Daily submarine picture

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

We had a FTB type aboard the WEBSTER who made a few Regulus patrols. We talked.

A mild sort of guy; not given to exaggeration -- not your typical sailor. Told me some tales of his times in bad North Atlantic weather on such a boat. Said if you were not puking on that boat, you were not alive. Made us boomer-babies seem like a bunch of pussies! The Regulus system actually saw some real, active deterrence patrols before this mighty nation of ours rolled into the Polaris program -- and life became so much easier for those involved in holding the razor to the Soviet and Chinese throats.

M

[Von Hilde]

Roger that on stableising the launch platform, most likely a addition to the system since its unique to that boat. They didnt go much beyond the time of those pictures with the surface launch aspect, they dropped the program. Polaris was being tested soon after.

[Outrider]

thats called a bilge keel, its an anti roll stabliser, the ones on the Tuny dont cause any drag because they run for and aft. They effect hydrodynamics in a good way, like spoilers on a race car. If you want to know nauticle terms ask a real salty sailor The regulus can doesnt effect CG because of its neutral buoyancy. Full of air. But it slowed the hell out of the old diesel boats diving time and submerged speeds

At ease there, Sailor...I've spent plenty of time at sea on skimmers with fin stabilizers, both fixed and variable... If you want some fun, try being on a ship where one of the two variable fins isn't working...

The Regulus launch system required Tunny to do its business when surfaced, which means things like the possibility of a neutrally buoyant hangar are interesting, but not relevant all of the time. When surfaced, the combination of missile and hangar had to have made Tunny's roll stability...which is generally problematic on submarines...a real challenge. That's a lot of weight above the design surfaced CG, so extra weight goes on the keel, along with any roll stabilization you can come up with, to compensate.

Tunny's stabilizer runs mostly fore-aft, but it's a complex curve, so the fin should be expected to interfere with laminar flow along the hull. I wonder if the fin design was subjected to much testing or if it was just slapped on. Regardless of how it got there, I wonder how well it actually worked.

[Von Hilde]

On the Tunny photo...what is that long curved fin amidships running fore-aft? Stabilization?

thats called a bilge keel, its an anti roll stabliser, the ones on the Tuny dont cause any drag because they run for and aft. They effect hydrodynamics in a good way, like spoilers on a race car. If you want to know nauticle terms ask a real salty sailor The regulus can doesnt effect CG because of its neutral buoyancy. Full of air. But it slowed the hell out of the old diesel boats diving time and submerged speeds

[greenman407]

Nice publicity photo of a Chinese job.

[greenman407]

Yes, I think so in a Major way.

[Outrider]

What's seems odd to me is the complex shape of the fin, which looks like it would add a lot of drag.

I'd imagine Tunny's big missile hangar would have been a real CG problem...as well as a huge drag problem...so maybe the fins weren't such a big deal.

[greenman407]

Yes. They are pretty common on ships as well.

[Outrider]

Noisy

On the Tunny photo...what is that long curved fin amidships running fore-aft? Stabilization?

[Von Hilde]

The big one on the chin of the bow of the Tunny is the ANSQS sonar the little guy stickin' out the bottom is the JT or JP passive listening device. State of the art in 1963

[greenman407]

Notice the extra sensor pod in this picture on the bottom of the hull in the center of the picture. They put doodads all over the place.

[greenman407]

[reddevil]

Yes, I think that after the war, and the improvements in detection techniques, the search for silence was a great challenge. We're not going to deny how "pretty" fleet boat are with all that things around there, but they all were hell noisy. And when they had to be improved by cleaning and streaming their lines to deal with a new enemy who had tools for allocating them underwater, becoming an advanced but intermediate step between submersibles and submarines, they had to erase all that things out.

[greenman407]

[Von Hilde]

Tambor class, built in 39. They didnt figgure they would have to crash dive of deal with airplanes to much till Jan 42. They kept the weather bridge, topside but took the roof off the closed bridge and put a anti aircraft mount, and chopped the sides off the cigarette deck aft and put another a/a mount. That got them by for awhile but the rest of that level was still a watertite compartment. with a w/t door forward to the old closed bridge, and a w/t door aft to the cigarette bridge. There were accidents during dives with the forward door being compromised. The center compartment only housed the scope masts, so they opened it completely to help flooding, as well as adding flood holes along the hull. When they tried that for awhile they had problems with the water rushig by the scopes and causing a harmonic vibration. That was solved finally by beefing up the housings with the roll bar, coverd wagon beams on the final mods. By the 60s the late war fleet boats that were still comissioned were streemlined and no guns or other crap to slow them down. They covered everything up again with the Nautilus type sails. by the 70s they were sticking all kinds of drag on with the boxes and bumps and antennas.