Plongeur
 Original plans by the plongeurs of Bourgois and Brun
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The Plongeur ( French : diver ) was a French submarine . It was the first French submarine and at the same time, alongside the Spanish Ictíneo II, one of the first submarines in the world that was no longer powered by muscle power when submerged.
Construction and construction features
The design is based on a proposal by the French captain Siméon Bourgois . He planned to break British naval rule with the help of submarines. Construction began in Rochefort in 1860 under the direction of marine engineer Charles Brun . The first test drive took place in 1863.
The Plongeur was 43 m long and displaced 426 ts . The boat had a crew of 12 men. A special feature of the construction was the drive. Compressed air was used as the drive , which was relaxed in a piston machine . The compressed air was held in 23 tanks with a total volume of 153 m³ at a pressure of 12 bar (1.2 MPa ). The compressed air tanks took up a large part of the boat and were the reason for the very large construction for their time. The compressed air machine delivered an output of 80 HP (60 KW ). The submarine could travel up to 5 NM (9 km) at a speed of 4 knots (7.5 km / h ) . The compressed air was also used to blow out the 53 m³ ballast tanks .
The armament of the boat consisted of a spar torpedo . This weapon, first used in the Civil War , was no less dangerous for the attacking submarine than for the attacked ship. Due to the short range, the Plongeur was dependent on the help of a steam-powered escort ship, which was supposed to supply the submarine with compressed air and tow it into the operational area.
Mission history
The behavior of the submarine was first stuted in a pool. On October 6, 1863, the Plongeur left on her maiden voyage . The first tests were carried out in the Charente river . The commander of the test ship was Marie-Joseph-Camille Doré . On February 11, 1864, she was towed by the Aviso La Vigie into the port of Barques , where the first attempts at diving were to be made. The lighter Cachalot served as an auxiliary ship . Due to unfavorable weather conditions, the submarine was then transported to La Rochelle .
On February 14, 1864, during a test drive, the drive's compressed air supply got out of control. The boat ran onto a pier . Four days later the boat reached a depth of 9 m in La Pallice. The submarine had problems with longitudinal stability, which limited the diving depth to 10 m. The construction tended to sink uncontrollably and ram into the ground with its bow. The designers tried to compensate for the problem with pumps that transported ballast water into the stern. In practice, this solution was too slow for adequate trim. Only in later submarine constructions such as the Q 1 Gymnote and the Q 2 Gustave Zédé was the problem with down rudders solved satisfactorily.
During the Franco-Prussian War , Marie-Joseph-Camille Doré tried to convince the Admiralty to use the Plongeur in combat , but did not prevail. Since the French Navy was far superior to the Navy of the North German Confederation , the use of the new, rather unreliable weapon was rejected as not necessary.
After years of testing, the submarine was decommissioned on June 20, 1867. On January 1, 1873, the Plongeur was put back into service after being converted into a water tanker. For this purpose, it was equipped with a 120 HP (90 kW) steam engine. She was ordered to the port of Rochefort. In 1898 it was modernized. The tanker received the engine of the torpedo boat Torpilleur No. 74 . After the closure of the naval shipyard in Rochefourt, the Plongeur was transferred to Toulon in 1927 , where it was finally decommissioned on December 25, 1935. The ship was sold to M. Negai for scrapping on May 26, 1937 for 25,143 ₣ .
See also
Web links
- History of the early submarines at www.uboatnet.de
- www.netmarine.net (French)
- Le Plongeur. (French)
literature
- Robert Hutchinson: KAMPF UNDER WASSER - Submarines from 1776 to today , Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart, 1st edition 2006, ISBN 3-613-02585-X
- Anthony Preston: The history of the submarines , Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen, German edition 1998, ISBN 3-86070-697-7