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The Trident Submarine houses twenty-four nuclear warheads with each having a range of 4, 600 miles over land. If a nuclear war were to break out between the Soviet Union and the United States, virtually every major city could be destroyed in a matter of hours. The origin of these major players in modern day warfare lies in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. A Dutchman named Cornelius Van Drebbel, made the very first submarine in 1652, to fight the mighty Spanish ship called the Rotterdam Boat. It carried about twelve oarsmen and even had an air circulator.
It never saw any action. In the American Revolutionary War, a manned underwater craft named the American Turtle (or the water-machine) was used against the British Navy. David Bushnell designed this ingenious machine in 1771. The submarine was a one manned, egg-shaped vessel which was propelled by hand-operated screw-like devices.
It was bottom-heavy in order for it to remain upright. The operator would plant a submersible mine that could be triggered by a simple clockwork mechanism. He could paddle away after he attached the magazine of gunpowder onto the enemy ship. The operator could stay under for about thirty minutes The American Turtle was ready for her initial mission on September 6, 1776, just after midnight in the New York Harbor. The operator, Ezra Lee, failed in his attempt to sink the HMS Eagle because he failed to secure the screw of the gunpowder magazine to the ship. The Turtle made two more attempts to sink enemy ships but they both failed.
The end of the American Turtle is unknown. Some think she was accidentally sunk, dismantled, or destroyed. The Turtle was the very first submarine to be used in the art of war. In October of 1805 the two-manned submarine invented by Robert Fulton, the Nautilus, sunk a ship in a demonstration for the British government. The detonation device was a mine, which was tugged by long cables that hit the boat after the submarine had passed under it. The timing was wrong for the event because England had just finished another war.
The ship was ignored. The importance of the Nautilus was the use of compressed air for oxygen and the use of rudders for vertical and horizontal alignment while underwater. The significance of these first two fully working submarines in the world was that they played a major role in future developments of submarines, especially for the submarine use during the Civil War. In New Orleans, the Confederates wanted to construct a vessel that would be totally submerged beneath the surface. This area was a strategic point because it was the base of the entire Mississippi. Two wealthy designers, James McClintock and Baxter Watson, designed and built a three manned, hand cranked submarine name the Pioneer.
This sub had a breather which was similar to a snorkel that would put fresh air into the submarine. The Pioneer used the same type of detonation device as the Nautilus: dragging behind a torpedo (at this time any mine used in the water was known as a torpedo). The problems with the Pioneer were the breather would only work close to the surface; there was no light inside the sub causing the crew to use candles; and the sub was incredibly cramped. Another problem was that at this time a compass was the only way to tell where a submarine was going. But do to all the metal, it was extremely hard to get one to work properly inside the submarine. Therefore, the captain would have to make frequent visual sightings.
The first trial runs-went beautifully with only a few minor leaks. The submarine successfully sunk a ship in a test-run in front of a large crowd. It was definitively a seaworthy ship. The people of New Orleans knew that an attack by the Union was eminent. On April 16, 1862, the attack came. The Confederate forces were heavily outnumbered and were defeated.
Unfortunately for the Pioneer, it was not used during the Battle of New Orleans. Since the submarine was a prototype, it was deemed not ready for battle and was sunk by its owners before it could fall into enemies hands. Later in the war, the Confederate navy was not very successful in attacking enemy ships. They just could not get through the Union blockade that was surrounding them. In Mobile, Alabama, a group of men wanted to build another Pioneer. Two gentlemen who owned a machine shop agreed to build another boat with William Alexander presiding over the manufacture.
The Pioneer II was a little larger than its predecessor. The new submarine had a little more room for the crew; was more streamlined; had a primitive mercury barometer to judge their depth; and contained some windows so the captain could better ascertain where he was going. The main problems with Pioneer II were that it still could not stay submerged for long due to the dwindling air supply. It also was still extremely slow and only worked well in calm waters. Several weeks were used in an attempt to build an electric engine, but due to the lack of supplies they had to resort back to manpower. Unfortunately, on a test run, the water became too choppy and gushed into the hatchways that were open for ventilation.
The ship sank. Alexander, McClintock, and Watson had still not given up. Within weeks they had enough money to build another ship called Pioneer III. The new sub was basically the same as the Pioneer II. However, a problem arose with the torpedo because this submarine, along with all previous ones, hauled a torpedo about two hundred feet behind itself.
The torpedo would detonate as soon as it hit the enemy ship while the submarine was a safe distance away. But, the Pioneer III was tested in the windy Mobile Bay. This caused the torpedo to move faster than the submarine which made the torpedo float directly abo...
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Research essay sample on Submarines In The Revolutionary And Civil Wars
