WI Watler sub propulsion worked.

I know it sucked for subs, but it was cut short by nuke power and did well enough in torpedoes.

So WI it was workable, or developed more? It does produce serious power underwater, far more than more recent systems. HMS Meroerite could do 120 NM at 25kts which is serious speed and endurance for a submerged non-nuke sub. I'd imagine a more balanced design than OTL designs, with more deisel and battery power, but that makes for a triple propulsion system.
 

Larrikin

Banned
You see Collins like conventional subs much earlier and much more common. If you can get a serious alternative to a nuke boat much cheaper then more countries are going to build/buy them.
 
I know it sucked for subs, but it was cut short by nuke power and did well enough in torpedoes.

So WI it was workable, or developed more? It does produce serious power underwater, far more than more recent systems. HMS Meroerite could do 120 NM at 25kts which is serious speed and endurance for a submerged non-nuke sub. I'd imagine a more balanced design than OTL designs, with more deisel and battery power, but that makes for a triple propulsion system.

It worked fine...

The problem was the fact that, safety-wise, it was a catastrophe waiting to happen....

Later on, it cant compete with nukes (faster, no endurance issues), or very quiet electric subs (where speed isnt the issue, they are aiming to be holes in the water).
 
I'm glad your not my safety inspector, the fuel bladders exploding or leaking poisons into the ship is what I'd call not working fine:)

Only a handful of countries have ever operated a nuke boat even 56 years down the track, and they too have potential safety problems which have been mitigated against very well. Perhaps a longer development period, with an earlier start and later success with nukes, could mitigate against some of the problems. I think 25kts for 120nm is performance to be sought after, especially if it could be combined with deisel electric endurance and stealth.
 
Change the laws of physics enough to make it safe and you stop it working. Simply put its just to dangerous to ever be practical.
 
I'm glad your not my safety inspector, the fuel bladders exploding or leaking poisons into the ship is what I'd call not working fine:)

Only a handful of countries have ever operated a nuke boat even 56 years down the track, and they too have potential safety problems which have been mitigated against very well. Perhaps a longer development period, with an earlier start and later success with nukes, could mitigate against some of the problems. I think 25kts for 120nm is performance to be sought after, especially if it could be combined with deisel electric endurance and stealth.

The problem is, how do you put nukes backward? Once reactors were being designed (and a reactor is in many ways much more straightforward than a bomb, at least as far as the physics is concerned), there is no easy way to stop the obvious design of a small plant for a boat. There would have to be some reason that made people think you couoldnt shrink the reactor.

As to the speed/electric thing, electric boats are ideal for defensive deployment (they are quieter than nuke boats), and for that you dont really need the speed. It would be nice, but I dont think it would be cost-effective.
 

Bearcat

Banned
Its going to be tough. H2O2 is such damnably nasty stuff. I'd rather be a nuke boat a thousand times than spend a day on a Walther boat.

You'd almost have to have a sealed engine compartment, and store the H2O2 aft outside the pressure hull. Even then, your engine folks are going to have to go in there to do maintenance and care and feeding, and it's just almost inevitable that there will be problems.
 
Its going to be tough. H2O2 is such damnably nasty stuff. I'd rather be a nuke boat a thousand times than spend a day on a Walther boat.

You'd almost have to have a sealed engine compartment, and store the H2O2 aft outside the pressure hull. Even then, your engine folks are going to have to go in there to do maintenance and care and feeding, and it's just almost inevitable that there will be problems.

That doesnt solve (in fact, it probably makes worse) the issue of what happens when the shockwave from a depth charge hits...
H2O2 dissasociates when you look at it funny (and releases a LOT of energy when it does), I suspect youd be looking at ruptured tanks at best, a quick trip to the bottom at worst.

Nuke boats OTOH are quite safe (well, for a sub....:D) - the radiation hazard is similar to that of an airline pilot. In fact, you get a higher dose living in Glasgow...
 

Bearcat

Banned
That doesnt solve (in fact, it probably makes worse) the issue of what happens when the shockwave from a depth charge hits...
H2O2 dissasociates when you look at it funny (and releases a LOT of energy when it does), I suspect youd be looking at ruptured tanks at best, a quick trip to the bottom at worst.

Nuke boats OTOH are quite safe (well, for a sub....:D) - the radiation hazard is similar to that of an airline pilot. In fact, you get a higher dose living in Glasgow...

Yeah, like I said, I wouldn't want to be on one! :eek:
 
120mn at 25kts, and 75% safe. These look like development bases to me. Perhaps if France, who didn't get a nuke attack sub until 1980, took up the baton in the 50s.
 
Perhaps the Royal Navy could extrapolate the HMS Meteorite war prize Walther boat into the mid '50s HMS Explorer and HMS Excalibur and spend time trying to perfect a totally dangerous boat until finally scrapping them in 1963 and '64. They could also experiment with peroxide-fuelled torpedoes which are very fast, but explode on the HMS Sidon in 1955, and ultimately, on the Kursk.
The Peroxide-fuelled Me-163 Komet suffered more casualties to their pilots than to the enemy. But there was only a single pilot.

Would anyone suggesting the construction of a peroxide-fuelled submarine sail on one?
 
The Swedes took the Fancy torpedo tidied it up and used it for decades. The problems of HTP in subs are engineering problems which could probably be solved with effort.
 
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