(HARRY'S NOTE - CHARLIE has written some papers before, which we have published in our KTB Magazine and his work is widely recognized as very well researched and very well written, and we thank CHARLIE for sending this paper on to us.)

PREFACE

Since SHARKHUNTERS is now covering U.S. NAVY submarines in the KTB, I would like to offer SHARKHUNTERS this overview of how the submarine developed in the United States. It would be nice if this work could find its way into the SHARKHUNTERS RESEARCH CENTER to be used by someone wondering why the development of the U.S. NAVY submarines took the course it did.

As with the other articles I have submitted to SHARKHUNTERS, it should be pointed out that this work is not the result of any original research on my part; I have made substantial use of the references cited at the end of this paper.

INTRODUCTION

This paper presents a brief technical history of U.S. NAVY submarines. It starts relatively late in the overall development of the submarine, by beginning with USS HOLLAND then progressing toward the current crop of fast attacks and 'boomers'. The objective is to describe how the current generation on U.S. nuclear powered submarines evolved.

The submarine can be considered the 'ultimate stealth weapon', only abandoning stealth in the heat of battle to attack a target. Yet, this obvious feature of a submarine has not always been of paramount concern to the submarine designed, for many times stealth has been compromised to enhance other 'mission' requirements, as will be pointed out during this discussion of the development of the submarine for the U.S. NAVY.