The San Francisco Maritime National Park operates the
USS Pampanito (SS-383), a World War II Balao class Fleet submarine museum and memorial that is open for visitors daily at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. The Park website also hosts
"The Fleet Type Submarine, Navpers 16160", the first in a series of submarine training manuals that was completed just after WW II. The series describes the peak of WW II US submarine technology.
[more inside]
posted by KokuRyu
on Jan 3, 2010 -
14 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
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
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
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
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
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
