September 15, 2019
See This Sub? It Led the Navy To Build an All-Nuclear Submarine Force
The first of its kind.
by Kyle Mizokami
In 1948, the U.S. Navy established a Nuclear Power Branch, kicking off a revolution in ship propulsion. The department, headed by legendary naval officer Adm. Hyman Rickover, would oversee the construction of a unique ship, the first to take advantage of the benefits of nuclear propulsion. That ship was the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus.
The U.S. Navy, used to traveling long distances to fight its battles, was an early fan of nuclear propulsion. Nuclear power promised to eliminate the need for massive quantities of ship fuel, reducing the logistical demands of a fleet at sea. As Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore explained in their book Cold War Submarines, nuclear-powered submarines would have a virtually unlimited range, be faster above and below the surface of the ocean, generate more power per volume than diesel engines, and operate more easily than diesel engines.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/see-sub-it-led-navy-build-all-nuclear-submarine-force-80431
