A handful of female seniors at the Naval Academy or in the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps could very well be the first women to be assigned to a U.S. submarine. And if initial plans fall into place, those women — joined by some seasoned supply and surface nuke lieutenants already in the fleet — will be included in four crews assigned to two Ohio-class submarines by late 2011. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Oct 15, 2009 - 97 comments

Relying on depth to avoid detection is a submarine's greatest ability, so the shallow water of our nation's rivers doesn't seem to work within a sub's advantages (just don't tell Kentucky). During WWII, however, the waterways of North America were exactly what U.S. submarines needed in order to avoid detection. The shipyards of Manitowoc, Wisconsin produced submarines for the war effort, but getting them to the sea proved difficult. German U-Boats waited outside the St Lawrence to torpedo any ships leaving the Great Lakes for the Atlantic. The submarines, instead, went cross-country - over two dozen subs were towed through the Heartland during WWII over several years, making their way from the Great Lakes, through Illinois and passing Peoria via the Illinois River, then entering the Mississippi River and past Cape Girardeau, where they entered the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans. Four of the subs were lost in battle, the rest scrapped over the next fifty years, and none ever saw St Louis again.
posted by AzraelBrown on Jul 23, 2009 - 40 comments

"Few Victorian inventions have the grace and charm of the Ictíneo, the series of two wooden submarines built by Narcís Monturiol i Estarrol in the second half of the nineteenth century ... The thinking at the time was that it was almost impossible to run a steam engine underwater because it would use up all the oxygen and convert the inside of the ship into an oven. To overcome this, Monturiol invented a chemical furnace based on a reaction between potassium chlorate, zinc and manganese dioxide - a process that produced enough heat to boil water to run the steam engine. To complement this ingenuity, the reaction gave off oxygen as a by-product ... While his competitors devised submarines for military purposes, Monturiol had alternative ambitions. The man was a communist, a revolutionary and a utopian who regarded his invention as a way of improving the life of the working class ... "
posted by jim in austin on May 5, 2009 - 23 comments

"To pedal the 3700 kilometres of open water from Cape Verde off the west coast of Africa to Barbados in the Caribbean should take around 50 days..." Engineer and machinist Ted Ciamillo has built a human powered mini-submarine, designed around a larger version of his Lunocet carbon-fibre "tail" for divers, for an Atlantic Ocean crossing.... The "SubHuman project".
posted by Kronos_to_Earth on Jan 29, 2009 - 23 comments

The Letter of Last Resort. At this very moment, miles beneath the surface of the ocean, there is a British nuclear submarine carrying powerful ICBMs ... there is a safe attached to a control room floor. Inside that, there is an inner safe. And inside that sits a letter. It is addressed to the submarine commander and it is from the Prime Minister. In that letter, Gordon Brown conveys the most awesome decision of his political career ... and none of us is ever likely to know what he decided.
posted by veedubya on Jan 22, 2009 - 65 comments

Canal Zone Images is a collection of stories and images about the Panama Canal Zone. Did you know that the construction workers were paid in gold and silver ('spiggoty' dollars)? "Paper money was not used on the pay car at all. In the first place, there was always a danger of its blowing away, and in the second place paper money in the hands of negro workmen soon assumed a most unsanitary condition." [more inside]
posted by tellurian on Feb 25, 2008 - 12 comments

I think the trouble is telling them what the project is about. People think you are mad. Once I started telling people it was for “an oil tank”, they started to take me seriously. Guernsey Submarine documents the building of a homemade submersible. You can also watch another K-350 in action, read about how to design them, or buy plans, if you're truly inspired.
posted by Upton O'Good on Dec 7, 2007 - 3 comments

Newsfilter: A detective from the New York Department Intelligence Division noticed a strange-looking submarine in the vicinity of the at the cruise ship terminal in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The submarine's design appears to be similar to that of Bushnell's Turtle, the first submarine used in battle.
posted by rush on Aug 3, 2007 - 74 comments

These days, you don't have to be rich to have all the right stuff, at least for the night. Going deep or flying high, these days you don't have to be rich, to pretend. Just a good credit card, and no thought for the future.
posted by nomisxid on Jul 19, 2007 - 8 comments

Do all your friends already own yachts? Perhaps you should consider getting a luxury submarine.
posted by pantsrobot on Jul 16, 2007 - 38 comments

The Kaiten Memorial Museum on Otsushima Island, on the site of the original kaiten base. WWII Japanese suicide tactics included planes, boats, and suicide submarines. The submarine discovered recently near Sydney harbor was not such a craft, yet the pilots took their own lives rather than lead their pursuers to the I-class mother submarines nearby.
posted by acro on May 22, 2007 - 10 comments

Dutch Submarines has mystery pictures of submarines and/or their doings with some great answers. For example, there is the story of the use of submarines as seaplane carriers yes, really.
posted by tellurian on Apr 15, 2007 - 27 comments

We regret to inform you that we your husband's submarine is missing, and possibly sunk. Oh, wait. Never mind[pdf].
posted by ctmf on Mar 15, 2007 - 34 comments

im in ur sub base killin ur d00dz. Eerie photos of a decomissioned Russian submarine base. [via]
posted by dersins on Jul 27, 2006 - 38 comments

The octopi are back and they're pissed -- or, the continuing misadventures of the one-eyed suitor. [mpg here]
posted by digaman on Jan 30, 2006 - 23 comments

Four high school students -- gold chains, fake diamond rings, patchy, adolescent mustaches and sharp brains -- take on MIT and others in a robot competition. They're undocumented Mexican Americans living in trailers and shabby houses in Arizona. They raise only $800 from the community to fund their project, while the MIT team raises $11,000 from corporate donors. They have to scrounge for the "most best tampons" at the last moment to fix a leak in their robot. The other teams snicker at their garishly painted robot when it's unveiled poolside. You know how this is going to end. You know. But it's very satisfying to read nonetheless. (via Amygdala)
posted by maudlin on Mar 30, 2005 - 86 comments

It's out there someplace. The NOAA and the Office of Naval Research are about to start searching for the U.S. Navy's first submarine, which went to the bottom of the Atlantic off Cape Hatteras in 1863. Unlike the Confederacy's CSS Hunley, the USS Alligator never saw action, but it's historically significant nonetheless. Perhaps it can be recovered, as its Rebel cousin was.
posted by Man-Thing on Aug 18, 2004 - 1 comment

A yellow submarine. A beautiful and soothing shockwave submarine simulator. (via B3ta)
posted by Ljubljana on Feb 2, 2004 - 23 comments

So how would you spend your retirement? In the grand tradition of the backyard Falcon and Gundam (link in Flacon thread), a retired Canadian Navy officer built a German submarine. In his garage. With "egg poaching cups and a motor from his wife’s blender", among other items. Sadly, he died before its launch. (more inside)
posted by GhostintheMachine on Sep 25, 2002 - 6 comments

In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne predicted that submarines would go to the South Pole and be nuclear powered. Leonardo da Vinci, the Florentine Renaissance inventor and artist, developed plans for an underwater warship but kept them secret. He was afraid that it would make war even more frightful than it already was. Get the facts about submarines. Check out the submarine timeline. What's the future for submarines? I want one.
posted by ashbury on Jul 2, 2002 - 18 comments

the kursk is raised

and expected to reach murmansk by wednesday. then analysis can begin on the exact cause of her sinking. once again the dutch prove that if it has to do with water, they're the best in the world at handling it.
posted by bwg on Oct 15, 2001 - 5 comments

Operation to raise Kursk sub under way. I remember when this was headline news...not anymore, I guess. Still it's interesting to see that life goes on despite the happenings of the past month.
posted by tomcosgrave on Oct 8, 2001 - 5 comments

Washington state and the Bangor submarine base are all also in a state of heightened security. I drove past Subase Bangor and they are in Condition Delta, which is when every person who enters the base is physically searched, as well as their car. As a former member of the US Submarine Service I can tell you from first hand knowledge that the military is being scrambled right now to prepare for heightened security along the coastlines of the US. The entire Puget Sound is reeling from the tragic news... malls are closing, the WA state ferry service is no longer transporting cars, federal buildings are being closed, and major structures such as the Space Needle are being evacuated.
posted by crankydoodle on Sep 11, 2001 - 5 comments

Was the Kursk submarine sunk by NATO submarines? Was it a collision that triggered the torpedo to explode?
posted by kristin on Sep 6, 2000 - 15 comments

They're dead. They're all dead. Buf if the rear section has been flooded with high pressure water, and if the British mini-sub latches on and opens the hatch, the mini-sub will instantly fill with water and the entire crew of the mini-sub will die. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Now I hope they can't latch on.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Aug 19, 2000 - 20 comments

When headlines... Those sadistic Russians.
posted by owillis on Aug 18, 2000 - 4 comments

Will the Russians let national pride stand in the way of saving a hundred men's lives? I sure hope not. I hope they ask for help. I don't give a damn about national pride, but I want those men back. The DSRV is the modern descendant of a diving bell which was used in 1939 to rescue much of the crew of USS Squalus, which sank during a test mission. It was the first time in history that men had been saved from a sunken submarine.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Aug 15, 2000 - 34 comments

This story isn't an excerpt from the new Tom Clancy novel; it just reads like it.
posted by harmful on Aug 14, 2000 - 2 comments