Written by an outstanding team, this book contains essays on submarine history and today's submariners, focusing not only on the subs, torpedoes, and related technologies but especially on the people who make it all work. Includes full-color and vintage photos, portraits, recruiting posters, and historically inspired paintings.

The period covered by this book was one of radical change for the U.S. Navy. When the modern navy first considered buying a submarine in 1887, it was a coast defense force confined to the Western Hemisphere. The United States became a world power just as its new submarines offered a way of defending its most distant possession, the Philippines, without tying down an expensive fleet. World War I found U.S. submarines in an unexpected role, countering German U-boats in British waters. Then the situation changed again with unexpected speed.

The history of the development of submarines covered in this book spans the most tumultuous years of the 20th century. When the little Holland No. 1 was launched in 1901, few could guess that the submarine would become the most potent weapon of war ever developed.

Shattering long-held myths and misunderstandings, author Brayton Harris traces the development of the submarine through an era in which writers of fiction saw the merits better than most professionals -- until the Germans almost won World War I. He covers the professional and political arrogance that delayed antisubmarine development for so long that German submarines almost won World War II as well, and examines post-war progress toward the truly awesome submarine of today. Along the way, Harris explores the shifting moral issues of "unrestricted" naval warfare, outlines the hundred-year search for an effective underwater power plant that culminated in the nuclear reactor, and raises important questions about the future. A fascinating exploration of the steps and stumbles during development, a rousing tribute to those who fought and died, and a powerful study of the submarine's impact on America, The Navy Times Book of Submarines is an unparalleled source for understanding the great "hunters of the deep".

Only the author of The Hunt for Red October could capture the reality of life aboard a nuclear submarine. Only a writer of Mr. Clancy's magnitude could obtain security clearance for information, diagrams, and photographs never before available to the public. Now, every civilian can enter this top secret world...the weapons, the procedures, the people themselves...the startling facts behind the fiction that made Tom Clancy a #1 bestselling author.

Submarines had a vital, if often unheralded, role in the superpower navies during the Cold War. Their crews carried out intelligence-collection operations, sought out and stood ready to destroy opposing submarines, and, from the early 1960s, threatened missile attacks on their adversary's homeland, providing in many respects the most survivable nuclear deterrent of the Cold War. For both East and West, the modern submarine originated in German U-boat designs obtained at the end of World War II. Although enjoying a similar technology base, by the 1990s the superpowers had created submarine fleets of radically different designs and capabilities. Written in collaboration with the former Soviet submarine design bureaus, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore authoritatively demonstrate in this landmark study how differing submarine missions, antisubmarine priorities, levels of technical competence, and approaches to submarine design organizations and management caused the divergence.

Beginning with a detailed history, this book follows the development of the submarine from the Cold War onwards, with special topics including life aboard the Dreadnought, the ballistic boomers, the tragedy of the Kursk and deep sea survival teams.