Jump to content
Please support this forum by joining the SH Patreon ×
Sturgeon's House

The K Class Submarine


LostCosmonaut

Recommended Posts

 

Obvious design implications were not followed through to conclusion; the hard realities of recurring experience were ignored; and the habits of self-deception and wishful thinking drove out critical analysis and reflection. Are navies any organizations today very much different?

This seems to be a reoccurring problem for many people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As featured in Anthony Preston's The World's Worst Warships.

 

A submarine that can keep pace with the fleet is a good idea that should have been dismissed when they put more holes in a submarine than a pincushion and made its hull length so much greater than its crush depth a 30 degree angle would be just about sufficient to crush the nose while the stern was above water. Building such a ship with internal bulkheads that wouldn't pop in event of flooding below 70 feet would have been a nice touch too.

 

There's also the problem of something as small as a submarine running with the fleet, as evidenced by the Battle of May Island, which was as much a battle as the battle of the blips in WWII, but considerably more lethal.

 

There were a lot of ideas that were before their time, the Brits also built the first SSK during WWI with the R-class, the first design optimized for high underwater speed and destroying enemy submarines (eat your heart out wehraboos that like to claim the XXIs were the forefathers of modern attack subs). But now we have subs capable of kind of sort of working with a fleet (ha ha ha getting performance out of datalinks is a swine) and hunting down enemy subs, even underwater.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also the unlucky numbers 1, 4, 17, 4 again, 6, 7, 22 (13 with a different number), 14, 5, 15, 16, 12, and an encore of 4.

 

If the class had continued, the RN might have abolished arabic numerals entirely. Although this would explain their fondness for roman numerals.

 

Wait, after taking a second to refresh my memory it seems that they did indeed start giving submarines real names rather than numbers by WWII and the Thames class with a similar concept wasn't an unmitigated failure. You may be onto something here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

K-class was comparatively sane compared to the M-class, which had all of the K-class's delusions and then added a 12 inch dreadnought gun to the submarine for good measure.

 

The extra kicker? The 12 inch gun was mounted casement style so it can only shoot at stuff ahead of the sub; and it could only reload while on the surface.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also the unlucky numbers 1, 4, 17, 4 again, 6, 7, 22 (13 with a different number), 14, 5, 15, 16, 12, and an encore of 4.

If the class had continued, the RN might have abolished arabic numerals entirely. Although this would explain their fondness for roman numerals.

Wait, after taking a second to refresh my memory it seems that they did indeed start giving submarines real names rather than numbers by WWII and the Thames class with a similar concept wasn't an unmitigated failure. You may be onto something here.

To be fair, the number 4 actually is an unlucky number in China because it has the same sound as the word Death and there's 4 4s above if you count the 4 in 14.

Mystery solved, Communism killed the k class.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Found another article:

http://www.rnsubs.co.uk/Dits/Articles/steamsubs.php

I'm loving the idea of submersible cruisers.

I'm sure it would sound great and all, right up until the point you're on one and reminded that even mere AP fire from a .30-06 could penetrate the pressure hulls of WW1-WW2 era submarines quite easily.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...