Thanks for that great subthread discussion of the Hunley. It has been a frequent topic of topics around here. Keywords:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/hunley/index?tab=articles
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/csshunley/index?tab=articles
For a few hundred years, subs had been used for surreptitious ingress and egress of ports, cities under siege, and stuff, but they were just barely submersible and man-powered. Diesel engines powered the subs of both world wars, and didn’t dive all that deep, mainly because of their need to breathe air. Building a sub to drop much below a half mile is non-trivial, especially when one is building them for military uses.
fascinating stuff.
especially since someone thought they would be so useful an attempt was made in the 1600s!!!!!
i thought the civil war sub was out to sea for weeks at a time lol!!!
i dont mind giving a laugh at my expense :)
i obviously didn’t think that through!!!
their nuclear powered subs probably weren’t advanced yet :)