this week for armoured ship thursday we have some unarmoured large submarines which were designed to operate with the Royal Navy's armoured battle fleet. in order to keep up with the surface fleet these submarines were powered by steam which at the time was the only source powerful enough to propel these large vessels at surface fleet speeds. these boats were 339ft. long and displaced 1,980t. on the surface and 2,566 underwater. the submarines were powered by two Parsons or Brown-Curtis geared turbines of 10,500shp apiece which gave a top speed surfaced of 24kts. when running submerged on electric motors and batteries the boats could make only 8kts. armament was eight 18" torpedo tubes, two 4" guns and one 3"gun.
these K-class submarines were all built and commissioned between 1917 and 1931 when the last one was sold out of service and scrapped. of 18 built 6 were sunk in accidents and none ever sank another ship in war. they were slow to submerge, clumsy to manuever, extremely hot inside from the steam boilers and prone to take water down the stacks which could drown the fires in the boilers. they were sunk by collision with surface ships, collision amongst themselves, running aground and by diving past their depth limit. all in all a most unsuccessful submarine design. our first picture is of one of the K-class boats at anchor with other units of the fleet. second is a color picture of a model K-boat which lets us see the hull form, and also the keel and rudder. third is of K-4 aground on Walney, Island and fourth is another view of same. K-4 was later sunk in a collision with a sister boat. the World's Navies eventually came to realize that submarines were better off operating by themselves or with other submarines rather than with the surface fleet.
this week for armoured ship thursday we have some unarmoured large submarines which were designed to operate with the Royal Navy's armoured battle fleet. in order to keep up with the surface fleet these submarines were powered by steam which at the time was the only source powerful enough to propel these large vessels at surface fleet speeds. these boats were 339ft. long and displaced 1,980t. on the surface and 2,566 underwater. the submarines were powered by two Parsons or Brown-Curtis geared turbines of 10,500shp apiece which gave a top speed surfaced of 24kts. when running submerged on electric motors and batteries the boats could make only 8kts. armament was eight 18" torpedo tubes, two 4" guns and one 3"gun.
these K-class submarines were all built and commissioned between 1917 and 1931 when the last one was sold out of service and scrapped. of 18 built 6 were sunk in accidents and none ever sank another ship in war. they were slow to submerge, clumsy to manuever, extremely hot inside from the steam boilers and prone to take water down the stacks which could drown the fires in the boilers. they were sunk by collision with surface ships, collision amongst themselves, running aground and by diving past their depth limit. all in all a most unsuccessful submarine design. our first picture is of one of the K-class boats at anchor with other units of the fleet. second is a color picture of a model K-boat which lets us see the hull form, and also the keel and rudder. third is of K-4 aground on Walney, Island and fourth is another view of same. K-4 was later sunk in a collision with a sister boat. the World's Navies eventually came to realize that submarines were better off operating by themselves or with other submarines rather than with the surface fleet.
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