vertically oriented deep-diving submarine warships

[wfzimmerman]

Reading about the success of James Cameron's "vertically oriented" deep-dive submersible has made me wonder what plans have been considered for very deep diving submarines (I guess gt >= 3000 ft, the rumored capability of the Alfa titanium hulls).


I am also envisaging a sort of "jellyfish" design with a central crew/mission pod (spherical for strength) with VLS/torp tubes suspended around the circumference of the sphere. Would a "jellyfish" that could loiter at 5000 ft be able to release floataway weapons (stealthily, of course, using magnets or simple restraints rather than compressed air) that could then rise to attack depth?

 

[Grey Havoc]

Not exactly a sub, but something along the lines of what you're thinking of:

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14310.0.html

 

[Hobbes]

Designing a deep-diving warship is a lot more difficult than designing a one-man unarmed submersible for the same depth. For one, you need a nuclear powerplant to move your sub around. The Cameron submersible has a top speed of a few knots and a couple of days of endurance at best. This means 1000 tons of material for the reactor and ancillaries, and this in turn means a large pressure hull that needs to be cylindrical rather than a sphere, which makes it much harder to build strong enough to withstand the pressure.
All your weapons need to withstand the pressure as well (torpedo motor, for instance).

 

[wfzimmerman]

Designing a deep-diving warship is a lot more difficult than designing a one-man unarmed submersible for the same depth. For one, you need a nuclear powerplant to move your sub around. The Cameron submersible has a top speed of a few knots and a couple of days of endurance at best. This means 1000 tons of material for the reactor and ancillaries, and this in turn means a large pressure hull that needs to be cylindrical rather than a sphere, which makes it much harder to build strong enough to withstand the pressure.
All your weapons need to withstand the pressure as well (torpedo motor, for instance).

I understand all that! None of the problems seem insuperable. Does the pressure hull have to be cylindrical? how big does it have to be? they put nuclear reactors in satellites. all you need is enough thrust to move a few knots side to side at safe depth. just wondering if anyone has designed armed deep dive lurkers.

 

[Bill Walker]

Despite what some ill-informed newspaper articles have said, I'm not aware of anybody putting a reactor in orbit yet. What is flying in space are thermoelectric generators, using radioactive materials as a heat source. This is several orders of magnitude down from a reactor in both mass and in power generation.

 

[wfzimmerman]

Despite what some ill-informed newspaper articles have said, I'm not aware of anybody putting a reactor in orbit yet. What is flying in space are thermoelectric generators, using radioactive materials as a heat source. This is several orders of magnitude down from a reactor in both mass and in power generation.

Again, doesn't respond to the premise of the question. There have been innumerable studies of very small reactor designs. The issue is what is the minimum submarine reactor that you need to power a "command pod" and minimal but very stealthy maneuvering capability.

 

[Hobbes]

The closest to what you want was the NR-1; 400 tons, 4 knots; 2/3 of its volume was needed for its reactor and engines. Capable of diving to 1000m.
Even a small reactor needs a lot of equipment around it, plus shielding.

The best shape for a pressure vessel is a sphere. Spheres larger than ca 10m are not practical: they cannot be made in one piece, so they have to be assembled which makes for potential weak points at the joints.

So for anything more than 3-4 crew you end up with a cylinder instead (the second best shape). As current subs show, it's difficult to get more than a couple hundred m of depth with a cylinder.

But what would be the point? Your design is basically a complex, slow-moving sea mine.

 

[wfzimmerman]

NR-1

yes

But what would be the point? Your design is basically a complex, slow-moving sea mine.

Ha! Good one.

But doesn't it seem fair to say that the Cameron story and lots of other oceanographic developments show, as a general proposition, tthat deeps are becoming more accessible, and that it might be worth considering some past and future designs for non-standard armed deep divers?

 

[Hobbes]

Fair enough. I think the Deep Flight idea (using wings to convert buoyancy into forward speed) has more military potential than ordinary deep-sea vessels, though.

 

[Avimimus]

I suspect that targeting might be an issue from those depths (an alternative being communicating with a remote targetting system and only using the deep system as a launcher).
I wouldn't be surprised if sea-floor launched ICBMs were proposed at some point (as a third wave retaliatory system)... anyone have information about this concept?

 

[wfzimmerman]

I suspect that targeting might be an issue from those depths (an alternative being communicating with a remote targetting system and only using the deep system as a launcher).
I wouldn't be surprised if sea-floor launched ICBMs were proposed at some point (as a third wave retaliatory system)... anyone have information about this concept?

Yes on targeting. But that's where all the fun "secret sauce" enters the picture. You don't have to have very much bandwidth to send a ULF message saying "targets in your general vicinity, release a floater." Then the floater ascends to operational depth and receives a higher-bandwidth communications from the targeting system.


I remember seeing sea-floor launched ICBM designs. I wouldn't be surprised if there were actually some tethered during the Cold War!

 

[Grey Havoc]

You may find the old CONFORM design of interest: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,7792.0.html

 

[Triton]

Shouldn't this topic be moved to "Alternate History and Future Speculation"?

It would also seem to me that an ocean-floor tethered ICBM system or a bathyscaphe submarine warship would be easier to detect because of a fixed location or limited operating range of the vehicle. Wouldn't an enemy place a bomb, perhaps nuclear, on a deep-diving ROV, DSV, or Atmosphere Diving System (ADS) to destroy them?

 

[wfzimmerman]

Shouldn't this topic be moved to "Alternate History and Future Speculation"?

1) If no one has any history to report and
2) The idea of deep-diving warships is so unlikely that it must be regarded as future speculation.

It would also seem to me that an ocean-floor tethered ICBM system or a bathyscaphe submarine warship would be easier to detect because of a fixed location or limited operating range of the vehicle. Wouldn't an enemy place a bomb, perhaps nuclear, on a deep-diving ROV, DSV, or Atmosphere Diving System (ADS) to destroy them?

If the system could be detected and the weapon could be delivered to the target's operating environment. Admittedly, it should be a lot easier to build a deep-diving torpedo than a deep-diving submersible, which is why the suggestion about about using gliders is a good onee.

 

[RanulfC]

Not exactly "on-topic" but I thought I'd point out the webcomic xkcd recently did an interesting "comparision" look at vertical depths "man" has been to:
http://xkcd.com/1040/

(note the "lets-tweek-the-paranoids" comment on Cammeron's dive )

Randy

 

[wfzimmerman]

Not exactly "on-topic" but I thought I'd point out the webcomic xkcd recently did an interesting "comparision" look at vertical depths "man" has been to:
http://xkcd.com/1040/

(note the "lets-tweek-the-paranoids" comment on Cammeron's dive )

Randy

Beautiful. Love it. My new desktop background. Justifies the thread for me in itself.

 

[Simon666]

Despite what some ill-informed newspaper articles have said, I'm not aware of anybody putting a reactor in orbit yet. What is flying in space are thermoelectric generators, using radioactive materials as a heat source. This is several orders of magnitude down from a reactor in both mass and in power generation.

Might want to read:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf82.html

 

[Bill Walker]

You are correct Simon. I should have said "nobody has produced a practical space reactor". The only SNAP reactor to fly was SNAP 10A in 1965, which failed after 43 days. The Russians gave up on the Rorsats in about 1988, and the biggest one flown was 6 kW (about 8 horsepower), most were 2 kW (about 2.7 horsepower). The only point I was trying to make is that these were a long way from powering a manned submersible.

We Canadians are very familiar with Russian orbital reactors.

 

[wfzimmerman]

You are correct Simon. I should have said "nobody has produced a practical space reactor". The only SNAP reactor to fly was SNAP 10A in 1965, which failed after 43 days. The Russians gave up on the Rorsats in about 1988, and the biggest one flown was 6 kW (about 8 horsepower), most were 2 kW (about 2.7 horsepower). The only point I was trying to make is that these were a long way from powering a manned submersible.

We Canadians are very familiar with Russian orbital reactors.

Not sure why you are saying that ending RORSATs in 1988 indicates a lack of confidence in the technology. They built what, thirty of them, and it seems pretty obvious that they stopped building them because they ran out of money at the end of the Cold War, not because they lost faith in the technology or because they were losing sleep about accidentally bombarding Canada.

 

[Sea Skimmer]

The Russians made those satellites nuclear because solar panels actually had too much drag in very low orbits. As the reactor power ratings show, it actually wasn't any vast amount of energy required. Better solar panels and better satellite technology undermined the concept as much as any fiscal limits would have.