The nitrogen in the ship’s atmosphere is essentially inert. It is ignored. It is changed out (along with the rest of the ship’s atmosphere) when you ventilate or run the diesel.
BTW, the “burners” on board are actually known as the CO-H[sub]2[/sub] burners. They oxidize any hydrogen on board (generally produced when charging the battery) to water, and any carbon monoxide on board (produced by the mess specialists burning the chow, for example) to carbon dioxide.
There is a fancy piece of equipment known as the Central Atmospheric Monitoring System (CAMS) that is used to keep track of the various constituents of the ship’s atmosphere, as well as the pressure.
OK then. someone mentioned windows in a sub… well why the hell not?
Yeah yeah yeah, sea pressure and all that. But assuming a window (or series of windows) could be installed that have the same depth and pressure tolerances as the steel (?) hull, would they be beneficial at all?
Let’s say there’s an enemy sub nearby that’s gone silent and can’t be found by traditional means like sonar or radar (remember, I’m non-military and have NO idea what I’m talking about, so forgive any errors 'cuz I got all this from movies…heh). Anyway, in that case it’d be a simple matter of looking out the window at the big sunken blimp in front of you, eh?
So are windows currently out simply due to pressure requirements? (And let’s not limit it to breakable glass… maybe plexiglass?) Is it that hard to build something transparent that can handle those extremes? Or are there other reasons – like even if they COULD be put in, you really don’t need them?
For windows (and their surrounding materials) it would be quite impractical.
One, Hy80 and Hy100 steel, with which modern fast attack boats are made out of, are flexible. Plexiglas at that thickness (IIRC) does not have the same flexibility.
Two, “turbidity”, ie, junk floating in the water, and at what depth, will prevent anyone from seeing anything at X feet of water. At 400 feet plus, you’d need very high candle watt power to see something substantial at say 200 feet away. And depending on the sea (the Indian Ocean, say, or the Med or Bermuda) you can theoritically see forever, but how far can you really see? With modern sonar, close range survelliance is less than 2000 yds. With the size and maneuverability of modern fast attack boats, less than 2K yds means disabling your torpedo’s fail safes in order for them to detonate within that envelope. Even though it is fiction I highly recommend watching “The Hunt for Red October” for a pretty good dramatization of what the US and the USSR was doing from the '60’s until the early '90’s.
Why is anyone willing to serve on a submarine? I mean you’re like locked in a tin can for what 30 days or so. No sun, no moon, no wind (the good kind), no view…nothing. Seems like claustrophobia city. Maybe with a nice big window like they have on the Enterprise, but otherwise why would anyone do it?
Well, there are some geeks who don’t see the sun for weeks at a time if they don’t have too. There are a lot of benefits to be a submariner. (Which is why I plan on being one when I complete ROTC.)
One of the drawbacks to those submariners has to be the"nowhere to get away from the fart" like in an elevator,but one most don’t think of is one an old friend of mine had the misfortune to encounter.He was (guess still is) on the ** Thresher. **.
I worked with a number of sumbariners when I taught at Nuke school for the navy. They were definitely “a breed apart.” I had/have a lot of respect for them. I couldn’t get past the claustrophobia part, myself. My day-trip on a sub didn’t leave me with any kind of urge to do it as a career.
I don’t get the whole “claustrophobia” thing most people have against submarines. Jet airliners are much more crowded and cramped than a modern nuclear submarine is. I don’t like tight spaces, but I had no problem onboard a LA-class sub. And I’m not “insane”.
[ul]
[li] The submarine service is an “elite” service. Everyone is a volunteer, and everyone has to qualify on the boat in order to stay there.[/li]
[li] Like Lunasea wrote, the pays better, the chows better, when in port you live in pretty decent barracks, and advancement is faster.[/li]
[li] There are a number of screening processes done throughout sub school, etc., so someone who’s claustrophobic will get weeded out quickly.[/li]
[li] Fast attack boats have a chaotic schedule. One year we spent over 290 days at sea.[/li]
[li] Boomers have strict schedules, 90 days at sea, 90 days in port (for the crews).[/li][/ul]
And it’s called the Emergency Propulsion Motor (EPM), defined here
WE2 - Emergency and Secondary Propulsion Systems
The Emergency Propulsion Motor is used when the main propulsion system fails. The Secondary Propulsion motor is normally used to maneuver when the submarine is in port, but can be used in emergencies.
