Posted on 03/17/2016 1:32:53 PM PDT by C19fan
Echo Voyager, Boeing’s latest unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV), can operate autonomously for months at a time thanks to a hybrid rechargeable power system and modular payload bay. The 51-foot-long vehicle is the latest innovation in Boeing’s UUV family, joining the 32-foot Echo Seeker and the 18-foot Echo Ranger.
The size of the new Echo Voyager is in the middle of the German U-Boat lengths which were 40-60 feet long depending upon design.
U-boats dominated the seas for several years due to the fact that thousands were produced.
A militarized Echo Voyager could have a similar role if they were mass produced at low cost in the event of a conflict.
(Excerpt) Read more at nextbigfuture.com ...
Who commands “Periscope depth!”
...and “Up scope!!”
A squarish section? Subs have round sections for a reason.
But even the late WWI German boats attacked the US east coast. Early WWII German boats successfully attacked the Gulf Coast and southern Caribbean waters.
Ask Boeing or as we used to say Gerald McBoeing-Boeing
And even worse: Back then you need 3 torpedoes (4 torpedoes at warships), each fired at less than 1000 yards, by eyesight and periscope - fired by a manual fire control “analog computer” to a barely visible target - invisible on a dark night.
So 24 torpedoes - if all were fired “might” sink 6 or 8 targets (and rarely even that!)!
But consider that each target was 3,000 tons, perhaps 6-8,000 tons. A few “large” merchants were 10,000 tons. A very, very successful US submarine skipper sunk 100,000 tons in the ENTIRE war! Most were considered “successful” if they sunk 12,000 to 20,000 tons - over 4-6 missions.
Now: Today. A single torpedo fired from 24,000 yards out, fired using a passive sonar track capable of starting a track at 60,000 yards to 100,000 yards, can assure the engine room or propeller WILL BE destroyed by a single explosion. There are NO defenses, NO warning, and even if the merchant turns or hears the torpedo, it CANNOT escape and CANNOT outrun the torpedo.
One sonar signal, one attack, one torpedo, one target. One target gone. And most of today’s targets (merchants) are single engine, single propeller, single rudder, single crew averaging 60,000 to 120,000 tons. EACH. Oil and bulk cargo? 150,000 to 250,000 tons. Takes 2 years to build - assuming you can find an engine.
You can wrap a round pressure hull with a rectangular outer hull. Use the “corners” to hold external pressure vessels, torpedo tubes, air tanks, fuel tanks, sensors or periscopes and other stuff. See the (failed design) US Navy ASDS for example.
the torpedoes were 18.5'
Well, I don’t think it carried any torpedoes. I think it was supposed to be used to land espionage/sabotage agents on the west coast under cover of darkness.
ahhh very good
Wouldn't a submersible 'barge' accomplish the same?(And, I'd be surprised if we didn't have them already deployed at stategic points)
The UK would have deployed their Pykrete carriers to deal with the subs.
CSS Hunley I believe.
Yep, thanks for the correction.
Would it even need a pressure hull. You might need to design sturdier components, but if you don't have to worry about keeping people alive, it should be a lot easier to build. I'd be more concerned about stealth than drag for the missions where you'd need a drone submarine.
Besides, they nearly ran out of food even with the few subs the Germans had in the Atlantic for the first year of the war and those were smaller, shorter range subs. Tough to crew an iceberg or anything else when you can't feed the people required to run it and build aircraft to fly from it.
Very interesting idea, though. The Brits had a lot of those and some of them even worked.
Built on Water Street, not ten miles from where I presently sit.
BTW, this was my sub in the early 60's.
Samll correction for the record—it’s the H. L. Hunley.
Even their late war one man suicide torpedoes clocked in at about 50 feet:
http://combinedfleet.com/ships/kaiten
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