Worlds oldest active submarine

[88E30M50]

Ran across this today. A US Tench class submarine is still in service in Taiwan and is expected to remain so until 2025

World's oldest submarine to stay in service | Taiwan News | 2017-01-21 19:45:00

Taiwan's difficult defense situation.The Navy has reached an agreement to refurbish its 71-year-old Sea Lion submarine to help it reach 80 years of service. | 2017-01-21 19:45:00

www.taiwannews.com.tw

 

[marvin02]

@actaeon277 - did you serve on this?

 

[printcraft]

@actaeon277 - did you serve on this?

I found his picture...

 

[actaeon277]

Wow. In submarine lives, that's ANCIENT.

 

[actaeon277]

In 1991, my sub hit 30 years old, and it was a maintenance problem.
They decomm'd it because the nukes back then were only designed for 30 year lifetimes, because nuke power was rapidly changing. Now I think we're looking at 50 year estimations.

But, even with a newer reactor, you'll still have maintenance issues in general, with cyclic stress adding to the equation.
Then there's a problem of trying to fix equipment, that the manufacturer is no longer around. This makes finding replacements difficult, and the Navy is not big on cobbled together solutions for major platforms.
Look at problems they had with the 4 renovated battleships. It was just too difficult.


I was talking to a squid, complaining about him being on the 2nd sub in the class, how he had to do so much maintenance.
I looked at him, asked if he was on 689.
He said yes.
I laughed in his face.
I was on the 611. He was complaining to the wrong squid.

 

[88E30M50]

The two Taiwanese Tench class boats have two of the three remaining functinal ARMA gyroscope. I think that the third one is maintained in working order on the USS Pampanito WWII museum ship.