No one has ever claimed that life aboard a U.S. Navy ship was luxurious. Even on the most advanced warships on the planet life can still be cramped. Though today amenities are much improved, the sailors patrolling the oceans in World War II had a much different life than their modern counterparts.

For one thing, the submarines of World War II were much smaller. Though only about 60 feet shorter than a modern submarine, the Gato and Balao-class submarines the U.S. Navy operated in World War II had a displacement of only about one third that of modern Virginia class submarines.

In that small space, the submariners — some 60 to 80 in all — had to store themselves, their gear, and provisions for 75 days.

Each crewmember had only about one cubic foot of personal storage space aboard the sub. Each crewmember also had a bunk, scattered throughout the many compartments of the boat, including in the torpedo rooms. As many as 14 men crammed into the forward torpedo room along with 16 torpedoes.

A submarine of that size simply could not fit all of the necessary provisions for a long war patrol in the appropriate spaces. To accommodate, the crew stashed boxes of food and other things anywhere they would fit — the showers, the engine room, even on the deck until there was space inside to fit it all.

There was one upside though. Because of the dangerous and grueling nature of submarine duty, the Navy did its best to ensure that submariners got the best food the Navy had to offer. They also found room to install an ice cream freezer as a small luxury for the crew.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time or space to enjoy that food. Most of the time the men were lucky to get ten minutes to eat as the boat’s three “shifts” all had to pass through the tiny galley in a short amount of time.

The serving of food was often times also dictated by restrictions on the submarines movements. Submarines were under strict orders not to surface during the day when they were within 500 miles of a Japanese airfield in order to avoid aerial observation and attack. In the early days of the war in the Pacific this meant just about everywhere as the Japanese were in control of vast swaths of territory and ocean.

This meant that the submarines stayed submerged during the day and only surfaced at night. In order to compensate, many crews flipped their schedules doing their normal daily routines at night. The crews called this “going into reversa.” This allowed the crew to take advantage of the time the sub was on the surface.

This was important because once the submarine dove after running its diesel engines for hours, the boat would quickly heat up. The engine room temperature could soar to over 100 degrees before spreading throughout the sub. Combine that with the 80 men working and breathing and the air inside could quickly become foul.

The men knew the air was getting bad when they had trouble lighting their cigarettes due to the lack of oxygen (oh the irony).

To make matters worse, there was little water available for bathing and on long patrols most men only showered about every ten days or so. Laundry was out of the question. Because of these conditions submarines developed a unique smell– a combination of diesel fuel, sweat, cigarettes, hydraulic fluid, cooking, and sewage.

On older submarines, the World War I-era S-boats — often referred to as pigboats — the conditions were even worse. Without proper ventilation, the odors were even stronger. This also led to mold and mildew throughout the boat as well as rather large cockroaches that the crews could never quite seem to eradicate.

If the conditions themselves weren’t bad enough, the crews then had to sail their boats into hostile waters, often alone, to attack the enemy.

Submarines often targeted shipping boats, but sometimes would find themselves tangling with enemy surface vessels. Once a sub was spotted, the enemy ships would move in for the kill with depth charges.

Of the 263 submarines that made war patrols in World War II, 41 of them were lost to enemy action while another eleven were lost to accidents or other reasons. This was nearly one out of every five submarines, making the job of submariner one of the most dangerous of the war.

A further danger the submarines faced was being the target of their own torpedoes. Due to issues with the early Mk. 14 torpedo that was used, it had a tendency to make a circular run and come back to strike the sub that fired it. At least one submarine, the USS Tang, was sunk this way.

Despite the dangers, American submarines performed admirably. In the Pacific, American crews sank almost 1,400 Japanese ships of different types, totaling more than 5.5 million tons.

They also rescued 504 downed airmen from the sea. Submarines also evacuated key individuals from danger areas, including the U.S. High Commissioner and President Quezon from the Philippines.

On special missions, submarines landed reconnaissance parties on enemy shores, and in a few cases used their 5” deck guns to bombard enemy positions.

The bravery of the submarines was well-known in World War II. Presidential Unit Citations were awarded 36 times to submarine crews. Seven submarine skippers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions at sea.

American submariners in World War II set a tradition of duty and bravery that is carried on by American submarine crews today.

SEE ALSO: Welcome to the boneyard, where US Air Force birds go to die

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Watch President Obama tear up while addressing Michelle in his farewell speech

The Pentagon and the U.S. Navy must increase submarines, strengthen the surface fleet size and build new smaller, more agile carrier-type ships -- as as part of a broader effort to rethink the way it constructs the American fleet for future conflicts and operations, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA) contends in a just-released report.  

“Today’s approach of using large, high-end platforms such as aircraft carriers to support the whole range of naval operations will not be effective at providing the prompt, survivable, high-capacity firepower that might be required to deter aggression in the South or East China Seas,” CSBA says in its report, CSBA “Restoring American Seapower, A New Fleet Architecture for The United States Navy,” released Feb. 9.

The CSBA does not recommend the U.S. abandon its carrier-centric force altogether, but says the Navy needs to focus more on submarines and calls for a resurgence of the surface fleet. The report also calls for a new smaller carrier-sized ship.

“It may be better to rely upon submarines and surface combatants as the primary instruments of deterrence and reassurance and deploy aircraft carriers from the open ocean where they can maneuver to engage the enemy once aggression occurs,” CSBA says.

While the study does not call for a decrease in the current numbers of carriers, it does maintain that smaller, more maneuverable type carriers might make certain high-risk missions more plausible in light of emerging threats such as long-range anti-ship missiles and enemy coastal defenses. 

The report cites growing international naval competition as a reason for altered strategy.

“Today the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) Navy (PLAN) boasts the second largest fleet in the world, with a large portion of ships built in the last decade. The PLA includes a rapidly modernizing air force in addition to a Rocket Force (formerly the Second Artillery Corps) that deploys a wide array of conventional land-attack and anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) as well as the country’s nuclear arsenal,” CSBA notes.

“Combined with China’s long-range surveillance network of satellites and shore-based radars and sensors, these forces create a formidable reconnaissance-strike complex that can threaten U.S. and allied forces on or above the water hundreds of miles from China’s borders,” the report says.

The old nuclear trump card may come up short now, too.

“An American nuclear response would likely further damage the international and political systems upon which American prosperity depends,” CSBA says.

“Therefore, adversaries may no longer find U.S. nuclear deterrence to be credible in these situations, making effective conventional deterrence necessary.”

A return, the CSBA says, to the “deny-and-punish” approach used during the Cold War to deterrence will increase America’s reliance on forward-postured forces—particularly naval forces.

“American aircraft, troops, ships, sensors, and weapons would need to be postured in proximity to a likely area of confrontation,” CSBA says.

“The United States, and U.S. naval forces in particular, will need to return to their Cold War deterrence concept of denying an aggressor’s success or immediately punishing the aggressor to compel it to stop. Compared to the Cold War, however, naval forces in the 2030s will face a more challenging threat environment and more constrained timelines. They will have to adopt new operational approaches to deter under these conditions.”

But, CSBA says, the current strategy remains focused on “efficiently sustaining forward presence rather than posturing and preparing forces to deter and respond to great power aggression.”

A new course will require more than just altered thinking.

And some others are on board. For example, in a recent white paper, Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recommends a “$640 billion base national defense budget (including Department of Energy nuclear activities) in Fiscal Year 2018, which is $54 billion above (former) President Obama’s planned budget. Over five years, this plan represents a $430 billion increase above current plans/”

McCain says, “These recommendations should be regarded as reasoned estimates.

Today, the U.S. Navy is 274 ships. This was already short of the joint force requirement of 308 ships. And that was before the Chief of Naval Operations announced that the Navy should grow to 355 ships to address the growing fleet sizes and capabilities of our adversaries.”

Whatever the right fleet size ultimately is, McCain says, the “key objective for the next five years is the same: The Navy must ramp up shipbuilding. It is unrealistic to deliver 81 ships by 2022.”

SEE ALSO: Iran's president issues veiled warning to Trump over 'threatening language'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: NASA just released over 100 images of Pluto — and the footage is breathtaking

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Last week, President Donald J. Trump chose the deck of the newest U.S. aircraft carrier, the $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford, for a speech extolling his planned boost in military spending.

Trump vowed that the newest generation of “Ford Class” carriers - the most expensive warships ever built - will remain the centerpiece of projecting American power abroad.

“We're going to soon have more coming,” Trump told an enthusiastic audience of sailors, declaring the new carriers so big and solidly built that they were immune to attack.

Trump vowed to expand the number of carriers the United States fields from 10 to 12. And he promised to bring down the cost of building three “super-carriers,” which has ballooned by a third over the last decade from $27 to $36 billion.

The Gerald R. Ford alone is $2.5 billion over budget and three years behind schedule, military officials say. The second Ford-class carrier, the John F. Kennedy, is running five years late.

Trump's expansion plans come as evidence mounts that potential enemies have built new anti-ship weapons able to destroy much of the United States’ expensive fleet of carriers. And as they have been for decades, carriers remain vulnerable to submarines.

In a combat exercise off the coast of Florida in 2015, a small French nuclear submarine, the Saphir, snuck through multiple rings of defenses and “sank” the U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and half of its escort ships. In other naval exercises, even old-fashioned diesel-electric submarines have beaten carriers.

All told, since the early 1980s, U.S. and British carriers have been sunk at least 14 times in so-called “free play” war games meant to simulate real battle, according to think tanks, foreign navies and press accounts. The exact total is unknown because the Navy classifies exercise reports.

Today, the United States is the only country to base its naval strategy on aircraft carriers. The U.S. fleet of 10 active carriers is 10 times as big as those deployed by its primary military rivals, Russia and China, who field one active carrier each.

Roger Thompson, a defense analyst and professor at Kyung Hee University in South Korea, says the array of powerful anti-ship weapons developed in recent years by potential U.S. enemies, including China, Russia and Iran, increase carriers’ vulnerability.

The new weapons include land-based ballistic missiles, such as China’s Dong Feng-21 anti-ship missile, which has a claimed range of 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) and moves at 10 times the speed of sound. Certain Russian and Chinese submarines can fire salvoes of precision-guided cruise missiles from afar, potentially overwhelming carrier-fleet anti-missile defense.

Russia, China, Iran and other countries also have so-called super-cavitating torpedoes. These form an air bubble in front of them, enabling them to travel at hundreds of miles per hour. The torpedoes cannot be guided, but if aimed straight at a ship they are difficult to avoid.

A 2015 Rand Corporation report, “Chinese Threats to U.S. Surface Ships,” found that if hostilities broke out, “the risks to U.S. carriers are substantial and rising.”

“Beyond a shadow of a doubt, a carrier is just a target,” says defense analyst Pierre Sprey, who worked for the U.S. Secretary of Defense’s office from 1966 to 1986 and is a longtime critic of U.S. weapons procurement.

Defending carriers

Navy leaders stand by the carrier. In an interview late last year, Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, lauded carriers’ versatility. Swift says they remain “very viable,” sufficiently impregnable to be sent into the thick of combat zones.

Swift said he would order carriers into close battle “in a heartbeat.” Nevertheless, citing the new anti-ship weapons, Swift says the carrier “is not as viable as it was 15 years ago.”

Trump has said he will make good on his campaign promise to increase the Navy's fleet to 350 ships. The Navy currently has 277 deployable ships. The cost of a single new, Ford-class carrier — $10.5 billion without cost overruns — would consume nearly 20 percent of Trump’s proposed $54 billion increase in next year's defense budget.

Some critics, including former senior Defense Department personnel, say Washington has put too much of the country’s defense budget into a handful of expensive, vulnerable carriers.

At a naval symposium in 2010, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called into question making such big investments in a few increasingly sinkable ships. Gates said “a Ford-class carrier plus its full complement of the latest aircraft would represent potentially $15 billion to $20 billion worth of hardware at risk.”

The Navy, with the backing of Congress, went ahead nevertheless. The program has strong Congressional backing. In the 1990s, when defense spending was cut after the end of the Cold War, Congress enacted a law requiring the Navy to maintain an 11-carrier fleet.

Congress has given the Navy a temporary exemption to have 10 active carriers while one is overhauled. When the Ford is commissioned, it will bring the U.S. carrier fleet to 11.

Trump did not specify in his speech how he would bring the carrier fleet to 12. But he said the Ford-class carriers would be invulnerable to attack because they represent the best in American know-how.

“There is no competition to this ship,” declared Trump, who called the Gerald R. Ford American craftsmanship “at its biggest, at its best, at its finest.”

Failing systems

Trump did not mention that the ship’s builder, Huntington Ingalls Industries, launched the Ford more than three years ago, but the Navy has yet to commission it and put it into service because of severe flaws. Many of its new high tech systems failed to work, including such basic ones as the “arresting gear” that catches and stops landing jets.

The Navy says the ship will be commissioned sometime this year. But the criticism has continued.

In a written statement in July, John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, noted the cost overruns and cited a list of crucial malfunctioning systems that remained unfixed. “The Ford-class program is a case study in why our acquisition system must be reformed,” McCain wrote.

Ray Mabus, who in January stepped down as secretary of the Navy, said in an interview that the Gerald R. Ford “is a poster child for how not to build a ship.” He added: “Everything that could have been done wrong was done wrong.”

Mabus said that because of commitments made before he became Navy secretary, the Ford was loaded with high-tech equipment that had not even been designed yet.

He also faulted awarding the shipbuilder a “cost plus” contract, under which it gets a fixed profit regardless of how much it costs to build the vessel.

“There was no incentive to hold down costs,” Mabus said.

Others criticize carriers as strategically flawed. Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy captain and Defense Department official, is now director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security. Carriers, he said in an email exchange, give Washington’s rivals a cheap opportunity to score big. For the cost of a single carrier, he calculates, a rival can deploy 1,227 anti-carrier missiles.

“The enemy can build a lot more missiles than we can carriers for equivalent investments,” Hendrix said, “and hence overwhelm our defensive capabilities.”

The most commonly proposed alternative to carriers is building a much larger number of smaller, nimbler vessels, including submarines and surface ships. Submarines don’t require escorts and can hit distant targets on land. And carriers have not been tested in battle against an enemy able to fight back since World War II — more than 70 years ago.

The Navy and some outside defense experts say that despite increased threats, carriers remain fully viable and perform an essential service. They laud carriers’ mobility and swiftness, enabling the United States to project air power to places otherwise unreachable.

Carrier proponent Bryan McGrath, the deputy director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower in Washington, said carriers are less vulnerable than stationary, land-based air bases.

“A carrier is a big floating airport, and not only a floating airport, but it moves at 40 knots,” says McGrath, a former captain of a guided missile destroyer. “How much more vulnerable are airfields on land that don’t move?”

But Sprey, the former Defense Department official and longtime Pentagon procurement critic, says carriers waste funds that could be used to build more cost-effective weapons systems.

“Every Ford-class carrier we build detracts from U.S. defense,” Sprey said.

Limited protection

Both strong supporters of carriers as well as opponents agreed that there is a serious flaw in the current configuration of U.S. carriers: their complement of strike aircraft. Almost all are short-range jets, the F-18 Hornet, whose range could render the planes useless in some conflicts.

The Chinese, in particular, have established sea zones bristling with anti-ship weapons meant to make it impossible for enemy flotillas to enter.

Top U.S Navy commanders, including Pacific commander Swift and Vice Admiral Mike Shoemaker, the Navy “Air Boss” in charge of carriers, say carriers could safely enter such zones long enough to carry out a mission. But many outside analysts say a U.S. president would be hesitant to risk such an expensive ship and the lives of up to 5,500 crew members.

In order to be relatively safe, a carrier would have to stand off by 1,300 nautical miles, or 2,300 kilometers — out of range of the Dong Feng missiles. And the F-18s have a range of only 400 nautical miles (equal to 460 statute miles or 740 kilometers) to a target with enough fuel to return.

Experts on both sides of the debate say that if the carriers have to stand off, the Hornets would have to be refueled in midair an impractical number of times while flying to and from their targets. It thus would be all but impossible for carriers to send air power into war zones.

The F-18s are to be replaced by 2020 with new F-35C Lightning IIs, but these have only a marginally better range of 650 nautical miles.

The Hudson Institute’s McGrath, who champions carriers, says the short-range jets impair the mission.

“What they (the Navy) haven’t done yet is to design and fund a strike aircraft that can fly 1,000 miles, drop its bombs and come home,” McGrath said.

The cost of carriers in terms of strategy and money is multiplied because carriers do not travel alone. For protection, they move with large escorts, making every “carrier strike group” a virtual armada.

Each carrier usually has an escort of at least five warships, a mixture of destroyers and cruisers, at least one submarine and a combined ammunition-supply ship and helicopters designed to detect subs. When close enough to shore, carriers are also protected by new, land-based P-8 Poseidon jets, designed to detect and destroy subs.

Old threats

For carrier commanders, the most feared weapon is a 150-year-old one. A single, submarine-launched torpedo could send a carrier to the bottom.

Most modern torpedoes aren’t targeted to hit ships. Instead they are programmed to explode underneath. This creates an air bubble that lifts the ship into the air and drops it, breaking the hull.

For decades, critics have faulted the Navy for failing to develop effective defenses against modern torpedoes. A 2016 report by the Pentagon’s Office of Operational Test and Evaluation said the Navy has recently made significant progress, but the systems still have crucial deficiencies.

Experts also say that carriers are at risk from updated versions of one of the oldest naval vessels still in use: the diesel-electric submarine. These were the subs used in both World Wars.

Diesel-electric subs have the advantage of being small — and while on electric power, silent, and in general quieter and harder to detect than nuclear subs.

Diesel-electric subs are also far cheaper to build than nuclear ones. Allies and rivals have been building large numbers of them. Worldwide, more than 230 diesel-electric subs are in use. China has 83 in use, while Russia has 19.

Hendrix, the former Defense Department official, says the carriers' vulnerabilities make the fleet a profligate use of money, vessels and aircraft.

“We have paid billions of dollars to build ships that are largely defensive in their orientation, thus taking away from the offensive power of the fleet,” Hendrix says. “In the end, we spend a lot of money on defense to send 44 strike aircraft off the front end of a carrier.” 

(By Scot Paltrow; editing by David Rohde.)

SEE ALSO: US Marines just deployed on the ground inside Syria

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: China conducts a live-fire military exercise with its first aircraft carrier

A sub christened Boaty McBoatface after a public vote to name a research ship is set to embark on its first polar mission.

Boaty, a new type of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), is to investigate water flow and turbulence in the dark depths of the Orkney Passage, in Antarctica, a 3.5 kilometre (2.17 miles) deep region of the Southern Ocean.

The minisub got its name after the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) asked members of the public to decide what to call a new polar research ship.

The people spoke - and by a huge majority voted for the name Boaty McBoatface.

Embarrassed officials rejected that choice and instead named the £200 million ship after broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.

But as a nod to the democratic process, they allowed silliness to prevail by preserving the name for a remotely operated submersible.

Boaty will travel with the DynOPO (Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow) expedition on the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) research ship James Clark Ross, departing from Punta Arenas in Chile on March 17.

The craft will be sent back and forth through a cold abyssal current that forms an important part of the global circulation of ocean water.

Lead scientist Professor Alberto Naveira Garabato, from the University of Southampton, said: "The Orkney Passage is a key choke-point to the flow of abyssal waters in which we expect the mechanism linking changing winds to abyssal water warming to operate.

"We will measure how fast the streams flow, how turbulent they are, and how they respond to changes in winds over the Southern Ocean.

"Our goal is to learn enough about these convoluted processes to represent them in the models that scientists use to predict how our climate will evolve over the 21st century and beyond."

BAS oceanographer and co-investigator Dr Povl Abrahamsen said: "The DynOPO project will provide us with a unique, high-resolution dataset combining moored and moving instruments, which will help us get to the bottom of the complex physical processes occurring in this important region."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A body-language expert analyzes Trump's unique handshakes

An all-out fight may be the only real way to compare military strength, but fortunately, the world hasn't had many opportunities lately.  

Despite an increasingly tense situation in the South China Sea, continued fighting in Ukraine, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, warfare between nation-states has mostly taken a backseat to peacekeeping missions and fights against terror groups.

Still, a simple evaluation of pure military power can be interesting, so we turned to the Global Firepower Index, a ranking of 106 nations based on more than 50 factors — including each country's military budget, manpower, and the amount of equipment each country has in its respective arsenal, and its natural resources.

It's important to note the index focuses on quantity while ignoring significant qualitative differences. For example, North Korea's 70 submarines are old and decidedly low-tech compared to what the US and others have. The index doesn't take into account nuclear stockpiles, which are still the ultimate trump card in geopolitics. And it doesn't penalize landlocked nations for lack of a standing navy.

We've created a chart to compare the top 25 militaries according to the Global Firepower Index. The ranking was released in April (before events like the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine in August, ISIS's blitz through Iraq, and the flare-up between Israel and Hamas) and involves a complex set of data that is subject to ongoing adjustments and corrections.

The US leads the world in military spending at nearly $600 billion a year. China is in a distant second, at nearly $160 billion — less than one-third of America's overall spending. 

According to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US has reduced its defense budget by 7.8% chiefly because of America's gradual withdrawal in overseas military operations, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, President Donald Trump's proposed budget would effectively reverse that downward trend.

Russia, meanwhile, has increased its arms spending and continues to modernize its military equipment and implement higher quality training for its personnel.

Aircraft carriers are key, but few countries have even one.

Aircraft carriers contribute greatly to a country's overall military strength. These massive vessels allow nations to project force far beyond their borders and across the entire face of the globe. They're essentially mobile naval and air force bases.

Aircraft carriers can also carry unmanned aerial systems — drones — which significantly change the global surveillance game.

The US's absolute monopoly on super-carriers significantly boosts its forward operating power. The US has deployed an aircraft carrier toward the Persian Gulf to bolster its sea and air power before possible strikes against ISIS in Iraq. It also has others keeping a close on the Korean peninsula.

Russia has previously deployed an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean to support the Assad government in Syria.

North Korea's submarines are pretty much useless.

At first look, it seems North Korea is amazing when it comes to submarine warfare, but there's a little more to the story.

Pyongyang does command one of the largest submarine fleets on earth, but most of its vessels are unusable.

A third of North Korea's subs are noisy diesel-powered Romeos, which have been obsolete since 1961. These submarines have a weapons range of only four miles, whereas a modern US submarine has a range of 150 miles. The Hermit Kingdom's fleet is unsophisticated but still durable, according to the Pentagon.

In a fight with a more sophisticated adversary, North Korean subs would be toast.

A previous version of this article was written by Amanda Macias.

SEE ALSO: MAP: All 17,000 Of The World's Nukes

Join the conversation about this story »

The Global Firepower Index is a ranking of 106 nations' militaries based on over 50 factors. Using data from the index, We broke down the most powerful militaries in the world based on factors including the number of active personnel, tanks, and aircraft. 

Click here for a more detailed breakdown of the rankings. 

Join the conversation about this story »

Just how deep does the ocean go? Way further than you think. This animation puts the actual distance into perspective, showing a vast distance between the waves we see and the mysterious point we call Challenger Deep.

Follow Tech Insider: On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian navy says its submarines have increased combat patrols to the level last seen during the Cold War.

The navy chief, Adm. Vladimir Korolyov, said Friday in remarks carried by state RIA Novosti news agency that Russian submarine crews spent more than 3,000 days on patrol last year, matching the Soviet-era operational tempo.

Korolyov spoke after attending the launch of a new Yasen-class nuclear-powered attack submarine called the Kazan.

The Russian military had fallen on hard times after the 1991 Soviet collapse when it was forced to scrap many relatively new ships and keep most others at harbor for lack of funds. The military has revived its strength thanks to a sweeping arms modernization program amid tensions with the West over Ukraine.

SEE ALSO: The US Air Force may pay pilots nearly a half-million dollars to stay in uniform

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Top foreign policy expert: 'Get over this idea of assuming that Russia is going to be benign'

The HyperSub is a combination of a speedboat and submarine, capable of reaching 38 mph and lasting up to 12 hours underwater on a single charge. 

Join the conversation about this story »

The US Navy’s Pacific fleet used to mock Chinese submarines for being too noisy and too easy to detect, but that has largely been remedied in recent years and China is now on the cusp of taking the lead in a cutting-edge propulsion technology.

Naval experts said the new technology would help China build more elusive submarines, but might also prompt the United States to ramp up anti-submarine warfare measures.

In a recent interview with China Central Television, Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, a leading Chinese naval engineer, showed a component of a new Integrated Electrical Propulsion System (IEPS) for naval warships in a laboratory. He said the system, which turns all the engine’s output into electricity, and a rim-driven pump-jet had been fitted to the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s newest nuclear submarines.

“This is one of our work team’s first world-leading projects, which has been used on [China’s] next-generation nuclear submarines,” Ma said in May. “[Our technology] is now way ahead of the United States, which has also been developing similar technology.”

Ma’s exalted status in the PLA Navy was highlighted by a photograph of then navy commander Admiral Wu Shengli holding an umbrella for Ma during an inspection of the PLA Naval University of Engineering in Wuhan, where Ma works, on a rainy day in June last year. The photo, posted on the social media website of the PLA’s Navy Magazine, sparked public curiosity about why the commander would give such “preferential treatment” to a rear admiral.

Ma told CCTV “the ultimate goal” of developing the new propulsion system “was aimed at solving the problem of deploying high-energy radio-frequency (HERF) weapons on board”, hinting that China was close to emulating the US in that regard.

HERF, a form of directed-energy weapon, can fire highly focused energy at a target, damaging it accurately and quickly. Directed-energy weapons require vast amount of electricity – something IEPS can deliver – and can counter the threats posed by fast missiles such as ballistic missiles, hypersonic cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles. Besides China, the US, Russia and India are also developing them.

The CCTV report did not say which types of Chinese submarines would use the pump-jet propulsion system, but mainland military websites said they believed Ma had hinted at the new-generation, nuclear-powered Type 095 attack submarines and Type 096 ballistic missile submarines.

Collin Koh Swee Lean, a submarine expert from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said Ma’s remark showcased the growing scientific and technological maturity of China’s submarine development.

“In the long term, if the pump-jet propulsion is declared fully operational and tested successfully ... future [Chinese] submarines would be equipped with pump-jet propulsion as a standard design feature,” he said, adding that the new technology would also benefit other naval shipbuilding projects, such as surface warships.

“The operational/strategic ramifications would be that China would muster stealthier submarines ... and this essentially broadens various options for Beijing where it comes to the peacetime use of its naval capabilities.”

A rim-driven pump-jet has a ring-shaped electrical motor inside the pump-jet shroud, which turns the vane rotor inside the pump-jet cavity to create thrust. The design reduces noise by removing the shaft and also creates fewer water bubbles, making it even quieter.

Modern American and British submarines already use pump-jet propulsion, but Koh said the technology had not been adopted more widely because its design was complex, and just a few countries could support the technology with “a good deal of funding and technical expertise”.

Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie said China had put a lot of resources and encouragement into developing cutting-edge technologies, including the pump-jet, air-independent propulsion (AIP) for non-nuclear submarines and other measures as part of its efforts to make Chinese submarines stealthier.

“Both the ultra-quiet engine and AIP will help Chinese subs to elude foes as high concealment is very important to all nuclear attack subs,” Li said. “Quieter subs means stronger stealth capability, which will help them to conduct surprise attacks when necessary.”

China has built Asia’s largest submarine base at Yulin, on the south coast of Hainan, near Sanya. The base features underground submarine facilities with tunnel access, shielding Chinese submarines that enter the South China Sea from the prying eyes of US reconnaissance satellites. That’s prompted American warships and aircraft to conduct more close surveillance operations in the disputed waters, which are claimed wholly or in part by mainland China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Koh warned it was foreseeable that the US Navy would ramp up anti-submarine warfare measures to detect, classify and track Chinese submarines if they were harder to detect after being fitted with pump-jet propulsion and other stealth equipment.

“This more intensified cat-and-mouse game would also result in the risk of underwater accidents ... between submarines or with surface ships,” he said. “The quieter the submarine is, the greater the likelihood of such navigational safety hazards and, potentially, they could cause diplomatic incidents in the context of those maritime disputes and of course, the persistent Sino-US divergence in views over foreign military activities in coastal states’ exclusive economic zones. ”

The Chinese navy is likely to begin construction of the Type 096 submarines, which will be armed with 24 JL-3 intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missiles, in the early 2020s, according to the Pentagon’s annual report to the US Congress this year.

Ma, 57, became a household name in 2011 when he announced during a speech to accept a national technology award that his team had successfully developed a Chinese electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS).

Ma, a PLA deputy to the National People’s Congress, has since been asked by the media at the annual sessions of the national legislature when his EMALS will be fitted to China’s next-generation aircraft carriers.

“I am very unhappy because I have no power to decide when my EMALS will be used,” a frank Ma told reporters on the sidelines of this year’s NPC session in Beijing in March. “But I dare to tell you that the EMALS developed by my working team is more advanced and reliable than the US system to be used on their Ford-class aircraft carrier.”

The first of America’s Ford-class carriers, the first US vessel to use EMALS, completed sea trials in May.

Sources close to the navy told the South China Morning Post earlier this year that Ma’s EMALS might be fitted on China’s third-generation nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Type 003. However, the Central Military Commission, chaired by Xi, has not decided when the Type 003 will be built, and construction work has not yet started on the second-generation Type 002.

The PLA Navy has two aircraft carriers, the Liaoning, a refitted Soviet carrier commissioned in 2012, and the domestically built Type 001A, which was launched on April 26. They are both conventionally powered platforms featuring ski-jump take-off ramps.

Xi has urged the PLA to pursue a “strong army dream”, but when asked by the Post whether he hoped to see his EMALS fitted to a Chinese aircraft carrier one day, Ma said he “never has any dreams” and was focused on finding practical projects for his team that would release its potential.

“Whether the new technologies will be used never bothers me, because I’ve found that my task is to cultivate talent, meaning I have to create more opportunities for them and help them solve problems,” Ma said. “For example, compared with the US, China couldn’t devote as much funding to developing the electromagnetic aircraft launch system and advanced arresting gear (AAG) system, but I understood that our valuable resource was that I could mobilise my hundreds of talented students.”

SEE ALSO: China just launched its 'new generation' naval destroyer

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An Alabama high school 'resegregated' after years of being a model of integration — here's what happened after

China’s first nuclear submarine was developed with the aid of an abacus, according to the scientist who led the project in the late 1950s.

Now 93, Huang Xuhua, chief designer of the Long March-1, said he still owns one of the suanpan [abacuses] that were used by his team almost 60 years ago, Chutian Metropolis Daily reported on Monday.

“Lots of critical data used in the development of the nuclear submarine jumped out from this suanpan,” he was quoted as saying.

Often referred to as the “Father of China’s nuclear subs,” Huang worked for China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, which had several abacus calculation teams divided into specialist sections, he said.

Scientists “attacked the beads [on their abacuses] until every section reached the same result,” he said, adding that the constant clattering was enough to make entire buildings “rattle from dawn until dusk.”

The Chinese abacus dates back to about 200BC. Traditional designs featured a bamboo frame with beads that could be pushed up or down. Even today, skilled users can perform mathematical calculations on them as quickly as they can on a calculator.

Zhang Jinlan, one of the experts currently working on nuclear submarines at China Shipbuilding Industry Corp, said that for designers working today, trying to build a vessel using an abacus would be a “mission impossible,” the report said.

“This is not simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but involves algorithms and models with sophisticated mathematical language, such as trigonometric functions and logarithms,” he was quoted as saying.

Huang, however, said that by doing the calculations by hand he and his fellow scientists were able to overcome many challenging technical issues. Such was their success that they came up with five original designs in a period of just three months, the report said.

The first Long March-1 was completed in 1970 and went into military service four years later. It was retired last year and is now on exhibition at a naval museum in Qingdao, eastern China’s Shandong province.

SEE ALSO: China is building submarines that could soon be quieter than US ones

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pakistan says it has fired its first submarine-launched nuclear-capable missile

India has contacted six foreign shipyards with a formal request for information about building six nonnuclear submarines.

The request comes as part of Project 75I, a program worth over $12 billion, according to Defense News.

New Delhi asked shipyards in Russia, France, Japan, and Germany, among others, for information about six submarines equipped with air-independent-propulsion systems, which allow nonnuclear subs to operate without access to atmospheric oxygen, replacing or augmenting diesel-electric systems.

New Delhi is seeking "a proven, effective, state-of-the-art, electric heavyweight torpedo; a land attack missile, and perhaps even an underwater-to-air missile against enemy helicopters and mines," Anil Jai Singh, a retired Indian navy commodore and defense analyst, told Defense News.

Once a response is received from interested shipyards, India will issue a formal request for proposal, then put three or four of the shipyards on a shortlist.

It will be a multiyear process, in part because of New Delhi's Strategic Partner policy, under which a foreign shipyard will be paired with a domestic one in order to compete for the contract.

One contractor told Defense News that the strategic-partner selection should be done by 2019. Another analyst and retired Indian navy officer said it could be "a good seven to eight years after a deal is signed" before the first sub build under the P75I program hits the water.

India's interest in submarines comes as China's growth has increased traffic in the Indian Ocean and through the narrow Malacca Strait connecting it to the waters of East Asia, both above and below the water.

India has been tracking Chinese submarines entering the Indian Ocean since 2013, and a 2015 US Defense Department report confirmed that Chinese attack and missile submarines were operating there.

China has framed its activity in the Indian Ocean and along the African coast as focused on non-military operations, including humanitarian aid, emergency missions, and anti-piracy patrols.

Indeed, the 550-mile-long Malacca Strait, bordered by Indonesia's and Malaysia's jungle shorelines, has become a hotspot for pirates eyeing the 50,000 ships that pass through it each year.

But that activity — coupled with Beijing's growing economic activity in Africa as well as the numerous facilities and alliances it has established along the coast of South Asia — have made India and others wary.

"The pretext is anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden," an Indian defense source told The Times of India in May. "But what role can submarines play against pirates and their dhows?"

India has already posted warships near the Malacca Strait to monitor maritime activity and has US-made P-8I Poseidon surveillance planes stationed on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an archipelago northwest of the Malacca Strait where India plans to expand its security presence.

The US has agreed to sell New Delhi surveillance drones that could be paired with the Poseidons and used to track Chinese maritime movements in the area — including those of submarines. It is also working to build radar stations on islands in the Indian Ocean and an "undersea wall" of sensors between southern India and northern Indonesia.

China, which is heavily reliant on imported fuel, got about 80% of its oil imports and 11% of natural-gas imports from ships transiting the Malacca Strait. The Tribune of India reported in June that India's activity around the strait was "part of the target given to the Navy to ensure its dominance in the Indian Ocean by 2020."

India's growing focus on submarines and submarine warfare was underscored during the Malabar 2017 naval exercises, conducted with the US and Japan in mid-July. Anti-submarine warfare was one of the exercise's components.

New Delhi's increasing focus on its southern approaches and the broader Indian Ocean come in contrast to centuries of attention paid to security threats at and around its northern boundaries (India and China are currently embroiled in a dispute over territory on the China-Bhutan border.)

"This is a tectonic shift in India’s security calculus, that it has to protect its southern flank," Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, told The New York Times.

China — which recently dispatched troops to its first overseas base in Djibouti, sent warships to naval exercises with Russia in the Baltic Sea, and deployed a surveillance ship to observe US-Australia naval drills — has reacted to developments in the region with dismay.

An editorial published this month in the state-run newspaper China Daily said Beijing is the one"that should feel 'security concerns,' given the importance of the Indian Ocean for its trade and oil imports."

SEE ALSO: 15 photos of Malabar 2017: US, India, and Japan's war games held amid China's growing influence

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pakistan says it has fired its first submarine-launched nuclear-capable missile

The US Navy has 3D printed a prototype submarine hull at the Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee. It could be in service by 2019. The departments of Defense and Energy collaborated on the project.

Video courtesy of: Oak Ridge National Lab

Follow Tech Insider:On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

It usually takes the Navy around five months to build even the smallest submarines to ferry Navy SEALs into and out of combat zones — but thanks to new technology, the Navy’s most elite warfighters could slap together a submersible hull in just a few weeks.

That’s the promise behind the Optionally Manned Technology Demonstrator (OMTD), the U.S. military’s first 3D-printed submarine hull, unveiled by the Navy on July 24. Fabricated by the high-tech Big Area Additive Manufacturing 3D printing machine at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the 30-foot submersible hull was inspired by the SEAL Delivery Vehicles used by the branch and U.S. Special Operations Command to deploy Navy special warriors and their gear into particularly dangerous areas.

But while a traditional SEAL submarines cost up to $800,000 apiece and take three to five months to manufacture, six carbon-fiber composite sections of the OTMD took less than a month and only $60,000 to assemble, according to the Department of Energy — a shift that the Navy claims could massively reduce production costs.

The Department of Defense and global defense industry have put a premium on 3D printing (or “additive manufacturing,” if you want to be technical) for years, ranging from Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center’s fabricated “RAMBO” grenade launcher to portable printing units designed to help Marines repair essential gear faster downrange.

But the OTMD, apparently now the Navy’s largest 3D printed asset, represents a massive leap forward in terms of “on-demand” manufacturing. Rather than slap together expensive and time-consuming materiel requests during the long federal budgeting process, military personnel could simply fabricate vehicles and supplies on demand to adapt to changing operations. With U.S. special operations forces leading the charge in the Global War on Terror, assets like the OTMD could greatly increase their operational flexibility — and effectiveness.

According to the Navy, fleet-ready prototypes of the OTMD could hit the water as soon as 2019 — which, depending on who you ask, probably isn’t soon enough.

SEE ALSO: 7 times Allied troops stole Nazi vehicles

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A mother and daughter stopped speaking after Trump was elected — here's their emotional first conversation 6 months later

A newly completed comprehensive Navy analysis says producing more Virginia-Class attack submarines on a much faster timetable is "achievable" and necessary to ensure future undersea dominance for the US — in an increasingly contested strategic global environment.

The Navy report, titled The Submarine Industrial Base and the Viability of Producing Additional Attack Submarines Beyond the Fiscal Year 2017 Shipbuilding Plan in the 2017–2030 Timeframe, was delivered to Congress on July 5, 2017, Navy officials told Scout Warrior.

The current or previous status quo had been for the Navy to drop from building two Virginia-Class boats per year to one in the early 2020s when construction of the new Columbia-Class nuclear armed submarines begins.

The completed study, however, maintains that the Navy and industry can produce two Virginia-Class boats and one Columbia-Class submarine per year, increasing the current plan by one Virginia-Class boat per year.

Navy leaders have consistently talked about an expected submarine shortfall in the mid 2020s and that more attack submarines were needed to strengthen the fleet and keep stay in front of near-peer rivals such as Russia and China.

"The sustainment of the two per year Virginia-Class submarine production rate during the procurement years of the Columbia-Class SSBNs is achievable and provides significant benefit to the Navy and the SSN (Attack Submarines) force structure," Lt. Lauren Chatmas, Navy Spokeswoman, told Scout Warrior in a written statement.

Maintaining a two-per year Virginia Class build-rate will help the Navy reach its goal of 66 SSNs, as identified in the December 2016 Force Structure Assessment, Chatmas added.

Increasing production will, to a large extent, rely upon the submarine-building industry's capacity to move up to three submarines per year.

"Producing these additional submarines will be a challenge to the submarine industrial base that can be solved only if the shipyards are given sufficient time to adjust facility plans, develop their workforces, and expand the vendor base," Chatmas said.

The Virginia-Class Submarines are built by a cooperative arrangement between the Navy and Electric Boat, a subsidiary of General Dynamics and Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries.

Each industry partner constructs portions or “modules” of the submarines which are then melded together to make a complete vessel, industry and Navy officials explained.

Virginia-class attack submarine technology

Virginia-Class subs are fast-attack submarines armed with Tomahawk missiles, torpedoes and other weapons able to perform a range of missions; these include anti-submarine warfare, strike warfare, covert mine warfare, ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance), anti-surface/ship warfare and naval special warfare, something described as having the ability to carry and insert Special Operations Forces.

"Future Virginia-Class submarines (VCS) provide improved littoral (coastal waters) capabilities, sensors, special operations force employment, and strike warfare capabilities, making it an ideal platform for the 21st Century security environment," Chatmas said.

Compared to prior Navy attack subs like the Los Angeles-Class, the Virginia-Class submarines are engineered to bring vastly improved littoral warfare, surveillance and open ocean capabilities, service officials said.

For instance, the ships can be driven primarily through software code and electronics, thus freeing up time and energy for an operator who does not need to manually control each small maneuver.

The Virginia-Class submarine are engineered with this “Fly-by-Wire” capability which allows the ship to quietly linger in shallow waters without having to surface or have each small move controlled by a human operator. With this technology, a human operator will order depth and speed, allowing software to direct the movement of the planes and rudder to maintain course and depth.

Also, unlike their predecessor-subs, Virginia-Class subs are engineered with what’s called a “Lock Out Trunk” – a compartment in the sub which allows special operations forces to submerge beneath the water and deploy without requiring the ship to surface.

Unlike their “SSBN” Columbia-Class counterparts to be armed with nuclear weapons, the Virginia-Class “SSN” ships are purely for conventional attack, Navy officials said.

Development of Virginia-Class submarines are broken up into procurement “Blocks.” Blocks I and II have already been delivered.

The Block III subs, now under construction, are being built with new so-called Virginia Payload Tubes designed to lower costs and increase capability.

Instead of building what most existing Virginia-Class submarines have — 12 individual 21-inch in diameter vertical launch tubes able to fire Tomahawk missiles – the Block III submarines are being built with two larger 87-inch in diameter tubes able to house six Tomahawk missiles each.

Although the new tubes were conceived and designed as part of what the Navy calls its “Design for Affordability” strategy to lower costs, the move also brings strategic advantages to the platform, service officials say. Specifically, this means that the submarines are constructed such that they will be able to accommodate new technologies as they emerge — this could mean engineering in an ability to fire upgraded Tomahawk missiles or other weapons which may emerge in the future.

"VCS are designed to remain current with technology advances for their entire operational life through extensive use of modular construction, open architecture design (uses industry common design), and commercial off-the-shelf components," Chatmas said.

The Block III Virginia-Class submarines also have what’s called a Large Aperture Bow conformal array sonar system – designed to send out an acoustic ping, analyze the return signal, and provide the location and possible contours of enemy ships, submarines and other threats.

Virginia-class block V — Virginia payload modules

For Block V construction, the Navy is planning to insert a new 84-foot long section designed to house additional missile capability. “Virginia Payload Modules.”

The Virginia Payload Modules, to come in future years, will increase the Tomahawk missile firepower of the submarines from 12 missiles up to 40.

"The VPM submarines will have an additional (approximately 84 feet) section with four additional Virginia Payload Tubes (VPTs), each capable of carrying seven Tomahawk cruise missiles, for a ship total of 40 Tomahawks," Chatmas said.

The idea is to have additional Tomahawk or other missile capability increased by 2026, when the “SSGN” Ohio-Class Guided Missile Submarines start retiring in larger numbers, he explained.

Early prototyping work on the Virginia Payload Modules is already underway and several senior Navy leaders, over the years, have indicated a desire to accelerate production and delivery of this technology — which will massively increase fire-power on the submarines.

While designed primarily to hold Tomahawks, the VPM missile tubes are engineered such that they could accommodate a new payload, new missile or even a large unmanned underwater vehicle, Navy officials said.

The reason for the Virginia Payload Modules is clear; beginning in the 2020s, the Navy will start retiring four large Ohio-class guided-missile submarines able to fire up to 154 Tomahawk missiles each. This will result in the Navy losing a massive amount of undersea fire power capability, Navy officials explained.

From 2002 to 2008 the U.S. Navy modified four of its oldest nuclear-armed Ohio-class submarines by turning them into ships armed with only conventional missiles -- the USS Ohio, USS Michigan, USS Florida and USS Georgia. They are called SSGNs, with the “G” designation for “guided missile.”

SEE ALSO: India is shopping for submarines as China extends its reach into the Indian Ocean

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The US Navy is now 3D printing submarines

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish inventor was rescued on Friday in a navy operation when his submarine, one of the world's largest privately built, sank in Koge Bay, south of Copenhagen.

Peter Madsen was picked up from the water and safely taken to the shore; his 17-metre long submarine then sank, a Danish defence spokesman told Reuters.

Another person, a Swedish journalist, was onboard the submarine earlier but according to Madsen she had been dropped off in Copenhagen on Thursday night, said the spokesman.

"He has told us he was the only one onboard ... We have called off the search," the spokesman added.

(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

SEE ALSO: Denmark to train NATO soldiers to combat Russian misinformation

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We may have been wrong about ‘good’ cholesterol all this time

On February 17, 1864, the 12-foot-long Confederate submersible H. L. Hunley became the first combat sub in American history to sink a surface warship, torpedoing the U.S. Navy’s three-month-old sloop-of-war USS Housatonic as it participated in the Union blockade of Charleston, South Carolina. But instead of returning home, the Hunley sank immediately after, killing all eight of the Confederate crewmen on board. It was the short-lived sub’s third and final sinking.

Here’s where things get weird. When the sub was first discovered in 1995 and raised from the depths of Charleston’s harbor in 2000, conservators were presented with a strange scene: The crew had apparently died seated at their battle stations, the bilge pumps and ballast weights untouched. The configuration of Hunley’s hatches suggested there had been no attempts to escape the doomed vessel. There were no signs of physical trauma based on the crew’s skeletal remains. To the untrained eye, it appeared that the Hunley’s crew celebrated their historic attack on the Housatonic by just up and dying.

The cause of the Hunley’s demise has remained largely a mystery for more than 150 years — until now.

In a fascinating new analysis, partially funded by U.S. Army’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program and published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One, engineers and scientists led by Duke University biomechanist Rachel Lance concluded after a three-year study that the Hunley, well… sank itself.

After deploying its primary weapon, a 135-lb copper spar torpedo filled with explosive black powder — affixed to a long wooden pole and activated by the pull of a cord — the crew detonated the munition less than 16 feet from the Hunley’s bow. The force of the detonation and resulting shockwave killed the Confederate sub crew instantly.

“The blast produced likely caused flexion of the ship hull to transmit the blast wave; the secondary wave transmitted inside the crew compartment was of sufficient magnitude that the calculated chances of survival were less than 16% for each crew member,” Lance and her colleagues explain. “The submarine drifted to its resting place after the crew died of air blast trauma within the hull.”

Popular Science has a more macabre description: The sailors were “struck so hard by the force of their own torpedo’s blast that the soft tissues of their lungs and brains would have taken immediate, fatal damage.” Gross.

But apart from solving a mystery, the research also presents a cautionary tale for engineers focused on underwater warfare. “It was the combination of all the simultaneous design changes: conversion from wood to wrought iron, sinking the vessel deeper in the water, lowering the torpedo, and attaching the charge much closer at the end of a spar that ultimately led to the demise of the crew,” the authors write. “The H.L. Hunley presents the first documented case of primary blast-induced fatality to personnel within a structure.”

It would take another four decades for submersibles to really make their mark on naval warfare, sinking surface vessels without the Pyrrhic aftermath of the Hunley’s assault. But sub warfare and the potentially deadly consequences of underwater explosions all begin with the story of those eight Confederate soldiers who accidentally doomed themselves with a spar torpedo.

SEE ALSO: The Navy can now 3D-print submarines on the fly for SEALs

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's everyone left on Arya Stark's kill list on 'Game of Thrones'

Britain's Royal Navy has released a series of futuristic submarine concepts which mimic real marine life forms and radically change the way underwater warfare could look in 50 years.

The concepts, called Nautilus 100, include a mothership shaped like a manta ray, unmanned eel-like vessels equipped with sensor pods which dissolve on demand to avoid enemy detection, and fish-shaped torpedoes sent to swarm against enemy targets.

The project, celebrating the centenary of the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, challenged young engineers to 'visioneer' the Royal Navy's future submarine fleet.

Produced by Jasper Pickering

Join the conversation about this story »

• Nine sailors on nuclear submarine tested positive for cocaine, the Daily Mail reports.
• All nine kicked off the sub and fired.
• Defence secretary orders mandatory drug tests across the submarine fleet.

LONDON — Nine Royal Navy sailors have been kicked off a British nuclear submarine after testing positive for cocaine, the Daily Mail reports.

The Mail reports on Saturday that the sailors on the Trident submarine allegedly took cocaine while docked in the US to collect nuclear warheads. All of those who tested positive have now been fired from the Navy.

The second in command on the submarine in question, the HMS Vigilant, has also been removed following claims he had an affair with a fellow mariner. Claims of another affair between an officer and a junior are already being probed. The Mail quotes an unnamed source as saying HMS Vigilant had gained a reputation as "the party boat."

The Mail reports that British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon is "furious" about the incidents and has ordered mandatory drug testing across Britain's entire submarine fleet to ensure this is just an isolated incident.

HMS Vigilant is one of four Vanguard-class submarines that the UK operates. Each can hold up to eight Trident missiles armed with nuclear warheads.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Meet the three women who married Donald Trump

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's navy has fired nine sailors serving on a nuclear-armed submarine after they tested positive for using cocaine, the country's defense ministry said on Saturday.

The crew were from HMS Vigilant, one of four Royal Navy submarines which operate the Trident nuclear missile system.

"We do not tolerate drugs misuse by service personnel. Those found to have fallen short of our high standards face being discharged from service," a Royal Navy spokesman said.

The Daily Mail newspaper reported that the sailors had failed drugs tests while the submarine was docked in the United States to pick up nuclear warheads and undergo work, and the sailors had been accommodated in hotels on shore.

A defense ministry spokesman declined to comment on the location of the incident but said: "There is no evidence to suggest any individual was under the influence while performing their duties."

The ministry also confirmed the submarine's commander had been relieved of his command pending investigation, but declined to give details. Previous reports said this was due to an earlier unrelated incident.

Britain's four nuclear-armed submarines each carry eight operational missiles and 40 nuclear warheads, and have a crew of 135. Since 1969 Britain has had at least one nuclear-armed submarine on patrol at all times. 

(Reporting by David Milliken; editing by Alexander Smith)

SEE ALSO: 2 British submariners reportedly asked Theresa May to make it easier to download porn while at sea

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Everything you've ever wanted to know about life on a US Navy submarine