once nuclear power's potential was clear ideas were generated in all areas for how it could best
be used obviously we ended up with nuclear power and nuclear weapons but nuclear subs were an early
idea as well they were pitched as far back as 1939 they started working on reactors in the mid-1940s
and the very first nuclear sub the uss nautilus was commissioned in 1954. there's a lot more to
nuclear subs than just a lot of power under the hood and in today's video we explore that
number 10. they can stay submerged for a very long time traditional submarines that run on diesel
fuel don't have a long time to spend underwater they can stay submerged for several days at most
but nuclear submarines have a distinct advantage in this department obviously a submarine can only
stay down as long as its supplies allow with that in mind most nuclear subs are capable of managing
90 days underwater without ever servicing they make their own air so as long as the
crew has food and water which is usually limited to three months all as well but what if supplies
weren't an issue the nuclear submarine has the potential to stay submerged not just for months
but for years in fact the uk's astute nuclear submarine can stay underwater for up to 25 years
if it needs to that's how long it can go before it needs to worry about refueling a 10 year
boost over earlier models so in theory if the crew were limited and maybe had a substantial
guard on growing things down there they could spend decades under the sea is it realistic no
not at all but is it possible yeah kinda number nine they can dive deep figuring out just how
deep a submarine can submerge is not as easy as you might think the crush depth of a sub is
generally a secret that the world's militaries are not eager to divulge and you can imagine why
any nation wants to keep their potential enemies guessing about where they can and can't go and
how fast they can get there but in general we do know some things about how deep a submarine can go
many u.s nuclear subs are believed to have a crush depth of between 2 400 and 3 000 feet these
are machines made with hy-80 tensile steel newer subs are made with hy-100 and some russian subs
are made from titanium and therefore we'll be able to go deeper how deep the deepest diving sub that
we know of is the russian-made comsolomets which could reach a depth of 4225 feet there are other
research vehicles capable of going deeper but these are not nuclear powered number eight they
cost a lot we know that anything the government in particular the military builds is gonna be
pricey no one makes discount brand tanks and airplanes but what does a nuclear submarine go
for these days is it something you could possibly save up for well that depends whether you're elon
musk or not in 2021 a virginia-class submarine which had been in commissions since 2004 will set
you back around 3.45 billion dollars it's a lot of money during the cold war nuclear submarine
propulsion sent the us government back around 46 billion dollars and another 220 billion dollars
for submarine construction adjusting that for inflation is difficult because it covers a span
of about 40 years but even if you measure from 1991 then at the very least you're looking at
over half a trillion dollars in total 7. russia tried to buy dairy products with nuclear subs
so given what you know about what nuclear submarine might cost you you can imagine what
they would be worth in terms of trade these things happen sometimes especially with older military
surplus items a country might develop newer better technology and look to sell some older items to
another country that doesn't have the capability to produce something on par this was something
russia tried to do with new zealand the deal in question was not new zealand looking to buy an
older nuclear sub from russia though instead it was russia trying to pay a debt during the cold
war and before the fall of the soviet union new zealand had been supplying the soviets with dairy
a lot of dairy by 1993 they owed the kiwis a hundred million dollars in an effort to settle
their massive cheese bill russia offered to trade in lieu of payment their offer was a
pair of fighter jets and a nuclear submarine new zealand is decidedly anti-nuclear and so
as you can imagine the offer was not accepted 6. the titanic was found thanks to a secret nucleus
subsearch mission everyone knows the story of the titanic and its silvated voyage back in 1912 that
resulted in an unplanned run-in with an iceberg the story was fascinating when it happened and
has remained so for over 100 years but the story really had a peak back in 1985 when a team led by
naval officer robert ballard discovered the remains of the titanic on the ocean floor
after being lost for nearly three quarters of a century it was a big deal to discover it again
at 12 000 feet below the sea it was no easy task to find it but find it they did and that was the
first time it became common knowledge that the ship had actually split in two as it sank what
people did not know at the time and what none of us would learn for many years was that the mission
to discover the titanic had been a ruse in reality it was a mission to discover two sunken nuclear
subs the titanic story was concocted by the military as a smokescreen so no one in particular
the russians would know that the remains of two subs were being studied to determine how their
weapons and power supply were holding up in that environment ironically the research ended with
12 days to spare so the team decided to actually go looking for the titanic because they had time
and they ended up finding it providing the perfect cover for the true mission number five dozens have
been built we've already seen how much a nuclear sub can cost so maybe it's somewhat surprising
just how many have been built over the years the u.s has over 160 nuclear-powered vessels
in its fleet running over 200 reactors of those 68 submarines of course the u.s isn't alone
in the seas china currently has 12 nuclear subs russia has 29 the uk has 11 france has eight india
has won and australia is going to be getting some very soon nine subs have been sunk over the years
usually as the result of accidents two american and seven soviet or russian numerous others
have been decommissioned as well number four the crew on the smallest nuclear sub burned chlorate
candles for air most of us can probably picture a submarine in our heads you have a general idea of
the size and the shape even if you may not be able to say unequivocally about how long or wide it is
but the truth is they come in a wide variety of sizes a virginia class sub is 377 feet long block
5 subs are 460 feet long russian typhoon subs were 574 feet long so clearly these can be large
vessels but how do things work on the other end of the scale the nr1 was the smallest nuclear sub at
130 feet launched in 1969 it was built to be a spy vessel that could tap into russian communication
cables it was also designed to go down to what at the time was a considerable depth of over 2
300 feet as a result the hull had to be designed almost perfectly round with barely a millimeter
of discrepancy allowed in any measurement with the room required for the crew and propulsion system
there was little space in the nr1 for things like supplies or air in order to make oxygen on board
the crew had to burn chlorate candles these were canisters full of sodium chlorate and iron this
created a chemical reaction that produced table salt rust and oxygen as a result 3. they have not
done much in battle the word nuclear brings to mind first and foremost either nuclear power or
nuclear weapons both of those things are infamous for their terrifying power no one needs to be told
twice about chernobyl or hiroshima to appreciate exactly what that means combine this with what you
know about submarines some of the most important naval vessels of the second world war and it seems
like a nuclear saab should be a destructive tour de force u.s subs in world war ii sank 1
314 enemy ships u-boats took out over 3 000 allied vessels so how many vessels have been taken out by
the nuclear fleet two two vessels and only one during combat the first was an indian frigate
sung by a pakistani sub in 1971 and then in 1982 a uk submarine took out an argentinian cruiser
when they invaded the falkland islands and so far that's the end of their direct military might at
sea number two two of them ran into each other we've seen how many nuclear submarines have been
produced since the 1950s and while the number is high it's not staggering it's not like the oceans
are so clogged with them that they have trouble avoiding each other despite that they actually do
have trouble avoiding each other so much so that two of them actually collided in 2009. on the one
hand you can look at such a collision as a success it means these subs are so well designed and so
undetectable that they're virtually invisible in the water on the other hand they were allies
and they ran headlong into each other when they had a basically empty ocean all around them the
collision occurred between britain's hms vanguard and france's letreon fall it was at a slow rate
of speed so none of the crew of either vessel were injured but it did put a lot of people on
edge since these were two nuclear vessels and the vanguard had 48 nuclear warheads on board the fear
that a catastrophic nuclear explosion could have occurred made everyone a bit edgy so how did the
accident happen well it was never fully explained if either sub had been using active sonar they
could have seen the other but since subs won't use sonar when concealing their location it just
seems to be an amazing coincidence 1. they've been taken out by cookie-cutter sharks a nuclear
submarine with a crew of several hundred and complement of missiles and nuclear warheads sounds
tough but really how tough are they what can they stand up to evidently not the cookie-cutter shark
these sharks are really small how small well they're sometimes also referred to as
cigar sharks males won't even reach a foot and a half in length but they are infamous for their
bite they get the name cookie cutter from their unusual round mouths which can cut circles out
of the bodies of their prey and as it happens they could also cut circles out of rubber sonar domes
and electrical cables found on nuclear subs cookie cutter sharks have been so destructive to nuclear
subs that they forced them to return to shipyards for repairs after being effectively blinded
on the upside this problem happened back in the 1970s and it looks like later subs were made less
delicious looking to the sharks so i really hope you enjoyed this video and if you were thinking ah
gee simon i should talk more about nuclear submarines well great news for you check out
another channel that i host called mega projects which is all about mankind's greatest achievements
world wonders tall buildings nucleus submarines and dozens of other machines of war it's all
available on megaprojects so go check it out there is a link below and thank you for watching