Chapter 197 Super Submarine

During the First World War, when submarines were developed on a large scale, and even during the Second World War, when submarines reached their peak, the submarines at that time could not be called real submarines. They were more like ships that could dive into the water, so it was more appropriate to call them submarines. At that time, the lines of submarines were basically ship-shaped (conventional), and their appearance was like a ship. It is said that Da Vinci had conceived a ship that could sail underwater, but a ship with this ability was considered evil, so he did not draw a design.

Most submarines in World War I and World War II were not the same as modern submarines. They looked closer to surface ships. In order to reduce wave resistance during navigation, the bow of the boat also adopted a bow shape similar to that of surface ships. These ship-shaped submarines sailed on the surface of the water more often than surface ships. Therefore, a major technical feature of ship-shaped submarines is that the surface speed is greater than the underwater speed.

Conventional submarines from World War I to the early stage of World War II can only be said to be the prototype of submarines. The time they sail on the surface can account for about 90% of the total mission time. They dive into the water to conceal the enemy when they are close to the target, or to avoid attack. This appearance defect and the not-so-advanced battery make the submarine's underwater operating power really unacceptable, and in most cases it maintains a speed of about 5 knots.

In the design of the new "Tiger Shark", Yannick has largely borrowed from the design of conventional submarines in later generations.

First of all, this "super submarine" completely abandoned the sharp bow design and adopted a unique double-hull structure whale shape to reduce fluid resistance. It became the world's first ship whose surface speed is not as fast as its underwater speed.

The more rounded bow brings an additional benefit to submarine designers that was previously unattainable, that is, part of the sonar system can be installed at the position with the widest coverage angle of the submarine, so that the submarine can find its target farther and earlier underwater, and the blind spot is only one place at the tail of the submarine.

The power of this sonar system is that it can aim the torpedo without a periscope, which increases its safety.

In order to reduce the resistance during the submersion, the entire submarine is very neat and clean except for the bridge (command station), without any miscellaneous gadgets, and even the small radar antenna and front horizontal rudder are foldable. In this way, the speed of the submarine is increased to the limit, and the irregular parts can also reduce the noise generated underwater.

This "super submarine" has improved more than just the appearance.

In terms of power, in addition to two "MAN" diesel engines (each with 1,500 horsepower), the "Tiger Shark" is also equipped with 380 maintenance-free lead-acid batteries, forming a huge super battery, weighing 270 tons. It is the single functional component with the largest space and displacement in the submarine, consuming at least 10% of the submarine's displacement.

With this new powertrain, the underwater maximum speed of this "Tiger Shark" can reach an astonishing 5 knots. The endurance time can exceed 100 hours at a silent speed of 5 knots (using a cruise motor). It only needs to float to the snorkel depth to charge once every once in a while. Fortunately, it has a larger space and living facilities such as food refrigerators, shower equipment and even fitness equipment that other German submarines do not have, which greatly alleviates the trouble of the crew not being able to get some fresh air frequently.

The first improvement in terms of silence is the propeller. The currently popular three-blade propeller is abandoned and a seven-blade large side-spinning propeller is used for the first time.

In the battle between submarines and surface ships, submarines are always at a disadvantage. For submarines, constantly improving their silent performance is the basis for their continued existence; when the underwater noise can be comparable to the background noise of the ocean, it will become extremely difficult for surface warships to detect submarines underwater.

The seven blades are asymmetric, not easy to resonate, and have low noise. The propulsion speed of a three-blade propeller must be at least 10 times higher than that of a seven-blade propeller. High speed will cause large noise changes, and the noise will be tens of decibels higher when the apparent speed is fast.

Although there is no multi-axis linkage machine tool for fine processing, it does not mean that it is impossible to process seven-blade side-slant propellers without this thing. It's just that the finished product is not as quiet as the fine product processed by the multi-axis linkage machine tool.

And on the other hand, the underwater detection technology of various countries in the world today is not as amazing as that of later generations. Unless you see the periscope or snorkel of the submarine, you can only rely on sonar to roughly lock the position of the submarine. Then use the explosion radius of the depth charge to make up for the embarrassment of insufficient detection accuracy.

At present, the underwater navigation speed of submarines in various countries is at most four or five knots. Now there is such a "super submarine" with a speed increased by three or four times, which means that the previous detection methods are useless.

When the enemy detects its approximate location and drops the depth charge, this "super submarine" has long been out of the destruction radius of the depth charge.

Of course, there is more than one silent method. At the end of World War II, under the attack of the powerful anti-submarine forces of the Allies, the German Navy submarine force began to decline. German U-boats were sunk one after another.

In order to save the situation and reduce the number of U-boat losses, the German naval research institute urgently developed a synthetic rubber silencing material called "Aliberich". This rubber material is made into blocks about 3 cm thick and glued to the surface of the U-boat, which can greatly improve the stealth performance of the U-boat. This rubber material block that can be glued to the surface of the submarine is considered to be the world's earliest submarine silencing tile.

In later generations, the thickness of silencing tiles generally reached 150mm. Yannick did not know how much effect the Germans' 30mm thick silencing tiles could have, so he increased the thickness of the silencing tiles to 80mm.

Because the "Tiger Shark" is a double-hull structure, silencing tiles are laid on the inner and outer hulls. The outer silencing tiles are mainly used to deal with active sonar, while the inner silencing tiles are mainly used to reduce noise for themselves. In addition, sound insulation and shock-absorbing bases are installed inside for the engine and equipment with large vibrations. It can be said that after all this effort, this submarine can be said to be the quietest submarine today.

Since the submarine is larger, it can carry more supplies and more ammunition, so the full load displacement of this "Tiger Shark" reaches an astonishing 2,700 tons, which is definitely a terrifying underwater monster.

In terms of weapons, this monster has the powerful firepower of 6 torpedo launch chambers at the front bow position, and the more professional torpedo chamber is equipped with a fashionable thing called a hydraulic torpedo refiller, which enables it to load 6 torpedoes within eight minutes. Together with the torpedoes on standby in the torpedo tube, it can launch 30 torpedoes in 30 minutes, that is, all the torpedoes carried are used up.

Yannick couldn't help but sigh. "I'm really looking forward to it. I don't know which unlucky guy will become its first prey."

Dönitz smiled and responded. "No matter who it is, they should feel honored. This is a super weapon across the ages. It's hard to imagine anything else that can beat it."

Yannick smiled in his heart, of course. The king of the seabed in the future is a nuclear submarine. A strategic nuclear submarine in the future can easily destroy any medium-sized country and severely damage any big country.

Speaking of nuclear submarines, Yannick thought of the nuclear energy research department of Area 51. Dr. Einstein's small reactor that could only light up a building's light bulb was a complete success. It stands to reason that the next step is to build a real reactor, but it happened to catch up with this war. If the nuclear power plant is accidentally bombed by the enemy and becomes a German version of "Chernobyl", it will be more trouble than gain.

So Yannick can only put the nuclear power plant plan aside and let Dr. Einstein and his team continue to study nuclear power.

This is another challenge. After all, nuclear power and nuclear power plants are very different in fuel, structure, and coolant, except for nuclear fission. However, according to the progress of the original time and space, plus his support for German technology, it should be developed in less than three years.

The high-speed centrifuge that he had been looking forward to was finally built, and the progress of Otto Hahn's nuclear weapons research team was also accelerated a lot.