6. Actually the first country to mate small submarines with larger ones for special missions was Japan. In early WW2 Japan was ahead on lots of this type of tech Painting by Tom W. Freeman, via Valor in the Pacific National Historical Park

And this is how new submarines are born!

7. By now Italians will be gesticulating that I’m ignoring their dry deck shelters and SDVs… no, but that’s subtly different, and the shelters are much smaller

But much, much more stylish.

8. It’s fair to say however, that Italy invented combat swimmer type special forces. Check out www.hisutton.com/Mignatta.html

Fun fact: incoming SOCOM commander was an exchange officer with the Italian SEALs

9. The Dutch Dolfijn class submarine of the Cold War had three pressure hulls arranged like a triangle. Good boats for their time and definitely an interesting arrangement

10. Actually Dutch engineers had been designing 3-hull submarines in WW2 See www.hisutton.com/Dutch_WW2_Su... Small break, will resume

Dutch engineers, while the Netherlands were occupied by Germany?

Yes. But the Dutch engineers had taken refuge in Britain

Thank you for the information. Never heard of before.

11. During 1950s the U.S. navy built dedicated radar submarines

They had these just after ww2. I’d need to crack open my Friedman book for exact dates. They were initially developed since a sub was less vulnerable to Kamikaze than the destroyers that had been acting as picket (and taking losses).

What's the number of this sub? The photo isn't clear enough. (Bluesky has issues with blurriness sometimes)

12. The Soviets did too, although only converting old designs. They served longer in Soviet navy

13. The ultimate radar submarine was USS Triton, which had 2 nuclear reactors and was then the largest submarine in the world.

The Belgorod and The Kuntsevo are supposed to have gotten underway from Murmansk with Poseidon systems. The Belgirod is supposed to be huge.

There is a lot to make me doubt this. What’s the source?

14. Under Stalin the USSR worked on a submarine which had 3 torpedo rooms, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and midget submarines for amphibious assault. Obvious the idea didn’t float

Pew Pew Pew.

15. The USS Tullibee nuclear submarine design should have been provided to Canada and Australia IMO

Fabulous effort with this thread! But there seems to be an error in this painting. I read your account of the Pearl Harbour raid. Those IJN mini subs had a hatch connected to their mothership sub so the crew could get on board while both subs were submerged. So no crew climbing while surfaced.