Is it possible to combine a sailboat, motorboat and submarine?

The parlance, like the vessel with which it is associated, has evolved over time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sail_(submarine)

 

Well 30 years ago when I was on one there was no real conning from the "conning Tower" but that was still an interchangeable term with the "sail"

When the Captain or the OOD was up there you can bet it was a "conning tower".

Sometimes I wonder who writes that stuff.

 

In the older submarines, like the US Fleet boats of WWII, there was a small pressure chamber built inside the sail, which chamber was separate from the main pressure hull of the sub. This was the regular conning station for these boats, since the skipper could communicate directly with the lookouts thru the open hatch when the boat was surfaced, and when submerged, the boat was controlled from here and the periscopes could be used to scan the surface for enemy contacts.

This is a diagram of a US Fleet boat, showing the conning tower in the sail:

​

This is a diagram of a Virginia-class nuke attack boat:
​

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/virginia-pivot-the-usas-multi-year-block-iv-sub-deal-023748/

The control station is located inside the main pressure hull primarily because modern subs need more space to handle navigation/combat functions.

The difference in size of the two diagrams is deceiving. The WWII subs were 312 feet long by 27 feet beam; displacement 1500 tons surfaced/2400 tons submerged. The Virginias are 377 feet long by 34 feet wide and displace about 7800 tons. Of course, the latter are much faster than the former.​

 

Interesting but we still called the conning tower either the sail or the conning tower, depending upon the reason for talking about it.

Conning tower if there were people on it on the surface and sail if you were referring to some function, like where the scopes were or where the planes were.

Perhaps being on a missile sub made everything different? I doubt it since I was also on a repair station in Pearl which dealt with both types - I'm not old enough to have worked on a fleet boat.

 

The early boomers which carried Polaris missiles were attack boats which were stretched by adding the missile compartment aft of the sail, in order to expedite deployment of these ballistic missiles at sea:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_Washington_(SSBN-598)

With the exception of the missile compartment, the internal arrangement of these boats was largely similar to that of contemporary attack subs.

 

pointy versus round

Is the pointy bow design better for a submarine, or the round one?

pointy bow



round bow: (dome)

 

pointy:

 

sail is the current term for the vertical compartment on a submarine. my son is navigator on a los angeles class boat somewhere out there...

"conning tower" went out with diesel electrics, which spent most of their time on surface, and had a surface watch in the tower when underway. they only submerged when near target or to avoid attack, as battery life was short and speed below surface was poor in boats built before 1950 (surface 15 kts, sub-surface 5-6 kts).

modern subs rarely travel on surface, as stability is better sub-surface with modern designs. modern boats can also make speeds sub-surface that few boats can match on surface. they "see" with a variety of mechanisms below surface quite effectively, whereas WW2 boats were near blind when submerged. the technology of a modern boat is really quite amazing.

 

older boats had "pointy" bows, and spent most of their time on the surface.
modern boats have rounded bows and spend most of their time underwater.
you figure it out...

 

The experimental sub USS Albacore (AGSS-569) was the first US Navy sub built with the now-common teardrop streamlined shape.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Albacore_(AGSS-569)

A diesel-powered boat, she was launched prior to the USS Nautilus, which still had the older pointy bow, as did several of the other early nukes. The Albacore was used as an experimental boat for many years, testing out new features in sub design.

The first US nuke sub which took advantage of the Albacore's hull form was the USS Skipjack (SSN-585).

The Albacore is still around, and she is now located at Portsmouth, NH as a memorial.

 

I wonder, what kind of bulkheads these submarines have, or need.

 

The watertight kind, generally.

 

Steel also.

 

modern boats usually have only one "bulkhead", separating engineering (rear of boat)from operations (front of boat). operations usually has a back-up diesel genny in the forward belly so they can power certain essential like trim and electricals if the engineering system goes glow-worm.

 

Naval vessels, which includes submarines, are subdivided by a number of watertight bulkheads and decks, in order to limit flooding after damage and make it harder to sink the vessel.

On a large surface vessel like an aircraft carrier, there may be hundreds of watertight compartments created by such subdivisions.