How do you steer a submarine?

Answer 1

On the older type of Fleet submarine, pre-nuclear. there were a minimum of Three steermen involved, plus the officer of the deck who had the overall *conn. The quartermaster maintained lateral control with a fairly conventional steering wheel- and remote compass repeaters, as there is no forward vision submerged. the Bow and stern planesman sat behind the QM usually on the right and worked large handwheels controlling the up and down angle on the two sets of diaplanes or dive planes- bow and stern, these were hydraulically linked- so says my l946 Naval tech manual. the planesman may have also had some control over the ballast tanks as their task was to maintain the up and down level. Ballast was always controlled by an officer, behind the Christmas Tree or master indicating panel(so called from Red and Green lights!) more modern subs have aircraft-like De-Haviland yokes and the two helmsmen control both the course and the up and down angle- like aircraft pilots- the ballast is still a separate post. it has been stated the three-wheel system is downright impractical at a submerged speed above 25 knots- so it is not used on modern nuclear subs- but older ones like the Nautilus had one steering wheel and two planesmen"s wheels or as they are somewhat incorrectly called Ballast wheels- so be it.