Part 1: Introduction

Part of this brief history will explain why the hull design diverged from the 'modern' fish-like hull used by John Holland in the late 1800's, to the FLEET BOAT design used in both World wars, then back again to the fish-like (now called tear-drop) hull of USS ALBACORE (SS 569) and all subsequent submarines. To begin, we start with the competition between Holland and Simon Lake to provide the first submarine for the the U.S. NAVY.

John P. Holland was motivated by the desire to remove British rule over Ireland that was symbolized by the all-powerful British fleet. This was Holland's main interest in submarine development both before and after he emigrated to America in 1872, aside from being generally fascinated by 'submarine navigation'. Much of his funding & development goals came from the anti-British Fenian Brotherhood. The outgrowth of his 20 yr interest in submarines allowed him to win a US NAVY contract to build a submarine in 1888. After several tries Holland got his HOLLAND VI commissioned as USS HOLLAND (SS 1) in 1900. The submarine had finally been allowed in the US NAVY.

Simon Lake took a different approach to submarine design and use. Whereas Holland built the forerunner of all military submarines (i.e., a conventional torpedo-attack submarine), Lake built bottom crawlers for commercial purposes, his ARGONAUT series. He took inspiration from Jules Verne & provided a diver lock-out capability. The only offensive capability came from whatever the diver could do such as cutting cables or destroying mines.

USS HOLLAND had a fat, cigar-shaped hull form which was designed to operate underwater at the expense of good surface sea-keeping, an idea soon suspended for the next 50 years. The boat was only 54 feet long and 10 feet in diameter. An electric motor provided an underwater speed of 5 knots for four hours & a 45hp gasoline engine was used for surface propulsion. Using a separate gasoline engine when on the the surface, made it possible to build a relatively small submarine because of the gasoline engine's smaller size and better power to weight ratio as compared with steam propulsion or an all-electric drive with its heavy batteries. Plus, a gasoline engine could be stopped quickly and the submarine's interior was not as hot as the interior of the few foreign steam powered submarines. The offensive power came from only one underwater torpedo tube and two rather useless Zahlinski dynamite guns.

The NAVY selected the Holland design over the concept used by Simon Lake partly because the wheels bothered the NAVY; even though the Lake submarine design submitted to the NAVY (the boat was named PROTECTOR) had a better hull form for surface operation, a stronger hull, three torpedo tubes, and smoother diving characteristics.

More USN Technical History

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: First Submarine for US Navy
Part 3: Development Prior to WWI
Part 4: Development During WWI
Part 5: Post WWI Activity
Part 6: The "S" Class
Part 7: Pre-WWII Build-up and WWII Developments
Part 8: Radar and Countermeasures
Part 9: Post WWII
Part 10: Missiles, Subs, and the USS Albacore