Bazz,
Just Google ‘steam submarines’ for a good laugh; they indeed had funnels, two and they folded down, sometimes the sea would break over the funnels and put the fires out.

As a saga of stupidity the’K’ class subs take some beating.

desperate election ploy or the small kid wanting to play with the big boys
is Mise,
It's called being realistic in the approach to a realistic scenario !
Nothing to do with conspiracy crowd electioneering !

Meanwhile there are homeless people on our streets and charities have to contest for the spare dollars
is Mise,
How about backing my calls to reduce undeserving senior Bureaucrats' salaries to fund Welfare & tax the high profit businesses ?
Back the call for Flat Tax or Transaction Tax for that matter. That would buy us new submarines AND help the poor !
Homelessness could also be eliminated by a National Service !

If you are worried about homelessness Individual, you had best start lobbying for a stop of refugees coming in taking all the public housing.

Totally irrelevant to the subject, but I have to say that all this fuss about the homeless and poor is as futile as "reconciliation" and tossing money at aborigines. A waste of money. Millions, maybe even billions, have been spent on these people, and it hasn't made a bit of difference. With very few exceptions, poverty is self-inflicted. Give them money, and they will blow in no time flat, and still be poor. They are people who would have been in the 'poorhouse' in previous centuries - fed, clothed and sheltered because of complete inability to look after themselves. The other thing that needs to be taken into account is the totally unrealistic definitions of 'poverty' put about these days.

I think you'll find that submarines are in fact still steam powered including the nuclear ones. The heat from the reactor creates steam to drive turbines for propulsion as well as to generate electricity for systems and oxygen creation. That's also nuclear and coal power stations work - by making steam, while hydro ones use falling water to turn the turbines

Also, despite the hype, nuclear subs tend to be noisier than conventional ones because the reactor cannot be shut down in order to create total silence.

It turns out that the French also make nuclear subs and there was even an option to convert the ones we ordered to nuclear, but that wasn't part of the current political strategy and posturing that was the basis of this entire event.