A submarine (or simply sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater.

It
differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. It is also sometimes
used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and robots, as well as
medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine and the wet sub.

Although experimental submarines had been built before, submarine design took off during the
19th century, and they were adopted by several navies. Submarines were first widely used during
World War I (1914–1918), and are now used in many navies large and small. Military uses
include attacking enemy surface ships (merchant and military), attacking other submarines,
aircraft carrier protection, blockade running, ballistic missile submarines as part of a nuclear
strike force, reconnaissance, conventional land attack (for example using a cruise missile), and
covert insertion of special forces. Civilian uses for submarines include marine science, salvage,
exploration and facility inspection and maintenance. Submarines can also be modified to perform
more specialized functions such as search-and-rescue missions or undersea cable repair.
Submarines are also used in tourism, and for undersea archaeology.

Most large submarines consist of a cylindrical body with hemispherical (or conical) ends and a
vertical structure, usually located amidships, which houses communications and sensing devices
as well as periscopes. In modern submarines, this structure is the "sail" in American usage and
"fin" in European usage. A "conning tower" was a feature of earlier designs: a separate pressure
hull above the main body of the boat that allowed the use of shorter periscopes. There is a
propeller (or pump jet) at the rear, and various hydrodynamic control fins. Smaller, deep-diving
and specialty submarines may deviate significantly from this traditional layout. Submarines use
diving planes and also change the amount of water and air in ballast tanks to change buoyancy
for submerging and surfacing.

Submarines have one of the widest ranges of types and capabilities of any vessel. They range
from small autonomous examples and one- or two-person vessels that operate for a few hours, to
vessels that can remain submerged for six months—such as the Russian Typhoon class, the
biggest submarines ever built. Submarines can work at greater depths than are survivable or
practical for human divers.[1] Modern deep-diving submarines derive from the bathyscaphe,
which in turn evolved from the diving bell.

Contents
 1 History
o 1.1 Etymology
o 1.2 Early submersibles
o 1.3 18th century
o 1.4 19th century
 1.4.1 Mechanical power
o 1.5 20th century
 1.5.1 World War I
 1.5.2 World War II
  1.5.3 Cold-War military models
o 1.6 21st century
 2 Usage
o 2.1 Military
o 2.2 Civilian
o 2.3 Polar operations
 3 Technology
o 3.1 Submersion and trimming
o 3.2 Hull
 3.2.1 Overview
 3.2.2 Single and double hulls
 3.2.3 Pressure hull
o 3.3 Propulsion
 3.3.1 Diesel-electric
 3.3.2 Air-independent
 3.3.3 Nuclear power
 3.3.4 Alternative
o 3.4 Armament
o 3.5 Sensors
o 3.6 Navigation
o 3.7 Communication
o 3.8 Life support systems
 4 Crew
o 4.1 Women
o 4.2 Abandoning the vessel
 5 See also
o 5.1 By country
 6 References
 7 Bibliography
 8 External links

History
Main article: History of submarines

Etymology

Whereas the principal meaning of "submarine" is an armed, submersible warship, the more
general meaning is for any type of submersible craft.[2] The definition as of 1899 was for any
type of "submarine boat".[3] By naval tradition, submarines are still usually referred to as "boats"
rather than as "ships", regardless of their size.[4] In other navies with a history of large submarine
fleets they are also "boats"; in German it is an Unterseeboot[5] or U-Boot (under-sea boat)[6] and
in Russian it is a подводная лодка (underwater boat).[7]

Early submersibles
Drebbel, an early submersible craft, propelled by oars.

According to a report in Opusculum Taisnieri published in 1562:[8]

Two Greeks submerged and surfaced in the river Tagus near the City of Toledo several times in
the presence of The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, without getting wet and with the flame
they carried in their hands still alight.[9]

In 1578, the English mathematician William Bourne recorded in his book Inventions or Devises
one of the first plans for an underwater navigation vehicle. A few years later the Scottish
mathematician and theologian John Napier wrote in his Secret Inventions (1596) the following:
"These inventions besides devises of sayling under water with divers, other devises and
strategems for harming of the enemyes by the Grace of God and worke of expert Craftsmen I
hope to perform." It's unclear whether he ever carried out his idea.[10]

The first submersible of whose construction there exists reliable information was designed and
built in 1620 by Cornelis Drebbel, a Dutchman in the service of James I of England. It was
propelled by means of oars.[10]

18th century

By the mid-18th century, over a dozen patents for submarines/submersible boats had been
granted in England. In 1747, Nathaniel Symons patented and built the first known working
example of the use of a ballast tank for submersion. His design used leather bags that could fill
with water to submerge the craft. A mechanism was used to twist the water out of the bags and
cause the boat to resurface. In 1749, the Gentlemen's Magazine reported that a similar design had
initially been proposed by Giovanni Borelli in 1680. Further design improvement stagnated for
over a century, until application of new technologies for propulsion and stability.[11]

The first military submarine was the Turtle (1775), a hand-powered acorn-shaped device
designed by the American David Bushnell to accommodate a single person.[12] It was the first
verified submarine capable of independent underwater operation and movement, and the first to
use screws for propulsion.[13]