The Gatos were slow divers when compared to some German and British designs, but that was mostly due to the fact that the Gatos were significantly larger boats. Without changing the construction or thickness of the pressure hull steel, they decided that the Gato-class boats would be fully capable of routinely operating at 300 feet, a 50 foot increase in test depth over the preceding classes. Operational experience with earlier boats led the naval architects and engineers at the Navy's Bureau of Construction & Repair to believe that they had been overly conservative in their estimates of hull strength. The outer hull merged with the pressure hull at both ends in the area of the torpedo room bulkheads, thus the "partial" double hull. The void areas between the two hulls provided space for fuel and ballast tanks. The inner pressure resisting hull was wrapped by an outer hydrodynamic hull. ![]() The Gatos, along with nearly all of the USN fleet-type submarines of World War II were of partial double hull construction. The only significant difference was five feet in length added to the engine room section to allow the addition of a watertight bulkhead, dividing the one large engine room in two, with two diesel generator sets in each room. The Gato-class design was a near duplicate of the preceding Tambor- & Gar-class boats. The very same qualities designed into the submarines that enabled them to operate with the fleet made them superbly outfitted for their new mission of commerce raiding against the Japanese Empire The successful Pearl Harbor attack overturned 20 years of submarine strategic concept development and left the fleet submarine without a mission. The attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 destroyed the Pacific Fleet battle line and along with it the concept of the battleship-led gun battle. Timing, however conspired against the actual use of these boats in their assigned role. Finally, the USN had hit the right combination of factors and now had the long desired fleet submarine. By 1940, a much better developed industrial base and experience gained from the Porpoise-, Salmon-, & Sargo-class boats resulted in the Tambor & Gar classes. īy 1931, the experimental phase of fleet submarine development was over and the Navy began to make solid progress towards what would eventually be the Gato class. ![]() ![]() The USN constantly experimented with this concept in the post-World War I years, producing a series of submarines with less than stellar qualities and reliability, the T class and the so-called V boats. State-of-the-art submarine design and construction in the 1920s and 1930s made this combination of qualities very difficult to achieve. In order to operate effectively in this role, a submarine had to have high surface speed, long range and endurance, and a heavy armament. This was an operational concept borne out of experience from World War I. They were to scout out ahead of the fleet and report on the enemy fleet's composition, speed, and course, then they were to attack and whittle down the enemy in preparation for the main fleet action, a titanic gun battle between cruisers and battleships. The original rationale behind their design was that they were intended to operate as adjuncts to the main battle fleet. The Gato-class boats were considered to be "Fleet Submarines". Navy submarines of the period, the Gato class were given the names of marine creatures. Gato 's name comes from a species of small catshark. Named after the first vessel of this design, USS Gato, the Gato class and its successors, the Balao and Tench classes, formed the majority of the United States Navy's WWII submarine fleet. The United States Navy Gato class submarine formed the core of the submarine service that was largely responsible for the destruction of the Japanese merchant marine and a large portion of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II. Electric Boat Company, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company ģ11 ft 8 in (95.00 m) – 311 ft 10 in (95.05 m) Ĥ × diesel engines driving electrical generators ( Fairbanks-Morse, General Motors, or Hooven-Owens-Rentschler) Ĥ × high-speed electric motors with reduction gears ( Elliott Company, General Electric, or Allis-Chalmers) ġ1,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) surfaced at 10 knots (19 km/h) Ĥ8 hours at 2 knots (3.7 km/h) submerged ġ × 3-inch (76 mm) / 50 caliber deck gun
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