The US Navy’s First Submarine

I thought it was the Hunley (a Confederate vessel), but it appears the Hunley is from 1863 - 4. See: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-us-cs/csa-sh/csash-hl/hunley.htm

So, you don't think that Turtle counts?



Read more at the Office of Naval Research

(Not tryin' to upstage ya, Acq, it just popped into my head when i saw your thread.)

The Turtle was not the US Navy, it was the US Army, strange but true.

There is a major difference here. The Turtle was the harebrained scheme of a Yale graduate that really had no successors. The USS Alligator and the Hunley are example of the very first serious underwater war ships Both had to get the approval of Navy departments, notorious for their conservatism. There would be others that built on these experiences. The Hunley for example was originally designed to use a Whitehead torpedo. The Alligator was designed by a Frenchman and it was the French who over the next 40 years did most of the pioneering work in submarine development.

In 1812, when HMS Ramillies was attacked by a copy of the Turtle, was that an army boat as well?

I know very little about the second Turtle, it is nearly unknown. It was also the creation of David Bushnell, late in is life, he was in his 60's. It attacked the Ramillies out of New London Harbor and it was not a success. It may have been financed by the State of Connecticut. New England shipping interests were after the Ramillies however, it was much too successful a blockader. They loaded a schooner with powder and disguised it as a blockade runner. When the Ramillies captured her a timer was set to ignite the powder. The schooner blew up but this did not sink the Ramillies either.