SUBMARINEMUSEUMS.ORG Forum
General Boards => Submarine Related Chatter => School of the Boat => Topic started by: Darrin on November 05, 2008, 09:38:01 PM
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Alright folks, this is one of my favorite subjects and I am sure that my fellow TM's are glad that we have FINALLY gotten to this block of school of the boat and this one is going to be a bit longer then the rest (and not just because I am a TM :knuppel2:) it is the IMHO the sole purpose for why we get underway and go underwater for LOOOONG periods of time (or at least for us nuke TM's)
SO with that being said lets start with the basic description of the tubes to include the dimensions of them and associated systems involved with the torpedo tubes ;)
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Alrighty, the basics: 6 tubes forward, 4 aft. They are bronze 3 piece castings 21.125" inside diameter. The bow tubes are 252" the aft tubes are 276" long. They need flood and drain water from the WRT tanks, 3000 PSI air for torpedo charging and impulse and 200 PSI service air to make all of the swiss watch stuff work and to blow the tubes empty. Some of the main components are the tripping latch, poppet valve, stop cam, interlocks and torpedo setting mechanisms. I hope this in some way makes up for asking a vet on the Torsk where the slide valve was when I toured her sometime in the 1980s. Terry
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Terry it sounds like you may have been a TM also? Don't feel bad about asking a Torsk vet about the slide valve because that was one of the first things that I looked for when I got on the Torsk 5 years ago and found out rather quickly that the basics are the same but that little jewel isn't on a fleet boat ;)
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It gets real dark inside a tube! But part of the maintenance checks had to be done from inside. :crazy2:
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This torpedo tube stuff is putting me to sleep. Someone please wake me up when we get to the good stuff, like Radio, ECM, or electrical distribution. ;)
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Did I just hear a FAINT PING out of the Radio Shack from Torsk????? the CHIEF must have wired something wrong because I know that that couldn't have been a REAL ping coming from Torsk because I do remember that a SUBMARINES PING IS LOUDER THEN THAT.... BTW Chief, I know that you have been working REAL hard on YOUR part of the school of the boat that will be coming NEXT ;)
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While Darrin is working on our torpedo tubes, which are the best part of a fleet-type submarine. Marvels, such wonderful pieces of equipment - so much better than all that radio gear. I thought you would like to read about the development of why we go to sea - the torpedo.
Here are five parts of an article on the development of torpedos.
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/ustorp1.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/ustorp2.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/ustorp3.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/ustorp4.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/ustorp5.htm
enjoy!
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By the way speaking of pinging and torpedo tubes.....Show of hands, how many people dove a tube and of those how many were initiated in some way. You know how those TMs love to prank. TK
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Here's a little help for everyone on torpedo tubes. :coolsmiley:
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And for those of you tube diving folks - can you ask for more. See we had fun in the forward room!
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I would have loved to been there when the duty TM asked her to clean his tube for him :2funny: but she did it and I missed it, hate when that happens... although did get a female porn star tube loaded on Hono once, lotta fun that night!
Yes TM's do get initated when diving the tubes for the first few times they dive the tubes, every thing from having the breech door shut to actuating the wire cutter and even diving the tube with nothing on while up north during the winter..
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Ok, time for the dink to ask a question. Why are the aft tubes longer?
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to get past the stile... :crazy2:
OK think about shafts and screws... :P
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Ok, time for the dink to ask a question. Why are the aft tubes longer?
I also forgot to mention that the guys back aft needed a longer barrel to hit anything! :2funny:
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I was lucky I guess, never had a set of stern tubes until I started working on Torsk... heard rumors about the guys aft couldn't hit the broad side of a barn though with the "shorter" tubes forward :2funny:
Also from the Forward Room,
Darrin
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sterns shots were harder (make that more difficult) :crazy2:
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Or so I have heard, although how hard could it be honestly to take a bearing on a target and then add 180 degrees to get your stern on the track that it needed to sink it's intended target????
Me thinks that it was the Officers who had the problems shooting the stern tubes and not our bretheren TM's ;)
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agree on that - no TM problem, it all came from the conn. But think about the shot - instead of adding, there is a lot of subtracting going on. Both you and the target are moving away. Angle of the bow, speed and distance are all increasing or can be increasing. You're talking periscope data and TDC inputs, so everything is backwards.
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Even more complicated is if you are driving the boat in reverse to get a better angle for a stern shot. I've gotten confused more than one time doing stern shots in various sub sims. It's a lot to remember when it's just one person.
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Concerning the tubes, what are water slugs and air shots and how did you do them? Any other cool questions about the primary weapon system? Terry
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Terry,
the one thing that you have to remember about the tubes is that a "water slug" is what is used to exercise ALL of the tube mechanism's at their required depths without shooting a weapon out.. Now with a "air shot' that is a new term to me and that I think is just cycling the valves for maintenance which I have done many times on a newer version of these tubes on a Balao.
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Terry - here is some more information.
Water slugs are fired as training, exercising the tube mechanisms, and to check the firing valve clearances.
When checking the firing valve clearance water slugs were used with the idea of determining impulse tank pressures which would 1) eliminate the launching bubble as much as possible, and 2) favor the run of the torpedo launch in such a way to have the minimum tendency to either cause the torpedo to broach or to take an initial dive. At one time the impulse tank pressure was not varied for depth. With the impulse tank pressure at 400 psi, the firing valve should exert a tube pressure of about 59 to 65 psi while on the surface. Later after a lot of testing we used different impulse tank pressures based on depth of the sub when firing a torpedo. Impulse tank pressures varied form 300 to 525 psi.
When firing a water slug we did not have the poppet valve on because without a torpedo or even a dummy in the tube it would open immediately when the service line pressure was allied to the operating cylinder. So we gagged the poppet to fire water slugs.
Air charges were fired inboard. Again this procedure was used for training and exercising certain operating mechanisms of the tube such as the firing mechanism, stop mechanism and the gyro setting spindle retracting mechanism.
To fire a air charge you open the breech door and leave it open until the interlocking mechanism has been reconnected and locked. Then withdraw the depth and speed spindles. If you have a torpedo loaded you need to withdraw the gyro setting spindle and pull the torpedo back a few inches. This prevents it from getting pushed forward past the stop bolt. Then you can unlock and remove the padlock from the firing interlock signal arm and raise the arm to a vertical position. Open the firing impulse stop valve. Charge the impulse tank to about 100 psi (we were warned not to go above this pressure). Throw the firing interlock level to the Tube Ready to Fire position. The tube was then ready to fire the air charge. So when ordered you fired the tube. Then return the tube to normal making sure all the interlocks are back in place and locked.
If you just got out of the shower, you could stand at the breech door and “blow dry” your hair. (OK just kidding) :2funny:
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I got a question for yall. How Long would it take to load,fire and then reload a torpedo during ww2. I know the crews of the Wahoo Tautog and silversides could do it quit well. Its wierd the torpedo tubes on the outside of the boat look soo smaller then the torpedo it self.
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I've heard as short as 3 to 5 minutes for experienced crews and as long as 12 minutes for trainees/NQPs.
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Sweet! todays subs are more machinereized and electronics. Those precious minutes could determine weather u get out alive or not
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everything is done by hydraulics now in the torpedo rooms and from what I understand it is nearly all push button and very little man power these days :-\
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Yep. :'( but on one hand if u were ina fight u would have quicker chances to fire ur torpedo or rocket off
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We would like to get a "light weight" mock-up of a full-size torpedo for Batfish made so that we can demonstrate loading to a captive audience.
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Terry,
For a "quick response" the torpedo is by far the best option because of the depth and speed that you can launch one from these days, we practiced "SNAP SHOT'S" all the time. And what that means IF someone fires on you and you start hauling arse out of the way of the incoming weapon and you will litteraly fire and forget the weapon and turn and burn as fast as you can out of it's way, very fun evolutions for us TM's and for those on the Helms/Planes watch and the Throttleman because you litterallly get to see how fast you can get the boat to go as quickly and as noisily as possible. Sad part is if the TM now MM is half asleep or the boat was going at a pretty good speed already, he may not get the outer doors open before the speed gets too fast. BTDT a few times. The Honolulu when I was on her could open her outer doors at a higher speed than any other 688 in the fleet due to a mod (that was taken out during the '93 shipyard period), that was nerve racking when I rode other boats and their tubes wouldn't/couldn't open at the same high rate of speed that I was truly used to.
A Tomahawk you had to come up to a certain depth and a slow speed to launch it and as soon as it broke the surface of the water and then EVERYONE knew exactly where you were and then you had to run like you know what if someone was in the area and taking the boat as deep as it could go trying to find the thermal layer (sound bounces off of a cold water layer BTW).
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Dang! High weopontry mark if u had a mock up torpedo ya i would be in the audience no doubt!
Darrin i would be scared as hell to fire off a missle iv heard of WW2 subs doing the exact same thing u described ur being shot at and u better get ur arsh as far away as u can and pray u scored a lucky shot now a days though the technology is so great that being accurte on those kind of shots is quite possible technology has grown soo much over the past 10 or 20 years its just amazing how nuclear theese subs truly are i can garuntee some of theese subs can carry Small atomic bombs and i bet some probley do in worst case senario
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Terry,
The weapons are today have far surpased what I knew when I rode the boats 16 years ago, the Mk 48 ADCAP is a truly incredible weapon and can hunt down it's prey if it is even remotely close on the angle when it was launched.
To put it into a small reality check, the Mk 17,27 could be pointed at a target and shot and it would go to the depth and course that was put into it prior to launch, that was close to shooting a .45 with some good aim. The Mk 48 ADCAP is close to being a Rotweiller on steroids :coolsmiley: it can and will hunt it's target down and then blow it in half.
If you haven't done so google Mk 48 ADCAP and look at the video's of decommissioned warships being litteraly blown in half when the warhead detonates.
The speeds that today's boats have is incredible, even a diesel boat running "full on 4" or even a flank bell on the surface is still no match for what our current boats can do underwater let alone the depths that they go to these days. Some of our ahem older I mean senior hmmmmm what is the politically correct term for mariners whom sailed on those lovely diesel boats??? anyways ;) some who come here can't fathom going below 500' feet deep let alone 750' on a regular basis.
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*looks up the videos on youtube*easyest way HOLLY MOOLLY Dang talk about arsh KICKIN!! iv seen several of the Subs today is pretty amazing what todays Navy can do compared to your day in the navy darrin no offense i watched several videos with the Mk 48 ADCAP can do do and the russians
koreans I honestly think in the future the subs will be the pride of the navy theyv came truly a long way since world war 2,watching a video of the cod blow up the O-19 with a mark 14 torpedo then watching a newer american sub attack the ship u can truly tell the magnatude of how far we come in the way of military might and even i cant fathom going to 750feet i just cant imagine a sub being capable of doing that just wait for the future though in 50 years its gonna be outrages.
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A few weeks ago I was looking up some "modern" sub stats to compare to the WWII boats. The Sturgeon-class attack boats, that started construction in the early 60's, could go to a test depth of 1,300+ ft. and a top underwater speed of 30 kts (with a 11.2 Mega Watt power plant). Compare that with the improved (688i) Los Angeles boats that have a test depth of 1,600 ft+ and a 35 Mega Watt power plant. Their "leaked" underwater speed is 33+ kts, but when you extrapolate the numbers from the Sturgeon's layout (compare reactor outputs and start with Sturgeon's advertised speed), the 688i boats can do around 65 kts under water. That's hauling some serious ass. Plus, a rough crush depth calculation puts them at 2,400 ft. Pretty sobering when compared to a Tench boat.
Crew sizes are around 135 men these days and an LA boat is only 362 ft. long - compared to Batfish with 311+. The newer boats are more crowded than the older ones, because of the reactors, large prop motor(s), more electronic gizmos than ever, etc.
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my post didnt come out the way id hope.....oh the subs now are huge
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Mark,
You've been reading too much Tom Clancy and no I am not going to tell you the actual depth and speeds :coolsmiley:
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I got the data from Wiki. I figured that the Sturgeon data was pretty accurate.
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all i know is the submarines today are COOOL!!! :D and there nuclear which is neat