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submarines

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by U1969296 (U1969296) on Thursday, 29th September 2005

  greetings friends
  will there be any use for a super sized submarines to replace oil tankers ect?

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• Message 2

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  Posted by steveP (U1775134) on Thursday, 29th September 2005

  <QUOTE' USER='stantheman2' USERID='1969296'>greetings friends<BR />will there be any use for a super sized submarines to replace oil tankers ect?</QUOTE><BR /><BR /> I know a couple of decades back there was some talk about how submarines would be more efficient for ocean transport than surface vessels. However never heard of any developments and the way things are going we will probably run out of oil before anything develops.<BR /><BR /> Steve

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  Posted by henrylee100 (U536041) on Thursday, 29th September 2005

  I think the way things are at the moment a super sized tanker sub would be considerably more expensive to build than a conventional super tanker. Plus the existing oil terminals would probably have to be redesigned to accomodate such sub tankers. Plus to real be more economical than conventional tankers they'd probably have to be nuclear powered, obviously nuke reactors on a vessel are so much hassle that so far only the military have bothered to use them far as I know. So the bottom line is such subs would be a hell of a lot more hassle and money to build and maintain with only marginal advantages - higher speed, ability to travel under hurricanes etc. Maybe in the future when the technologies become less costly.

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  Posted by steveP (U1775134) on Thursday, 29th September 2005

  <QUOTE' USER='henrylee100' USERID='536041'>I think the way things are at the moment a super sized tanker sub would be considerably more expensive to build than a conventional super tanker. Plus the existing oil terminals would probably have to be redesigned to accomodate such sub tankers. Plus to real be more economical than conventional tankers they'd probably have to be nuclear powered, obviously nuke reactors on a vessel are so much hassle that so far only the military have bothered to use them far as I know. So the bottom line is such subs would be a hell of a lot more hassle and money to build and maintain with only marginal advantages - higher speed, ability to travel under hurricanes etc. Maybe in the future when the technologies become less costly.</QUOTE><BR /><BR />Henry<BR /><BR /> I suspect the main problem is the docking and such facilities. Actually subs are naturally more efficient than surface vessels, something to do with not having to generate a bow wave. <BR /><BR /> On nuclear vessels I think the Soviets had some ice-breakers for Arctic waters that were only partially military - i.e. were not armed vessels, although I presume [and hope] the Soviet military kept a close watch on them. The two big problems with nuclear propulsion for civil vessels would probably be unwillingness to allow nuclear material, even only for propulsion, out of reach and possibly insurance issues, at least for private owners. Submarines would probably be less dangerous than surface vessels as more difficult to highjack.<BR /><BR /> A cheaper option I saw suggested was having giant plastic bags for transporting oil about. Presume with suitable support structure and multiple skins it could be done then you just attach to a tug and pull. Again there might be technical and political problems with this.<BR /><BR /> Steve.<BR />

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  Posted by henrylee100 (U536041) on Friday, 30th September 2005

  <QUOTE' USER='steveP' USERID='1775134'><BR />Henry<BR /><BR /> I suspect the main problem is the docking and such facilities. Actually subs are naturally more efficient than surface vessels, something to do with not having to generate a bow wave. <BR /></QUOTE><BR /> yes they are more effective but you have to look at the whole spectrum of issues that the use of such subs would involve. I did mention docking before, but there's also the issue of building them, I'd imagine a sub would usually cost more to build than a surface boat of the same size. They're more efficient in the sense that they use less energy to maintain the same speed, not having to bother with the bow wave, but this added effeciency has ot be paid for at the building stage.<BR /><BR /> <QUOTE>On nuclear vessels I think the Soviets had some ice-breakers for Arctic waters that were only partially military - i.e. were not armed vessels, although I presume [and hope] the Soviet military kept a close watch on them. The two big problems with nuclear propulsion for civil vessels would probably be unwillingness to allow nuclear material, even only for propulsion, out of reach and possibly insurance issues, at least for private owners. Submarines would probably be less dangerous than surface vessels as more difficult to highjack.</QUOTE><BR /> the soviets had a top down full control state capitalist economy which allowed them to pool enormous resources for all sorts of grandiose projects. Imho those nuke icebreakers were more of a prestige thing to them than anything else, if I'm not mistaken they built a total of no more than 5 of them, the first one was named Lenin. Later they switched to ordering cheaper diesel powerd icebreakers from Finland. Sure the USSR needed icebreakers more than any other country as they had a host of locations along the coast of the artic ocean that supplies had to be delivered to all year round, and their fleet of icebreakers was perhaps the largest in the world at one time, yet the majority were diesels, obviously it musthave turned out nukes were not as cost effective after all. To the best of my knowledge there is not a single private company in the world that has ever ordered a nuclear powered vessel so far.<BR /><BR /> <QUOTE>A cheaper option I saw suggested was having giant plastic bags for transporting oil about. Presume with suitable support structure and multiple skins it could be done then you just attach to a tug and pull. Again there might be technical and political problems with this.<BR /> Steve.<BR /></QUOTE><BR /><BR />I think at present this looks even more far fetched than subs, sort of like that project they once had to tug icebergs from Antarctica to the Persian gulf to supply Saudi Arabia with fresh water.

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  Posted by Trident_MKII (U1823460) on Friday, 30th September 2005

  hi all,
  
  during the first world war, germany produced a uboat (i forget the name) that was completly unarmed and introduced soley to break the blockade the british were using, it made several trips to the US were it gathered much needed supplies and resources for germanys war effort
  
  apparently it was the first atlantic crossing by a sub, the thing was massive

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• Message 7

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  Posted by steveP (U1775134) on Friday, 30th September 2005

  Trident
  
  Good point. The Germans did use some 'cruiser' subs in WWI. I think after a couple of trips one of them went missing and the reset were converted to armed subs. From what I remember, although I could be wrong as it was a long while ago, it was a propaganda success but not very efficient economically. Interesting idea however.
  
  Steve
  

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• Message 8

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  Posted by steveP (U1775134) on Friday, 30th September 2005

  <QUOTE' USER='henrylee100' USERID='536041'><QUOTE' USER='steveP' USERID='1775134'><BR />Henry<BR /><BR /> I suspect the main problem is the docking and such facilities. Actually subs are naturally more efficient than surface vessels, something to do with not having to generate a bow wave. <BR /></QUOTE><BR /> yes they are more effective but you have to look at the whole spectrum of issues that the use of such subs would involve. I did mention docking before, but there's also the issue of building them, I'd imagine a sub would usually cost more to build than a surface boat of the same size. They're more efficient in the sense that they use less energy to maintain the same speed, not having to bother with the bow wave, but this added effeciency has ot be paid for at the building stage.<BR /><BR /> <QUOTE>On nuclear vessels I think the Soviets had some ice-breakers for Arctic waters that were only partially military - i.e. were not armed vessels, although I presume [and hope] the Soviet military kept a close watch on them. The two big problems with nuclear propulsion for civil vessels would probably be unwillingness to allow nuclear material, even only for propulsion, out of reach and possibly insurance issues, at least for private owners. Submarines would probably be less dangerous than surface vessels as more difficult to highjack.</QUOTE><BR /> the soviets had a top down full control state capitalist economy which allowed them to pool enormous resources for all sorts of grandiose projects. Imho those nuke icebreakers were more of a prestige thing to them than anything else, if I'm not mistaken they built a total of no more than 5 of them, the first one was named Lenin. Later they switched to ordering cheaper diesel powerd icebreakers from Finland. Sure the USSR needed icebreakers more than any other country as they had a host of locations along the coast of the artic ocean that supplies had to be delivered to all year round, and their fleet of icebreakers was perhaps the largest in the world at one time, yet the majority were diesels, obviously it musthave turned out nukes were not as cost effective after all. To the best of my knowledge there is not a single private company in the world that has ever ordered a nuclear powered vessel so far.<BR /><BR /> <QUOTE>A cheaper option I saw suggested was having giant plastic bags for transporting oil about. Presume with suitable support structure and multiple skins it could be done then you just attach to a tug and pull. Again there might be technical and political problems with this.<BR /> Steve.<BR /></QUOTE><BR /><BR />I think at present this looks even more far fetched than subs, sort of like that project they once had to tug icebergs from Antarctica to the Persian gulf to supply Saudi Arabia with fresh water.</QUOTE><BR /><BR /> Henry<BR /><BR /> Some good points. As you say we need to consider the whole life costs, if you don't mind some management speak.<BR /><BR /> Steve<BR />

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• Message 9

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  Posted by Trident_MKII (U1823460) on Saturday, 1st October 2005

  hi steve,
  
  it was mainly for propoganda i believe, although it certainly did bring back much needed resources for the german war machine

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  Posted by Gilgamesh of Uruk (U211168) on Saturday, 1st October 2005

  The "Deutschland" or "Handels u-boot" carried trivial amounts of cargo at high cost. The British did partially supply Malta by using submarines - principally the minelayer types, but they've not yet become practical merchant vessels in any cargo-carrying role.

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• Message 11

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  Posted by Trident_MKII (U1823460) on Sunday, 2nd October 2005

  hi gilgamesh,
  
  the deutschland thats the one, thank you

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• Message 12

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  Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Sunday, 2nd October 2005

  The 'Deutchland' was something of a failure of was eventually converted into a U-Cruiser (artillery U-boat) but the Milchcow (sp?) U-boat tankers of the Second World War were more successful. They were used to refuel and resupply U-boats at sea, to allow for olonger patrols. Annoyingly for them the Allies kept bombing and dropping depth charges on them, but the principal was sound.

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