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A SINGLE ENGINE FOR A SUBMARINE

Alexander Marinin

The classic diesel-electric main power plant of a submarine (DEGEU) is actually a forced measure, and such submarines are actually not underwater at all, but rather diving. All of them, like whales or dolphins, are forced to rise to the surface at certain intervals in order to stock up on oxygen and at the same time charge their batteries. Ideal for a submarine is a single engine for surface and underwater propulsion. After all, in a submerged boat with a diesel power plant, the diesel engine actually becomes ballast (unless the boat uses the so-called underwater diesel operation mode (RDP), when, moving at periscope depth, it takes in atmospheric air using a special pipe with a flood valve - the Germans called this device a snorkel). In the surface position, an ordinary boat (if the electric propulsion mode is not implemented on it) becomes "unnecessary" electric motors and, in any case, batteries. Thus, like most two-medium or dual-mode vehicles, a submarine constantly "carries" rather massive, bulky and expensive equipment, which is used only part of the time.

In search of a single engine, a wide variety of devices were tested. The first of these was ... a man who consumed relatively little air, but turned out to be too underpowered as an engine. The idea of ​​a purely electric submarine has also stalled, since even with the most advanced batteries, the boat can travel no more than a few hundred miles. Gradually, the designers of the submarines came to the conclusion that a single engine should be created on the basis of a motor not of an underwater course, but, on the contrary, of a surface one. For internal combustion engines, two paths were outlined: one subsequently led to RDP, and the other was associated with the development of an autonomous power plant that does not need atmospheric air.

The first who tried to make the internal combustion engine work under water were the French engineers Bertin and Petithomme. The test results were disappointing.

A much more successful attempt to create a submarine with a single engine was made by our compatriot engineer S.K. Dzhevetsky. According to his plan, two four-stroke gasoline engines of the Panard-Levassor company with a capacity of 130 hp were assumed as a single one. each, working with gears on one propeller shaft with a four-bladed propeller. In the surface position, the gasoline engines worked in the usual way. In a submerged position, to ensure their operation, air was supplied to the engine room, stored in 45 air guards at a pressure of 200 atmospheres. The total stock was about 11 m3, which should have been enough for 4 hours of operation of gasoline engines. The air pressure from 200 atmospheres to 18 was reduced in the pressure reducing valve (expander). Exhaust gases were pumped out through a superstructure, which served as a kind of silencer, into an outlet pipe located under the keel and having a large number of small holes. Coming out in small streams from the numerous holes in the outlet pipe, the exhaust gases had to dissolve in water.

The construction of the submarine, which received the name "Postal", began in 1906. On September 30, 1908, it became part of the fleet. Despite the fact that the operation of the "Post" confirmed the possibility of diving with internal combustion engines operating in a submerged position, the submarine of this type remained the only one. It was not possible to achieve the tracelessness of the movement of the boat under water - bubbles of exhaust gases were visible on the surface. The power of the gas pump turned out to be insufficient to pump out exhaust gases from both gasoline engines, so only one worked in a submerged position. The complexity and low structural reliability of the mechanisms required exceptionally high qualifications of the personnel serving the boat. Great criticism was caused by the great noise of gasoline engines; in addition, it took 2 to 3 days to charge the air guards.

The First World War interrupted work on the creation of unified engines for submarines, but already in the 1920s, research in this area began again in the Soviet Union and Germany. At the same time, the idea of ​​simply placing a large supply of air on a submarine was immediately abandoned. They decided to store only oxygen, and in a liquid state, when it occupies about five times less volume than in cylinders under a pressure of 150 kgf/cm2. Yes, and a vessel for storing liquid oxygen is much lighter than thick-walled steel cylinders of equal capacity. However, liquid oxygen is constantly evaporating, and methods that slow down this process were not developed at that time.

In the domestic fleet in the 1930s, two schemes were studied for ensuring the operation of diesel engines under water, or, as they began to be called, diesel operation schemes in a closed cycle: "REDO" S.A. Bazilevsky and "ED-KhPI" V.S. Dmitrievsky.

The first in 1937 began the re-equipment of a submarine of the XII series for an experimental power plant "REDO" (regenerative single engine for special purposes). This submarine received the name S-92 and tail number P-1. The principle of operation of the "REDO" plant was as follows: in the submerged position, the diesel exhaust gases were purified from mechanical impurities and moisture, cooled and sent back to the diesel intake manifold. Then gaseous oxygen was added to them. Excess exhaust gases were sucked off by the compressor and compressed, while carbon dioxide, which accounted for about 75% of the volume of excess gases, turned into liquid carbon dioxide, which was poured into special cylinders and periodically removed overboard. The gaseous residue, mainly oxygen, was recycled again. In the autumn of 1938, the S-92 submarine entered the trials, which lasted more than two years. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, they had not yet ended, and the submarine was mothballed. Due to the fact that by the end of the war and in the first post-war years, simpler cycles of single engines were developed and tested in action, they did not return to the REDO tests. After the war, the submarine was used to test other types of common engines.

In 1938-1939. The Design Bureau of the NKVD developed a project for a submarine with an experimental unified power plant "ED-KhPI" (a single engine with a chemical absorber). The principle of operation of the installation was as follows. The exhaust gases from the diesel engine entered the gas cooler, where they were cooled and freed from water vapor and partially from mechanical impurities. Then they were sent to special chemical filters, where carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide were separated. Then, the exhaust gases were further released from excess moisture, they were enriched with gasified oxygen, and a gas mixture similar in composition to ordinary air entered the diesel compartment.

The submarine of project 95 with "ED-KhPI" was launched in Leningrad on June 1, 1941. With the outbreak of war, it was towed to Gorky, and then to Baku. Sea trials were completed after the war, and the ship was accepted into the Navy only in 1946. However, all the ordeals paid off handsomely. In the first half of the 1950s. 30 submarines of the A615 project with a single engine, created taking into account the operating experience of the Project 95 boat, were included in the domestic fleet. The Soviet Union became the only naval power that mass-produced ships with a similar power plant.

The second country where intensive work was carried out to create submarines with a single internal combustion engine was Germany. The Germans called such an engine "Kreyslauf" - the cycle. The Germans were able to create a workable diesel engine operating in a closed cycle during the Second World War. In 1943, the command of the German Navy decided to build an experimental submarine of the XVII series with a Kreislauf diesel engine with a capacity of 1500 liters. With. In 1944, she was laid down under the designation U-798, but did not have time to launch before the end of the war.

In the 1930s, another attempt was made to create a closed-cycle engine, but using hydrogen peroxide instead of oxygen as an oxidizer. The author of the idea was the German engineer Helmut Walter.
Walter came to the conclusion that the properties of concentrated hydrogen peroxide can be used most effectively not in a diesel engine, but in a turbine plant. In 1936, such an experimental steam-gas turbine power plant was built in Kiel. She worked on the so-called "cold" cycle. The decomposition reaction products of a highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide solution were fed into the turbine, which rotated the propeller through a reduction gear, and then discharged overboard.

The first power plant had two obvious drawbacks. The oxygen contained in the reaction products discharged overboard is poorly soluble in water, and its bubbles unmask the submarine. In addition, in the conditions of a ship isolated from the atmosphere by a column of water, throwing oxygen overboard was an unjustified waste. Therefore, the logical continuation of the "cold" process was the "hot" one, in which organic fuel was supplied to the peroxide decomposition products, which was then burned. In this variant, the power of the installation increased sharply and, in addition, the footprint decreased, since the product of combustion - carbon dioxide - dissolves much better than oxygen in water. Nevertheless, at the first stage of the work, Walter limited himself to the installation with a "cold" cycle, since it was simpler and safer.
In 1937, Walter reported the results of his experiments to the leadership of the German Navy and assured everyone of the possibility of creating submarines with combined-cycle turbine installations with an unprecedented underwater speed - more than 20 knots.

The command of the Kriegsmarine decided to speed up the creation of the boat. In the process of its design, issues related not only to the use of an unusual power plant were resolved. To obtain a design underwater speed of about 25 knots, the contours of the hull of a conventional submarine and methods of controlling it in a submerged position became unacceptable. I had to resort to the experience of aircraft builders. Choosing the optimal shape and size of the boat hull, several models were tested in a wind tunnel. In 1938, the world's first experimental submarine with a hydrogen peroxide power plant with a displacement of 80 tons was laid down in Kiel, which received the designation V-80. The tests carried out in 1940 literally stunned - the submarine developed a speed of 28.1 knots under water.

Despite the excellent test results, further work stalled - the Second World War was on, and the German command relied on already tested weapons. Only in 1941 did the development and then construction of the V-300 submarine with a steam-gas turbine operating on the so-called "hot" cycle begin.

U-791 was never completed, but four experimental combat submarines of two series were laid down - Wa-201 (Wa - Walter) and Wk-202 (Wk - Walter-Krupp). In terms of their power plants, they were identical, but differed in the design of the hull. Since 1943, their tests began. In particular, the U-792 boat (Wa-201 series), having a supply of 40 tons of hydrogen peroxide, went under the afterburner for almost four and a half hours and maintained an underwater speed of 19.5 knots for four hours. Without waiting for the end of the testing of experimental submarines, in January 1943, the German industry was issued an order for the construction of 12 more ships with similar power plants. Before the end of the war, the Germans managed to launch only five units, three of which were tested. None of the boats with Walter engines took part in the hostilities. Before capitulation, they were all flooded by crews. But, taking advantage of the fact that this happened in shallow water, two boats were raised. Then U-1406 went to the USA, and U-1407 went to the UK. There, experts carefully studied the German novelties, and the British even conducted full-scale tests of the U-1407. In 1956, the British commissioned their experimental submarines "Explorer" and "Excalibur" with Walter engines. However, time has passed: the Americans were already introducing nuclear power plants with might and main, and the British decided to follow the same path.

After the end of World War II until the early 1950s, all major naval powers were engaged in the study of the German heritage. That is why all the first post-war submarine projects were to some extent national analogues of the latest German developments. The Soviet Union built submarines with a single engine, but based on their own pre-war developments. In the 1960s, the idea of ​​a non-nuclear single engine for submarines was again remembered. We are talking about the conversion of chemical energy directly into electrical energy without the process of combustion or mechanical movement, that is, the generation of electricity in a silent way.

The electrochemical generator is based on fuel cells. In fact, this is a rechargeable battery with constant recharging. The principle of operation of a power plant with an electrochemical generator was the same as 150 years ago, when the Englishman William Robert Grove accidentally discovered during electrolysis that two platinum strips, blown - one with oxygen and the other with hydrogen, placed in an aqueous solution of sulfuric acid, give current. As a result of the reaction, in addition to electric current, heat and water were formed. In this case, the energy conversion occurs silently, and the only by-product of the reaction is distilled water, which is quite easy to find use in a submarine. The idea of ​​using electrochemical generators for underwater travel promised considerable advantages, first of all, it gave a significant increase in the continuous range of underwater navigation by economic progress compared to diesel-electric submarines. To a certain extent, interest in electrochemical generators was "fueled" by the fact that in the United States in the 1960s, the onboard systems of the manned spacecraft Gemini (orbital flights) and Apollo (landing on the Moon) were powered by fuel cells.

In the Soviet Union, in 1989, interdepartmental tests of a Project 613E submarine with an experimental power plant with an electrochemical generator (developers - NPO Kvant of the Ministry of Electrotechnical Industry and NPO Cryogenmash of the Minkhimmash) were completed. Re-equipment together with the repair of the ship lasted more than 10 years.

The installation of an electrochemical generator with a power of 280 kW, in addition to fuel cells, included control systems, provision of working components, etc.

The new operating conditions of the boat required to equip the place of its basing.

Within six months, a special commission conducted extended interdepartmental tests of a power plant with an electrochemical generator (ECG). For the first time in the practice of domestic shipbuilding, the EHG-280 generator was tested in shipboard conditions and showed the characteristics corresponding to the project. It was concluded that ECG, as a non-nuclear, environmentally friendly, low-noise source of electricity with direct conversion of chemical energy into electrical energy, is promising for use in underwater shipbuilding. It has a number of advantages over traditional sources of electricity, in particular, it allows to increase the range of continuous underwater navigation by an economic move by 5...10 times.

At the same time, despite the obvious advantages of a fuel cell installation, it does not provide the required operational and tactical characteristics of an ocean-class submarine, primarily in terms of performing high-speed maneuvers when pursuing a target or evading an enemy attack. Therefore, the German Project 212 submarines are equipped with a combined propulsion system, in which batteries or fuel cells are used to move at high speeds under water, and a traditional diesel generator, which includes a 16-cylinder V-shaped diesel engine, is used to navigate on the surface. and a synchronous alternator.

Swedish specialists focused their efforts on the development of Stirling engines, or engines with external heat supply (for the history of the Stirling engine, see "Engine" No. 2 and 3 - 2005). The design provides for a single combustion chamber for all cylinders, the use of double-acting pistons that act as a working piston and displacer. On the Swedish submarines of the Gotland type, two Stirling engines with a power of just over 100 liters. With. provided an increase in the duration of stay under water by 7 times (up to 14 days).

DRONKED IN THE ARCHIVES?

Whatever is encountered within the firing range of our torpedo tubes will be sunk!” Obeying the directive of the Fuhrer, the commanders of the Nazi submarines hunted for everything indiscriminately. In the very first weeks of the war, many British warships became their victims, but the main goal was the fight against the British merchant fleet ...

With the onset of darkness, the "underwater corsairs" came out at the head of the convoy and from the surface position, when the sonar was helpless, delivered torpedo strikes on the transports going in succession - almost point-blank. During the first four months of the war, 810 Allied ships were sunk, in 1940 and 1941 - 4407 and 4398, respectively. In the next year, 1942, 8245 ships with a total displacement of 6.2 million tons went to the bottom! ..

But then the unexpected happened. At the end of 1942, Nazi submarines that had been pirating on ocean communications began to disappear without a trace. The commanders of several miraculously surviving boats told what happened. At night, in fog, in conditions of poor visibility, when the boat was on the surface, an airplane suddenly appeared at low altitude above it and unmistakably, for sure, dropped bombs.

The success curve of the German submarine fleet sharply declined, and the loss curve lifted up. If in 1939 9 Nazi submarines perished, in 1940, 1941 and 1942, respectively, 22, 35 and 85 boats. then in 1943 - 237 cv6marines! If in the first half of 1942 for every dead submarine there were 210 thousand tons of ships sunk, then a year later - only 5.5 thousand tons. In mid-May 1943, Doenitz reported to Hitler:

"We are facing the greatest crisis of submarine warfare, as the enemy, using new means of detection ... makes the fight impossible and inflicts heavy losses on us."

Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz

Yes, the radio and sonar of the British deprived the Nazi submarines of their main advantage - stealth. What did the Nazi designers not try, what tricks they did not indulge in! Dummy balloons were raised above the submarines, dragging behind them a “false target” - foil tapes. They covered the submarines with a protective shell, which was supposed to absorb radar beams, and created interference on the air. But nothing helped.

The first step that brought positive results was the proposal of the designer G. Walter to create a retractable ventilation system, with the help of which the submarine, while submerged, could suck in air for diesel engines and exhaust exhaust gases to the surface. This device was called "snorkel". For the German boats of the VII and IX series, there was no need to surface to recharge the batteries and ventilate the compartments.

And the dimensions of the periscope heads and the air tube - the “snorkel” - were too small for the Allied radars to detect them at a great distance.

While the existing fascist submarines were being hastily equipped with a saving "snorkel", Walter's opponents began to argue that the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe invention was borrowed from the Italians: back in 1925 they installed an air intake pipe on the Sirena submarine, however, it was used only for ventilation compartments. However, based on archival documents, we can safely say: an invention completely similar to the “snorkel” was proposed and implemented “in metal”, successfully passed all tests, including in combat conditions, almost three decades before the work of the Nazi designer. And the authorship belongs to our compatriot, submarine officer of the Russian Navy Nikolai Gudim.

The assertion found in the literature that the "snorkel" was invented and first used in the German fleet is erroneous. A device with a similar functional diagram was equipped with the Keta submarine, developed by Lieutenant S.A. Yanovich in 1904

Sergey Alexandrovich Yanovich - PL "Keta"

An even more perfect embodiment of the idea was the design of the Lieutenant of the Corps of Mechanical Engineers of the Fleet Boris Evgenievich Salyar. During his service in Vladivostok, he repeatedly visited the Ket and got acquainted with its device. Salyar developed and manufactured in the workshops of the Xenia transport a device that allows the submarine to use surface engines at periscope depth. The Salyar device was equipped with the Field Marshal Count Sheremetv submarine.

Further improvement of the device was performed by N.A. We're buzzing. Already after the death of the inventor in 1915, the Gudima snorkel was installed on the Baltic submarines Wolf and Leopard.

However, the RDP device (diesel operation under water) in Russia did not receive further development.

"ADMIRAL ASKS TO CONSIDER..."

On a chilly October morning in 1914, on the third month of the war, a car drove up to the front entrance of the Admiralty.

A lean naval officer jumped out of it and rushed up the marble stairs. A white-haired, youthful man was waiting for him in an oak-paneled office. It was the arbiter of the fate of the Naval Ministry, Admiral and Adjutant General of the Tsar Ivan Konstantinovich Grigorovich.

I.K. Grigorovich

Hello Alexander Vasilyevich! - Grigorovich pointed to a chair upholstered in green leather. - Sit comfortably. So what is your most important business? Spread it!

The officer silently took an unsealed envelope from his inside pocket and handed it to Grigorovich. On a sheet of writing paper folded in half was an outline of a submarine, but not with one, as usual, but with three periscopes. - What does this mean? - Admiral Essen instructed me to present to Your Excellency the idea expressed to him personally by the commander of the submarine "Geskar" Senior Lieutenant Gudim.

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Gudim

Gudim proposes to install two ventilation pipes on the boat, one for supplying air to the internal combustion engines, the other for exhaust gases. In this case, the boat can quite covertly cruising in position without consuming electricity. - Effective, very efficient! In any case, in a tactical sense, - thoughtfully uttered Grigorovich. - As for the possibility of technical execution, then, my friend, you need the conclusion of the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding. The admiral took a thick blue pencil and scribbled on the sketch: “Beginning. management, shipbuilding. Adm. f. Essen asks to consider whether it is possible that submarines, for all, have pipes for exhaust gases when the boat moves under water. I see no difficulty in doing what is asked. From this, submarines will not be spoiled, but the benefit: secrecy - hiding for some distance will work.

Nikolai Ottovich von Essen

The minister thought for a moment, and a note appeared in the upper right corner of the sheet: “Top secret. It is not subject to extradition to other productions. The paper immediately gained weight and began to grow incoming and outgoing.

"DUE TO UNCLARIFIED CIRCUMSTANCES..."

Less than a week later, Major General Moiseev, head of the Baltic and Admiralty Plants, received the attitude of the “scuba diving department” of the Main Shipbuilding Directorate “On the urgency of developing a device project to ensure the possibility of submerged submarines under internal combustion engines.” The attitude was accompanied by a “design task”, which stipulated the technical conditions of the future “device”. The same document was handed over to Plotnikov, Chairman of the Board of the Noblessner Shipbuilding Joint-Stock Company, on the stocks of which the Bars-type submarines were hastily completed.

Just over a week later, on October 24, General Moiseev's attitude was received in the "part of scuba diving" with a request to report "some technical data in connection with the device being developed by the plant." The list of clarifications testifies to the practical attitude of the engineers of the Baltic Shipyard to the task. The postscript is alarming: "... I draw your attention ... that due to the abundance of current affairs and the novelty of the task (an automatic device for ejecting water), the final development cannot be done in a short time..."

We had to wait much longer for a response from Noblessner: it arrived only on November 17, with “the presentation of a draft device for the submarine to move in a submerged position under a Diesel engine” and working drawings. The explanatory note described the operation of the device, its simplicity and reliability, but stipulated: “... water that has entered the muffler in large quantities can also enter the engine, which will lead to its immediate breakdown. This is a particular weakness of the system.” And the document ended like this: “During a recent visit to the plant by the head of the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding, Vice Admiral Muravyov, the project was shown to him, and His Excellency said that such a device was unsuitable for boats, which, by order of him, we bring to the attention of Your Excellency.

However, the head of the “scuba diving unit”, General Eliseev, collected all the papers and went to the flagship cruiser “Rurik”, to N. O. Essen. Having familiarized himself with the state of affairs, Nikolai Ottovich boiled: - Rutiners! They can't think of a trifling matter! - And he turned to the chief of staff: - Invite Rear Admiral Levitsky, the flagship specialists of the submarine brigade and that lieutenant, Gudim. Let them sensibly justify what the mistake of the Noblessner engineers is.

On the eve of the new year, 1915, Admiral Essen was presented with an “attitude about the unsuitability of the device project” made by the Noblessner plant: “The whole device is fragile ... when rolling, hitting waves and water resistance from the course of stresses, they will be so significant that the pipes will be broken ; fastening with stays significantly complicates the design and slows down cleaning, making it at the same time less reliable; the proposed worm-driven device for filling pipes is unreliable; The design of the muffler is such that if even a small amount of water enters the muffler, the water will pass into the diesel engine and cause engine damage.

At the same time, the flagship specialists of the submarine brigade - mechanical engineer captain 2nd rank Evgeny Bakin, ship engineer staff captain Alexei Bokanovsky and senior lieutenant Nikolai Gudim presented their own project: “The essence of the entire device: both pipes are permanent, not retractable, their height is from deckhouse about 7 feet (2 m), i.e. slightly below the lowered periscope. The fastening of the pipe will be achieved at the bottom with knees, and at the top with strip and corner profiles and stays. The air pipe will be made of copper, with a thickness (of walls. - P.V.) 5-6 mm. The most significant alteration is the new muffler... The exhaust gas pipes of the onboard motors are led to the upper part of the muffler, and from the middle motor to the lower part... The design of the device is assumed for the simultaneous operation of two onboard motors...

With such a device, it is obvious that accidental water ingress into pipes, even in significant quantities, will not lead to unpleasant consequences. The volume of both pipes is negligible (inner diameter 240mm). The weight of water that can flow into them is only about 17 pounds (a quarter of a ton). It is easy to verify that at 3-4° deflection of the rudders and at low speed - (4.5-5 knots) the supporting force of the rudders will be several times greater than the weight of the water that can flow in.

The internal free volume of the muffler is about 75 pounds (1.2 tons). It can be seen from the drawing of the muffler that in order for water to enter the cylinder, it is necessary to fill the muffler by at least one third of its volume, that is, pour in 25 pounds, while the exhaust gas pipe can take out only about 11 pounds, that is, it is necessary that two times the pipe was completely filled.

Despite this, the water in the muffler will be controlled through a pipe that goes inside the boat and is connected to the water line ... Water that has entered the air pipe will drain into the hold. The upper parts of the pipes are protected from the ingress of large floating pieces of wood, tow, algae, etc. and are equipped with caps and thin wire meshes.

In the explanatory note, the authors indicated: "When drawing up ... the project, one of the main tasks was the need to avoid major alterations that could delay the readiness of the boats for sailing and at the same time ensure the complete reliability of the device." In view of the fact that the designed device will be equipped not only with the Shark (submarine Gudima), but also with the boats under construction of the Bars and Walrus types, “it is desirable to make the pipes retractable in their upper part and it is desirable to bring them out all behind the solid cabin hull and make common casing.

Submarine "Shark" (behind the flagship cruiser "Rurik")

Admiral Essen was satisfied and imposed a resolution: “To the review. In the part of scuba diving. The feedback was received after two weeks, on January 15, 1915: “The project for the installation of pipes ... is certainly easier from the mechanical side of the same device of the Noblessner plant ... The device presented by the headquarters of the brigade chief must be approved and installed.” Eliseev’s resolution was on the document: “Answer according to the review, adding that, according to the captains of the 2nd rank Bakin and Markovich, work on the implementation of this project by the port of Emperor Peter the Great is already being carried out.”

However, despite all the efforts of the flagship specialists, the case for the “device” was moving extremely slowly. Only on May 26, "in a calm state of the sea", the first tests were made on the Revel (Tallinn) roadstead. The “Shark”, under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Nikolai Gudim, in a “position close to combat”, with “battened down hatches, went in variable moves” either under one or two diesel engines “for 45 minutes, and the speed reached 8 knots .. The air in the boat in the forward room was somewhat worse than when sailing on the surface with the hatch open. The review of the commission read: 1) In a calm state of the sea, the boat can freely walk under diesel engines or charge in a position close to combat, and the stability is sufficient and it is not required to steer the horizontal rudders. 2) Sailing the boat in this way cannot be considered dangerous if you carefully monitor the change in trim and buoyancy, since in this case you can always have time to stop the diesel engine and close the exhaust and ventilation valves before water enters the boat through the pipe holes.

But in the last paragraph of the test report, it was written: “For the practical application of walking under diesel engines in the described way, there is a serious obstacle from the strong vibration of the periscopes, which not only makes it impossible to use them to observe the horizon, but also forces them to be kept lowered in order to avoid damage. For this reason, the boat, going in this way, is almost blind, which, of course, is unacceptable. Neither further tests of the "device" nor corrections of the identified shortcomings were made. "Shark", being the only seaworthy submarine of the Baltic Fleet, capable of operating off enemy coasts (the first boats of the "Bars" type were still undergoing acceptance tests), was constantly in combat campaigns. And the fact that such corrections were planned is evidenced by the words of Gudim, dated August 29, 1915: “This issue deserves further attention, because in a combat situation, walking or loading, having only pipes on the surface, is a valuable tactical “quality” .. The difficulty of resolving the issue lies in the arrangement of pipes. which should be made of a fairly large height, lowering, and valves that close reliably and quickly. Perhaps this problem would soon be positively resolved. But at the end of November, the "Shark" did not return from the military campaign.

Either she was blown up by an enemy mine, or she died from an air bomb ... But among the personnel of the fleet, another version was most widely used; during a storm, water allegedly got into the boat through a damaged “device”, and it sank. The submariners knew that the Shark was equipped with some kind of "innovation", and "obviously poorly executed." And if so, then, the ubiquitous enemy had a hand in it ... Talk about this was conducted openly, and in order to stop rumors, Grigorovich appointed an investigation.

The commission, made up of naval specialists and officials of the naval prosecutor's office, due to the scarcity of information, did not find conclusive evidence of sabotage, but meticulous investigators got to the bottom of documents indicating the involvement in the case of "the powers that be" - industrial and financial bigwigs. It turns out that, by someone's will, work on equipping the "Gudima device" of existing and under construction submarines was gradually "nullified" even before the completion of the tests!

High-ranking officials of the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding signed documents with one hand, talking about the "undeniable tactical advantages" of submarines equipped with the "Gudim device", while with the other - orders to reduce the number of submarines to be equipped! State-owned shipyards, having received an "attitude" about the independent development of the "device", by someone's order, simply filed it with the current correspondence! And the private shipyard of the joint-stock company Noblessner, engaged exclusively in the construction of submarines, first presented a deliberately weak project, and then withdrew itself from any participation in the development and implementation of the “Gudim device”!

The members of the commission prudently refrained from final conclusions and, putting the materials of the inquiry into a folder, submitted the case for review to the Minister of Marine. Grigorovich kept the folder on his desk for a week, and subordinates, accustomed to getting a decision overnight, were at a loss. Finally, she was in the hands of the head of the office. On the title page, in a firm, sweeping handwriting of the admiral, a resolution was superimposed: “For the lack of clarification of the circumstances of the death of the Shark, the case should be discontinued. Under the conditions of wartime, the materials should be kept "very secret". I. Grigorovich.

So what is the story of the "Gudim device" all the same - an enemy sabotage or a cunningly woven machination of domestic industrialists and financiers, into which the ranks of the fleet were also drawn?

PAVEL VESELOV, historian

First of all, we note that the "snorkel", or, as it is now called, the RDP (short for the words "engine operation under water"), was only a palliative for the German submarine fleet, a temporary means of protection against British radars. A boat charging batteries submerged, under a snorkel, is not only blind, but also deaf due to the noise produced by running diesel engines. And it easily detects itself - not only by the head of the "snorkel", which is detected by sensitive radars, but also by the foaming surf on the surface of the sea and by the trail of exhaust gases. Batteries can be charged only at night and with frequent breaks in order to listen to the sea in between.

Moreover, swimming under the "snorkel" is fraught with other troubles. Even when the sea is calm, a wave sometimes covers its head: then the air supply stops, and the diesel engines continue to suck air out of the compartments, so that the crew literally “goes out on their foreheads”.

From all this, one might get the opinion that the proposal of Nikolai Gudim was no good, and therefore the Russian Maritime Ministry acted quite rightly, abandoning the device. However, this opinion is erroneous. Needless to say, they had no idea about hydro- and radar in the era of the First World War. A submarine equipped with Gudim's device would not only have effective stealth, but also its navigation area in a position "close to combat" would increase tenfold.

The true reasons for the rejection of Gudim's “device” are very far from both considerations of naval tactics and technical difficulties. They were revealed by the Supreme Maritime Investigation Commission, established in 1917 to investigate the connections of the monopolies with high-ranking officials of the Naval Ministry.

“There was almost entirely the Diving Division of the Main Directorate; many high-ranking officials from other departments, admirals Muravyov and Bubnov (head of the Main (shipbuilding department and comrade of the naval minister. - F.N.). Among these well-known faces was a group of people unknown to me in tailcoats, - one of the largest Russians showed at the commission shipbuilders, Professor Ivan Bubnov, - and when I was introduced to them, I felt that they were important people. As usual, I immediately forgot their names, but, having asked someone, I found out that they were the main gods of the banking world. At dinner they were seated in the first places, and the first glass raised by the Deputy Minister was drunk to the health of the people of capital, going to the aid of the renewing fleet.” I All this happened on December 20, 1913, at a banquet with E. Nobel, co-owner of the newly legalized joint-stock company "Noblessner", and the "help" in question cost the Russian fleet dearly ...

Emanuel Ludwigovich Nobel

Chief among the financial magnates who gathered at the Nobel, who, according to the director of the Putilov plant Bischlyager, "was so close to Grigorovich that he even influenced all the highest appointments in this ministry," is a certain Mikhail Plotnikov, one of the directors of the accounting and loan bank and a member of the board of a number of joint-stock companies: Lessner, Triangle, Russian Whitehead, Noblessner, etc. “Approximately in 1911, when rumors and talk began about a small shipbuilding program,” he wrote in his testimony, - I had the idea of ​​creating an independent plant for shipbuilding. At that time, I outlined approximately the following plan for the implementation of my idea: since the Lessner mine plant manufactures mine weapons, and the Nobel plant built Diesel engines, I decided to use these already equipped and ready forces to create a plant for building submarines. The arrangement of such a special plant for the construction of submarines required a relatively insignificant cost, about 5 or 6 million, and mine weapons and engines would come from Lessner and Nobel. This idea was liked by E. Nobel, who agreed to support it from the monetary side. The Accounting and Loan Bank also promised financial support. In the maritime department, I had acquaintances with some ranks for several years ... "

Professor I. Bubnov spoke well about these “acquaintances” at the same commission: “I was directly amazed at how close he was to the life of the ministry. On a whole series of questions that interested him, he knew absolutely everything that was being done and said in the ministry; he knew the opinions of dozens of people on these questions and accurately assessed the influence of each of them, apparently, he knew how to predict the result. And, of course, not only to predict the result, but also to ensure that the issue is resolved in your favor with a timely bribe.”

A representative of the Putilov and Nevsky plants at the Naval Ministry gave Plotnikov a no less vivid description: “He managed to spread such influence in the Naval Department and act in such a way with respect to other plants that I think I won’t be mistaken if I say that the distribution of various orders by the department to firms was carried out if not with his consent, then with his knowledge. In any case, I think that if Plotnikov did not want to transfer any order to one or another company, he could do it. Based on archival documents, engineer-kalitan 2nd rank G. M. Trusov wrote in his book “Submarines in the Russian and Soviet Navy”: “Bribes and bribery of the highest-ranking persons in the Maritime Department were widely used. Banks not only bribed such figures, but also provided them with a brilliant career. In 1911, a group of people headed by the International Bank, to which Plotnikov was close, used their wide Duma and court connections, helped I.K. Grigorovich become the minister of the sea. Thanks to connections with financial circles, Comrade of the Minister of the Navy M.V. Bubnov, who was in charge of the entire economic and technical part of the Naval Ministry, came from poor small-scale nobles, who did not have any (neither ancestral, nor "acquired") property, - already through seven years of service in the Maritime Department had more than one and a half million rubles in bank accounts and turned into a large land owner.

Mikhail Vladimirovich Bubnov

All competitors were simply pushed into the background. Plotnikov was “not able to fight either the scolded head of the Baltic Plant, or the fictitious head of the technical activities of the fleet, Admiral Muravyov, confusedly rushing about in the spheres of technical and financial issues alien to him,” I. Bubnov testified in the commission of inquiry. On September 7, 1912, two-thirds of the orders for submarines (8 out of 12) were given to the defunct Noblssner society. After this transaction, the comrade of the naval minister accepted "as a gift" shares of the future plant in the amount of 60,000 rubles.

The plant, like the Noblessner joint-stock company, existed at that time only on paper - more precisely, not even on paper, but in the head of the enterprising Plotnikov. The decree approving the charter of the society was signed in December, and the construction of the shipbuilding workshop was started only on March 24, 1914 - a year and a half after receiving the order! But this circumstance did not bother the financial magnate ...

In the same 1912, Plotnikov successfully resolved the "personnel issue", luring the most valuable specialists from the Baltic Plant with high salaries. Following the chief designer of submarines, Professor I. Bubnov, his brother Grigory moved to Noblessner as chief engineer, then all the draftsmen, the most experienced craftsmen, etc. (a total of 38 people). Only one young engineer with less than three years of experience remained in the diving department of the huge Baltic Shipyard.

Ivan Grigorievich Bubnov

Plotnikov went to great lengths to slow down the pace of boat building at the Baltic Shipyard. The meeting, chaired by Major General Pushchin, decided to "prohibit the Baltic Shipyard from building submarines according to its own drawings." From now on, the Baltic Shipyard could only use the drawings received from Noblessner through the main shipbuilding department, and those were deliberately delayed for a long time - Plotnikov could not allow the Baltic Plant's products to outstrip his own ...

It is clear that any modernization of the submarines under construction at the Noblessner plant (for example, equipping with the Gudima device) would delay their entry into service by several months. Plotnikov and Co. could not agree to such an “infringement of interests” in any way, and therefore they fought against such obstacles by any available (mostly illegal) methods. . Still - after all, their truly fabulous profits were put under attack! And the officials of the Naval Ministry were just puppets in their hands. So is it any wonder Grigorovich's laconic resolution on the case of the death of the "Shark"?

So, in all likelihood, the history of the invention of Nikolai Gudim is another confirmation of how, in the pursuit of superprofits, the “powerful ones” can sacrifice everything, even the national interests of their fatherland. What can you do - such is the class essence of capitalism.

The conditions for the use of submarines during the Second World War from year to year became more and more stringent. The massive use of radar by anti-submarine forces, the use of aircraft carrier aircraft to fight submarines made their stay on the surface extremely dangerous both day and night, both in the coastal zone and in the open ocean. All this led to the fact that if at the beginning of the war, for example, German submarines were under water for a little more than 5% of their time at sea, then by the end of the war this figure increased to 20%.

Scheme of a device for the operation of diesel engines under water on a submarine "Shark":

1 - air supply shaft; 2 - diesel gas outlet; 3 - silencer; 4 - gas exhaust pipe; 5 - periscopes

Naturally, it was impossible to achieve this by purely organizational measures; technical solutions were also required. One of the most important of them was the use of a special device for the operation of diesel engines under water, or RDP for short. During the war, only German submarines were armed with it, but after its completion, the RDP became a mandatory attribute of all diesel-electric submarines. How effective this device was can be judged at least by this fact. The submarine U-977 under the command of Schaeffer, which left Norway at sea on the eve of the surrender of Germany, after receiving an order to return to the base for surrender, decided to leave to surrender to

Argentina.

Heinz Schaffer

Submarine "U-977"

Realizing that she simply would not be allowed to cross the North Atlantic on the surface, U-977 on May 11, 1945. sank off the coast of Norway and for 66 days went under the RDP, “emerging” already south of the main North Atlantic communications of the Allies. After another 31 days on August 17, she arrived at one of the Argentine ports.

Literally from the first projects of submarines, designers tried to equip them with air pipes, which made it possible to ventilate the compartments with atmospheric air, if not at periscope depth, then at least in the surface position in rough seas. Apparently, the first adaptation specifically for the operation of internal combustion engines at periscope depth was received by the domestic submarine Field Marshal Count Sheremetev of the Kasatka type.

The general scheme of the RDP and the device of the snorkel head:

1 - automatic float valve; 2 - air to diesel; 3 - exhaust gases from a diesel engine; 4 - air for ventilation; 5 - air shaft; 6 - fairing; 7 - anti-radar coating; 8 - head with valve; 9 - search receiver antenna for detecting operating radar stations; 10 - antenna of the radar transponder "I am mine"; 11 - ball float; 12 — visor of the exhaust shaft; 13 —exhaust shaft; 14 - valve; 15 - lever

The author, and also the executor of the idea, was Lieutenant of the Corps of Mechanical Engineers of the Fleet B.E. Salyar. He not only developed the device, but also made it in the Xenia transport workshops. In 1910 conducted comparative tests of the same type of submarines "Field Marshal Count Sheremetev" and "Skat", and Salyar's device received a positive assessment. The commander of the Skat, Lieutenant N. A. Gudim, being later appointed to the Baltic as the commander of one of the first Russian diesel-electric submarines, the Sharks, also suggested equipping it with the Salyar device. The work was completed, but they did not have time to complete the tests due to the outbreak of the First World War, and in the fall of 1915, the Shark did not return from its 17th military campaign. In the same year, when the Bars-type submarines began to enter service, on two of them - the Volka and the Leopard - the commanders, lieutenants Messer and Trofimov, achieved partial implementation of Gudim's proposal. On these boats, the exhaust manifolds of the engines were raised to the level of periscope pedestals, and telescopic pipes were installed to supply air to the engines in the bow of the wheelhouse, connecting to the air duct of the supply fan that pumps air into the diesel compartment, which was one of the world's first analogues of the RDP. However, the air receiver was not protected from the wave that overwhelmed it. In addition, during the operation of diesel engines, a strong vibration of the extended periscopes was noted, which made it impossible to observe the horizon in them.

For some time, the idea of ​​ensuring the operation of diesel engines at periscope depth was forgotten, it was, as it were, irrelevant. However, already in the mid-1930s. the Dutch remembered the RDP. Lieutenant Commander of the Dutch Navy Jan Wichersom in 1932 proposed to equip the underwater minelayers O-19 and O-20 under construction with this device. He also developed a workable RDP, called "sniver", which means snorting. The test in 1939 was successful, and the O-21 submarine managed to receive the RDP before the Second World War. In 1940, during the occupation of the Netherlands, this submarine did not fall into German hands, but the Germans captured the documentation. It was on the basis of the Dutch RDP that the well-known German "snorkel" was created in 1943.

I came across an interesting article devoted to curious cases in the history of the submarine. Curiosities - both comic and tragic - happened at different times with submariners from different countries.

GERMANS:

"Dive under the camel!"

It happened during the First World War. The Arab sheikh, an ally of Germany in the war, as a token of gratitude for the fact that the Germans delivered him money and weapons by submarine, decided to make a royal gift to Kaiser Wilhelm II. And he chose the most valuable thing he had - a white camel, handing it over to the commander of the submarine. The commander did not dare to refuse to accept this gift - this would mean inflicting the greatest insult on the donor. Cursing to themselves, the German submariners brought the animal to the submarine and tied it to a gun on the deck.

In the Mediterranean, the submarine was attacked by British aircraft. The submarine could not hide from them at a depth - the sheikh's double-humped gift would sink. But the sailors also wanted to live. And then the boat commander made a Solomonic decision, ordering the boatswain "Dive under the camel!" This meant that the boatswain, who stood on the rudders, had to sink the submarine to the camel's head, and when the planes flew away, float to the surface, releasing the animal distraught with fear from the water. So they walked along the sea, periodically plunging “under the camel”, then surfacing ...

Submarine drowned ... car

Again, during the First World War, this curiously tragic incident also happened. The German submarine "U-28" on the surface launched a torpedo attack on the English steamer "Olive Blanche", which was transporting ammunition and trucks. The torpedo hit the target. There was a powerful explosion. However, the submariners did not have time to celebrate the victory: one of the vehicles, thrown into the air by a blast wave, hit the submarine directly. The submarine immediately sank.

YANKEE

I took the commander literally

On July 11, 1910, the American submarine S-4, working out a training task, launched an attack on the Kastein floating base stationed in the roadstead. The idea of ​​this attack was to pass the submarine under the bottom of the ship. The commander of the boat, setting the task, said about this to the foreman-helmsman, who was standing at the periscope: "We must" cut "the floating base in half." And the helmsman exactly carried out the order of the commander: soon there was a blow, and the periscope of the submarine, tearing the skin with a crack, stuck into the bottom of the floating base, making a large hole in it. The foreman understood the commander literally. What the commander said to him after the accident, literally and figuratively, we can only guess ...

Killed by own torpedo

On October 24, 1944, the USS Teng, while on the surface, discovered and attacked Japanese transport. However, although the torpedo fired by the boat hit the target, it did not sink the ship, and it continued to stay afloat. "Tang" launched a second torpedo, which suddenly evaded to the left and began to circulate, i.e. back to the submarine. From the Tenga's bridge they saw this on the trail of air bubbles from the torpedo engine, but they did not manage to dodge it. The result is sad: the submarine was hit by its own torpedo and, having exploded, sank. And those of the submariners who managed to survive were captured by the Japanese.

The above case is not isolated. On May 21, 1968, while returning from combat duty in the Atlantic, the US Navy nuclear submarine Scorpio (99 crew members) disappeared without a trace. Her search was fruitless. And only a few years ago it became known that the Scorpion became a victim of its own torpedo. For an unknown reason, on one of the torpedoes with a non-nuclear warhead, the mechanism for bringing the torpedo into a firing position suddenly worked, which threatened to explode the submarine. The commander, in order to prevent a catastrophe, decided to urgently get rid of the rebellious torpedo and ordered it to be launched. However, released into the Atlantic, the torpedo began to scour in search of a target, until the Scorpion itself appeared in the sight of its homing warhead ...

By the way, the Americans also had such a curiously sad case when a ballistic missile launched from it crashed onto their nuclear submarine "Patrick Henry".

RUSSIAN
A collector of jokes about the Soviet submarine, a retired submarine officer A. Pokrovsky, testified about the following incident that happened in one of the campaigns. The commander of our nuclear submarine was ordered to photograph a US Navy frigate in the Mediterranean Sea, for which they were given a camera with a huge lens. And so, having somehow surfaced on the surface, the submariners discovered an American ship, which, in turn, seeing the surfaced submarine, rushed at full speed towards it. It was impossible to miss such a favorable moment, and the commander, for a better view, decided to personally perch on the RDP. RDP is such a huge retractable pipe on the wheelhouse of a boat for air intake, the upper part of which is crowned with a float-cover.

Sitting on this float with a camera on his bare torso (it was very hot), the commander ordered to raise the RDP. Soaring over the sea like an eagle, he clicked the adversary's frigate several times and gave the command to lower it down. But then, as it often happens in our fleet, there was an overlay: the RDP stuck, and the damn pipe did not want to go down. The Americans, in turn, having filmed the strange Russians, had long gone home, and the submarine commander was still sticking out above the water on the float of the RDP and winged obscenities to the entire Mediterranean of his slobs subordinates with the first mate at the head ...

And the next day, Italian newspapers published a close-up picture: a Soviet submarine surfaced with a raised RDP, on which its half-naked commander sits with a camera equipped with an unusually large lens. Nearby is another photograph, where his physiognomy, screaming something, was large-scaled. The caption for the pictures was laconic: "Oh, those incomprehensible Russians."

As for our pictures of the American frigate, they again had bad luck: in a hurry, they forgot to load the camera with film ...

It happens that boats also float

In the mid 50s. During the exercises of the Pacific Fleet in Peter the Great Bay, the following incident occurred. The crew of a torpedo boat (wooden, American built) felt that their ship suddenly began to break away from the water and rise into the air. No, it was not the powerful hand of Uncle Chernomor. This imprudently surfaced a submarine of the "Leninets" type, raising boatmen on itself. The boat immediately began to fall apart, but its frightened crew successfully "landed" on the deck of the submarine.

A similar case took place in the early 80s in Kamchatka. When surfacing, the nuclear submarine of the Pacific Fleet tried to inadvertently lift a patrol ship on itself, but in the end it slid off the deck of the nuclear-powered ship into its native sea element.

K-429
There were "unfortunate" boats in the Soviet fleet, the same K-19, for example, but firstly it was the first in a series, and secondly, accidents on it occurred mainly due to equipment failures. But the K-429 was not lucky in this respect, its own crew drowned an absolutely serviceable boat. In 1983, she was drowned as a result of diving with an open ventilation system, through which water began to flow into the compartments. And when the order was received to blow out the ballast in order to emerge urgently, the operator, instead of closing the ventilation valves, closed the kingstones and, as a result, the air that was supposed to displace the ballast water was bled in vain.
Then, as a result of the accident on the submarine, 16 people died.
At a meeting of the leadership of the Northern Fleet in 1983, Admiral V.N. ".
But that's not all. A few months later, the boat was raised and towed to a shipyard for repairs. During the repair there, she was accidentally drowned again, right at the wall of the plant. Then they raised it again, converted it into a training station and put it on a joke, apparently out of harm's way ...

A hundred years ago, the designers and inventors of submarines understood that it was not practical to keep two engines on a ship - one for underwater, the other for surface movement, and did not abandon attempts to develop a single engine, or at least equip a gas engine or diesel engine with an air supply device when The submarine is at periscope depth.

Rear Admiral of the Kriegsmarine E. Goft claimed that the invention of the so-called snorkel brought the first success, but the same German submariners admit that they saw analogues on Dutch boats and it is clearly known that such a pipe was first installed in 1925 on the Italian submarine Sirena.

The Soviet shipbuilder G.M. Trusov established that such a “device was first proposed in 1915 by the commander of the Akula submarine, Lieutenant N.A. Gudim.” However, further studies have shown that S. Yanovich, B.E. Salyar may well be recognized as the authors of the RDP prototype ...

Engineer-Rear Admiral M.ARudnitsky examined the remains of the RDP Salyar on the Baltic boats "Leopard" and "Wolf". Fleet historian N.A. Zalessky saw a picture of the Cougar submarine from the RDP.

All this unequivocally testifies that such a device was invented and used in Russia earlier than in other navies. In short, remember the anecdote about the Congress of Patents?

If they forgot about a single engine, then not forever. The historian of the Soviet submarine fleet, Captain 1st Rank V.I. Dmitriev, established that in the 30s, engineer S.A. Bazilevsky created the Redo, a regenerative single engine for special purposes, which in August 1938 was installed on an experimental submarine XII S-92 series. It was a diesel engine running on a gas mixture; the boat successfully passed the tests, several times went to sea.

Bazilevsky's group started designing a single engine in 1935, mounted it on the S-92 3 years later. And what was done in other countries in this respect then?

In the same year, England and Germany entered into an agreement under which the "Third Reich" was allowed to build submarines, and the very next year, Professor G. Walter presented a project for a steam-gas turbine for a submarine. It is hard to believe that the Germans managed to cope with such a difficult task so soon, apparently, they had been preparing for more than one year to cancel the articles of the Versailles Treaty, which forbade Germany to have a submarine fleet. In the Walter plant, 80% hydrogen peroxide served as the oxidizer, which decomposed in the chamber into water vapor and oxygen, the latter being burned with liquid fuel, into which feed fresh water was injected. The resulting hot vapor-gas mixture under high pressure then entered the turbine, then cooled. Water returned to its original position, unnecessary carbon dioxide was removed overboard. The project of Walter immediately interested the sailors. “We seized on it and ensured that the command of the navy energetically supported this exceptionally important invention,” Grand Admiral K. Doenitz recalled. In 1937, the Germans began to create Walther boats, but due to technical difficulties, they did not receive a single one before the start of the Second World War, and the skepticism of the Kriegsmarine leadership towards such innovations also affected.

Scheme of the RDP device: 1 - air shaft, 2 - fairing, 3 - coating that protects against radar radiation, 4 - head with a valve that prevents sea water from entering the mine, 5 - antenna of the radio receiver of radar radiation, 6 - antenna of the “friend or foe” system ”, 7 - float that controls the position of the valve 4, 8 - shaft visor for exhaust gases 9, 10 - valve, 11 - lever.

Scheme of a steam-gas turbine plant: 1 - pump for supplying hydrogen peroxide, 2 - peroxide decomposition chamber, 3 - combustion chamber, 4 - nozzle, 5 - main turbine, 6 - condenser, 7 - condensate pump, 8 - cooler for feed water, 9 - feed pump, 10 - feed water supply to the combustion chamber, 11 - exhaust gas compressor, 12 - gearbox, 13 - economical stroke electric motor, 14 - propeller.

In 1942 alone, 4 experimental submarines of the XVIIBa series (or Ba-201) with a displacement of 236/294 tons were laid down, each equipped with a combined cycle gas turbine of 5 thousand hp, which made it possible to develop up to 26 knots under water (for diesel-electric ones - a maximum of 10 nodes). True, not for long. The oxidizer reserve occupied a solid volume of 40 cubic meters, the cruising range did not exceed 80 miles.

Having built three boats, the Germans in 1944 began to prepare 12 also experimental XVIIE series of a larger (312 tons) displacement with 2.5 thousand-horsepower turbines and a speed of 21.5 knots with an underwater cruising range of 1115 miles. They also finished three, followed by a dozen small, already combat boats of the HUIG series, in which the supply of hydrogen peroxide was brought up to 50 cubic meters. m, but this order was not fulfilled.

The medium submarines of the XVII-Fau series with a displacement of 659 tons did not have a chance to fight either. They were supposed to accommodate 98 cubic meters. m of oxidizer, two Walter turbines with a total capacity of 2.1 thousand hp, which were supposed to provide a 19-knot course underwater with a cruising range of 205 miles.

At the same time, the Germans planned to replenish the Kriegsmarine with 200 medium submarines of the XXVI series with a displacement of 842 tons, with a 7.5 thousand-horsepower turbine. If their predecessors had two bow torpedo tubes, then these had ten of them, and they were placed in the center of the hull to fire torpedoes back - the boat attacked the enemy on the retreat in order to quickly get away from the pursuers. A hundred unfinished submarines were dismantled after the war, the same fate befell two large (1485 tons) boats of the XVIII series ordered at the beginning of 1945 with 5 torpedo tubes and 5 turbines with a total capacity of 5.5 thousand hp, which required 204 cubic meters. m of oxidizer.

Scheme of operation of a diesel engine in a closed cycle "kreislauf": 1 - diesel, 2 - air supply, 3 - exhaust gases in the surface position, 4 - switching the exhaust to a closed cycle, 5 - exhaust gas circulation in the submerged position, 6 - refrigerator, 7 - bypass valve for gas temperature control, 8 - gas filter, 9

- mixer for enriching exhaust gases with oxygen, 10 - oxygen cylinders, 11 - oxygen reducer, 12 - oxygen supply regulator, 13 - pressure regulator when the engine is running in a closed cycle, 14

- exhaust gas compressor, 15 - release of excess gases, 16 - gearbox, 17 - disengaging clutch, 18 - economical running electric motor, 19 - propeller.

WHISKEY TWIN CYLINDER class with two P-5 missiles on board.

Transport and launch container with P-5 coastal defense cruise missile on a wheelbase.

After the war, documents about Walter's engines went to the British and Americans, the latter at the end of the 40s tested it on a diesel-electric Corporal and considered it unpromising. Mainly due to the short cruising range at full speed under water, a fair fire hazard, sensitivity to changes in immersion depth and high operating costs.

Nevertheless, in 1956, the British began to build 2 experimental submarines of the Explorer type with two Walther installations of 4 thousand hp each. After 9 years, having completed the test program, they were written off - they had no successors.

In 1960, the Swedes also tried to equip 2 out of 6 new Dragon-type diesel-electric boats with experimental combined-cycle turbines in order to achieve at least a short 25-knot speed under water. And agreed with the conclusions of American experts.

In 1942, not limited to experienced Walther boats, the Germans set about experimenting with another type of single engine - the Kreislauf installation (running in a circle). Its essence was that in a submerged position, gaseous or liquid oxygen stored in cylinders was injected into the cylinders of a diesel engine (isn't it reminiscent of the work of Nikolsky and Bazilevsky?). The exhaust passages were cleaned, enriched with oxygen, and they were sent back to the cylinders. Judging by the calculations, the installation with a capacity of 1.5 thousand hp. could provide a speed of up to 16 knots, but the consumption of combustible mixture components was too high. "Kreislauf" was thought to be used on small and medium-sized submarines, since it was clear that one could not count on a long cruising range. The Germans did not go further than the experiments, as did the Swedes, who tried to introduce the "Kreislauf" on boats of medium tonnage of the "Schormen" type, built since 1962.

In the Soviet Navy, work with the RDP continued in 1943, having tested it at the B-2 floating charging station (the former Panther submarine of the Bars type). When she walked at periscope depth under diesel engines, air was supplied to them through a vertical pipe. Later, a similar device was equipped with a combat boat ID, -310V bis-2 series. Recall: the Germans began to use similar "snorkels" only from next year.

As for the single engine, work on it continued, and in February 1951, an experimental boat S-99 of project 617 with a steam-gas turbine was laid at one of the Leningrad plants. The oxidizing agent was hydrogen peroxide, a 100-ton supply of which was kept in synthetic outboard tanks. This is very reminiscent of the installation of Walter, but, according to the captains of the 1st rank V. Badanin and L. Khudyakov, Soviet specialists did not get the captured documentation and equipment. Having entered service in 1958, the S-99 made several voyages, the turbine was launched at a depth of 80 m, the boat went at 120 m for quite a long time and no more than 5 minutes 50 m deeper (the Americans were right). In May 1959, due to the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide in the pipeline, an explosion occurred, no one was injured, the S-99 returned to the base, but they did not begin to restore it.

In the same period, they worked out a single engine for small submarines of the 615th project, not without reason nicknamed "lighters". After one of these "babies" sank in the Baltic after a fire, they were gradually withdrawn from combat strength.

Device for diesel operation under water (RDP)

a retractable device for submarines for supplying atmospheric air to the diesel compartment and removing exhaust gases at the periscope position of the submarine. To prevent the submarine from flooding through the exhaust and intake pipelines, valves are installed on them that automatically close when the wave is overwhelmed or the submarine is submerged. RDP allows diesel submarines to increase their cruising range, charge batteries, replenish compressed air supplies and ventilate rooms without surfacing, which increases their stealth.

• - Equipment, fuel - Atomizer body collar, support - Injection - Injection, two-time - Fuel injection - Injection pressure, maximum - Injection start pressure - Pressure...

  Dictionary of GOST vocabulary

• - a device on diesel GS, which ensures the operation of diesel engines under water at periscope depth by drawing air to them through a retractable shaft and ejecting exhaust gases into the water through a special gas outlet ...

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• - a defensive structure around a castle, fortress, city or fortified estate ...

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• - do not spill Razg. Only by order. f. Very friendly, inseparable, always together. Whom? friends, girlfriends ...; who with whom? me with my brother, sister with a friend ... . Old friends ... you can’t spill them with water ...
• - you can’t spill water, you won’t spill Razg. Only by order. f. Very friendly, inseparable, always together. Whom? friends, girlfriends ... do not spill water; who with whom? me and my brother, my sister and a friend ... do not spill water ...

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• - water adv. the situation places of expansion Using the waterway as a place of movement; by water...

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• - who. Obsolete Express. About the one who behaves modestly, quietly. Cleverly and humbly, he spends an honest age. . Humble little one, my mother! it won't muddy the water...

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• - See Strictness -...
• - Cm....

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• - Perm. Suffer from dropsy. Sl. Akchim. 1, 138...
• - what. Arch. The same as not to wet with water 2. AOC 4, 153 ...

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• - adj., number of synonyms: 1 low-water ...

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• - swim, water, water ...

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• - Cm....

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• - adj., number of synonyms: 4 you can’t spill your friends with water, they are not spilling water, they are not spilling water ...

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