Development Of The Submarine :: essays research papers

Development of the SubmarineThroughout history, navies have made portentous impacts in the technologicaldevelopment of human kind. These impacts range from improvements in metaltechnologies made while perfecting the cannon to the advent of cybernetics,which allowed more(prenominal) precise targeting of weaponry. One of the more sophisticateddevelopments in naval history has been the invention of the submarine. Thesubmarine was born in 1620 as a leather-covered rowboat built by CorneliusDrebbel. After Robert Fulton came up with a more modern prototype in 1800, themilitary advantages of a nearly invisible warship were quickly divined. However,they remained unrealized for quite a while. Although Fulton plausibly foresawthat his invention would be used for war, he just now could have envisioned itlaunching projectiles with the capability to level entire countries. However,after a series of innovations in thermo thermonuclear missile and submarine designs, thesubmarine-launched ball istic missile has become an integral part of our navalweapons arsenal.To understand the need for the development of nuclear missile submarines, in that location is a need to examine the political climate of the world in the era afterWorld War II. The realignment of the superpowers after the war resulted in aunique situation. The two major naval powers of the day, Great Britain and theUnited States, were now allied against the greatest land power in history in theSoviet Union. In the period from 1955 to 1965, the advantage was heavily infavor of the U.S. As the United States had developed the atomic and hydrogenbombs first, they obviously gained a head fuck off which developed into a decisivenuclear advantage. This advantage acted as an effective deterrent to any Sovietmovement into Western Europe. However, as the Soviet nuclear arsenal expanded(mostly during the Kennedy administration), it became necessary to effect abalance in the area of conventional warfare or to make more inroa ds in nuclearweapons development. Before this could be accomplished, however, advancements insubmarine technology had to made as well.The submarines of World War II, although effective in their roles, wererather primitive. A noisy, slow, shallow-diving sub would hardly be a capablemissile submarine as it could be easily detected and destroyed. Even so, beforethe end of the war, there were intelligence reports in America that the GermanNavy had developed a U-boat capable of towing or carrying V-2 rockets to launchsites near the U.S. east coast. Although these reports turned out to be false,the Germans had been ontogeny a type of submersible barge to tow V-2s. Thisscare prompted the American development of ballistic missile submarines.