Submarines – Extreme Technology – Big Bigger Biggest

You can't see it It can dive to more than 800 feet and stay down for six months You can't hear it It can run for 20 years without refueling It's the deadliest weapon ever designed An apocalyptic machine capable of devastating entire continents The USS Pennsylvania is an Ohio-class submarine , the largest submarine in the US Navy. Its existence is the result of more than 200 years of engineering evolution. There have been six key stages in the development of submarine

technology

and six key

submarines

at the heart of each of them. A technological innovation that allowed

submarines

to grow in size one by one.

Traveling up the scale will reveal the incredible stories behind these vessels and the inventions that made each one

bigger

than the last six ingenious advances that allowed submarines to evolve from big to

bigger

. the largest rudder in the us navy rudder to the right fixed course of 15 degrees 3-2-0 captain bradford s neff is leading the uss pennsylvania and her crew of 165 men on a patrol his submariners are a unique breed the sailors of my ship have to be able to cope Being inside for a full patrol, which normally lasts approximately 72 days, during this time, Pennsylvania will slip silently through the depths of the Pacific Ocean, invisible to its enemies, and is prepared to unleash its amazing apocalypse in an instant to understand how Pennsylvania works. became the most powerful killing machine in the world we must travel back in time our journey begins in 1776 with the world's first war submarine a hollow wooden sphere with a limited supply of air at the height of the American War of Independence The Americans found themselves at a severe disadvantage.

Their warships were no match for the power of the British navy. They devised a plan that relied on cunning rather than brute force. Their plan called for a new type of vessel that would allow a man carry a bomb underwater the man and the bomb had to remain hidden until they reached the British battleship once there the man had to plant the bomb and escape he had to do it all without coming up for air the American engineers built their ship with two hollowed out pieces of solid oak like a barrel used iron hoops to hold the two halves together and sealed the joint with tar to keep water out a tank sat under the operator when he filled it with sea water the boat sank hidden under the water the operator sat in his own air bubble it was the world's first war submarine, they called it the jolly turtle powis has commanded a nuclear-powered submarine for the royal navy and is about to board its pedal-powered predecessor .

Well, what we have here is a reproduction of the American tortoise, so let's give it a try. Wow, the interior is very, very tight and there's so little air that the guy has to push it with his own muscle power, both up and down, and using these pedals, no matter how much noise it makes, it's physically exhausting. A small window to look through goes. being dark outside because it's night it has bombs to operate alone God knows how long it took to propel this thing anywhere but I've been inside for two minutes and I'm already thinking I really want to go out the night of The attack engineers planted a bomb in the They cut the turtle's back and tied the bomb to a drilling head that could be driven into the hull of the enemy ship, but when the operator reached his target he discovered that the bottom of the British ship was lined with copper sheets.

No matter how hard he tried, the drill couldn't pierce it and he couldn't place the bomb. No one really knows how long the operator could have survived underwater breathing the same air before being forced to abandon his mission to try to discover that we have set up an experiment using a sealed box containing the same volume of air as the turtle we are going to. to lock up there. Get some exercise and see how long you can go without feeling too weird. Let's try. Let's go find your physiologist. Dr. Kevin Fong is an expert on how the body performs under

extreme

conditions, a little sealed, here, there you go, great, let's start pedaling now and see how you do.

After 25 minutes, the oxygen in the box begins to run out. your lungs begin to burn and your speech becomes garbled you may feel that it is harder to breathe much shorter shorter shorter oxygen the turtle man must have been suffering similar symptoms his brain without oxygen would have started to shut down within minutes I would have lost enough awareness of that, oh that's refreshing, well done Matt, fantastic, how do you feel? He was out of breath, it was getting very hot in there, he was sweating, he was short of breath. Dr. Fong's test exposes a major limitation of the turtle, which quickly runs out of air, so how do the crew of the USS Pennsylvania survive the underwater hamster?

The last man lowers the hatch. He secures the second car. Stunning cover. Ship submerged at 160 feet. The USS Pennsylvania needs enough air to stay submerged for months at a time. Five six six zero once our hatch is closed. To dive, a crew is sealed inside the submarine for the duration of their mission 1-1-0 each crew member needs 12 cubic meters of air each day just to stay alive more if they work hard even in a vessel as spacious as this. The Pennsylvania crew would run out of air after just seven days, so where do they get their air?

The answer is precisely what is traveling in seawater by passing electricity through the water, it is possible to split the substance into its components, hydrogen and oxygen. Chemist Andrew Schidlow will demonstrate how this works, so we have this apparatus set up here, the positive electrode here emits oxygen and the negative electrode here emits hydrogen. What I'm going to show you now is that we can collect the oxygen and then turn on a glowing splint that proves that that's the gas, so now I'm going to turn on the tap very carefully. Now we have a tube full of oxygen.

Now we're going to do the classic gaseous oxygen test, which is look if the relighting is a bright division there we go one two three four five a new world record six absolutely bright so there we are oxygen from water by electrolysis electrolysis is also used in Pennsylvania to produce oxygen from seawater, but on a much larger scale here we have the oxygen generator its nickname is paris in honor of the hilton sisters number one it's actually nikki because we think nick is better no offense nikki produces more than 4,000 liters of oxygen every hour the oxygen is used to replace the stale air which then circulates pure through the container clean air thanks to the hilton sisters we need to breathe and if she does not produce oxygen for us then we cannot breathe so we like to take care of her and keep her happy more than two centuries ago the turtle operator could stay submerged for only 25 minutes in Pennsylvania today the air supply is unlimited in 1776 a man in a barrel showed that even the most powerful battleship was vulnerable to attack from beneath the waves, but to exploit this weakness engineers would have to build a much larger submarine, 13 meters long.

H.L Hunley and found a way to control his rifles and have them ready during the American Civil War. Engineers were pushing the boundaries of weapons

technology

, but they were not limited to weapons used on land. They also invented an underwater weapon called a spa torpedo. of gunpowder that was on a spiked pole at the front of a submarine, this bomb had a great impact, but guiding it to a target and removing the submarine to safety was very difficult, the importance of a spa torpedo is which is physically attached to your submarine. You have to drive your submarine to a depth where it will meet the target.

It's too shallow and you'll explode out of the water at too deep a depth. You'll go under the keel just right and sink the target. Naval architect Professor Roble and his A colleague will try to control the depth of his submarine model by letting air in and out, he said easily, it's not that easy to do, which we are now going to try to demonstrate, okay, done, so now I'm starting to let the air out. She goes now. The problem now is stopping it so mine is going up but I got too much so wow I let too much out so I had to put some in so basically you're a tank like a rock see you saw it Go stay the course, submariners.

They had to think outside the box when people first built submarines, they didn't really know how to control them, so they looked to nature for inspiration and copied the fins of a fish by putting metal fins on the side of the submarine. This is exactly what Confederate engineers did with their new submarine. The hunley inside the captain could move the fins up and down using levers. When he pointed the fins downward, the passing water generated more pressure on the upper surfaces of the fins than At the bottom this pressure forced the hunley's nose down, this allowed the captain to control the depth and angle of his attack.

He tested the technology on an unsuspecting Yankee warship, using his fins to guide it to the correct depth. The Hunley rammed a spa torpedo into the ship's hull. Became the first submarine to sink a ship, the Hunley was a breakthrough in submarine design because, for the first time, someone came up with a submarine design that could be controlled with enough precision in heading and depth to be able to launch an underwater weapon to the max. vulnerable part of a surface ship and sink it like the Hunley before the USS Pennsylvania also has fins called planes. They are operated by two of the ship's youngest crew members.

This watch station here is one of the first ones we qualify our young operators on and some 18-19 year old guys are actually driving the submarine through the water. He has control of these water planes right here and they are very good at maintaining depth. The operator's instructions are transmitted electronically to the fairwater planes by adjusting their angle. He can move the submarine up and down in the water. Pennsylvania has a second set of planes in the rear. External controls. The stern planes, which can be seen with this indicator here. The stern planes are completely at the rear of the submarine.

Like elevators on an airplane, they control the angle of the boat. Basically, we can fly the boat like a plane underwater very well during meal times. We generally go up or down level decks so we don't send food, drinks and everything else over. sliding off the tables, what if we had to? We'd go up and down and every once in a while I'd exercise it and they'd play, uh, catch the plate there back in 1864. The Finns gave Hunley great maneuverability, but she still needed to ram her target to deliver her payload, which It put her at considerable risk.

It would be another 80 years before engineers perfected the art of ranged attack with one of the most notorious predators of World War II, the German U-66. -ship in the second world war hitler's submariners needed a way to attack allied ships from a distance there was already a weapon that met the requirements a self-propelled torpedo was propelled by a compressed air tank at launch A valve would open and release the air. Its two-piston motion drove a propeller that pushed the torpedo through the water, but this torpedo had a fatal flaw: the compressed air that propelled it left a telltale trail of bubbles, causing it to It was easy to see it coming, so the German navy designed a torpedo that was not powered by compressed air.

This new torpedo was powered by a small electric motor but needed a huge battery to power it to accommodate the battery. The torpedo needed to be more than 7 meters long and carry 22 of these torpedoes. The submarine in turn had to be enormous. The result was the 77-meter-long U-66. This killer submarine sank 33 ships during the Second World War. Its enormous torpedo arsenal allowed him to attack again and again without having to return to base to mutiny today torpedo warfare has scaled new heights designated a submerged hostile contact recommended battle station torpedo senator battle stations conai man torpedo chief of the guard the general alarm went down it's the 10th day of the pennsylvania patrol and they're running a drill with their torpedoes if you're gone sir sorry we've gained crs-7 a hostile submarine with two zero zeros okay I'm sorry we fired solutions yourself, very good, so networks prepare tube two in all aspects, prepare tube two and everything.

Regards, be careful, sir, open the lock, reach for the door, make sure you close it properly. I am quite, Robert. The Pennsylvania Mark 48 torpedoesThey don't just shoot in a straight line. These high-tech robots can be guided towards their target tube. Two ready in our respects. Bye bye. web procedures cr7 tube two solution ready ship ready weapon ready shoot tube two set shoot tube two four two two an optical fiber coming out of the back of the torpedo carries the weapons officer's orders this allows him to direct the torpedo towards the target rudder 15 degrees constant course three two zero while the torpedo closes its onboard sensors lock it and guide it towards the deadly ball for wire tube two back in 1943, the u-66 could attack multiple targets without having to return to base and a the rear, but its thirsty engines soon ran out of fuel to remain at sea any longer Engineers working on the much larger USS Nautilus would have to find a new power source During World War II the German Navy had to solve urgently address the refueling problem their submarines were trying to cut Britain's ship supply line from North America took the submarines too far from home and fuel, what they needed was a way to refuel at sea , so the Germans invented a submarine that carried fuel instead of firepower and called it the cash cow.

To build it, engineers took a standard submarine and installed additional fuel tanks containing 400 tons of fuel to deliver fuel. The cash cow had to surface and row through a fuel line during the five hours it took to refuel. None of the submarines could dive to safety, leaving them vulnerable to attack by the British. Dairy cows were clearly a very important target if they could be attacked and sunk, which would then limit the resistance of all other German U-boats in the Atlantic in the end. of the war the allies had sunk the 10 German cash cows the lesson was clear refueling a submarine at sea was too dangerous the engineers needed to find a way to make their fuel last longer the answer came in 1945 with the dawn of the Atomic Age American scientists attempted to harness the colossal energy released by the splitting of an atom to power their new submarine.

They equipped it with a nuclear reactor. This decayed the uranium, causing a massive release of heat. This heat was used to generate steam. The steam was fired through a series of turbines that forced its blades to rotate at high speed, these then drove the propellers, but the nuclear reactor was huge and, to accommodate it, the new submarine had to be huge; The technical difficulties of bringing a nuclear reactor into the confines of a submarine hull were simply tremendous, no one had ever built a nuclear reactor of the type required before, no one had deliberately tried to put it inside a submarine and submerge it in the sea, no one really knew.

How much energy could be obtained from a nuclear reactor, no one had built it before American engineers accepted the challenge and in 1954 presented the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. It did not need to refuel at sea and could travel an astonishing 100,000 kilometers with just four kilograms of uranium fuel. The impact of The Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, was tremendous. Suddenly, you had a submarine that could operate anywhere in the world and get there by traveling. Dived all the way today on the USS Pennsylvania. Behind this airtight hatch lies one of the most classified pieces in the United States. military hardware the submarine's nuclear reactor this reactor is much more powerful than the prototype that powered the nautilus it pumps out more than enough electricity to propel the 17,000 ton pennsylvania through the water at 45 kilometers per hour it also runs a large number of machines and equipment on board fueled by a fist-sized piece of uranium there is still no sign that it needs reinforcement this submarine was commissioned in 1989 20 years ago it has not yet been refueled the only thing that limits our ability to remain in the sea is food, so it is fuel for the crew and not the submarine, which limits the range of the Pennsylvania.

She carries a three-month supply and is one of the Navy's best meals trapped underwater in a steel tube. Food is also an important morale booster. for the crew saturday night is pizza night the pizza chain philadelphia barbecue highway back in 1954 the nautilus proved that submarines could stay at sea almost indefinitely thanks to nuclear power, but the nautilus had a Limited Firepower Torpedoes with Conventional Warheads The United States Navy wanted to go nuclear; with its firepower and engines, its submarines had to grow in size to accommodate these new weapons. In the 1950s, scientists on both sides of the Iron Curtain rushed to build a rocket-powered atomic bomb and what better way to launch it than from a submarine?

The idea of ​​putting these things on a submarine was pretty simple since that submarines are very difficult to find and therefore are a safe base from which to carry out a nuclear attack. The Russians were the first to do it. Their missile was so high that the only place they could put it was behind the tower. command to launch it. The submarine had to first surface and then hoist the missile onto the deck, but a surfaced submarine is an easy target for an enemy bomber. The Americans wanted to take advantage of this Soviet advance. go one step further and build a submarine that could launch missiles without having to surface first the problems the Americans faced were enormous they were designing a submarine to launch these missiles from under water no one had ever fired a missile through water before rocket engines needed air it burns and it doesn't work underwater, so the engineers considered using compressed air, so we have a demonstration here, but Tristan is going to show us this our compressed air tube.

All we needed is one missile, so I placed the missile in missile tube three. two one shot thank you very much, but that is not very representative because clearly the submarine will be underwater, so the tube would be full of water. This is a much more realistic and representative setup where we have the missile in the tube throughout the underwater platform, so the missile not only has to go through the tube but also has to overcome the depth of the water and the pressure on it , so tristan let's see what happens, ready, three, two, one fire, it's pretty disappointing, so what's the solution?

Here we have an agreement with the missile that is placed in a dry tube with a seal on top. The question is whether that creates enough momentum when the missile breaks the seal, whether it can break through the water above it. tristan let's see what happens ready to fire three two one so clearly that's the system that works so the secret was a seal that prevented water from flooding the launch tube when the missile hatch opened a moment before launch the seal was broke before the water had a chance to pour an open valve firing a burst of compressed air at the bottom of the launch tube, the air forced the missile out of the tube at over 50 miles per hour, it had enough momentum to pass through almost 40 meters of water once in the air their rockets were able to ignite the USS George Washington armed with 16 of these new Polaris missiles were launched into the sea in 1960 each missile was 40 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and George Washington he could launch them while hidden beneath the waves from anywhere on earth a truly terrifying prospect missiles like this carried on submarines effectively prevented war by being so destructive, so terrifying that the concept of war between the nations that possessed them became unthinkable.

The Mission and the Captain lead the crew through a well-rehearsed nuclear attack launch exercise. The USS Pennsylvania carries 24 Trident nuclear missiles and is constantly ready to respond to a message to launch them. Captain, we have received valid emergency access. message that directs the launch of the target packet01 request permission to authenticate authenticate the message thank you the message Mr. Golf Oscar the order to launch a nuclear missile is encoded with a cipher to guarantee that the order has come directly from the president himself captain the message is authentic, I agree, I agree, I agree launching weapons authorized here from Mr.

Fire these missiles are so big that they need more than compressed air to go through water. Pennsylvania uses a small rocket fired into a water tank. The water overheats and spins instantly. to make steam this column of steam propels the missile through the water and into the air the nuclear warheads on this submarine alone are more destructive than all the bombs dropped in both world wars combined back in 1960 the uss george washington was equipped to cause a nuclear holocaust but the enemy could still detect his presence for his next magic trick. Engineers must not only build a bigger submarine, but they must somehow make their submarine invisible in the depths of the ocean.

Light does not penetrate water more than a few hundred meters. Sound waves, however, can travel through water. water for many hundreds of kilometers those hunting the USS Pennsylvania are attentive to any noise it makes that could reveal its position. Godzilla program marine section 379-08 to be stealthy. Pennsylvania must be silent. One of our main missions is to stay at sea. without being detected and that is why our job day by day hour by hour is to remain silent so that no one knows where we are, except us, everything on the submarine, the deck equipment, the machines in operation and even the hand dryers are isolated with rubber dampers to minimize noise caused by vibrations.

The other major source of noise that could radiate into the ocean is our propeller. Broadband noise can travel

extreme

distances in the ocean before designers can build a quiet propeller. To understand why it makes so much noise if a propeller rotates quickly it leaves a trail of bubbles behind when the bubbles burst they make a lot of noise these bubbles are not filled with air but with steam the steam is produced by boiling seawater it is a well known fact that Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius however few people will know that at different pressures water will boil at different temperatures, if you increase the pressure like in a pressure cooker for example the boiling point of water increases so the Cooking is more efficient, however, few people will know that at different pressures water will boil at different temperatures. pressures water will boil at lower temperatures I have a vacuum pump here and I'm going to turn on the vacuum this flask here contains water and we have it connected to a manometer and we are reading right now approximately 15 pounds per square inch, which is one atmosphere, I turn on the pump you notice the pressure drops immediately and as the pressure drops as we get closer to zero bubbles start to form and the water starts to boil so here we are at room temperature but at a significantly reduced pressure almost almost . a complete vacuum the water is now boiling boiling water at 20 degrees Celsius at almost zero pounds per square inch a remarkable phenomenon sir when the propeller of a submarine rotates rapidly an area of ​​low pressure is created in the blades this decrease in pressure causes the water boils without heating and produces steam bubbles, this is called cavitation, the formation of these bubbles depends on how fast we rotate our propeller, so the faster we go, the greater the risk of suffering from cavitation.

The design of the Pennsylvania propeller is a closely guarded secret, but the basics. The principles of a silently operating propeller are known. Cavitation only occurs when the propeller rotates rapidly. Decreasing the propeller speed reduces cavitation and therefore noise, but decreasing the propeller speed also reduces the submarine's thrust. To overcome this problem, Pennsylvania engineers developed a unique propeller with four additional specially shaped propellers. The blades generate large amounts of thrust, but at much lower speeds, so the Pennsylvania produces almost no cavitation or propeller noise. It is a silent predator of the depths after 75 days at sea. The Pennsylvania glides silently back to base.

Her patrol completed 20 years later. launch, she is still the largest submarine in the Western world and will remain so until someone builds an even bigger one.