I’ve been fascinated for a long time by the old Fleet subs from WWII. To me, they are absolutely beautiful, as far as vessels go.
Anyone have any insight into the design phase for them? Specifically I’d like to know about the construction drawings issued. From what I can tell, there must have been miles of piping and electrical runs. How was the layout for it all handled? Were design drawings produced that showed exactly how everything was routed? This seems staggeringly impossible, given everything was hand drafted. Were such plans more general, as in piping for this component runs along this area, and allowing the fabrication people to fit things as they worked?
How about larger ships, like battleships, or nuclear aircraft carriers designed prior to CAD?
Lastly, anywhere on the web where I can get my hands on some old construction drawings for such ships? I love the artistry of old blue prints, but have never really seen any for mechanical things.
If you haven’t seen it, this http://www.hnsa.org/doc/fleetsub/index.htm is the operator’s manual for a Type “S”. Fascinating reading and some great period diagrams & photos.
No construction plans though. Your plans for DIY undersea domination will have to wait.
Part of the reason for “classes” of vessel, other than not reinventing the wheel, is that systems could be designed once, for the prototype vessel, and then duplicated on the other vessels of the class. While this did mean drawings needed to be duplicated, tracing (and pantographing, etc.) required much less expertise than the initial design. And the value did not stop there – someone trained for one vessel would know where the appropriate things were on any other vessel of that class, because the forward port secondary electrical conduit (or whatever) would be in the exact same place on all vessels of that class (barring adaptations, of course).
I got the impression that detailed drawings aren’t done and that plumbing and wiring runs are only drawn schematically. Then the shipfitters, using those schematics and a handful of rules (“Route liquids above electrical”, “Put supports every four feet”, etc) plumb and wire the ship. Very hand-craft-y. Afterwards, a crew of draftsmen might make “as-built” drawings using the actual ship as a reference.
It is only in the last 20 years or so that solid modeling programs are available to allow piping to be routed before a thing is built. It is still really hard to get right. Sure the pipe fits, but there is no way to get the wrench in to tighten it, for example. This is the reason a pipe fitter isn’t the same thing as a plumber.
If you don’t expect schematics, but are looking for the answer to "how was it actually done before CAD, that sounds like a question for Mail Call on the History Channel. They often show how a given military technology was conceived, developed, manufactured, or improved.
So far I have not found an easy link for how to send in a question, but one must exist.
OK, if your local library has an extensive collection of National Geographics that goes way back, May 1942 - “As 2,000 Ships Are Born”.
As you may guess, this article is about the US WWII ship building program, discussing Design, Modeling, Creating Plans, Testing, Prefabrication (thanks to Welding!). An interesting photo of the “Mold Loft”, where templates for the ships are fabricated - the blueprints drawn up by the architects are laids on the floor, wooden (or paper) forms & templates are build from these plans, and then the forms and templates are used to draw patterns on steel plates/beams/etc to be cut and used in building the ships. The basic theme is lots of skilled manpower involved in assembling these ships.
Basically: Model (scaled and tested in water tanks by the designer) ==> blueprints (scaled up from the model, drafted by the draftman) ==> Templates and Forms ==> Patterns on Steel (and other materials) ==> Prefabricated sub-assembles ==> come together to create and fit out a warship. Many other pictures of ship fabrication and ship launching/operation of course, since big things being assembled and operated were just as interesting back then as now…
Well, on airplanes (although the rule gets bent a lot due to considerations of space and optimum routing) you run hydraulics above electrical, so that wires don’t fall down and arc-peck a hole in the tube, leading to a high-pressure spray with an electric arc, causing a fire. The wiring harnesses have “drip loops” ((U-shaped bends) before each connector to ensure that fluid running along a wire bundle doesn’t get into the connectors, where it might cause arcing. But like I said, there are other considerations, for instance constricted space or required separation of redundant systems, that often lead to this rule being superseded.
It was really quoted as an example of the sort of general guideline that a shipfitter would use in running plumbing and wiring in a ship.