USN Cargo Submarines

Adam

Josef Stalin said:
Why don't you build cargo submarines? Cargo submarines could cross the ocean without interference from Nazi submarines and could deliver their supplies directly to our own ports without danger of being sunk.
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Inspired by the 'What If Soviets Captured I-400' thread. Now, what if the United States had developed gigantic cargo submarines instead of the Liberty ships during World War II?
 

Fellatio Nelson

They'd find they were a chronic waste of dockyard time and resources to construct; that they were too small and slow and vastly overcomplicated for their intended task, also requiring skilled naval crews as opposed to using merchant sailors.

Why on earth would they be of any use, except for a nation that did not have control of the sea and air between point A and point B, when the US could churn out a brand new Liberty ship within a week?

The British used submarines to resupply Malta when it was besieged, but that was out of necessity.
 

Melvin Loh

Heck, the USN did likewise to resuppyl Corregidor until May 1942, and ialso evacuated Mac when FDR ordered him out.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
As a cargo ship they have one major problem in WWII. A sub, at that time, could stay submerged for only really very limited periods under power, after that it had to surface so it could run it's diesel engines and recharge its batteries. A sub was able to cross the Atlantic, but only rather slowly compared to a surface ship unless it wished to run on the surface, which rather negates the whole idea

Large nuclear cargo subs are perenially suggested as one method of exploiting the much shorter Great Circle routes over the poles by sea, since they could travel under the ice. To date, the risks inherent in the idea seem to outweigh the rewards.
 

Tony Williams

NapoleonXIV said:
Large nuclear cargo subs are perenially suggested as one method of exploiting the much shorter Great Circle routes over the poles by sea, since they could travel under the ice. To date, the risks inherent in the idea seem to outweigh the rewards.
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Hardly worth the bother anyway - in the foreseeable future there's likely to be a clear passage north of Canada all year round, and in summer no floating ice around the North Pole at all. :rolleyes:
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Utter waste of time during OR after the war. The time to build Liberty Ships was so short it was, literally, more cost effective to take a chance on them being lost than to build large, complex cargo boats. The number of subs you would need to build would greatly exceed the number of Liberty Ships built (which was itself a miracle of mass production) and there would still be a need to build massive numbers of Liberty Ships to transport tanks, aircraft, trucks, and all the other bulky items of war that a sub could take in limited numbers, if at all.

You then need to look at the crewing aspect. There are a finite number of men who can handle life inside a sub, even today, and subs in WW II were far worse. There is no way you could have crewed all the transport boats, much less used them to deliver the millions of troops that crossed the Atlantic during the war. You couldn't do it today with a THOUSAND Typhoon or Ohio Hulls stripped to the bulkheads, much less during WW II

If the German U-boat threat had been severe enough to require this kind of effort, the Allies had ALREADY lost the war.
 

Fellatio Nelson

Berra said:
I thought more along the line of a military cargo submarine developed for some reason.
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The Germans operated supply U-boats - Milch Cows(?) - but they were of very limited use, aside from being the only possible means by which U-boats on station could be resupplied.

Anyhow, aside from all of the above problems, larger submarines create larger and more complex problems, in terms of construction, handling and safety. Also remember that a lot of the sea is relatively shallow and unsuited to submerged running save by only the smallest submarines. (Hence why the Germans and Swedes continue to build tiny submarines best suited to The Baltic and the North Sea.)
 

zoomar

This is a stretch, but could tanker submarines have been useful in supplying "secret" floatplane/flying boat stations in hidden island coves located in otherwise Japanese-occupied territory, 1941-1943.

I know it doesn't make much sense when you have aircraft carriers, but neither did naval assault gliders and the USN experimented with these.
 

trendel13

Well there could always be a escelation of the Cold War in the 1960s into some place such as the Indies or perhaps even Africa that requires that goods be shipped in a very clandestine manner to a isolated coast or maybe the USSR/US relationship takes a much colder turn that requires US agents be dropped into the USSR via the coast.

But at any rate that would only be at best a dozen or so ships.
 

pacifichistorian

Banned
Fellatio Nelson said:
Why on earth would they be of any use
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Actually, presuming you can build them big enough, they're cheaper & faster than surface ships, since they can avoid the surface effect (waves, for instance). The question is propulsion. You really need AIP, fuel cell, or nuke (& civil nuke never caught on, since triple-expansion & marine diesel are dead cheap & almost idiotproof by comparo). And "naval crew" not an issue, either: do you think merchant sailors are hamfisted twits? It's a matter of training: given commercial subs, training in safe operation will be mandatory, or everybody aboard dies (not usually the case in surface ships...).
CalBear said:
You then need to look at the crewing aspect. There are a finite number of men who can handle life inside a sub, even today, and subs in WW II were far worse. There is no way you could have crewed all the transport boats, much less used them to deliver the millions of troops that crossed the Atlantic during the war. You couldn't do it today with a THOUSAND Typhoon or Ohio Hulls stripped to the bulkheads, much less during WW II
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If you're talking about WW2 boats, probably not. I'm not so sure something transports as big as Ohio couldn't; Narwhal carried 100 or so over her normal complement, & she was not quite twice as big as a typical USN fleet boat. Neither do conditions have to be ideal (& in troopers, they weren't); presuming transport subs are (about) as big & fast, & as immune to U-boats, as QM, how many would it take? Just as a rough guess, taking a 20" bunk, 18" overhead/bunk, & swapping Ohio's missile section for bunk space, & 3 decks, I make that roughly 20-25000.
 
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SunilTanna

I saw a TV documentary, about the Germans in WW1 using a cargo submarine to get some strategic materials from the US (bypassing the British blockade).
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
SunilTanna said:
I saw a TV documentary, about the Germans in WW1 using a cargo submarine to get some strategic materials from the US (bypassing the British blockade).
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That is true the Germans in the Great War fielded a few cargo submarines but they didn't prove successful. The major problem is that a submarine has a pressure hull and one is going to be limited to taking on cargo that can only fit thru the hatches in the hull. The hatches can't be too big or the hull may easily be compromised.

Not to mention that port facilities may be more complicated for submarines.
 
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