cake in. Sure as hell, five minutes later we angled up and headed to periscope depth. You could hear the cursing throughout the whole boat as the cook looked in the oven and found all the batter run to the back end of the pan and sloshed over, creating a huge mess in his oven. Royally pissed, he let it bake and when it was done he took it out. The remainder of the batter had baked in the aft end of the pan and had a nice slope down to the center, where it smoothly tapered to nothing in the front end of the pan. He threw some frosting on it, set it on the table, and called it "Angle Food Cake"!!

We could go to test depth anytime operations required it. There were no restrictions. However, one thing you NEVER did was exceed test depth for any reason. After losing the Thresher, the submarine force was a little sensitive about that. If you exceeded test depth all sorts of messages had to be sent explaining why. All systems exposed to sea pressure had to be tested by a shipyard to ensure they weren't damaged. To say that it involved a lot of paperwork is a monumental understatement. As a matter of fact, we usually stayed about 10 feet above test depth just to make sure.

On my old Darter, though, we spent 80% of our submerged time at depths less than 300 feet. By 1986 she was 30 years old and if there was no reason to push the envelope, then we didn't.

Hey Davey,
Another questions for you. I would be willing to bet that you spent some time doing simulated wargames ect. how would you decide when a target had been destroyed? Did you guys have to play against nuke subs very often? I have heard that in a lot of cases a diesel sub can be a lot more silent then a nuke is this true? How would a diesel sub be used to stalk a nuke?

Mike

We would make our approach and once we reached firing point, we would launch a flare from our signal launcher (essentially a mini torpedo tube pointed upwards). Once the flair was sighted, the skimmer target was dead. Our weapon was the Mk. 48 Mod 3 torpedo, which at the time was the most capable and deadly torpedo in the world. Once you launched one, your target was dead, no joke.

I will refer you back to post #238. A diesel sub, when running on the battery and rigged for ultra-quiet, can be extremely quiet. Virtually no noise is radiated into the water due to the nature of its propulsion system.

On the Darter, we did an exercise once with the USS Bremerton (SSN-698). She did get us, but had one hell of a difficult time doing it. We received several compliments from her CO for being so quiet. This was for a diesel boat that was 30 years old at the time. Think what a modern boat can accomplish.

However, do not make the mistake in thinking that a nuke boat is at a disadvantage. A Virginia class SSN or Ohio Class SSBN is actually quieter than the ambient noise in the surrounding ocean. To detect it (if that is actually possible) you would have to listen for the area of the ocean that is quieter than the rest, not the noisiest!!!

Looking for the hole in the water. :yep:

Back then on Darter, I can't remember for sure but weren't the 688s using the BSY-1 suite at the time? Did they have anything like that retro fitted on to the diesel boats? Did they place a towed sonar array on board also? Sorry for all the questions I have spent years reading about this history of subs from wwII through the cold war and never had a chance to really ask the questions I wanted to ask. So thank you for your patience I really enjoy learning about this.

Mike

I want to get your thoughts about what I understand regarding the danger of high angle, high speed emergency blows. The risk involves after breaking surface, the possibility of sliding backwards instead of the bow dipping and the boat leveling off. If it were to slide back, the ballast tanks would take on a lot of sea, causing a heavy boat with a large angle. Thus leading to an uncontrolled dive and disaster. I think this was tested and the maneuver banned as to risky.

Buddahaid

The highly advanced and capable AN/BSY-1 integrated combat system premiered with the USS San Juan (SSN-751) in 1988. Earlier units of the Los Angeles class were equipped with the still potent BQQ-5 and 5E systems. None of these systems were retrofitted into diesel submarines. There were several reasons behind this.

1. The remaining combat capable diesel boats, Darter, Barbel, Blueback, and Bonefish were just not large enough to handle the new displays in their sonar rooms.

2. These new systems all used a large, spherical, bow mounted sonar array. All four boats had bow mounted torpedo tubes that made them incompatible with this array.

3. These systems used an enormous amount of power. None of the diesel boats could produce enough sustainable electricity to power the systems.

4. By 1988 the diesel boats were 30 years old and while still very useful, were not worth such a massive upgrade, even if it were feasible. Darter and Barbel were decommissioned in 1989, Blueback in '90, and Bonefish in '88.

Towed array systems, while very useful, were again not very compatible with the older submarines. The Submarine Towed Array Sonar System (STASS) was installed for a brief time on at least Darter and Barbel. It gave us some good data, but it was a pain in the butt operationally. It was a "clip-on" system that sat exposed on the after deck. It was coiled by hand around several stanchions and had to be deployed and retrieved by hand (what we called the "Armstrong Engineering Method" :D) while on the surface. If the sea was too rough to send someone topside to retrieve it, we couldn't go into port. That delayed a liberty run to Hong Kong once and the crew was pretty pissed. We eventually beached the system and the Darter finished her service without it.

I am not sure were you are getting your information, but unfortunately none of it is correct.

Emergency blow systems were retrofitted to all USN submarines following the Thresher disaster in 1963. These systems are designed to rapidly surface a submarine in the event of flooding or other trouble. 3000 psi air is rapidly fed into the main ballast tanks, almost instantly emptying them (even down to test depth). This sends the boat up like a rocket with a large up angle.

A submarine is rarely, if ever, at a dead stop while submerged. It will always have at least some forward momentum. This momentum will cause it to continue to move forward after it breaks the surface, thus negating any possibility of sliding backwards. Even if it were at a dead stop, the act of conducting an emergency blow will give it some forward momentum.

Obviously, in order to conduct an emergency blow the main ballast tank vents have to be shut. This will trap the air inside of the tanks and prevent it from escaping. True, if the boat were at a 90 degree angle (i.e. vertical) and slid backwards into the sea it would lose a lot of the trapped air. But this never happens. As long as the crew has at least some control of the boat, they will control the angle using the stern planes and keep it to less than a 45 degree angle (usually only about a 30 degree angle at most). Combined with the aforementioned forward momentum this will keep enough air in the tanks to keep the boat on the surface.

See these links for what I am talking about:

http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0876205.jpg

http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0871912.jpg

Notice that in both photos the angle is fairly shallow, probably not more than 25 degrees. Also notice that the boat is really moving forward and will not slide backwards.

I will grant you that the situation that you described is theoretically possible, but it is extraordinarily unlikely to happen. Procedures and crew action alone preclude it from happening.

Emergency blows are a routine part of training for all USN submarine crews and are done on a regular basis. I personally participated in about 12 of them in the three years I was on the Darter. It is true that the maneuver is dangerous, mostly from collision at or near the surface. But with proper controls, those risks can be mitigated.

OK. I got the story from Dad who worked at Mare Island and was on sea trials, and is in reference to the Gato, or similar types, rising at a very high angle and speed, allowing the open undersides of the ballast tanks to spill air. It may not involve an emergency blow, and unfortunately I don't have any details, but I understood it was testing how high an angle could be safely used. Thanks for the response.

Buddahaid

Back in the 50's and 60's there was all sorts of testing going on to determine the maximum operating parameters of our boats. I don't doubt for a minute that the tests your dad described took place. However, keep in mind that these were tests and the boat was deliberately put in an out of control condition (this is extremely dangerous by the way). Anything approaching "normal" conditions would have the boat under control by the crew and the angle of the surfacing strictly regulated.

Check out the following photo of the USS Pickerel (SS-524) During an surfacing drill on 01 March 1952.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0852403.jpg

This is not a true Emergency Surface as she did not have the system at the time. However, she started at 250 feet and flank speed. The planesmen were ordered to take a 60 degree up bubble. They lost control at 65 degrees and the boat hit 72 degrees (Holy Crap!!) just prior to breaking the surface. This is the unofficial record for an up angle on surfacing.

The only thing I would question about your account of the tests is about losing air out of the ballast tanks. With the vents shut, the air is going to be trapped inside the tanks. It will not spill out the bottom. Any remaining residual water will, but the air won't. The only time that would happen is if the boat was at a 90 degree angle or greater. Anything less than that and the air would remain trapped inside the tanks as the boat settled back into the water.

Take a look at the following video of a 688 doing an Emergency Blow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxyMz...90D8F8&index=0

Notice the angle of the boat and how far it settles back into the water afterward. Even still, it promptly pops back up to the surface.

Yup that USS Pickerel shot is what I'm referring to.

Thanks again.
Buddahaid

Hey Davey,
So can you really take a piece of string and tape it to either side of the hull in a sub, and as it goes down deep does the hull compress that much that it would make the string droop?

I am wondering what almost instantly means here, do the ballast tanks get emptied faster than they get filled during crash dive ?

Davey another question too, I just saw that the Dolphin was made into a museum, and that it can dive so deep that the dive info is still restricted. The only info they gave was that it was over 3000 feet. If you did an emergency blow that deep, is there a speed the sub reaches that it tops out at? I know when I used to play the game 688i if I was running deep and trying to evade a torpedo at the last few seconds before I got taken out I would try and do an Eblow and I would get a burst of speed that would put me over 45knots. Can't you damage the ship coming out of the water that fast on the slam down?

I can verify that it will actually do that. You can't visibly see the hull compress, but it surely does.

The doors going into the heads are non-watertight aluminum doors that sit inside of a frame, very similar to what you would find in any house. On the surface, the doors open and shut freely with a minimal amount of force. Once you go deep, the hull compresses enough to warp the door frame out of square and compress it against the door. You could open the door with one finger on the surface, but now it requires a pretty good tug with both hands.

You also have to be very careful when flushing the toilets. They are flushed with seawater and on the surface you get a nice flow into the bowl with just enough pressure to flush the contents. Down deep, you just barely crack the valve and you get a Niagara Falls flow that if you are not damn careful could flood the whole head! :D