A Steinke hood, named for its inventor,

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

Harris Steinke, is a device designed to aid escape from a sunken

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

. In essence, it is an inflatable life jacket with a hood that completely encloses the wearer's head, trapping a bubble of breathable air. It is designed to assist buoyant ascent. An advancement over its predecessor, the Momsen lung, Steinke invented and tested it in 1961 by escaping from the at a depth of ; it became standard equipment in all submarines of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

throughout the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

period. The U.S. Navy replaced Steinke hoods on U.S. submarines with escape suits called

Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment (SEIE), also known as Submarine Escape ''and'' Immersion Equipment, is a whole-body suit and one-person life raft that was first produced in 1952. It was designed by British company RFD Beaufort Limited and a ...

in the late 2000s.

References

* Steinke Hood Fundamentals
Part I
an

(''note that the string "flash" in those URIs does not refer to Adobe's Flash, but rather is an acronym for "Factual Lines About Submarine Hazards."'') *Steinke Hoo

Submarine rescue equipment Military equipment introduced in the 1960s {{navy-stub

See also

References