What's the reasoning behind making a super massive submarine?

brainhulk

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2007
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I'm thinking it's analogous to a sumo size ninja

https://www.yahoo.com/news/uk-launches-massive-nuclear-powered-submarine-145056500.html

HMS-Astute-008.jpg
 

raildogg

Lifer
Aug 24, 2004
12,892
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Western world once again showing the world how to be more peaceful. Leading the way!
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
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Lots of room for missiles.

That and the frigging things go out for months on their own underwater at a time.

*edit* and yeah that's not even boomer size.
 
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GagHalfrunt

Lifer
Apr 19, 2001
25,284
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The Ohio and Russian Typhoon class have to be monstrous to fit the ICBMs, so that's apples to oranges.

The better point is that the Astute class is smaller than both the USA's Seawolf class and the Russian Akula class which are similar boats with the same purpose. It has to be a certain size to fit the reactors, the weapons, the crew quarters, etc and it looks like 300-350 foot length and 40 foot beam is that certain size. It it was practical to make them smaller they'd make them smaller.
 

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
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Lots of room for missiles.

That and the frigging things go out for months on their own underwater at a time.

Actually the only reason a nuclear-powered sub can't stay on patrol for year at a time is food for the crew, the submarines crews get the best too, kinda like "we know you won't see daylight for the next 2 months so at least the chow's gonna be great!"..
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
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Actually the only reason a nuclear-powered sub can't stay on patrol for year at a time is food for the crew, the submarines crews get the best too, kinda like "we know you won't see daylight for the next 2 months so at least the chow's gonna be great!"..


Yep ;)
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
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that's not really that big, unless you're comparing it to a narco sub.
 

Thebobo

Lifer
Jun 19, 2006
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Actually the only reason a nuclear-powered sub can't stay on patrol for year at a time is food for the crew, the submarines crews get the best too, kinda like "we know you won't see daylight for the next 2 months so at least the chow's gonna be great!"..

Yea but how can you play wow?

Do they have a lan network where you could play games if you had a laptop?
 

Ns1

No Lifer
Jun 17, 2001
55,420
1,600
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Or a bunch of straight sailors with only their right hand for company. They strongly recommend against touching the walls of the shower in a submarine.
http://www.cracked.com/article_20871_6-things-movies-dont-show-you-about-life-submarine.html

oh my god that link is clutch

Everything stinks. It's not just the flatulence (didn't think of that, did you? Imagine your old dorm room, only there's 20 guys in there and you can't open the window for months) or the sweat, or the one guy who was allergic to the chemicals in the CO2 scrubbers, which gave him a skin rash that caused flakes of him to fall off constantly, but he was the only one technically qualified to operate it, so fuck it all, flakes ahoy, good buddy. The whole thing is a machine, and machines need oil. Oil stinks. God, does it stink. I stuffed dryer sheets in my pockets just to remind myself that there were better things in the world.

You know, just like people used to do with flowers. During the plague.

But no, let's not get distracted. The farts are what's important here: After two weeks, the milk would be gone. Three, and there were no more eggs. The freezer was only so big, and most of the stuff in there was for special occasions. Special occasions like the time a guy had a heart attack and they had to make room in the freezer for his body, so there was a somber memorial meal with the food they pulled out. It didn't happen on my sub, thank fucking God, but it did happen ...

Anyway, it all boils down to most of what we ate being canned food. Bad canned food. You know what goes well with 120 men in an airtight container? Suspicious, off-brand canned food. Every day was an experiment in how much methane poisoning a man can take before he becomes more fart than man.

But that isn't so bad compared to the showers.

There are only three showers on board, so each one of them has about 40 guys using it every day. And sure, we clean them ... but 40 guys a day? Forty guys ... with no other privacy, sealed up away from the world for months? Let's not be delicate: Everyone's jerked off in there. You really don't want to touch the walls. I can't stress that enough. You shower like you're in an iron maiden. But then, when you're surfaced, showering means something terrible. Something unspeakable. It means constantly getting slammed face-first into a wall covered in the crusted semen of crusty seamen.
 
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norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
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The boats of the Astute class are powered by a Rolls-Royce PWR2 (Core H) (a pressurised water) reactor and fitted with a pump-jet propulsor. The PWR2 reactor was developed for the Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines. As a result the new submarines are about 30 per cent larger than previous British fleet submarines, which were powered by smaller-diameter reactors. Like all Royal Navy submarines, the bridge fin of the Astute-class boats is specially reinforced to allow surfacing through ice caps. These submarines can also be fitted with a dry deck shelter, which allows special forces (e.g. SBS) to deploy whilst the submarine is submerged.[32] More than 39,000 acoustic tiles mask the vessel's sonar signature, giving the Astute class a better stealth quality than any other submarine previously operated by the Royal Navy.[33] Speculation released by the media stated that by using advanced stealth technology Astute "makes less noise than a baby dolphin, making her as good as undetectable by enemy ships."[34]
Astute is the first Royal Navy submarine class to have a bunk for each member of the ship's company,[35] ending the practice of 'hot bunking', whereby two sailors on opposite watches shared the same bunk at different times. However, they have less mess-deck space than the Valiant-class submarine built 45 years earlier.[36][37]
The Royal Navy announced a speed of 29+ knots for the class, but it is reported this speed could not be reached in the trials of Astute due to a propulsion design problem. It is unclear if this problem can be overcome, and at the launch of the Ambush the Royal Navy only stated she was "capable of speeds in excess of 20 knots".[38][39]