USS Barracuda (SS-163)
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| History | |
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| Builder: | Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine |
| Laid down: | 20 October 1921 |
| Launched: | 17 July 1924 |
| Commissioned: | 1 October 1924 |
| Decommissioned: | 14 May 1937 |
| Commissioned: | 5 September 1940 |
| Decommissioned: | 3 March 1945 |
| Struck: | 10 March 1945 |
| Fate: | Sold for breaking up, 16 November 1945 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | V-1 (Barracuda)-class composite direct-drive diesel and diesel-electric submarine |
| Displacement: | |
| Length: | 341 ft 6 in (104.09 m) |
| Beam: | 27 ft 6⅝ in (9.4 m) |
| Draft: | 15 ft 2 in (4.62 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: |
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| Range: |
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| Endurance: | 10 hours at 5 knots (9 km/h) |
| Test depth: | 200 ft (60 m) |
| Complement: | 7 officers, 11 petty officers, 69 enlisted |
| Armament: |
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USS Barracuda (SF-4/SS-163), lead ship of her class and first of the "V-boats," was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the barracuda (after USS F-2). Her keel was laid down at Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched as V-1 (SF-4) on 17 July 1924, sponsored by Mrs. Cornelia Wolcott Snyder, wife of Captain Snyder, and commissioned on 1 October 1924 with Lieutenant Commander S. Picking in command. V-1 and her sisters V-2 (Bass) and V-3 (Bonita) were the only class of the nine "V-boats" designed to meet the fleet submarine requirement of 21 knots (39 km/h) surface speed for operating with contemporary battleships.
V-1 was completed with two Busch-Sulzer direct-drive 6-cylinder 2-cycle main diesel engines of 2,250 hp (1,680 kW) each, along with two Busch-Sulzer auxiliary diesel engines of 1,000 hp (750 kW) each, driving electrical generators. The latter were primarily for charging batteries, but to reach maximum surfaced speed, they could augment the mechanically coupled main-propulsion engines by driving the 1,200 hp (890 kW) electric motors in parallel via an electric transmission. Although it wasn't until about 1939 that its problems were solved, electric transmission in a pure diesel-electric arrangement became the propulsion system for the successful fleet submarines of World War II, the Tambor-class through the Tench-class. Prior to recommissioning in 1940, the auxiliary diesels were replaced with two BuEng Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg AG (MAN-designed) 6-cylinder 4-cycle diesel engines of 1,000 hp (750 kW) each. In 1942-43 Barracuda was converted to a cargo submarine, with the main engines removed to provide cargo space, significantly reducing her speed on the remaining auxiliary diesels.
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