USS Turbot (SS-427)

For other ships with the same name, see USS Turbot.

The partially completed hulk of USS Turbot.
History
United States
Name	Turbot
Namesake	The turbot
Builder	Cramp Shipbuilding Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Laid down	13 November 1943
Launched	as incomplete hulk 12 April 1946
Completed	Never
Commissioned	Never
Stricken	1958
Fate	Construction contract cancelled 12 August 1945
Notes	Served as testing hulk; survived as such into the 1980s
General characteristics
Class and type	Balao-class diesel-electric submarine[1]
Displacement	1,526 long tons (1,550 t) surfaced,[1] 2,414 long tons (2,453 t) submerged[1]
Length	311 ft 9 in (95.02 m)[1]
Beam	27 ft 3 in (8.31 m)[1]
Draft	16 ft 10 in (5.13 m) maximum[1]
Propulsion	4 × General Motors Model 16-248 V16 Diesel engines driving electric generators[2][3] 2 × 126-cell Sargo batteries[4] 4 × high-speed General Electric electric motors with reduction gears[2] two propellers [2] 5,400 shp (4.0 MW) surfaced[2] 2,740 shp (2.0 MW) submerged[2]
Speed	20.25 knots (37.50 km/h; 23.30 mph) surfaced,[5] 8.75 knots (16.21 km/h; 10.07 mph) submerged[5]
Range	11,000 nmi (20,000 km; 13,000 mi) surfaced at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)[5]
Endurance	48 hours at 2 kn (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) submerged,[5] 75 days on patrol
Test depth	400 ft (120 m)[5]
Complement	10 officers, 70–71 enlisted[5]
Armament	10 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 6 forward, 4 aft 24 torpedoes 1 × 4-inch (102 mm) / 50 caliber deck gun Bofors 40 mm and Oerlikon 20 mm cannon

USS Turbot (SS-427), a Balao-class submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the turbot, a large, brown and white flatfish, valued as a food.

Turbot's keel was laid down on 13 November 1943 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by the Cramp Shipbuilding Company, but the contract for her construction was cancelled on 12 August 1945. Her partially completed hulk was launched on 12 April 1946 and, in 1950, was assigned to the Naval Ship Research and Development Center at Annapolis, Maryland, where it was used for research and development in connection with the control and reduction of machinery noise in submarines.^[6]

Turbot was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 1958, and sold for scrapping to the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, at Sparrow's Point, Maryland; however, rather than being scrapped, she remained tied up to a U.S. Navy pier in Carr's Creek at the North Severn Naval Station in Maryland, where she continued to be used for testing well into the 1980s. Some material was removed from her hulk for use in other submarines, including her six torpedo air flasks, which were installed in the submarine USS Pampanito (SS-383) in San Francisco, California.^[6]

References

1. Bauer, K. Jack; Roberts, Stephen S. (1991). Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990: Major Combatants. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 275–282. ISBN 0-313-26202-0.
2. Bauer, K. Jack; Roberts, Stephen S. (1991). Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775–1990: Major Combatants. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 270–280. ISBN 978-0-313-26202-9. OCLC 24010356.
3. U.S. Submarines Through 1945 p. 261
4. U.S. Submarines Through 1945 pp. 305–311
5. U.S. Submarines Through 1945 pp. 305-311
6. Anonymous, "The Case of the Missing Hull Numbers," Submarine Force Museum, 4 August 2014, 8:00 a.m. EDT Retrieved 17 June 2018.

•  This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.