According to the U.S. media outlet "National Security Journal," in the 1950s, the U.S. Navy proposed a plan to build a submarine carrier capable of carrying fighter jets.

According to the design, this submarine carrier, known as AN-1, was based on the "Halibut" class missile submarine. It had two hangars inside, capable of accommodating eight specially developed three-Mach fighter jets.

When launching, the submarine needed to surface, upright the aircraft, and push it into the air using external rocket boosters, after which the aircraft's own engine would take over flight.

Theoretically, the submarine could launch four aircraft within six minutes and complete the entire operation in eight minutes.

These aircraft were envisioned as high-speed fighters developed by Boeing, with a top speed of three times the speed of sound, which could fully counter the threat posed by Soviet interceptors and bombers at the time.

However, the project never solved the recovery problem, and Boeing's vertical landing proposal was proven too risky. Ultimately, as ballistic missile submarines became more mature and the value of super carriers in conventional warfare became evident, the United States eventually abandoned the submarine carrier plan.

Imagined scene

Why did such an absurd idea emerge? It must be understood in the context of the strategic anxiety at the beginning of the Cold War.

At the end of World War II, the United States held a dominant military advantage through its large air force and atomic bombs, but this advantage was rapidly weakened after the Soviet Union successfully conducted a nuclear test in 1949.

Military experts generally worried that if a full-scale war broke out, the Soviet nuclear strike would destroy major airports in the United States at the very first moment, making it impossible for fighter jets and bombers to take off.

The vulnerability of the air force was magnified, especially in the context of nuclear war scenarios, where airport anxiety almost became a nightmare for American strategists.

At the same time, the stealth of submarines was highly valued: they could remain submerged for long periods, avoiding attacks from reconnaissance satellites and bombers. If submarines could combine the functions of aircraft carriers, they might have retained a small amount of usable air power in the aftermath of a nuclear strike.

At the time, the U.S. military was in a phase of strategic frenzy, daring to imagine everything from backpack nuclear bombs, nuclear-powered bombers, to flying saucers.

The proposal of the submarine carrier was a product of this background: driven by nuclear fear and technological enthusiasm, even extreme plans were studied.

Imaginary illustration

Since the 21st century, although the concept of a submarine carrier has become history, with the rise of drones, this idea has taken on new significance.

Differing from the large manned fighter jets of the past, drones are small, do not require complex decks or arresting wires, and can even be used once without needing to be recovered, directly solving the landing problem.

The imagined space for submarines releasing drones is vast: they can release a group of drones at the front line, instantly gaining aerial surveillance capabilities, breaking through the limitations of submarines being blind underwater; they can release electronic warfare drones to create chaos on enemy radar screens, creating conditions for submarine-launched missile strikes; or even use small attack drones to launch low-cost surprise attacks on coastal targets.

If the future realizes the underwater deployment of swarms of drones, submarines will become a flexible drone mothership, switching freely between intelligence, communication, and strike, showing a more reasonable tactical value than the Cold War-era concept.

Drone inside a capsule launched from a submarine

Currently, both China and the United States are exploring this direction and have made substantial progress.

The U.S. Navy tested the "Black Wing" drone in the 2010s, a micro-drone that could be launched through a submarine torpedo tube. After surfacing, it automatically unfolded its wings and took off, capable of performing electronic reconnaissance and data relay missions.

In recent years, the Chinese submarine forces have also been testing experiments on underwater drone release, using specially designed waterproof compartments to launch small drones, providing battlefield intelligence in island reefs or anti-submarine dense areas.

In a way, this is a real-world evolution of the Cold War submarine carrier concept, no longer pursuing large manned aircraft, but instead using unmanned and intelligent technologies to make submarines a more unpredictable force on the sea battlefield.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7539027028335444518/

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