The Russian Navy maintains a fleet of about 60 nuclear-powered and diesel-electric submarines, a senior Navy official said on Thursday. "These 60 vessels include 10 nuclear-powered strategic submarines, over 30 nuclear-powered attack submarines, diesel-electric submarines and special-purpose subs," the source said.
Delta-IV and Delta-III class subs form the backbone of Russia's strategic submarine fleet. They each carry 16 ballistic missiles with multiple warheads, and feature advanced electronics and noise reduction.
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When a diesel-electric submarine is charging its batteries does it get worse gas mileage?
ReplyDeleteRemember that a diesel-electric submarine is always electric. The propeller is always driven by an electric motor. That having been said, it's arguable that it would get better "mileage" if it ran on its diesels all the time because of power losses running the electricity through the battery.
ReplyDeleteThe difference would probably be very small. As with all ships, speed is the primary driver of fuel economy. The amount of energy needed to drive the vessel increases exponentially as the speed increases arithmetically.
WW2 submarines spent most of their time on the surface because of primitive battery design: they were limited to about 100 miles underwater. That isn't really safe today and batteries have gotten much more efficient so they don't have to. The new French Scorpene, for example, is actually 25 percent SMALLER than a US WW2 submarine, but has five times the range on batteries (550 NM at 5 knots).