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Submarines

The History of Submarines

In the year 2000, the American submarine force will celebrate the first century of service by highly skilled people in some of the most technologically advanced vessels ever built. The past 100 years have witnessed the evolution of a force that mastered submersible warfare, introduced nuclear propulsion to create the true submarine, and for decades patrolled the deep ocean front line; the hottest part of an otherwise Cold War.

Submarines in War

The U.S. Navy's involvement with the submarine dates form 1888 when the Bureau of Construction and Repair (BUC&R) sponsored a design competition that brought John Holland a naval contract to build the experimental Plunger. As the new century dawned, prominent American naval leaders like Admiral George Dewey called the submarine a real threat to international surface forces, leading the Navy to acquire its first submarine in 1900. Overcoming competition from fellow American inventor, Simon Lake, Holland sold his newest model, Holland VI, to the Navy for $160,000 on April 11. This 64-ton submarine commissioned as USS Holland, or SS-1, on October 12 of the same year, was equipped with an Otto-type gasoline engine for surface running and electric motors for submerged operations.
Due to the volatility of gasoline, American submersible designs soon followed the French practice, adopting the diesel engine in 1909 with the Electric Boat Company's F class (SS-20 through 23), built at Union Iron Works in San Francisco. Combining the influence of diesel propulsion with the submersible designs of Holland and Lake, American submersibles took a familiar configuration through American entry into the Great War. Submarines of the E, H, K, L, M, N, O, and R classes and ranged in displacement form 287 to 510 tons, with the fastest boats displaying a top surface speed of barely 14 knots on diesel power.
During World War I the U.S. Navy separated these submersibles into two groups according to...