The Collaborative International Dictionary
Submarine \Sub`ma*rine"\, n.
A submarine boat; a ship that can travel under the surface of the water. Most such ships are ships of war, as part of a navy, but submarines are also used for oceanic research. Also called sub and (from the German U-Boot) U-boat. esp., (Nav.), a submarine torpedo boat; -- called specif. submergible submarine when capable of operating at various depths and of traveling considerable distances under water, and submersible submarine when capable of being only partly submerged, i.e., so that the conning tower, etc., is still above water. The latter type and most of the former type are submerged as desired by regulating the amount of water admitted to the ballast tanks and sink on an even keel; some of the former type effect submersion while under way by means of horizontal rudders, in some cases also with admission of water to the ballast tanks.
A stowaway on a seagoing vessel. [Colloq.]
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Nuclear submarine A submarine powered by a nuclear reactor.
Attack submarine A submarine designed to attack other ships, including other submarines.
WordNet
n. a military submarine designed and armed to attack enemy shipping
Wikipedia
An attack submarine or hunter-killer submarine is a submarine specifically designed for the purpose of attacking and sinking other submarines, surface combatants and merchant vessels. In the Soviet and Russian navies they were and are called "multi-purpose submarines". They are also used to protect friendly surface combatants and missile submarines. Some attack subs are also armed with cruise missiles mounted in vertical launch tubes, increasing the scope of their potential missions to include land targets.
Attack submarines may be either nuclear-powered or diesel-electric ("conventionally") powered. In the United States Navy naming system, and in the equivalent NATO system (STANAG 1166), nuclear-powered attack submarines are known as SSNs and their diesel-electric predecessors were SSKs. In the US Navy, SSNs are unofficially called "fast attacks".
Usage examples of "attack submarine".
Captain Tran held this as an article of faith, that there was no crew as superbly trained as the one on board an American fast attack submarine.
The nuclear attack submarine increased speed to twelve knots on a heading of one-nine-seven degrees.
The mission of the nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine had changed since Lockwood.
The USS Dallas, a 688-class attack submarine, was forty miles from the coast of Iceland, approaching her patrol station, code-named Toll Booth.
As a result, the operating pattern of an attack submarine was much like that of a combat infantryman.
It was an old attack submarine that had been reactivated from the naval reserve, and, in his opinion, it was more of a threat to his own submarine than it was to the enemy.
There is a Soviet attack submarine heading straight towards her, about ten miles out.
What fell out of the two explosions and sank to the ocean floor far below was no longer recognizable as a US attack submarine by the sensing devices on the Jimmy Carter.
Navy attack submarine that rescues Pitt when he runs out of gas in the Bahama Channel in his cast-iron bathtub.
The Los Angeles attack submarine had been designed to handle many missions, but her most important, the one she'd been built for above all others, was to track and kill Russian boomers.
Inside the black notebook was a menu of all of the next month's technical espionage operations, from U-2 missions over China to patrols by the USNS Muller off Cuba to deep penetrations into Russia's White Sea by the attack submarine USS Scorpion.
The various Air Bosses had word that one of their submarines had eliminated a Chinese boomer and fast-attack submarine, which was fine with them, and probably just peachy for the task force commander.
Navy attack submarine that rescues Pitt when he runs outof gas in the Bahama Channel in his cast-iron bathtub.