The Armchair Admiral describes a retro future that never was. Soviet submarine troop transports.
The Soviet’s Project 621 was designed as a landing ship-transport submarine that could carry out landings behind enemy lines. This underwater giant had two vehicle decks, and was designed to carry a full infantry battalion of 745 troops plus 10 T-34 tanks, 12 trucks, 12 towed cannon, and three La-5 fighter aircraft.
Sublog.com notes that the US was also working on undersea LSTs. “The U.S. Navy also undertook preliminary sketches of submarine LSTs, but never pursued the concept to the extent of the Soviet design efforts. This is artist Frank Tinsley’s impression of a submarine LST produced in the 1950s for Mechanix Illustrated magazine and presented to the Navy Department. This was a 10,000-ton submarine, 720 feet long, with a beam of 124 feet that could carry 2,240 Marines, landing them by “amphibious flying platforms” that could move at 100 mph.”
The old-timey guys seemed to be willing to try anything. How about a Soviet flying submarine? How about an American atomic-powered bomber? Today, nobody dares try anything that might expose them to liabilityl According to the BBC, NGOs and conservation groups are claiming that man is making the oceans too noisy for whales and dolphins. Soon we’ll be back in the age of sail.
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“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
- Robert Anson Heinlein
Reading first-person accounts of Marines going ashore in LSTs during WWII always include graphic descriptions of the troops losing their lunch over the side. In fact, that’s frequently the most memorable part of the landing. Now transpose that image to a ship without rails to barf over — an enclosed submarine. Methinks they would have to be disposable: after the first landing they would not be habitable. F
Notice these NGO’s and other pressure groups only effectively prevent the development of Western military technology.
So, then … who’s preventing the development of Russian technology since I haven’t noticed them going to the moon recently either.
NahnCee,
They’re doing it to themselves. Duh!
Demon vodka is to blame, Nahncee.
Hello,
A humble request…
Do you, by any chance, happen to know who Secret Dubai (the blogger: secretdubai.blogspot.com) is?
http://whoissecretdubai.blogspot.com/
Supposably the US has converted four of the Ohio class ballistic missile submarines from ordinary ballistic missile launchers to doing all sorts of funky stuff.
Wait until Gates stops future f22 procurement. We will be stuck with less than 200. Combination of smaller air forces flying the latest Russian jets will beat us. WE will not even be able to defend Japan or Taiwan, let alone ourselves. Gates really should change party affiliations.
Watch the hollowing out of our military capability reach the tipping point — this is what happened to the UK under Labour.
The feminization of the USA continues unabated. We no longer have the wise men of WW2/Cold war around. We are governed by fools and knaves.
The submarine LST idea may have been superceded by another idea. The Navy was going to buy Convair Tradewind turboprop transports, kind of like flying boat versions of the C-130, refuel them from submarines and drop off troops and tanks at distant locations. In the same time period a Martin jet bomber seaplane would refuel from submarines, giving the Navy a worldwide nuclear strike capability like that of the Air Force. Convair seaplane jet fighters would provide air cover for all of this. The airplanes actually flew but the ideas were all abandoned.
The Air Force was going to build a nuclear-powered long range cruise missile that was capable of flying around the USSR, dropping nukes. Then someone figured out the effects of the highly radioactive exhaust and decided that maybe carrying bombs along was somewhat redundant.
Then in the late 60’s the Soviets were reportedly working on a nuclear-powered dirigible.
And amazingly, the Russians were/are seriously considering converting a gigantic Typhoon ballistic missile submarine into an ore carrier for transporting nickel ore from the Arctic regions.
I remember when I was a kid in the 70s, all of the near-future science fiction was taking place now. By 2000-2010 we were supposed to have flying cars, nuclear power everywhere, and stations on Mars so we could begin terraforming the planet for colonists.
Instead, we’re still burning dead plants for fuel and we have the internet.
Doesn’t seem like a fair trade at all.
ah the soviets – a worthy enemy! they even have a cool – if perverse – sci-fi aesthetic!
and rwe, how do you get all this great information!?
RWE said:
“The Air Force was going to build a nuclear-powered long range cruise missile that was capable of flying around the USSR, dropping nukes. Then someone figured out the effects of the highly radioactive exhaust and decided that maybe carrying bombs along was somewhat redundant.”
I believe this was the nuclear ramjet. A very cool concept. Because it was nuclear powered and air breathing it could fly essentially forever. However because it needed to be light weight, nuclear shielding wasn’t really an option so it had to be unmanned. The thing would cruise at around Mach 3 (limited by the melting point of titanium) and could produce a pretty hefty shockwave. If you wanted to destroy a city, you didn’t need to drop bombs. Instead you’d have the nuclear powered ramjet raster scan the target city at low altitude with its shockwave and nuclear radiation making a mess of things (bascially a killer robot).
I actually think the nuclear ramjet concept might be useful in the future for application on Mars. The Martian atmosphere is 95.5% CO2, 2.7% N2 and 1.6% Ar (no significant free oxygen). Obviously having an air breathing propulsion system on Mars doesn’t work for conventional combustion (it could work with a hydrazine monopropellant). However nuclear energy could be used instead to drive a ramjet. One can imagine a nuclear powered ramjet being launched from a coil gun (electromagnetic launcher) to a supersonic muzzle velocity. After the inlets were started, the ramjet could cruise up to a fairly high Mach number (say Mach 10) and then the propulsion system could cut over to a nuclear thermal rocket (close the inlets and pump in liquid hydrogen). The nuclear thermal rocket could then take the vehicle out of the atmosphere into orbit around Mars. Such a system could be the basis for a Martian civilization transporting material into space and maybe even for an interplanetary economy. The “gottcha” with the concept is neutron activation from the nuclear core. That would tend to make the vehicle’s structure and payload radioactive. A work around would be to use a nuclear fusion propulsion system that did not produce fast neutrons, e.g. He-3 or boron fuel cycles. However getting He-3 or boron to ignite is very hard (huge fusion cross sections). If they could ever crack the He-3 or boron nuclear fusion problem, that would not only end mankind’s energy concerns but also make interstellar travel feasible. However that’s another story.
Project Pluto:
http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/publications/newsviews/pluto.htm
It was cancelled after someone had second thoughts. A Mach 3 missile spewing radioactive reactor exhaust as it dropped nuclear weapons seemed to be a bit of overkill.
IE
Dan: My sources are a lifetime of interest in aviation, 25 years on active duty with the USAF, 8 years with a defense contractor, and a collection of books and magazines that would turn a Convair Tradewind into a submersible if you loaded them on board.
Eggplant and Inland Empire: Yes that was Project Pluto. Interestingly enough some of the technology developed for that missile came in handy when SDI started work on nuclear rocket engines in the 80’s.
Cannoneer: Yes, absolutely. I read yesterday where they have banned cluster weapons, citing, incredibly enough, the 4 million such weapons Israel dropped on Lebanon in the most recent conflict with Hezbolah. Note they did not mention all those rockets the terrorists shot at Israel. And as I remarked to Wretchard, I am waiting for the convention that bans IEDs, suicide bombers, and kidnapping the mentally handicapped to use them as bombs in crowded civilian areas.
“Wait until Gates stops future f22 procurement. … Combination of smaller air forces flying the latest Russian jets will beat us.”
Except that Secy. Gates is right. Manned fighter aircraft are obsolete.
If we can run Predator UAVs in Iraq from Nevada, we can run fighter UAVs as well. They might have to be run from closer. But so what?
Imagine, if you will, a UAV capable of Mach 4 and 15G turns. Being unmanned it does not need life support or emergency escape systems. Unmanned the craft can therefore be lighter and smaller. It is not limited by the ability of flesh and blood to survive the G’s pulled except by the strength of titanium. It can run higher temperatures. Nobody has to run a copter behind enemy lines to pick up a downed flier. Another considerable saving.
The mother ship could be something like a J-Star which could stand back a couple of hundred miles. Or the UAVs could be run by a ship with the assistance of a Global Hawk as the relay and reconnaissance.
BTW Aircraft Carriers are obsolete as well, at least ones of the Nimitz class. Flight decks could be much smaller. And crews less numerous.
The most important airplane will be the C-17.
C’mon Panday, you used to rely on Sears catalogs for pron too. The internet is a good trade up.
Uh that was supposed to be ‘porn.’ Sort of loses its humor if you have to correct misspellings, huh?
Cannoneer said:
These NGO’s and “pressure groups” are part of the Western Brahminate or “Cathedral” as explained by Mencius Moldbug. Their belief in superstitions such as “pacifism” and “humans are good in heart” (these ideas are falsified by the implications of evolution) makes their continued power of the West dangerous. They must be completely destroyed.
“We are governed by fools and knaves.”
More knaves, but plenty of fools. Look at the 2008 Prez election: Knave and a fool vs. Fool and some chick from Alaska.