Talk:List of submarine classes of the United States Navy

Thresher/Permit
Pre-Dolphins coming later today/tonite. We need to suss out how to handle the entry for the Thresher class a little cleaner I think. Elde 18:03, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Why? It looks fine to me the way you have it.  We need to redirect Permit class submarine to Thresher class submarine (or verse visa), because the world uses both interchangeably, but other than that, what's the issue? --the Epopt 22:52, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It just looks 'funny' to me is all, but not unacceptably so. The world may use them interchangably, but the USN uses Permit. Damm I wish I could find my copy of "US Submarines since 1945". Elde 23:33, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

List annotation Style
Before I continue adding boats and classes; which style of comment do you think looks better? A produces a compact, but more confusing list, B makes the classes stand out better from the comments. There is also a choice of indent levels for B.

Style A

 * Mackerel (SS-204) class
 * Gato (SS-212) class
 * This was the "standard" attack submarine of WWII.
 * Balao (SS-285) class
 * The Balao class was an upgraded version of the Gato class, mostly noted for its increased diving depth.
 * Tench (SS-417) class
 * The Tench class was was further refined version of the Gato/Balao types.
 * Barracuda (SS-550) class
 * USS Dolphin (AGSS 555) (unique)
 * A deep diving submarine used for various experimental and development purposes.
 * Tang (SS-563) class

Style B

 * Mackerel (SS-204) class
 * Gato (SS-212) class
 * This was the "standard" attack submarine of WWII.


 * Balao (SS-285) class
 * The Balao class was an upgraded version of the Gato class, mostly noted for its increased diving depth.


 * Tench (SS-417) class
 * The Tench class was further refined version of the Gato/Balao types.


 * Barracuda (SS-550) class
 * USS Dolphin (AGSS-555) (unique)
 * A deep diving submarine used for various experimental and development purposes.


 * Tang (SS-563) class

Elde 05:25, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I prefer style "A," as long as the comments don't get very long. (Long descriptions go in the class or ship article itself, of course.) Because people don't notice that individual ships have articles, we're continually having to remove chunks of stuff from ship index pages; eg, people keep trying to describe the explosion in Manila Harbor at USS Maine instead of clicking through to USS Maine (ACR-1).

--the Epopt 15:52, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I've created Permit class submarine, and redirected Thresher class submarine to it, but I haven't retrofitted the individual boat articles to point to Permit-class instead of Thresher-class. I just can't bring myself to call Thresher a Permit-class boat. --the Epopt 18:18, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I intend to keep the comments reasonably short, but this list give an opportunity to give a capsule history of the sub force as well as a bare list. Elde 02:05, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Epopt - Are you sure about the Barracuda's? See: Elde 17:12, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * http://www.skyrocket.de/usnavy/index_frame.htm?http://www.skyrocket.de/usnavy/data/sst-3__barracuda.htm

Disambiguating classes
Due to a lack of imagination or something, both the US Navy and the Royal Navy (and sometimes other navies) have more-or-less used up the alphabet for pre-WWII classes of submarines. The Royal Navy has already got pages for E class submarine and M class submarine, while S class submarine is shared by both with the Italian navy. I've done pages for the (2) USN E-class boats, using (USN) as a disambiguator. I suggest that using class submarine (USN) and  class submarine (RN) consistently would be a good thing---better than having the default for some letters meaning one navy while other letters mean the other. &mdash;wwoods 07:59, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Wwoods; I have proposed in the past to use the SS-xxx series for US submarines. It's already more-or-less disambiguated, and it's the standard series which the Navy itself and most Naval historians use.  Also doing this provides a single consistent article naming scheme on the 'pedia for all USN boats. Your letter scheme will hang up on the V's, which while numbered in series are not a single class.  No matter what scheme we use, the S-boats are going to be a real bear... Elde 20:04, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Hmm... Do you want to make those the overt Wikipedia class names ("USS Sea Slug (SS-99) is a SS-88-class submarine.") or just use them internally ("USS Sea Slug (SS-99) is a Shrimp-class submarine.")?
 * Do you want to just do this for the pre-WWII classes, or rename everything (e.g. Los Angeles class submarine to SSN-688 class submarine )?
 * I'm planning to stamp out a bunch of stubby pages (see User:Wwoods/Balao class page template) but if the class names are going to be changed, obviously I'd rather wait till after than add to the work that needs redoing.
 * &mdash;wwoods 01:03, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I think changing every single submarine page ever written to use numbers instead of names would be a Bad Idea [tm]. Let's talk about this a little.... --the Epopt 04:20, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Let's split the difference a little then. All of the boats without names should be listed by SS-xx number, with the appropriate re-directs.  This gives a consistent method of reffering to those classes. It also avoids the inconsistencies caused by boats like Barracuda  which originally didn't have a name and had multiple designations[1], and things like the V- and S boats which are not 'classes' in the usual sense.


 * [1] In the class pages it might be nice to discuss the why's and wherefores of some of the designation changes. The SSK/SSKN > SS/SSN transition in particular was caused by large shift in the tactics and technology.
 * Elde 20:39, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Following Naming conventions (ships), I disambiguated all letter classes by nationality. For example, British S class submarine and United States S class submarine. Gdr 11:49, 2004 Dec 15 (UTC)

Smaller/Cheaper submarines
"... Also like the Barracuda and Mackerel classes [Tullibee] was also an attempt to build a smaller cheaper submarine. Like all such attempts she proved inadequate in service and was not repeated." What does this say about the prospects for the Virginias? &mdash;wwoods 22:11, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Very little actually. The Barracudas and the Mackerels were designed with strict tonnage limits and simplified systems, and were deliberatley smaller than other ships of their era's. the result were boats with poor performance.  The Virginias on the other hand are improved 688's, (not as commonly believed devolved Seawolfs).


 * The great size, performance, and cost of the 21 boats comes from the need to penetrate beneath the ice and conduct extended combat operations in the bastions. Remove that need, and the torpedo room shrinks.  Lower the tactical speeds back down to something saner, and the reactor/engine shrinks, etc... etc..
 * Elde 04:47, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Adding information to the list
I think the list could be made more useful by tabulating it and adding dates for development and deployment of each submarine class.--Anchoress 04:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation: two "Barracuda" classes
Clicking on either of these links...

Barracuda (SS-163) class (SS-163 to SS-165)

Barracuda (SS-550) class

...take you to the same page, that for the three hunter-killers of the SS-550 class. Selecting the entry for the SS-163 class should take you here: USS Barracuda (SS-163) --CaptainDFW 15:42, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Catch a little
This is evidently supposed to display rather differently... TREKphiler  hit me ♠  17:38, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Summary table needed
As someone trying to learn this material, I'm looking for an overview table that would show basic information for each class: alternative names (e.g., Trident vs Ohio class), range of numbers, boat size, diving depth, years made, how many made, how many still active, basic purpose (reason this class was needed, new capabilities). This would be a service if one of the contributors here feels like creating it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.173.36 (talk) 17:27, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

That's pretty much a book, and a great deal of research... not a simply summary table suitable for Wikipedia. 24.16.181.1 (talk) 15:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Separate SSBN's from the Fast Attacks?
Have a suggestion for the Cold War era sub section. If the development of missile subs occurred separately from attack subs, then how about we all the boomers then be put into a different table or column rather than shoving them all together? Masterblooregard (talk) 21:16, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Last Boat Commissioned
I think for the two active classes, we should still be listing the most recent boat under "Last Boat Commissioned". These are currently blank, I assume because new boats are still planned. However, I came here looking to see what the most recent boat commissioned was, and that's where I would expected to find this information. Any objections? If not, I'll add those dates in. BuckeyeSmithie (talk) 14:50, 7 October 2019 (UTC)


 * No response yet; I'm going to go ahead and add them in. We'll just need to update this list every few years as new boats are launched. BuckeyeSmithie (talk) 19:01, 11 October 2019 (UTC)