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From: budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Electric warship propulsion
Message-ID: <1990Dec21.025614.10234@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 21 Dec 90 02:56:14 GMT
References: <1990Dec17.051438.29694@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec19.005925.24328@cbnews.att.com> <1990Dec20.014756.27219@cbnews.att.com>
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From: budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg)

Iskandar mentioned submarines.

Most conventional submarines (we'll ignore the British ones
with steam plants and a few others...) had a diesel <or> electric
plant.  That is, you can run on the surface, with diesels that are
directly geared to the shafts (and charging your batteries too).
Or you can submerge and run on the electric motors; diesels secured.

This is different from the diesel-electric drives I described
earlier.

Nuclear submarines are steam turbine plants (I know of no exceptions,
but there might be).  Even more than in surface ships, the power density
is critical in submarines.  This is the amount of go-juice you can get
for a given weight and volume of propulsion machinery.  Most likely primary
reason.

Rex Buddenberg