Barbel class
.jpg) Bonefish on the surface of the water in 1988 |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Type | Hunting submarine |
| units | 3 built, 0 active |
| Namesake | Barbel |
| period of service |
1959-1990 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
2645 tons submerged |
| length |
66.9 m |
| width |
8.8 m |
| Draft |
8.5 m |
| crew |
approx. 10 officers, 70 men |
| drive |
Diesel-electric, 1 wave |
| speed |
about 20 knots |
| Armament |
6 × 533 mm torpedo tubes |
The Barbel class was a United States Navy submarine class . The three boats were built in the 1950s and were the last US Navy diesel-electric submarines planned for combat missions. With the withdrawal of the boats from active service between 1988 and 1990, the Navy converted its submarine fleet completely to nuclear submarines .
The design is considered extremely successful and, in terms of performance characteristics, can compete with the 20 years younger Soviet design for Project 877 , which is still widespread worldwide in the 21st century. The Barbel type was sold to the Netherlands and the Republic of China (Taiwan) .
history
prehistory
Until the middle of the Second World War , submarines drove long distances on the surface and only dived to attack, which is why they looked more like submersible surface ships with a sharp destroyer bow, two propellers and a solid deck. Further developments in the British radar made it possible to detect and fight German submarines that appeared at night and in bad weather, which is why a snorkel was retrofitted to German submarines later in the war . The boats of German submarine classes towards the end of the war (for example classes XVII , XXI and XXIII ) were therefore already designed for uninterrupted underwater travel and high underwater speed. The US Navy obtained many technologies from captured German submarines by means of reverse engineering in the Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program (GUPPY) from 1947.
End of 1953, the US Navy, the USS Albacore (AGSS-569) in service, one of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and built (ABY) developed experimental submarine, the new propulsion technologies with new features such as a hydro-dynamically optimized hull in drop form with only still had a propeller.
Planning and construction
As early as 1953, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard proposed to the Bureau of Ships (BuShips), which is responsible for the planning and construction of new designs in the Navy , that the Albacore hull should also be implemented in fleet submarines for the 1956 budget year . In 1954, the BuShips commissioned Portsmouth NSY to develop a preliminary design for it. This ran under the design number SCB-150. In particular, the fact that the new class should only have one propeller caused concerns about reliability at the BuShips, whereupon it created an alternative design with two propellers itself. In addition, at the end of 1954, the rather conservative repetition of the USS Darter (SS-576) in World War II design was up for grabs. After the BuShips soon realized that the teardrop shape also offered great advantages in terms of the interior layout of the boats, the darter option was dropped. The one-screw design also prevailed against resistance from the BuShip.
The Portsmouth NSY developed the final design of the Barbel class , the dimensions of which exceeded the Albacore , as sensor and weapon systems had to be fitted into the boats and the increased crew size required more living space. BuShips intervened again, especially when it came to adapting the systems, enforcing its ideas (including six instead of five torpedo tubes) and changing the Portsmouth draft accordingly.
In mid-1955 the first boat of the class was commissioned from the Portsmouth NSY. Two more units were commissioned a year later, construction yards being Ingalls Shipbuilding and New York Shipbuilding . After that, the construction of the class of three ships ended because the US Navy decided in 1956 to use nuclear power for all new submarines. Originally, the Barbel class was to receive far more boats and thus replace the outdated World War II designs. However, these were modernized in large numbers in the GUPPY program so that they could remain in the fleet after the war until enough nuclear submarines were available. With the Skipjack class , the nuclear drive was fitted almost parallel to the teardrop-shaped, but again enlarged, hull.
The first boat of the Barbel class was built from 1956 to 1958 and put into service in 1959, the other two in parallel with a delay of around one year. Construction costs of 21.5 million US dollars were planned, and the costs remained within this framework. According to the US Congress, they were around $ 19 million per boat. Including all equipment, the cost per boat was $ 29 million. The tradition introduced around 1930 of naming submarines after aquatic life was continued here. The lead ship USS Barbel (SS-580) , and thus also the class, is named after the barbel , the follow-up ships USS Blueback (SS-581) after a rainbow trout and USS Bonefish (SS-582) after the fishbones .
Derivatives
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In 1959, details of the class were first given to allies at Armed Forces Staff College . The Koninklijke Marine developed its Zwaardvis class based on the Barbel class , the armed forces of the Republic of China developed the Hai Lung class based on Zwaardvis . Both classes consist of two boats, the Dutch were in service from 1972 to 1994/95, the Taiwanese have been active since 1987/88. The Japanese marine self- defense forces also adapted the design, all boats since the Uzushio class from 1971 are based on the barbels , but have been completely redesigned in the bow area in order to do justice to the technical progress regarding sonar systems .
Around 1980, under President Jimmy Carter , the United States also thought about manufacturing a modification of the barbel , significantly enlarged, as it would cost around a third less in procurement and operation than nuclear submarines according to the then calculation. Ultimately, Carter could not prevail and the US Navy continued to exclusively use nuclear submarines.
Taiwan will be interested in buying US submarines or building licenses for them into the 21st century. This would be a modification of the Barbel design, as US shipyards have not operated any further development of diesel-electric boats since this class. For this reason, the responsible US companies wanted to have the plans of German companies such as Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft modernized. Taiwan cannot acquire more modern boats like those built in Europe because Western governments fear reprisals from the People's Republic of China . That is why there was no German participation, and for the same reason the Dutch government put orders for four more Hai Lungs on hold in 1992 . After US President George W. Bush gave Taiwanese people the opportunity to buy submarines in 2001, interest seems to have cooled noticeably by 2008 to spend $ 11.7 billion on eight boats.
period of service
All three boats entered service during 1959, making them the last three diesel-electric boats built by the US Navy for combat missions. Later only the USS Dolphin (AGSS-555) , an unarmed deep-diving test submarine, was manufactured with this type of propulsion. Around the Barbels , the dominance of the new, more powerful nuclear submarines grew in the following years. All three boats were stationed in the Pacific , first in San Diego . A few years later, all barbels were based in Pearl Harbor . From there, the boats went regularly on mission trips to the western Pacific, including taking part in anti -submarine exercises with allies. At the time of the Vietnam War , all three submarines were used in the Gulf of Tonkin . Since 1984 they have been the only diesel boats in the fleet. The Bonefish was already being used in the Atlantic at this time , including visiting Hamburg in 1982 .
In 1988, the Bonefish, the first of the three boats, was taken out of service. Ingress of sea water had caused an explosion in the battery compartment, which resulted in a fire on the boat, in which three sailors died. However, due to the advanced age of almost 30 years, repairs were out of the question for economic reasons, as the boats were planned to be taken out of service around 1990. The Barbel went out of service in 1989, the Blueback, the last diesel-electric powered boat built by the US Navy for combat missions, in 1990. After the fire, the Bonefish was sold to a demolition company in New Orleans in 1989 and scrapped there. The Barbel was preserved until 2001 and then sunk during a maneuver as a target ship. Only the blueback remained intact. It was donated as a museum in 1994 and prepared as a museum ship by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland . There it can be viewed on the banks of the Willamette River .
With a service period of 31 years, the Blueback was in service longer than all nuclear submarines of the time, with the exception of the USS Kamehameha (SSBN-642) , which served 37 active years in the fleet after massive modifications. A nuclear submarine typically remains in service for between 25 and 30 years.
technology
hull
_dock.jpg)
The submarines of the Barbel class were 66.9 meters long and 8.8 meters wide, the draft was 8.5 meters. Submerged, the boats displaced 2,645 tons . They were built in a modification of the hydrodynamically optimized teardrop shape. Instead of the continuous curvature of the fuselage, as can be found in Albacore , a steel cylinder was used as the middle part and closed with teardrop-shaped attachments. This hull shape also favored underwater travel in terms of both speed and maneuverability.
An attachment was attached to the upper part of the hull, which gave the boats a flat deck and was undermined by the surrounding water during diving trips. Such a construction was not implemented in any of the following classes. The slender tower was a third of the length of the hull and was about five and a half meters high. The masts are drawn into these, which, when extended, can break through the water surface even when diving, and there was also a small open navigation bridge on the surface. A rescue lock and hatch was installed in front of the tower through which the crew could leave the submerged boat in the event of an accident.
The teardrop-shaped hull prevailed after the Barbel class , among others , had shown its potential and is also used in the 21st century, slightly modified. Since the continuous curvature is relatively difficult to manufacture, a cylindrical middle part is now used, as with the barbels , and is closed with semicircular caps.
The hull was made entirely of 3.81 cm thick HY-80 steel ( high yield steel), which has a minimum yield strength of 80,000 pound-force per square inch (552 N / mm²). The maximum permissible diving depth of the boats in peacetime was 215 meters (700 feet), the depth of destruction at which the structural integrity of the hull can no longer be guaranteed was 1.5 times that, i.e. around 320 meters (1050 feet). Amidships, the hull diameter of almost nine meters allowed a three-story deck arrangement. All the batteries for the drive were located on the lowest deck, above the sleeping and mess rooms for the crew. On the third level directly under the tower, next to other dormitories, there were mainly sonar and radio rooms as well as the command and control center. From there the submarine was controlled and commanded. The engine rooms were located aft of the three-story area, and the torpedo room was located in the direction of the bow, each over the entire height of the hull, which was already converging here.
The boats were controlled by a control pad with depth and rudders at the stern. Additional down rudders for fine control under water were initially attached to the bow, but were moved to the tower as early as 1961/62, where they promised more stability in the vertical plane at underwater speeds of more than twelve knots.
drive
As the last class, the Barbel class received a diesel-electric drive . In contrast to the World War II drafts, the class received only a single shaft with a propeller. The Bureau of Ships and also Admiral Hyman Rickover advocated a twin-screw boat during the design phase for reasons of greater reliability, even in the Barbel class to be planned , but were unable to prevail because the single-screw design promised better hydrodynamic properties. The propeller had five sickle-shaped blades, the diameter was 3.81 meters.
Each of the boats had three Fairbanks, Morse and Company diesel engines with an output of around 4800 hp (about 3500 kW). During the surface travel, the shaft was driven directly by these. During the dive, the diesel engines could only run when the boat was just below the surface of the water, as the resulting exhaust gases had to be vented through a snorkel and the air required to run the engines had to be fed into the boat. The snorkel could be extended at the stern end of the tower. In addition, a total of 504 massive battery blocks were integrated in the fuselage. The noisy diesel engines, which immediately revealed the position of the boat when in operation, could charge the batteries as long as there was no enemy contact. The batteries then drove two almost silent electric motors with an output of around 3150 hp (around 2300 kW) from General Electric , which in turn acted on the shaft. In this way, top speeds of 18 to 25 knots could be achieved, depending on the source.
The endurance of the batteries with such a power output was sufficient for a maximum of 30 minutes, after which the boat had to go to periscope depth to start the diesel engines and “snorkel”. At a crawl speed of three knots, the batteries lasted 102 hours, over four days. There were over 400,000 liters of diesel fuel on board to operate the diesel engines. The boats thus achieved an operational range of around 19,000 nautical miles.
Armament and Electronics
The boats had six torpedo tubes with a diameter of 21 inches (533 millimeters) in the bow. These were arranged in the center line in two horizontal rows of three tubes each. The Portsmouth NSY's design originally envisaged five pipes in a circle, but the Bureau of Ships insisted on the usual six pipes at the time. Since the screw-in design was chosen, the previously frequently used and rear-facing torpedo tubes were no longer needed. Each boat had six torpedoes in the tubes and an additional 16 in racks in the torpedo room on board, making a total of 22 torpedoes. Since their introduction into the fleet in 1972, the Barbels also carried the most modern torpedo, the wire-guided Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo . Before that, the Mark 14 and the Mark 16 developed from it was on board as a torpedo. The fire control solutions for the torpedoes were calculated by a Mark 101 fire control system.
_sail.jpg)
Each boat had two sonar systems in the bow area . Above the torpedo tubes there was a system of the type BQS-4 that only worked actively , and a combined active-passive system BQR-2 / BQS-4 was located below the tubes. Both sound transmitter / receiver units were rather small, on more modern designs the torpedo tubes are attached at a slight angle from the center line, as the bow area is occupied by more voluminous sonar systems. This also applies to the Barbel- based Japanese designs.
The boats also had several masts that could be stretched over the surface of the water through the tower so that the submerged submarine could receive information from the surface, among other things. In front of the snorkel was a mast for electronic countermeasures (ECM) of the type BLR-1 with an integrated longitudinal wave swimming antenna. Again in front of it was a BPS-12 radar mast and another BRD-6 type ECM mast. Directly behind the bridge at the leading edge of the tower were also two periscopes , a large one for navigation and a smaller one with a reduced radar reflector surface for use in combat situations.
crew
_quarters.jpg)
The manning of the boats was between 80 and 85 men, around 10 of them officers. There were only about 55 people on the test ship Albacore , as weapons and sonar systems were not scaffolded. The crew ranks had their quarters and the mess amidships on the middle deck; the officers slept and lived aft of the command rooms on the upper deck.
The newly introduced three-deck configuration offered advantages for the crew. For example, the crews, whose quarters were distributed in the stern and bow on previous boats, no longer had to cross the command center to get to their stations. In addition, the torpedo and engine rooms were now largely free of sleeping quarters. But especially when guests were on board, crew members had to occupy their emergency berths there. Nevertheless, many quarters of the crew ranks were also cramped by the stored equipment and pipelines, and the walkways made them not very quiet.
The officers and NCOs had chambers of four or eight men each, the bunks were arranged on two levels and screened off from the narrow hallway by curtains.
There were three kinds of food on board. Fresh, chilled food was sufficient for the first 30 days, and frozen food for an additional 30 days. For longer trips of up to 75 days without the possibility of reloading fresh food, the crew had to resort to dry food.
Mission profile
Their drive system limited the use of the barbels considerably. They were primarily intended for use near the coast, a role that they played in the Vietnam War. Since diesel-electric boats are virtually silent at speeds below five knots and are therefore no longer locatable by passive sonar systems , they are mainly used in a way that enables them to take advantage of this. In the event of an attack on enemy ships , the barbels would have waited in their probable course until they came within range of the boat's torpedoes.
The diesel-electric drive is quieter in battery operation than the nuclear reactor of a nuclear submarine, which is why the barbels were often used in underground hunting exercises. They played the attacker or the searched target and thus simulated enemy forces. In contrast to the USA, the Soviet Union and later Russia and China retained conventionally powered boats, especially the kilo class, even after the advent of nuclear submarines . The barbels were the best way to simulate their tactics without the US Navy having to resort to Allied boats.
literature
- Norman Friedman: US Submarines since 1945. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1994, ISBN 1-55750-260-9 .
- Norman Polmar: Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of US and Soviet Submarines, 1945-2001. Brassey's, Dulles 2004, ISBN 1-57488-594-4 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Polmar 2004, p. 215.
- ↑ Friedman 1994, p. 34.
- ^ Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1980, p. 562.
- ↑ Friedman 1994, p. 121.
- ↑ Friedman 1992, p. 262.
- ^ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute : SIPRI Yearbook 2005: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-19-928401-6 , p. 432.
- ↑ Los Angeles Times: US Promised Subs to Taiwan It Doesn't Have. (engl.)
- ↑ Shark Lung Class on dutchsubmarines.com (Engl.)
- ↑ Jane's: Former DoD official pours cold water on Taiwan's submarine deal with US. (engl.)
- ↑ New York Times: Bodies of 3 Missing Sailors Found Aboard Disabled US Submarine (Engl.)
- ^ Norman Polmar: Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet. US Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2005, ISBN 1-59114-685-2 , p. 70.
- ↑ a b David Miller, John Jordan: Modern Submarines. Verlag Stocker-Schmid, Dietikon-Zürich 1992, ISBN 3-7276-7088-6 , p. 41f.
- ↑ Polmar 2004, p. 136.
- ↑ a b Stefan Terzibaschitsch: Sea power USA. Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-86047-576-2 , p. 528ff.
- ↑ Friedman 1994, p. 31.
- ↑ image of pressed into the propeller dimensions on Flickr (Engl.)
- ↑ a b While some sources swap the horsepower of diesel and electric motors, give Polmar 2004, Terzibaschitsch 1997 and Christopher Chant: A Compendium of Armaments and Military Hardware. Routledge, New York 1987, ISBN 0-7102-0720-4 indicates the combination used here.
- ↑ Polmar 2004, p. 146.
