Submarine concept

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Hi all, I got bored at work so decided to make a quick model. Normally it would be an aircraft or spaceship or something like that, but I thought I'd push the boat out and do something a bit different. I'm a big fan of submarines and cold war sub stuff, so decided to make a new boomer for the Russian navy (should they get bored of their new Borei class). I picked Russian because they have some of the coolest looking subs around, rather than the rather generic looking UK and US stuff. Anyway, here's a couple of picture links, click to embiggen...




I originally posted this a couple of days ago on the Subsim forum, but forgot that there are quite a few naval types here who might voice an opinion. I have since added fore diving planes just behind the sonar dome, as I asked opinions on the best position for them. Sail mounted is more classic Russian and keeps the flow noise away from the sonar, but these days they all seem to go behind the nose now.

Anyway, to complement this entirely fictitious sub I have decided to make an SSN to hunt it, so if you have any ideas of what a near future sub hunter should look like, let me know. I am certainly going to include VLS tubes, pump-jet propulsion, towed array, conformal arrays on the body, full frontal sonar with torp tubes mid mounted behind, and anything else I can think of. If you have any thoughts, post them here.

[Uncluttered]

This looks nice. I can tell you put a lot of thought into it.

When you design a new sub, you might want to think up a new doctrine.
Your "justification" for deviating from the soviet submarine doctrine could be melting ice sheets.
The old sit-under-the-ice-and-wait philosophy is done. It was the reason behind many soviet era design decisions.

OK. Onto the constructive criticism.

I'm assuming that the white panels are GRP sonar windows.
Are the white panels on the side supposed to be a russian wide aperture array?
Wide aperture arrays give you passive LF, but also allow you to guess the propagation path. They also don't have a tendancy to drag on the bottom at low speeds.
This tells me you are planning on operating in more littoral waters.
A wide aperture array is a possible indicator of force projection, a clear deviation from the old doctrine.
(The old doctrine was "defend the motherland" in a nutshell.)
The waters in the Northe and Bearing seas are chppy, but the bottom is relatively smooth. Because of this the stay at home russian navy doctine didn't feel the need spherical arrays, WAA, or extra long towed arrays.


Your bow array faithfully reflects the soviet era design with torpedo on top, and a cylindrical array below.
The post-soviet doctine allowed for a spherical array though.
I'm a fossil from the 1990's, but IIRC it was called Iritish-Amfor, and based off of a custom supercomputing cluster of overclocked, current controlled 386 knockoffs.

Russians liked to sit on the bottom and use the main seawater valves to keep station. Because of this the MSW valves sit high in the hull to keep crud like mud, zombies, and debries out. The main seawater coolant valves have a distinctive grate covering them. There are usually 2 to 4 IIRC.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

The wide aperture arrays are almost directly copied from the new Russian Borei class boats, and we can assume the new Yasen class attack boats have something similar. Indeed the Yasen has moved to the full spherical array and slanted tubes like the more recent US types as well, so the Russians are definitely looking to up their game. I think it may also have a good compliment of VLS tubes as well, but I cant be sure. As for the vents, I wasn't sure so I didn't put them on. I remember seeing them on an R/C model of a Typhoon though.

I'm pretty sure I read recently that the Russian Navy is definitely trying to get into being a global blue water navy, rather than just a defence force for the boomers in their ice bastions. Something with more littoral performance would be the way ahead for them, so they can lurk off coasts and have a hand in more of the worlds conflict zones rather than hiding under the dwindling pack ice. With the advent of the tube launched cruise missile, the SSN can have even more involvment that ever in land conflict, so I think the SSN I build today will have a fair few VLS tubes on it.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

OK, here's my attempt at a quick SSN design. It's not pretty or cool looking, but it makes sense to me. US subs have been getting slower, heavier and more shallow diving over the past 40 years, so i decided it was time to reverse that trend. This boat is designed for speed and deep diving, so i went with the classic 'body of revolution' shape and as clean and hydrodynamic lines as I could. Here's a couple of quick pics of the work so far...




So there it is, a body of revolution shape rather like the experimental USS Albacore, fitted with a ducted prop and a smoothed out sail. It is about 8 meters shorter than the new Virginia class, but is nearly 2.5 meters wider across the beam which allowed me to fit 22 VLS tubes instead of the current 12 in use today. Along with the standard 4 midships mounted tubes this gives the sub a real flexible payload and lots of power.

I've still to add a few details, and it still doesn't have a towed array of any kind yet, but I'll fix that tomorrow. This is just to show what I have made today. Thoughts?

[Uncluttered]

The wide aperture arrays are almost directly copied from the new Russian Borei class boats, and we can assume the new Yasen class attack boats have something similar. Indeed the Yasen has moved to the full spherical array and slanted tubes like the more recent US types as well, so the Russians are definitely looking to up their game. I think it may also have a good compliment of VLS tubes as well, but I cant be sure. As for the vents, I wasn't sure so I didn't put them on. I remember seeing them on an R/C model of a Typhoon though.

I'm pretty sure I read recently that the Russian Navy is definitely trying to get into being a global blue water navy, rather than just a defence force for the boomers in their ice bastions. Something with more littoral performance would be the way ahead for them, so they can lurk off coasts and have a hand in more of the worlds conflict zones rather than hiding under the dwindling pack ice. With the advent of the tube launched cruise missile, the SSN can have even more involvment that ever in land conflict, so I think the SSN I build today will have a fair few VLS tubes on it.

Yeah. I'm getting old. I remember testing out the first (or just one of the first) WAA installed on a US sub back in the 1990's. I had to google "Yasen". In my time it was called the Severodvinsk.

There was another soviet project we were briefed on, that didn't see the light of day. Launching frogfoot (and Helos) from a 914 with RATO packs. The hatch resembled a camera iris. The project was going to be an export sub.

[Thanas]

I really like looking at your designs, but I am afraid I do not have the technical expertise to comment on them.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Thanks for the support anyway Thanas, it's appreciated. Feel free to comment regardless, I'm pulling these things straight out my ass anyway so aesthetics are a big factor too.

I have to admit I had to look up 'Yasen' as well, since someone mentioned it on the Subsim forums. I knew it by its original name as well, but since it's a bit more solid now I suppose we go with the new name. I hate Russian projects for that, they never stick with one name where many can confuse the issue.

I had never heard of a Delta carrier before, I'd have thought they'd have tried that kind of conversion on the Typhoon first. I heard there was a private company looking to purchase a couple before they're scrapped to turn into cargo carriers or tankers for arctic transit routes. Outside of some concept drawings from the 60's I didn't think anyone had looked seriously into a carrier since after WWII.

[Sea Skimmer]

Nice renders, they all look like things someone would really build, but some things will change in the near future. These are more ‘built today’ seeming.

You should switch to an X-plane tail configuration; that was actually one of the more important features of the Albacore design for reducing drag and increasing control. Other then that, the body of revolution is neat looking but it never worked out to be very practical in terms of stuffing a combat submarine inside it. You just end up with lots of extra little spaces all over. That’s why you don’t see pure designs like that in service.

You should also consider less traditional weapons launchers then individual VLS tubes and torpedo tubes, because the USN is already shifting away from that. First with the VLS canisters placed in larger Trident missile tubes, and now the newest Virginia class hulls are also shifting to using two large tubes each holding six Tomahawks as well. But that leaves the door open for totally different systems, like four much larger missiles or even ballistic missiles.
http://media.defenseindustrydaily.com/i ... ods_lg.jpg

In the future its likely that all weapons will be carried in large free flooding bays, allowing for many possible combinations of weapons sizes and remote underwater vehicles to be carried and released. For an idea of the unlimited budget concepts the USN has cracked smoked its way into this works pretty well

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

I didn't include an X-tail because I understood that the drawbacks and complexity outweighed the benefits. I also toyed with dual contra rotating props like the later experiments used for speed, but again it was something not thought worth the effort.

While the idea of payload bays is great for flexibility, its not something that i think would be conducive to deep diving or stealth. it would be great for special forces and littoral though. I might have a bash at something a bit more 'out there' tomorrow.

[Uncluttered]

I didn't include an X-tail because I understood that the drawbacks and complexity outweighed the benefits. I also toyed with dual contra rotating props like the later experiments used for speed, but again it was something not thought worth the effort.

While the idea of payload bays is great for flexibility, its not something that i think would be conducive to deep diving or stealth. it would be great for special forces and littoral though. I might have a bash at something a bit more 'out there' tomorrow.

I think an x-tail would be nice also. However, if you do this, it might look more like an Alfa than you want.

The drawbacks of an x-tail are solvable with a computer in the loop. The Alfa used an analog computer during testing, and IIRC went back to a simpler cross configuration.

ALso IIRC the Albacore still has hers in an X.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

How about this idea then, a more futuristic sub using some of the ideas mentioned. This time I went deliberately a little overboard on the shape, and I've incorporated a few ideas which seem to be gaining credence. Here's the pics of the work in progress, and it is just a work in progress and has little detail just now...





Here's my thinking. At the front we have some fancy sonars and passive listening, then immediately behind that would be the bouyancy tank. From there to the conning tower will be weapons bays for modular systems and launchers which can be quickly reloaded or replaced to suit the mission. There are no standard torpedo tubes as such, everything is located in the launch bays.

At the rear you have the habital spaces and a nice platform for special forces to work from. You could moor habitats or SDS style subs no problem, and using helicopters would be easier too. At the rear you have the azipods for steering, fully steerable in X and Y access for thrust vectoring. Each contains several electrically driven impellers in a shaped tube to use pressure to assist in stopping the formation of bubbles which cause cavitation noise. At the rear of the pod an external housing funnels 'clean' water around the wake to further reduce turbulence and noise.

Anything you think I've done completely wrong, bearing in mind I'm just making this stuff up?

[JointStrikeFighter]

2 propellors are noisy; the bigger, slower turning your propellor the quieter it will be.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Yeah, but I needed manoueverability as this is supposed to be more a littoral combat ship, working inshore quite a bit. That's why I picked impellers and buried them inside shrouded tubes and tried to reduce noise from cavitation and so forth with the ducts and shaping. This isn't a traditional missile boat that needs to hide for 3 months, this is for the new sub missions we see today. That generally means showing up on someones coastline who has little or no ASW capability, pounding the bejeezus out of them with million dollar smart weapons and evil men in little rubber boats.

[Uncluttered]

Yeah, but I needed manoueverability as this is supposed to be more a littoral combat ship, working inshore quite a bit. That's why I picked impellers and buried them inside shrouded tubes and tried to reduce noise from cavitation and so forth with the ducts and shaping. This isn't a traditional missile boat that needs to hide for 3 months, this is for the new sub missions we see today. That generally means showing up on someones coastline who has little or no ASW capability, pounding the bejeezus out of them with million dollar smart weapons and evil men in little rubber boats.

Well, this one is definitely out of the box.
It's nice, has a futur-tistic feel. I can dig it.

I can imagine laminar flow to be a problem with an aft like that. I want to put strings on it and strum a tune. Is the angled superstructure supposed to be for anti radar? Subs, already have the anti-radar thing down pretty well. This, despite the fact they surface with a conductive coat of salt water. Radar can't cope with the chop IIRC.

You'd want shallow draft for your stated usage, so maybe you have small, 15ft diameter transverse hulls, and a 3rd hull in the sail. Not sure what type of powerplant you'd use.

If I were to design a future fission reactor for a submarine from scratch it would be.
1. liquid thorium
2. Subcritical (just), using inertial confinement fusion, for a neutron source
3. Direct energy conversion to optical. You get (hopefully) efficient output for a small size, AND giant laser weapons to play with. (Optics to a special scope)
4. Pumpless circulation (pumps for backup)
5. A stripper pole.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

I'm now thinking more multihull for this one, something completely off the wall. The idea behind the shape was not radar stealth, but to maximise space and keep it ok for shallow waters. I wanted a wide flat body for the containerised weapons, and the wide rear was because that's the only habitable space and engineering spaces as well. With a small, powerful fusion reactor it would be fine.

[Uncluttered]

I'm now thinking more multihull for this one, something completely off the wall. The idea behind the shape was not radar stealth, but to maximise space and keep it ok for shallow waters. I wanted a wide flat body for the containerised weapons, and the wide rear was because that's the only habitable space and engineering spaces as well. With a small, powerful fusion reactor it would be fine.

Take a look at the insides of a 914, They did an interesting multihull.

Also, If you have a fusion reactor, you might as well design a few starships too.

[Thanas]

Good work and definitely pleasing to the eye.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Well, here's another attempt at a more futuristic sub. It has containerised weapon systems in the unmanned fore section, which can be swapped out at any time for other mission packs or weapons systems. Reloading would involve unplugging the empty and plugging in a new one, with the reloading of the packs being done ashore at your leisure. You could also have a dry dock or wet garage for minisubs, with a link to the inhabited rear section via a tunnel link. I have yet to work out how I will propel this thing, I'm going to try a couple of ideas for this. Here's how it looks so far, length about 140m at this point. The weapons packs were based on 25 x Tomahawk missiles at 6.5m long (with boosters) and .52m wide.

[Uncluttered]

I know it's not completely practical, but I so WANT one.

[JointStrikeFighter]

A candidate for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_drive perhaps

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

That was one of my thoughts too. I am going to try and cut a couple of flowing tubes from somewhere near the front of the rear module and feed them through and out the rear centre section. I dont want to eat too much into habitable space though, so it will be tricky. If we assume a very powerful but small reactor (fusion?) then the MHD drive becomes viable.

[Shroom Man 777]

Looks like a Plesiosaur.

EDIT:

Wait, the coloration of its hull, is that from light going through water, or is it its natural camo scheme paint job?

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

It's a camo scheme. Since this thing is supposed to be for Littoral and not deep water stuff, I thought I'd give it a disruptive pattern to break up its outline. It has to blend in better than just flat black.

[Shroom Man 777]

Its a great camo scheme man. It really REALLY looks like those underwater light effects.

[Sea Skimmer]

That was one of my thoughts too. I am going to try and cut a couple of flowing tubes from somewhere near the front of the rear module and feed them through and out the rear centre section. I dont want to eat too much into habitable space though, so it will be tricky. If we assume a very powerful but small reactor (fusion?) then the MHD drive becomes viable.

Assuming you had the technology to make that drive work to a worthwhile degree, the pipes wouldn’t necessarily have to be straight the whole way or anything. A girdle of them could run in-between the outer casing and the pressure hull for example and follow the contours of the hull. Only the ends would really need to be straight. The viability of MHD doesn't have that much to do with power production though. Its more a problem with the required magnets for a high speed capability basically being impossible to build is my understanding.