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Originally Posted by DS
I was under the impression that sea water was pumped into fuel tanks as compensating ballast as fuel was expended in order to solve this problem.
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DS, you're right by golly ! I remember reading that !
I can't believe that the reduction of fuel and replacement by sea water was absolutely 1:1 though.
Admittedly, I was never a sub guy, Army Engineers only, and a Poly Sci major at that !
Replacing expended fuel with sea water would theoretically reduce dive times. The specific gravity of fuel oil is less than that of sea water...that's why it floats !
I've lead a sheltered life and never had a satisfactory explanation of how one can mix sea water and deisel fuel in one tank and operate the ships engines on fuel from that tank, especially given diving and surfacing and the various shakes that depth charges would give to the contents of the fuel tanks. They must have operated on a very conservative estimate concerning the level of un-contaminated fuel remaining in the tanks. Trying to run the engines on sea water is not the kind of experiment I would be willing to try in a war zone. I believe that, even with the sea water, there was a significant amount of air in the fuel tanks.
Thanks for the memory prod though.