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The V-boats were a group of nine United States Navy submarines built between World War I and World War II from 1921 to 1934. These were not a ship class in the usual sense of a series of nearly identical ships built from the same design, but shared authorization under the "fleet boat" program. The term "V-boats" is used to includes five separate classes of submarines. They broke down into three large, fast fleet submarines (''V-1'' through ''V-3''), three large long-range submarines (''V-4'' through ''V-6''), and three medium-sized submarines (''V-7'' through ''V-9''). The successful fleet submarines of World War II ( through ) were descended from the last three, especially ''V-7'', though somewhat larger with pure diesel-electric propulsion systems. Originally called USS ''V-1'' through ''V-9'' (SS-163 through SS-171), in 1931 the nine submarines were renamed , , , , , , , , and , respectively. All served in World War II, six of them on war patrols in the central Pacific. ''Argonaut'' was lost to enemy action. ==Background== In the early 1910s, only 12 years after inaugurated the Navy's undersea force, naval strategists had already begun to wish for submarines that could operate in closer collaboration with the surface fleet than the Navy's existing classes, which had been designed primarily for coastal defense. These notional "fleet" submarines would necessarily be larger and better armed, but primarily, they would need a surface speed of some to be able to maneuver with the 21-knot battleships the battle fleet was built around. This was the designed speed of the and later battleships, including the standard-type battleships that were under construction and proposed in 1913. In the summer of 1913, Electric Boat's chief naval architect, former naval constructor Lawrence Y. Spear, proposed two preliminary fleet-boat designs for consideration in the Navy's 1914 program. In the ensuing authorization of eight submarines, Congress specified that one should "be of a seagoing type to have a surface speed of not less than twenty knots". This first fleet boat, laid down in June 1916, was named USS ''Schley'' after Spanish–American War hero Winfield Scott Schley. With a displacement of surfaced, submerged, on a length of , ''Schley'' (later ''AA-1'', and finally ''T-1'') was twice as large as any previous U.S. submarine. To achieve the required surface speed, two tandem diesel engines on each shaft drove twin screws, and a separate diesel generator was provided for charging batteries. Although ''Schley'' and two sisters authorized in 1915— (originally ''AA-2''), and (originally ''AA-3'')—all made their design speed of , insoluble torsional vibration problems with their tandem engines made them very troublesome ships, and they were decommissioned in 1922-1923 after a service life of only a few years. As the engines were clutched together, it was impossible to perfectly synchronize their operation. In 1916, well before the T class debacle transpired, Congress authorized 58 coastal submarines and nine additional "fleet" boats. Three of the larger coastal boats eventually became competing prototypes for the long-lived, 51-member S class. The nine "fleet boats" became the "V-boats", built between 1921 and 1934, and in fact, they were the only U.S. submarines produced in that period. However, although ''V-4'', ''V-5'', and ''V-6'' were the largest US non-nuclear submarines ever built, only ''V-1'' through ''V-3'' were designed to reach a speed of 21 knots. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「V-boat」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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