Submarine

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Bundesarchiv Bild 134-C0238, outpost boat Nuremberg
UZ 14 submarine destroyer around 1918. Location and date of photo unknown.
USS Eider (AM-17), USS SC-25, USS SC-45, USS SC-356, USS SC-47, and USS SC-40
IJN No32 Submarine Chaser 1942
Submarine chaser USS PC-815 of the US Navy in 1943
German submarine chaser Naiad the Thetis-Class , 1974

A submarine or submarine is a mostly quite small warship whose main task is to fight submarines . This type of ship originated in the First World War , initially also known as the submarine destroyer , and was used against the then new submarines, against which there were initially few antidotes. In the beginning, simple (private) yachts were also converted into submarine boats. Submarines were mainly used near the coast and in marginal seas, while larger vehicles and aircraft are needed for submarine hunting on the high seas. For submarine hunts, the Imperial Navy usually used converted fish steamers that were used as outpost boats, such as the Nuremberg pictured opposite .

Up until the Second World War, there was a lack of efficient underwater location systems to track down submarines. The submarines of both world wars were actually diving boats in today's sense, which mostly operated on the surface of the water and only dived to attack or to evade a counterattack. When fighting the submarines, it was therefore important to discover them on the surface and attack them with artillery . Emerged from it, you had to follow quickly to the attack with depth charges continue. This resulted in the characteristics of the early submarines: artillery armament, depth charges and high speed.

After the sonar was developed as an underwater location system during the Second World War , submarines could also be detected underwater at greater distances. Therefore, the submarines were equipped with systems that hurled depth charges through the air over a certain distance. For it came mortar and missile systems used. Later self-searching anti-submarine torpedoes were also developed. At the same time, the need for high speed was reduced. Typical submarines from the period after the Second World War therefore had a sonar system, submarine torpedoes, anti- submarine rockets and depth charges , while the artillery was mostly reduced to anti-aircraft weapons for self-protection. The maximum speed was typically around 25 knots .

Modern submarines are so difficult to locate that larger sonar systems are required than the mostly quite small submarines can carry. In addition, according to today's teaching, it is considered necessary to counter modern submarines with a coordinated three-dimensional approach of anti-submarine aircraft , helicopters , surface ships (mostly destroyers , frigates and corvettes ) and hunting submarines. The surface ship is the operations center of such an underground hunt group. Small vehicles such as submarines cannot take on this management task with their technical means. That is why this type of warship has disappeared from most modern navies.

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