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Author Topic: Empire's "Submarine Engine"  (Read 710 times)

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Empire's "Submarine Engine"
« on: August 24, 2021, 08:25:00 pm »
I just noticed this very strange ad with Empire's description of its B-38 hot air engine as an "Electric Submarine Engine"! Can anyone explain this? You may know that Kockums of Sweden started testing stirling engines in subs in 1988 and the technology was soon adopted by the Swedish Navy and still in use today. But this was much too late for Empire to know about. So where did their designation come from? [ Guests cannot view attachments ]
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Re: Empire's "Submarine Engine"
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2021, 09:12:20 pm »
 1988?  I am guessing you mean 1888?
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Re: Empire's "Submarine Engine"
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2021, 09:26:14 pm »
No it was 1988 when Kockums of Sweden (now part of Saab) first started testing stirling engines in submarines.
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Re: Empire's "Submarine Engine"
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2021, 03:10:50 am »
Wondered the same thing, when i first encountered that ad 8)
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Cheers
Jan
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Re: Empire's "Submarine Engine"
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2021, 02:51:21 pm »
The B-38 was made from 1924 to 1941. I suppose that by 1941, Empire was making war products and not toys. By 1941, subs were getting more sophisticated. There may have been talk of using a Stirling engine in them. I served on WW2 era subs in the 1960's.
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Re: Empire's "Submarine Engine"
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2021, 03:41:24 pm »
This is a very good observation from Brent.
The catalog is an issue from 1935, so long before WW2, and even before the USA got involved in 1942, after Pearl Harbor.
So, it's not likely that this engine is a direct reflexion of the war effort.
By 1945 Nuclear power was the new technology that all the efforts went too.
And it took until 1952, before work started at the Nautilus, that was delivered to the US Navy in 1954.

So why would a toy company, and it was depicted in a toy catalog, call it a submarine engine?
https://archive.org/details/EmpireEducationalToys1935/mode/2up
I don't know enough on the experimental development history on US subs.
But, was there any abandoned sub Stirling engine project in the 1930's the the world has forgotten about?
Or where these empire engines also used by the navy in 1930's submarines to run something?
I think those could be the closed explanations.
But It still remains a big mystery…

Cheers,
Danny
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Danny
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