Dorado (SS-248)

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Introduction to the Gato-class submarines

The Gato-class fleet submarines, of which there would eventually be a total of 77 boats, were authorized in Congressional appropriations on June 14 1940 for Fiscal Year (FY) 1941. This was the so-called Two Year Program. It called for additional 21,000 tons of submarines over and above what the Navy already had. The ink wasn't even dry on this authorization when the fall of France and the deteriorating situation in China prompted Congress to implement the add-on 70 Percent Expansion Act on July 19, 1940. This act authorized an additional 70,000 tons of submarine construction, for a total of 43 more boats, over and above the boats in the Two Year Program. Delighted with the new appropriations, the Navy's Bureau of Construction & Repair (C&R) chose to standardize on a single design for mass production. The new submarines, to be named the Gato-class, were slightly modified versions of the FY-39 and 40 submarines, the Tambor/Gar-class.

A "fleet submarine" was a large submarine intended to operate directly with the main fleet battle line composed of battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers. Their role was to range out ahead of the battle line and act as scouts. They were to find the enemy and report on their composition, course, and speed. They were to then conduct attrition attacks designed to weaken the enemy fleet prior to the main gun battle with the U.S. battle line. To accomplish this mission the submarines had to have a long range, high speed, and be heavily armed. The subs also had to be quite large in order to fit all of the necessary equipment to achieve these qualities into the pressure hull.

The USN's earliest submarines were of the harbor defense, coastal defense, and patrol types and thus were too small, too underpowered, and lacked the necessary range to conduct the fleet submarine role. The Navy's first attempt to build a fleet submarine was the T-class of 1916 and 1917. The state of the art in those years lacked the technology needed to provide the powerful engines and refined hull form required to get the high speed and sea-keeping qualities that the boats needed. The T-class was an expensive failure, but the Navy learned was wasn't going to work and rolled those lessons into future construction, which would become the V-class submarines of the 1920s and early 30's.

The nine V-class submarines ended up being largely experimental in nature, as the Navy tinkered with several concepts brought out by WW I. The class not only consisted of fleet submarines, but also a specialized mine layer, two commerce raiding cruiser submarines, an open ocean patrol submarine, and two small fleet boats. The boats were either too big, too small, or they were too experimental in nature to be fully successful. All of them were underpowered, as diesel engine technology in the United States badly lacked in comparison with European designs.


Class Construction

The Victory Yard

USS Dorado (SS-248)

Specifications

Sea Trials

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