Thanks for this interesting history. As a young marine engineer in 1982, I worked at Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Directly across the river from the yard was the mothballed USS Triton among a few old surface combatants. On several occasions engineers from our office were sent to Triton to canabalize components to use on ongoing sub overhauls. So, this is the first detail I have ever heard about the design concept and purpose of the ship.
On the subject of the complicated nature of Soviet submarine safety, a while back I started doing a deep dive into all fatalities on Soviet nuclear submarines I could find. There were a LOT of fatalities, and eventually I gave up finding them all (this was a single slide of a longer presentation). But for all the accidents, especially reactor accidents, on an Alfa I could only find one fatality: a man overboard. There were probably a few cancer deaths, but those were hard to track down for any reactor accident.
Conscripts are not ideal for submarines. Most submarines were delivered in safe condition but crews didn't maintain their boat and just passed on to the next crew the accumulated wear and tear. As fire was the main cause of most accidents, accumulated wear and tear can mean a spark, a faulty gauge or something as anodine but accidents have an origin. In my opinion a submarine has to be crewed by professionals. Russia has changed since the Soviet days, crews are professionals and much better care is taken of the boat during a crew's tour. (edited for having used ship instead of boat, I don't want to get keeled :)
@@mikecimerian6913 About conscripts, may I remind you that the German army that kicked the butt of the English was all conscripts. Not to talk about the Finns and the Israelis.
@@ulfosterberg9116 , this might be true for the army, but Mike was clearly referring to conscripts on subs and he clearly has a point. The soviet system of "boat crews" - where one crew would be transferred together from boat to boat - was also a major factor here. The accident numbers speak for themselves, and they would have been much higher if not for the relatively high quality soviet subs (with escape systems) and the heroic actions of some crew. K-429 sums up the situation quite well.
I think the North Korean subs deserve inclusion. So dubious they don't even go out to sea but rather are limited to patrolling the shore line. Painted bright green and red (sometimes all pink) perhaps to make them easier to find when they sink.
They seem more like a single-use concept. One has to wonder, because many of them may just be fodder or they may be more like a torpedo or mine merged with a manned submersible.
To be honest, considered their opponent, South Korea don't have shallow surface submarine. the North Korea submarines do enjoy homefield advantage for attacking unsuspecting vessels where ships can travel but large submarines cannot, while South Korea subs mainly have to content with China and Japan, yes, including Japan as maritime rival despite being part of the Pacific Allies with USA.
The green works quite well in the shallow water where NK subs work. These subs are not expected to go into the Sea of Japan, but to lie in ambush near ports. For what the likely battle plan a Korean War would follow, the subs the NK have are going to do the job.
I had a book back in the seventies called "The K Class" (sadly, no longer in my possession) but vividly remember the description on the back in which it referenced the story of a "K-class" Captain inspecting his boat and contacting his First Officer via intercom with the immortal phrase " I say No 1, my end's diving. What's your end doing?". Sums them up perfectly.
Another great video! I always look forward to your uploads, and I enjoy this format. I'd love to see more of this simple easy to digest style video in between your larger investigations/projects. You could even do top 5 lists based on specific criteria like reliability, how quiet they are, how much more advanced they were at launch than their peers/revolutionary, etc.
It would be interesting to hear your analysis of the Titan incident once more information is known. The company is currently being slagged for not following testing procedures and making statements like, "We don't want a bunch of 50 year old white men involved in our design" when asked about why they didn't consult experienced submarine engineers during their design phase.
and rightly so. Whatever caused the accidents, both are serious problems with the company's attitude and practices, things that have no place in the industry (or indeed any industry).
"We don't want a bunch of 50 year old white men involved in our design" sounds a lot like "man those experts are expensive, why hire them when we can hire cheap fresh grads?"
I read they actually did have an experienced guy, he had decades of knowledge. They hired him for safety inspection and advisory consultant, they fired him for causing excessive delays in the design and manufacturing.
Yeah, I myself and unsure of which to consider it. Especially considering it is not an independent seafaring vessel. Whichever it is, though, it is the most despicable of its type.
The Kaiten was very good at exactly one role: attacking protected harbors. By 1944 the Type C midget was too large to carry on the larger Japanese submarines and the reasonably successful missions early in the war had an appalling survival rate (0% until Guadalcanal if you include returning to Japanese lines). Carrying four or six of these to attack Humboldt Bay, Ulithi, or Palau was a decent use of materials and gave you four chances to hit a target rather than two. In every other way it was a terrible weapon system. The only positives at all are it actually gave the Type D cargo submarines teeth (at best two torpedo tubes that were often removed, though they never hit anything) and once they were launched as a distraction to save the mother submarine, and both of those are niche/caused by hyper-specialized Japanese submarine production.
The Kaitan was a manned torpedo with limited controls and meant for a one-way suicidal attack. It really should have worked better than it did. Only one Kaitan ever successfully hit a ship. In this case, the oiler USS Mississinewa was sunk in Ulithi.
You didn't mention the Isaac Peral, pride of the Spanish Navy. Thought this would be your number one. When talking about the USS Triton, no mention of it being in the NECPA program; basically able to accommodate the US President in the event of nuclear war, this was never mentioned publicly and wouldn't be due to security concerns, so is technically in the realm of rumor. As an old bubblehead, we thought this to be almost common knowledge. I liked your video, will look for more.
The statistics on the Bieber, if you read Rohwer's chronology of the war at sea are just depressing like "50 sent out, none returned, 30 sent out, 2 returned etc" Basically the single operator not only had to cope with the carbon monoxide from a gasoline engine (a truck engine basically) but also with staying awake for prolonged periods of time. Most of them used Pervitin (Meth) to stay awake but generally simply crewing this thing was too much. It could have been successful if used against strategic point targets like ex HMS Royal Sovreign (aborted) or the Nijmegen bridge but in a general patrol role it was suicide
There is a good reason that most submarines of any particular era tend to collect in a size band, and that is because that is what works from an engineering perspective. Anything extraordinarily large or small for its time tends to be an operational failure for engineering reasons. Large: Triton, Surcouf, K class, M class, Argonaut, I 400. Small: every minisub every built for combat. Yes, they had some successes, but in every class made by all nations they suffered proportionally much greater losses than they inflicted.
I remember seeing the Biber on Salvage Squad. It managed to Dive. And - importantly for the occupant - Surface. In a flooded, controlled dry-dock environment. As far as I know, this makes it the last WW2 vintage submarine capable of diving.
Will you do a video on the titanic submersible story? I know it's a bit out of your normal stuff but I feel you'd be able to give an interesting and knowledgeable video on it.
I second this request. It sure hear a lot of strange things about which I'm pretty sure aren't true. People seem hung up on the Bluetooth game controller. I personally think that is a non-issue. I'd be really interested to hear H I Sutton's thought about the submarine.
@@ddegnI agree, the USN uses Xbox controllers for their periscopes without issues. Plus the sub has 4 different methods to release the ballast and resurface so I'm betting something else, probably hull related, for the loss.
@@diltzm "probably hull related" I would have thought any hull problem would be immediately catastrophic. Based one the sonar buoys picking up sounds, it appears there are people still alive (at least that's what I heard yesterday). I'd be curious to learn about the ways the ballast can be released. I wonder if the pressure deformed the release mechanisms. If you know of any good videos which go into detail about the release mechanisms, I'd like to know about them.
Very informative hearing about the 'Duds' of the Sub Service. Thanks H I. Unfortunately a very topical video as the Titan Submersible going down at the Titanic Wreck in the news. Any chance you could give us your awesome insight into that vehicle and the technologies that created it and others of it's ilk?
According to some accounts, included in Norman Olhers book "Blitzed : Drugs in Nazi Germany" (2016), a major factor n the failure of one-man submarine operations in the Channel after D-Day was the issue of Methamphetamine tablets to the crews. Wired up to stay awake while awaiting launches, and then during long arduous solo missions, barely trained crew members already disadvantaged by the limitations of a midget sub just got disoriented and couldn't find their targets. Add in issues with lack of oxygen, fumes, visibiility, reliability, and no wonder they were useless.
USS Triton was converted to a more conventional attack submarine, and served as such reasonably well. It was retired when the costly maintenance of her two nuclear power plants met an era of budget cuts. She was kept in reserve for quite a while but with years obsolescence probably came her one-off equipment. IMO, if one wanted a poor US submarine design, the Navy-built S-class boats might be good targets. Built in some quantity, performed poorly, and very few if any were still in service when WW2 arrived (some Electric Boat-built S-boats were, and some did combat patrols).
The main issue with kaiten was its inherently bad idea of how to find and hit the target: the pilot was expected to spot the enemy through the scope, and then proceed with a rather complicated attack pattern, checking through the scope if necessary. However, kaiten was not very agile. It was fast - but then, the speed meant the periscope could hardly be used, plus it would immediately give off a warning to the ship being attacked. Yet if the kaiten slowed down then the target ship could run away. The concept as a whole was deeply flawed - from what I've read the main reason why it was in service till the end of the war were the super optimistic reports after its first deployment and in several actions afterwards. Only after the war the Japanese learned that actually it scored barely any hits, and in total more submarines and IJN personnel was killed in kaiten operations than the US Navy ships and people.
PS There was, interestingly, one very good design of a midget submarine - the German Seehund. It had the crew of two, decent autonomy and weaponry consisting of two torpedoes. Very few were lost, and they actually scored some hits.
In the photo comparing the size of the USS Triton to another submarine, I believe that other submarine is one of the Skipjack-class boats. The Skipjack boats were the first US nuclear submarines that utilized the Albacore-style cylindrical hull we're familiar with today. (Skipjacks were approx. 250 feet in length; today's Virginia-class boats are either 377 or 460 fleet--depending on their capabilities.)
So a radar picket sub would have to be surfaced, presumably for long periods of time, in order to fulfill its intended role…yeah why not make it nuclear powered so it could also stay submerged almost indefinitely!
I LOVE your videos.... I cant get enough... I wish you did nothing except for eat, sleep, and make your fantastic videos! Cant wait for the next one!! Cheers!
Common H i Sutton! We want your take on the Oceangate Titan! Even if you aren’t an expect on deep ocean exploration subs, it would be so interesting to get your perspective on the design of that sub. Maybe you can compare the titan incident to other historical sub disasters. All in due time of course
You are probably getting this a lot but it was really cool to hear you on the "Cold Front" podcast. Made me feel like a hip insider since I already knew of you.
I want to learn more about those steam powered subs. Are they using sea water? I would assume theyd have to desalinate the water before use to prevent residue buildups.
Video on Steam Powered submarines ruclips.net/video/pg_j8_NjZxw/видео.html And one particularly interesting design ruclips.net/video/67IritgM79U/видео.html
If we take into account the resources devoted to the submarine and the benefit derived from it then the Japan's aircraft carrying subs would probably rank first since the mission they were designed for, to put out of commission the Panama Canal, was never accomplished nor even undertaken.
Dear Sir, Thanks for your content. Bear in mind lead is now used in Next-gen Small-Medium Reactors by Blykalla. Energy is a different topic, but you left no explanation, just number 2.
In my navy days, I was on a 𝑆𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑜𝑛 class boat. Among the ranks of chief petty officers, one had been on 𝑁𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑠 when she went under the Arctic ice & another, the chief torpedoman's mate, had been on 𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑛 for her circumnavigation. It was hilariously easy to get these two arguing over which boat was better; by the time I met them, it was a well rehearsed argument, polished as a vaudeville comedy act. In private, TMC would admit 𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑛 was something of a white elephant, but swore it was the most comfortable boat for a junior enlisted man short of a ballistic missile submarine.
Fun video....I think I would put the British M-class at the top of the pile (3 were built). Trying to get a sub to do the job of a (small) battleship is a fundamentally flawed concept (much like the hybrid battleship/aircraft carrier, or even the idea of large calibre guns on an aircraft carrier). It had to surface to fire (duh) and RELOAD. I would love to know what the recoil did to the boat. I would also include any boat designed to carry aircraft, though I can at least see some rationale.
yeah i thought about it, it is a contender, especially the later ones where you cannot excuse them for being the first nuclear sub Type-092, Type-033G, Type-035 and Type-039 too
I so want my own personal, modernized, version of Surcoulf with rail cannon and laser-based AA weapons, essentially a submersible cruiser, but just for my pleasure. 😂 As for the Alpha, one thing for sure, they were crazy submarines, that's all I can say. The Iranian submarine is essentially just a large mini-submarine with limited diving and endurance. The promise of one or two man submarines was seductive, I think, and I'm still emfatuated with them. The Biber is probably the ultimate expression of this seduction without fulfillment. If it worked it could have really made it tough for the enemy, it just didn't work. The Italians in the cold war made some interesting small submarines that I have heard very little about since I was in the Navy, I wonder what they are doing now. My background is my wife and I were submarine hunters in the Navy during the Cold War, that's where I met her. Not many couples can say they got together in such a manner. 😅
To further emphasize the bulk of the Triton, it was too big for its building slip. Part of the bow was cut away from the hull during building to clear a railroad track that it was blocking and reattached later. The stern was built separately and attached later (it being somewhat difficult to build a ship when the ass end is already sticking out into the river), and after completing the sail it was realized that it was too high to clear the gantry over the slip during launch, so another big chunk was cut off to be reattached later.
The predecessor in away of all nuclear SSNs designed for high speed with a large weapon load operating in a battle group. Of course the means of raising steam is totally flawed
Sorry, but the Wellman was actually deployed in actual combat. On a raid to Norway, belive Bergen harbour was the target. Not sure. This being the reason why there is a surviving example in the Norwegian Horten Maritime Museum, imagine my surprise to see that primitive piece of cr..p. The Germans were surprised that the English found volunteers to crew these death traps.
I really wouldn't consider the Alfa's to be among the worst submarine designs. The main issue with their liquid metal cooled reactors really had nothing to do with the reactor itself. It was just that the shore infrastructure needed to maintain them while in port wasn't available so they had to keep their reactors running continuously. By all other accounts the Alfa was quite exceptional and its speed and deep diving capabilities surpassed NATO's ability to effectively counter it when it first appeared. In its place I would have included the Royal Navy's two Explorer class submarines. These two submarines used an experimental and highly dangerous hydrogen peroxide based propulsion system which was already obsolete when they were commissioned (USS Nautilus having already proved nuclear submarines were viable a few years prior). So volatile was the hydrogen peroxide system that Explorer's crew nicknamed her Exploder while her sister, Excalibur, became known as Excrutiator. Both were scrapped after short careers in the 1960's.
A friend of mine hosted Captain Edward L. Beach at an event. Beach was the first captain of USS Triton. My friend asked him about it and Beach said it was a terrible sub to steer. I'm pretty sure he said it was the worst sub he was ever in.
With the Alpha,they were able to save weight because they believed the liquid metal reactor coolent would also function as shielding. They were wrong.☢️
You didn't explain WHY not being able to turn off the reactor would make for a bad sub. Maybe the noise? It's not that a water cooled reactor can be shut down in less than a day either. There are radioactive fission products that keep generating heat for a while even when the main reaction is shut down so it needs to be actively cooled. This makes noise?
How was it that the Kaitan was so fast it was hard to hit targets? You would think speed would help hit the target. If you missed or couldn't line up then you could just be really fast again, loop around and line up again.....or not?? Thank you!
BTW the Alfa is very cool because of its co-starring role in 'The Hunt for Red October' Also nobody has mentioned that the reactor being always on means that it does not have to rely on portside power, somewhat of a problem in USSR. Do other boomers keep the reactor on whilst in port? I think it would be quite common.
While I was not a reactor plant guy, I did work sub engine room components for some years in shipyards. Basically the only time a US presurized water reactor is put in cold layup is for refueling or major modification.
![DDG & G Herbo - Nosey [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I9Ra0Zc2NlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Some wag from the US Navy remarked on the Alfa class - and the noise it made "You don't hunt deer on a motorcycle"
Thanks for this interesting history. As a young marine engineer in 1982, I worked at Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Directly across the river from the yard was the mothballed USS Triton among a few old surface combatants. On several occasions engineers from our office were sent to Triton to canabalize components to use on ongoing sub overhauls. So, this is the first detail I have ever heard about the design concept and purpose of the ship.
I read that the Triton was made more for testing designs more than being a real attack sub. also didn't it had two reactors.
@@Rumtrinker Yes, they were going to make follow-on designs if it performed well.
On the subject of the complicated nature of Soviet submarine safety, a while back I started doing a deep dive into all fatalities on Soviet nuclear submarines I could find. There were a LOT of fatalities, and eventually I gave up finding them all (this was a single slide of a longer presentation).
But for all the accidents, especially reactor accidents, on an Alfa I could only find one fatality: a man overboard.
There were probably a few cancer deaths, but those were hard to track down for any reactor accident.
Conscripts are not ideal for submarines. Most submarines were delivered in safe condition but crews didn't maintain their boat and just passed on to the next crew the accumulated wear and tear. As fire was the main cause of most accidents, accumulated wear and tear can mean a spark, a faulty gauge or something as anodine but accidents have an origin. In my opinion a submarine has to be crewed by professionals. Russia has changed since the Soviet days, crews are professionals and much better care is taken of the boat during a crew's tour. (edited for having used ship instead of boat, I don't want to get keeled :)
Soviet submarine what?
"Safety" is not a word in the Russian dictionary.
@@LMB222I am sure they have a word for stupid.
@@mikecimerian6913 About conscripts, may I remind you that the German army that kicked the butt of the English was all conscripts. Not to talk about the Finns and the Israelis.
@@ulfosterberg9116 , this might be true for the army, but Mike was clearly referring to conscripts on subs and he clearly has a point. The soviet system of "boat crews" - where one crew would be transferred together from boat to boat - was also a major factor here. The accident numbers speak for themselves, and they would have been much higher if not for the relatively high quality soviet subs (with escape systems) and the heroic actions of some crew. K-429 sums up the situation quite well.
I think the North Korean subs deserve inclusion. So dubious they don't even go out to sea but rather are limited to patrolling the shore line. Painted bright green and red (sometimes all pink) perhaps to make them easier to find when they sink.
I thought about it, but landed on Fateh Class
They seem more like a single-use concept. One has to wonder, because many of them may just be fodder or they may be more like a torpedo or mine merged with a manned submersible.
To be honest, considered their opponent, South Korea don't have shallow surface submarine. the North Korea submarines do enjoy homefield advantage for attacking unsuspecting vessels where ships can travel but large submarines cannot, while South Korea subs mainly have to content with China and Japan, yes, including Japan as maritime rival despite being part of the Pacific Allies with USA.
Isn’t one of their sub types just a Russian design they bought, which was based off of a German ww2 sub
The green works quite well in the shallow water where NK subs work. These subs are not expected to go into the Sea of Japan, but to lie in ambush near ports. For what the likely battle plan a Korean War would follow, the subs the NK have are going to do the job.
I had a book back in the seventies called "The K Class" (sadly, no longer in my possession) but vividly remember the description on the back in which it referenced the story of a "K-class" Captain inspecting his boat and contacting his First Officer via intercom with the immortal phrase " I say No 1, my end's diving. What's your end doing?". Sums them up perfectly.
Welcome back again. I haven't seen your new videos in a while.
Another great video! I always look forward to your uploads, and I enjoy this format. I'd love to see more of this simple easy to digest style video in between your larger investigations/projects. You could even do top 5 lists based on specific criteria like reliability, how quiet they are, how much more advanced they were at launch than their peers/revolutionary, etc.
Glad to have you back. I checked your channel a couple of days ago and found nothing, so must have just missed this. Great video as always.
thank you!
It would be interesting to hear your analysis of the Titan incident once more information is known. The company is currently being slagged for not following testing procedures and making statements like, "We don't want a bunch of 50 year old white men involved in our design" when asked about why they didn't consult experienced submarine engineers during their design phase.
and rightly so.
Whatever caused the accidents, both are serious problems with the company's attitude and practices, things that have no place in the industry (or indeed any industry).
i can highly reccomend subbrief on youtube
"We don't want a bunch of 50 year old white men involved in our design" sounds a lot like "man those experts are expensive, why hire them when we can hire cheap fresh grads?"
I read they actually did have an experienced guy, he had decades of knowledge. They hired him for safety inspection and advisory consultant, they fired him for causing excessive delays in the design and manufacturing.
@@rockbutcher Are you familiar with the term "tragic irony"?
Glad to see the kaiten in there. I remember recommending it on the original tweet and I think it more than deserves the worst-in-submarine title.
Is the Kaiten even technically a submarine? It's more of a manned torpedo
Yeah, I myself and unsure of which to consider it. Especially considering it is not an independent seafaring vessel. Whichever it is, though, it is the most despicable of its type.
@@The_Moxxie Only of it's type as far as I know.
The Kaiten was very good at exactly one role: attacking protected harbors. By 1944 the Type C midget was too large to carry on the larger Japanese submarines and the reasonably successful missions early in the war had an appalling survival rate (0% until Guadalcanal if you include returning to Japanese lines). Carrying four or six of these to attack Humboldt Bay, Ulithi, or Palau was a decent use of materials and gave you four chances to hit a target rather than two.
In every other way it was a terrible weapon system. The only positives at all are it actually gave the Type D cargo submarines teeth (at best two torpedo tubes that were often removed, though they never hit anything) and once they were launched as a distraction to save the mother submarine, and both of those are niche/caused by hyper-specialized Japanese submarine production.
The Kaitan was a manned torpedo with limited controls and meant for a one-way suicidal attack. It really should have worked better than it did. Only one Kaitan ever successfully hit a ship. In this case, the oiler USS Mississinewa was sunk in Ulithi.
You didn't mention the Isaac Peral, pride of the Spanish Navy. Thought this would be your number one. When talking about the USS Triton, no mention of it being in the NECPA program; basically able to accommodate the US President in the event of nuclear war, this was never mentioned publicly and wouldn't be due to security concerns, so is technically in the realm of rumor. As an old bubblehead, we thought this to be almost common knowledge. I liked your video, will look for more.
The statistics on the Bieber, if you read Rohwer's chronology of the war at sea are just depressing like "50 sent out, none returned, 30 sent out, 2 returned etc" Basically the single operator not only had to cope with the carbon monoxide from a gasoline engine (a truck engine basically) but also with staying awake for prolonged periods of time. Most of them used Pervitin (Meth) to stay awake but generally simply crewing this thing was too much. It could have been successful if used against strategic point targets like ex HMS Royal Sovreign (aborted) or the Nijmegen bridge but in a general patrol role it was suicide
I was wondering how it managed to stay upright after launching a torpedo and losing all that weight from one side.
There is a good reason that most submarines of any particular era tend to collect in a size band, and that is because that is what works from an engineering perspective. Anything extraordinarily large or small for its time tends to be an operational failure for engineering reasons.
Large: Triton, Surcouf, K class, M class, Argonaut, I 400.
Small: every minisub every built for combat. Yes, they had some successes, but in every class made by all nations they suffered proportionally much greater losses than they inflicted.
The Italian Maiale counts as a minisub, and they got quite a few merchant ships and 2 battleships.
absolutely love the unscripted nature of your videos. nearly died of laughter at forgetting what you had picked for number 2.
I remember seeing the Biber on Salvage Squad.
It managed to Dive. And - importantly for the occupant - Surface. In a flooded, controlled dry-dock environment.
As far as I know, this makes it the last WW2 vintage submarine capable of diving.
Will you do a video on the titanic submersible story? I know it's a bit out of your normal stuff but I feel you'd be able to give an interesting and knowledgeable video on it.
I second this request. It sure hear a lot of strange things about which I'm pretty sure aren't true.
People seem hung up on the Bluetooth game controller. I personally think that is a non-issue. I'd be really interested to hear H I Sutton's thought about the submarine.
@@ddegnI agree, the USN uses Xbox controllers for their periscopes without issues. Plus the sub has 4 different methods to release the ballast and resurface so I'm betting something else, probably hull related, for the loss.
@@diltzm "probably hull related"
I would have thought any hull problem would be immediately catastrophic. Based one the sonar buoys picking up sounds, it appears there are people still alive (at least that's what I heard yesterday).
I'd be curious to learn about the ways the ballast can be released. I wonder if the pressure deformed the release mechanisms.
If you know of any good videos which go into detail about the release mechanisms, I'd like to know about them.
@@diltzm "probably hull related"
You called it. Apparently the sounds they heard were unrelated.
Greatly appreciated. These are gems
Thanks for listening
@@HISuttonCovertShores The pleasure is mine. Thank you
Very informative hearing about the 'Duds' of the Sub Service. Thanks H I. Unfortunately a very topical video as the Titan Submersible going down at the Titanic Wreck in the news.
Any chance you could give us your awesome insight into that vehicle and the technologies that created it and others of it's ilk?
According to some accounts, included in Norman Olhers book "Blitzed : Drugs in Nazi Germany" (2016), a major factor n the failure of one-man submarine operations in the Channel after D-Day was the issue of Methamphetamine tablets to the crews. Wired up to stay awake while awaiting launches, and then during long arduous solo missions, barely trained crew members already disadvantaged by the limitations of a midget sub just got disoriented and couldn't find their targets. Add in issues with lack of oxygen, fumes, visibiility, reliability, and no wonder they were useless.
Long time no see, i am glad you’re still active
USS Triton was converted to a more conventional attack submarine, and served as such reasonably well. It was retired when the costly maintenance of her two nuclear power plants met an era of budget cuts. She was kept in reserve for quite a while but with years obsolescence probably came her one-off equipment. IMO, if one wanted a poor US submarine design, the Navy-built S-class boats might be good targets. Built in some quantity, performed poorly, and very few if any were still in service when WW2 arrived (some Electric Boat-built S-boats were, and some did combat patrols).
The main issue with kaiten was its inherently bad idea of how to find and hit the target: the pilot was expected to spot the enemy through the scope, and then proceed with a rather complicated attack pattern, checking through the scope if necessary.
However, kaiten was not very agile. It was fast - but then, the speed meant the periscope could hardly be used, plus it would immediately give off a warning to the ship being attacked. Yet if the kaiten slowed down then the target ship could run away.
The concept as a whole was deeply flawed - from what I've read the main reason why it was in service till the end of the war were the super optimistic reports after its first deployment and in several actions afterwards.
Only after the war the Japanese learned that actually it scored barely any hits, and in total more submarines and IJN personnel was killed in kaiten operations than the US Navy ships and people.
PS There was, interestingly, one very good design of a midget submarine - the German Seehund. It had the crew of two, decent autonomy and weaponry consisting of two torpedoes. Very few were lost, and they actually scored some hits.
Thanks for making these videos! I really appreciate your content and perspective. I look forward to watching every time I open RUclips.
In the photo comparing the size of the USS Triton to another submarine, I believe that other submarine is one of the Skipjack-class boats. The Skipjack boats were the first US nuclear submarines that utilized the Albacore-style cylindrical hull we're familiar with today. (Skipjacks were approx. 250 feet in length; today's Virginia-class boats are either 377 or 460 fleet--depending on their capabilities.)
yep
Video been out 7 days and the universe already giving us the need for an update.
I was literally hitting refresh on this channels page over the last few days. Love this content, even if it is unprepared. : p
So a radar picket sub would have to be surfaced, presumably for long periods of time, in order to fulfill its intended role…yeah why not make it nuclear powered so it could also stay submerged almost indefinitely!
I LOVE your videos.... I cant get enough... I wish you did nothing except for eat, sleep, and make your fantastic videos! Cant wait for the next one!! Cheers!
How mean. I think he should also be allowed to use the restroom once in a while. I agree with the rest.
@@ddegn I think he would be best served by a bucket and privacy curtain.... just like those poor souls on the Titanic submersible.... RIP
Common H i Sutton! We want your take on the Oceangate Titan! Even if you aren’t an expect on deep ocean exploration subs, it would be so interesting to get your perspective on the design of that sub. Maybe you can compare the titan incident to other historical sub disasters. All in due time of course
I will never understand how you create these breathtaking illustrations in MS Paint.
13:57 - I seen a Marder like mini sub in the Narvik naval museum, and that gave me chills....
You are probably getting this a lot but it was really cool to hear you on the "Cold Front" podcast. Made me feel like a hip insider since I already knew of you.
The Fact That Oceangate Titan Isn't In This Tells Me It's So Fcking Bad That Its Excluded Here
The Kaiten was too fast, what does that mean? The pilot had difficulty aiming?
Yes, pretty much
@@HISuttonCovertShores I see, must have been a crazy wild ride. Well... You only had to do it once...
I want to learn more about those steam powered subs. Are they using sea water? I would assume theyd have to desalinate the water before use to prevent residue buildups.
Video on Steam Powered submarines ruclips.net/video/pg_j8_NjZxw/видео.html
And one particularly interesting design ruclips.net/video/67IritgM79U/видео.html
@@HISuttonCovertShores You rock, man.
Hoping Sutton makes a video on OceanGates Titan, curious to know your thoughts on the design.
If we take into account the resources devoted to the submarine and the benefit derived from it then the Japan's aircraft carrying subs would probably rank first since the mission they were designed for, to put out of commission the Panama Canal, was never accomplished nor even undertaken.
Dear Sir, Thanks for your content. Bear in mind lead is now used in Next-gen Small-Medium Reactors by Blykalla.
Energy is a different topic, but you left no explanation, just number 2.
In my navy days, I was on a 𝑆𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑜𝑛 class boat. Among the ranks of chief petty officers, one had been on 𝑁𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑠 when she went under the Arctic ice & another, the chief torpedoman's mate, had been on 𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑛 for her circumnavigation. It was hilariously easy to get these two arguing over which boat was better; by the time I met them, it was a well rehearsed argument, polished as a vaudeville comedy act. In private, TMC would admit 𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑜𝑛 was something of a white elephant, but swore it was the most comfortable boat for a junior enlisted man short of a ballistic missile submarine.
Fun video....I think I would put the British M-class at the top of the pile (3 were built). Trying to get a sub to do the job of a (small) battleship is a fundamentally flawed concept (much like the hybrid battleship/aircraft carrier, or even the idea of large calibre guns on an aircraft carrier). It had to surface to fire (duh) and RELOAD. I would love to know what the recoil did to the boat. I would also include any boat designed to carry aircraft, though I can at least see some rationale.
German Type 201 was also a rather bad design considering it really liked to corode
Comment on early words in video; Wow. I never thought of the K class as low hanging fruit before. It just seemed odd to hear it put that way.
Number 1: Ocean Gate Titan
That USS Triton submarine gives me the impression of the Glomar Explorer.
A reactor cooled by Liquid Metal sure sounds cool but such a insane concept and it’s of course in a Russian sub.
If it is intended to sail and intercept at any minute you need immediate power.
Can you talk about small submarines? Where do they exist, what are they used for?
Seems to me a "Bottom 5" list for submarines is likely to be more literal than most.
Under pressure?
I hate how the alpha is on the list. you gotta admit it looks really cool and the escape capsule is a great feature.
Anyone know if any of those Alpha's haven't been disassembled, who do I talk to about buying one?
Surprised the Type 091 didn't make the list. Poor radiation shielding probably made it more dangerous for the crew vs the enemy.
yeah i thought about it, it is a contender, especially the later ones where you cannot excuse them for being the first nuclear sub
Type-092, Type-033G, Type-035 and Type-039 too
I so want my own personal, modernized, version of Surcoulf with rail cannon and laser-based AA weapons, essentially a submersible cruiser, but just for my pleasure. 😂
As for the Alpha, one thing for sure, they were crazy submarines, that's all I can say.
The Iranian submarine is essentially just a large mini-submarine with limited diving and endurance.
The promise of one or two man submarines was seductive, I think, and I'm still emfatuated with them. The Biber is probably the ultimate expression of this seduction without fulfillment. If it worked it could have really made it tough for the enemy, it just didn't work.
The Italians in the cold war made some interesting small submarines that I have heard very little about since I was in the Navy, I wonder what they are doing now.
My background is my wife and I were submarine hunters in the Navy during the Cold War, that's where I met her. Not many couples can say they got together in such a manner. 😅
THE LEGEND IS BACK!!!
Really cool! Always look forward to your content. Love when you preempt the trolls.
11:46 I laughed! Please never script these, it’s so much better this way.
I feel that the Hunley was a contender for this list, even if it’s barely a submarine. Also somewhat surprised by the lack of US Lake Designs
To further emphasize the bulk of the Triton, it was too big for its building slip. Part of the bow was cut away from the hull during building to clear a railroad track that it was blocking and reattached later. The stern was built separately and attached later (it being somewhat difficult to build a ship when the ass end is already sticking out into the river), and after completing the sail it was realized that it was too high to clear the gantry over the slip during launch, so another big chunk was cut off to be reattached later.
if only they had some way of measuring and calculating the dimensions.... like it was done by toddlers in kindergarten
@@rcajavus8141
Oh come now, let's give the engineers some credit. That's at least 4th grade math.
HMS X1 has to be up there. Spent more time laid up for repairs than at sea.
Great video! Thanks very much.
You are welcome!
The predecessor in away of all nuclear SSNs designed for high speed with a large weapon load operating in a battle group. Of course the means of raising steam is totally flawed
Sorry, but the Wellman was actually deployed in actual combat.
On a raid to Norway, belive Bergen harbour was the target. Not sure. This being the reason why there is a surviving example in the Norwegian Horten Maritime Museum, imagine my surprise to see that primitive piece of cr..p.
The Germans were surprised that the English found volunteers to crew these death traps.
7 mins of this is all I could take.
Worst submarine has to be the USS Hunley during the American Civil War.
"U406 suffers failure at launch, _AGAAAAAIIIINNNNN!!!!_ "
No mention of the Cyclops 2?
I really wouldn't consider the Alfa's to be among the worst submarine designs. The main issue with their liquid metal cooled reactors really had nothing to do with the reactor itself. It was just that the shore infrastructure needed to maintain them while in port wasn't available so they had to keep their reactors running continuously. By all other accounts the Alfa was quite exceptional and its speed and deep diving capabilities surpassed NATO's ability to effectively counter it when it first appeared.
In its place I would have included the Royal Navy's two Explorer class submarines. These two submarines used an experimental and highly dangerous hydrogen peroxide based propulsion system which was already obsolete when they were commissioned (USS Nautilus having already proved nuclear submarines were viable a few years prior). So volatile was the hydrogen peroxide system that Explorer's crew nicknamed her Exploder while her sister, Excalibur, became known as Excrutiator. Both were scrapped after short careers in the 1960's.
I've got an entry for the 5 worst submersibles ever.
I think i know a new one that needs to go on this list!
Except the list is for submarines.
The Japanese Kaiten was a purpose-built kamikaze submarine. Essentially a manned torpedo.
A friend of mine hosted Captain Edward L. Beach at an event. Beach was the first captain of USS Triton. My friend asked him about it and Beach said it was a terrible sub to steer. I'm pretty sure he said it was the worst sub he was ever in.
With the Alpha,they were able to save weight because they believed the liquid metal reactor coolent would also function as shielding.
They were wrong.☢️
Given the timing I hope you mention OceanGate!
honorable mention: oceangates titan class of research submarine.
I think vessels like the Titan shouldn't really count as subs, at best they are diving bells taken to the extremes.
You didn't explain WHY not being able to turn off the reactor would make for a bad sub. Maybe the noise?
It's not that a water cooled reactor can be shut down in less than a day either. There are radioactive fission products that keep generating heat for a while even when the main reaction is shut down so it needs to be actively cooled. This makes noise?
How was it that the Kaitan was so fast it was hard to hit targets? You would think speed would help hit the target. If you missed or couldn't line up then you could just be really fast again, loop around and line up again.....or not?? Thank you!
Pilot didn't have time to properly line up, and the speed made for a very large turning circle as well, making reacquisition next to impossible.
Go to a shooting range and ask someone to let you run sideways while shooting.
The last looks like an attempt from the germans to copy the midget submarines the italians were using in the black sea (cb class from caproni).
Germans were more influenced by the British midget subs
@@HISuttonCovertShores I see, very interesting!
Oceangate Titan didnt make the list?
Very timely.
You missed the opportunity to get your interaction through the roof by not having people complain the K Class is missing.
Lol
Reddit: "There is another"
Excellent video, as usual. Ta.
Australia will get the award for the most expensive 2nd hand Sub.
Liquid metal cooled reactor? Wtf, that sounds like an absolute nightmare. Good Christ.
Yep, alloys of the most volatile substances
@@teslashark I've never heard of this before. It sounds terrifying. Imagine being locked in a steel tube with one of those. Good lord.
You need ro take in consideration that Fateh is small probably becasue it is intended for usage in closed sea such is Persian gulf.
Do a titan video please
Tank Chats < Sub Chats 😅
BTW the Alfa is very cool because of its co-starring role in 'The Hunt for Red October'
Also nobody has mentioned that the reactor being always on means that it does not have to rely on portside power, somewhat of a problem in USSR. Do other boomers keep the reactor on whilst in port? I think it would be quite common.
While I was not a reactor plant guy, I did work sub engine room components for some years in shipyards. Basically the only time a US presurized water reactor is put in cold layup is for refueling or major modification.
At least Triton was a good looking boat. 😂
That german kamikaze one has hitten it definetly...
top 1 Oceangate Titan
I think if you look at most WWI submarines, most of them could only dive about 150 to 170 feet deep making all of them longer than they could dive.
GREATCHANNEL
Great video...👍
The man is back!
Collins class!
✌
If I had to name a specific sub, I'd say the Soviet K19.
The Titan should have been in this list...
Didn’t the Italians have a midget submarine or was that just a torpedo?
steam powered submarines wth...