WI: No nuclear-powered submarines

BlondieBC

Banned
I've just read an article in my 1969/70 Janes Fighting Ships and it makes mention of the closed cycle diesel and the fuel cell. Yet despite the need being recognised soon after the first flush of nuclear submarines and the basic technology being there it still took 26 and 35 years for these technologoes to make it to sea. It most certainly didn't take that long for most of the world's navies and governments to know that they required submarines but would never get nukes, they would have known this by the mid 60s.

Oh, and the Barbel rammed that freighter in the river, hardly an ideal fighting move.

A lot of these smaller navies don't have a submarine building industry, so the cost is not just developing the engine, but developing the entire shipbuilding industrial base. USA/Nato and USSR had access to SSN and SSBN. Who else has a need for such long range vessels when the old diesel electric with snorkel works ok and is cheap. To me it looks more like a cost/budget issue.

On another issue, I don't see the bases being a big issue. The USA had a pretty good network of bases, and without SSN coming into existence, the USA would have had a real incentive to help the UK keep its world wide network of bases. With places like the Suez, Singapore, and Hong Kong, there should be plenty of bases.

The USSR will have more of an issues, and may well pick another naval strategy.

And by changing both powers naval strategy, we will see subtle and powerful butterflies. For example, instead of pushing for decolonization, the USA might be pressuring the UK to allow Singapore and Hong Kong to vote in the House of commons. USA might support UK/France/Israel in Suez crisis.
 
You may notice that otl, with decades of advances in battery and poer generation tech, that aip systems are only used in coastal boats, and, iirc only in navies without nuclear tech.

The huge, HUGE advantages of nuke power were obvious even then and i just cant see the us not going for nuke boats. It wouldnt make sense not to. If the did ssomehow refuse to go that route, the ussr would be only too happy to show them the error of their ways.

So failing nuclear war or something else that causes civilization to collapse, nuke subs WILL be built.
 
You may notice that otl, with decades of advances in battery and poer generation tech, that aip systems are only used in coastal boats, and, iirc only in navies without nuclear tech.

The huge, HUGE advantages of nuke power were obvious even then and i just cant see the us not going for nuke boats. It wouldnt make sense not to. If the did ssomehow refuse to go that route, the ussr would be only too happy to show them the error of their ways.

So failing nuclear war or something else that causes civilization to collapse, nuke subs WILL be built.

I quite agree with you. That is not looking at it from 20/20 hindsight but having an idea about what the general thoughts were in the field of submarine propulsion in the 1940s and 50s. One should remember the post-War world fairs and the unbridled believe that the use of the atom, for civilian and military purposes, was rife. If an atomic reactor could be used in the family automobile couldn't it be harnessed to power an exploratory submarine?
 
If you can get some variant of the Acheson-Lilienthal Plan through the UN, I think it could be done. I think there was a brief window - a very brief window - after WW2 where the US government really was willing to turn atomic energy over to the UN, effectively eliminating military uses, including for submarine propulsion. It's a very, very low-probability outcome, but I don't think it's impossible, especially with changes in both the US's and USSR's leadership.

Of course, UN control of atomic energy probably aborts the Cold War in its infancy, which is going to have much bigger consequences than just preventing nuclear-powered submarines.
 
I think with SSB's the route would be different than with SSBN's. Instead of sacrificing range one could well go direct for larger, longer range missiles than Polaris. These SSB's could operate in safe bastions.

Another question is that without nuclear propulsion on warships why not base Polaris missiles onboard surface ships which could operate with carrier groups? This was actually contemplated for a number of ships.

Carrier groups are easier to kill than submarines, at least with the weapons and doctrine the Soviets used, because killing an SSBN from an airplane is extremely hard, bordering on impossible, because of how quiet they are. An SSB is going to be easier, but not that much easier, on account of how often they have to surface. Carrier groups can be attacked by bombers with cruise missiles as well as submarines, an option which is obviously not on the card for missile submarines.

Dathi Thofinnsson is correct, however, about the fact that nuclear powered submarines are probably inevitable, because the potential power is just much too great. That said, there is lots of room for improvement for diesel boats to get better. Perhaps the impetus for it would be a nation that wants a long-range SSK program that decides to go this route. Politics and the ability of good SSKs with good crews to really cause bad days for nuclear navies, as several nations have proven in NATO and RIMPAC exercises, is why the advancement of SSKs are growing now. The Poseidon and Oberon class boats of the RN (and Canada and Australia's Oberons as well) and the Barbels were good enough to hunt carrier groups in the early 1980s - the 1981 RIMPAC saw one of Canada's Oberons kill USS Enterprise and get away with it - and now modern boats can be in the hands of nations that for cost or political reasons don't want to go nuclear, like the Australians mentioned before.
 
Of course, UN control of atomic energy probably aborts the Cold War in its infancy, which is going to have much bigger consequences than just preventing nuclear-powered submarines.

Why would UN control of atomic energy abort the Cold War? Its just made the world safe for conventional warfare.
 
Why would UN control of atomic energy abort the Cold War? Its just made the world safe for conventional warfare.

I phrased that imprecisely. If the US and the USSR trust each other enough to sign away control over atomic energy to an international body that actually has enough teeth to be useful, than it's unlikely there will be a Cold War.
 
Top