The discussion of Narwhal and Lipscomb makes me crave a really substantial book on the one-off nuke boats of the Cold War. I've always been fascinated by Narwhal, Triton, Halibut, Tullibee, Lipscomb, and Seawolf but they're just dismissed as failures or curiosities whenever they're mentioned.
Thank you for saving me from a medical emergency. From what you have described, this seems like a new low point in submarine technical history. There is absolutely nothing obscure about the information you pointed out as erroneous. Even Wikipedia has almost all of those details correct.
I would say that Narwhal was a Sturgeon variant, the most important feature being as a test bed for the natural circulation reactor design. But neither Narwhal nor the DC electric drive Glenard Lipscomb were technically Sturgeons. More like prototypes using a modified design Sturgeon hull design. Narwhal’s hull diameter was increased slightly to accommodate the raised and canted steam generators. Lipscomb was considerably longer than even the long hull Sturgeons.
. I'm just imagining poor Tom Dougherty flipping through this thing and having an aneurysm.
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