HOME





USS Sunfish (SSN-649)
USS ''Sunfish'' (SSN-649), a ''Sturgeon''-class attack submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the ocean sunfish (''Mola mola''), a marine species having a deep body truncated behind, and high dorsal and anal fins. Construction and commissioning The contract to build ''Sunfish'' was awarded to the General Dynamics Quincy Shipbuilding Division in Quincy, Massachusetts, on 26 March 1963 and her keel was laid down there on 15 January 1965. She was one of the two nuclear submarines built at the former Fore River Shipyard, the other being USS Whale (SSN-638). Whale's keel was laid down on 27 May 1964 and these two were the only submarines built there since 1925. She was launched on 14 October 1966, sponsored by Mrs. Robert C. Byrd, the wife of United States Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, and commissioned on 15 March 1969. Service history 1969–1975 ''Sunfish'' spent the period from April to August 1969 undergoing shakedown and ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Propeller
A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working fluid such as water or air. Propellers are used to pump fluid through a pipe or duct, or to create thrust to propel a boat through water or an aircraft through air. The blades are specially shaped so that their rotational motion through the fluid causes a pressure difference between the two surfaces of the blade by Bernoulli's principle which exerts force on the fluid. Most marine propellers are screw propellers with helical blades rotating on a propeller shaft with an approximately horizontal axis. History Early developments The principle employed in using a screw propeller is derived from sculling. In sculling, a single blade is moved through an arc, from side to side taking care to keep presenting the blade to the water at t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

United States Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The Senate is composed of senators, each of whom represents a single state in its entirety. Each of the 50 states is equally represented by two senators who serve staggered terms of six years, for a total of 100 senators. The vice president of the United States serves as presiding officer and president of the Senate by virtue of that office, despite not being a senator, and has a vote only if the Senate is equally divided. In the vice president's absence, the president pro tempore, who is traditionally the senior member of the party holding a majority of seats, presides over the Senate. As the upper chamber of Congress, the Senate has several powers ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ship Naming And Launching
Ceremonial ship launching involves the performance of ceremonies associated with the process of transferring a vessel to the water. It is a nautical tradition in many cultures, dating back thousands of years, to accompany the physical process with ceremonies which have been observed as public celebration and a solemn blessing, usually but not always, in association with the launch itself. Ship launching imposes stresses on the ship not met during normal operation and, in addition to the size and weight of the vessel, represents a considerable engineering challenge as well as a public spectacle. The process also involves many traditions intended to invite good luck, such as christening by breaking a sacrificial bottle of champagne over the bow as the ship is named aloud and launched. Methods There are three principal methods of conveying a new ship from building site to water, only two of which are called "launching". The oldest, most familiar, and most widely used is t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

USS Whale (SSN-638)
USS ''Whale'' (SSN-638) was a nuclear-powered attack submarine of the United States Navy. She was the second ship of that name, after the whale family of aquatic mammals. Construction and commissioning ''Whale''s keel was laid down on 27 May 1964, at the General Dynamics Quincy Shipbuilding Division shipyard, in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was launched on 14 October 1966, sponsored by Mrs. Russell B. Long, the wife of United States Senator Russell B. Long, of Louisiana, and commissioned on 12 October 1968. Service history 1968 ''Whale'' arrived in her first home port, Charleston, South Carolina, on 2 November 1968, and, after a week in port, put to sea on 9 November 1968, for shakedown training, which she completed in November and December 1968, along with a series of post-commissioning tests, trials, and qualifications. In January 1969, she began normal operations out of Charleston, with attack submarine training along the southeastern coast of the United States. 1969 O ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fore River Shipyard
Fore River Shipyard was a shipyard owned by General Dynamics Corporation located on Weymouth Fore River in Braintree and Quincy, Massachusetts. It began operations in 1883 in Braintree, and moved to its final location on Quincy Point in 1901. In 1913, it was purchased by Bethlehem Steel, and later transferred to Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. It was sold to General Dynamics in 1963, and closed in 1986. During its operation, yardworkers constructed hundreds of ships, for both military and civilian clients. Most of the ships at the yard were built for the United States Navy, with its first government contract for the destroyer . The yard also built early submarines for Electric Boat, including and . Fore River also constructed the battleship , and the cruisers and as well as the Navy's first carrier and its successor . Fore River produced multiple foreign ships for various navies around the world including five Type 1 submarines for the Imperial Japanese Navy, ten submari ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Keel
The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event. Etymology The word "keel" comes from Old English , Old Norse , = "ship" or "keel". It has the distinction of being regarded by some scholars as the first word in the English language recorded in writing, having been recorded by Gildas in his 6th century Latin work '' De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae'', under the spelling ''cyulae'' (he was referring to the three ships that the Saxons first arrived in). is the Latin word for "keel" and is the origin of the term careen (to clean a keel and the hull in general, often by rolling the ship on its side). An example of this use is Careening Cove, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, where careening was carried ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Anal Fin
Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as seen in sharks. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the spine and are supported only by muscles. Their principal function is to help the fish swim. Fins located in different places on the fish serve different purposes such as moving forward, turning, keeping an upright position or stopping. Most fish use fins when swimming, flying fish use pectoral fins for gliding, and frogfish use them for crawling. Fins can also be used for other purposes; male sharks and mosquitofish use a modified fin to deliver sperm, thresher sharks use their caudal fin to stun prey, reef stonefish have spines in their dorsal fins that inject venom, anglerfish use the first spine of their dorsal fin like a fishing rod to ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Dorsal Fin
A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through convergent evolution they have independently evolved external superficial fish-like body plans adapted to their marine environments, including most numerously fish, but also mammals such as cetaceans ( whales, dolphins, and porpoises), and even extinct ancient marine reptiles such as various known species of ichthyosaurs. Most species have only one dorsal fin, but some have two or three. Wildlife biologists often use the distinctive nicks and wear patterns which develop on the dorsal fins of large cetaceans to identify individuals in the field. The bony or cartilaginous bones that support the base of the dorsal fin in fish are called ''pterygiophores''. Functions The main purpose of the dorsal fin is to stabilize the animal against r ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of its active battle fleet alone exceeding the next 13 navies combined, including 11 allies or partner nations of the United States as of 2015. It has the highest combined battle fleet tonnage (4,635,628 tonnes as of 2019) and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction, and five other carriers planned. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the United States Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 290 deployable combat vessels and more than 2,623 operational aircraft . The United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Re ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Boeing Harpoon
The Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing Defense, Space & Security). The AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) and later AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack Missile – Expanded Response) are cruise missile variants. The regular Harpoon uses active radar homing and flies just above the water to evade defenses. The missile can be launched from: * Fixed-wing aircraft (the AGM-84, without the solid-fuel rocket booster) * Surface ships (the RGM-84, fitted with a solid-fuel rocket booster that detaches when expended, to allow the missile's main turbojet to maintain flight) * Submarines (the UGM-84, fitted with a solid-fuel rocket booster and encapsulated in a container to enable submerged launch through a torpedo tube); * Coastal defense batteries, from which it would be fired with a solid-fuel rocket booster. Development In 1965, the United States Navy began studies for a missile in the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

UUM-44 SUBROC
The UUM-44 SUBROC (SUBmarine ROCket) was a type of submarine-launched rocket deployed by the United States Navy as an anti-submarine weapon. It carried a 250 kiloton thermonuclear warhead configured as a nuclear depth bomb. Development SUBROC was one of several weapons recommended for implementation by Project Nobska, a 1956 summer study on submarine warfare. Development began in 1958, with the technical evaluation being completed in 1963. SUBROC reached Initial Operation Capability (IOC) aboard the attack submarine ''Permit'' in 1964. When SUBROC reached IOC, the US Navy's admiral in charge of weapons procurement stated that SUBROC was "…a more difficult technical problem than Polaris." Operation SUBROC could be launched from a 21-inch submarine torpedo tube. After launch, the solid fuel rocket motor fired and SUBROC rose to the surface. The launch angle then changed and SUBROC flew to its destination following a predetermined ballistic trajectory. At a predetermined t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]