Name Plunger Awarded 13 March 1895 Launched 7 August 1897 | Ordered 3 March 1893 Type Submarine Length 26 m | |
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Fate Contract cancelled, 1900
Scrapped, 1917 Displacement 149 long tons (151 t) surfaced
168 long tons (171 t) submerged Builders Columbian Iron Works and Dry Dock Co., Balti | ||
Plunger (a.k.a. Holland V) was the first submarine torpedo boat to be built for the United States Navy. She was entirely experimental and was never commissioned in the U.S. Navy or operationally deployed. (Some sources refer to her as the USS Plunger but the USS title is only applied to commissioned ships in the U.S. Navy.) She is not to be confused with the later submarine USS Plunger (SS-2).
Contents
History
Plunger was authorized by the United States Congress on 3 March 1893 and was the fifth submarine designed by Irish engineer and inventor John P. Holland. Plunger was a 149-ton experimental steam-powered submarine and had its design approved in October 1893 The contract for her construction was awarded to Holland Torpedo Boat Company on 13 March 1895.
She was constructed at Columbian Iron Works and Dry Dock Co., Baltimore, Maryland and was launched in August 7, 1897. The Navy conducted dock trials with Plunger in 1898. However, her complex machinery arrangement proved unworkable and the boat was not accepted for service. For one thing, the steam power plant made the craft prone to overheating, making it nearly impossible for the crew to operate it for any extended period. In July 1899 reconstructing Plunger with new engines was considered, but it was decided against.
Plunger features, most of them novel for the time, included three propellers, a steam engine plant, a retractable smokestack, thrusters to facilitate maneuvering, a camera lucida (an optical device serving as a periscope) and two torpedo tubes. She was, possibly, the first submarine designed to fire self-propelled torpedoes.
The contract between Holland and the Navy was cancelled in 1900. The money already outlaid for Plunger was applied to the cost of purchasing a new submarine, which became USS Plunger (SS-2). The original Plunger was kept by the Holland Torpedo Boat Company at its facility in New Suffolk on Long Island. She remained unused until she was scrapped in 1917.
Legacy
Holland applied lessons learned from Plunger to his design of his next submarine, Holland VI, which was accepted by the Navy and commissioned as USS Holland. A similar submarine to the USS Holland, named HMS Holland 1, was commissioned in the Royal Navy. The name Plunger was given to the lead ship of the first multi-ship class of U.S. Navy submarines.