Miscellaneous Classes of Submarine

This picture at Dolphin, Gosport, in 1938 or 1939, shows two old H Class boats, H33 and H49, outside the L Class L23, with a newer S Class  (either Sterlet or Sunfish) closest to camera, and the then-new Undine outboard of what is probably the O Class Osiris or Oswald in the background. Five different classes together. (Detailed information kindly provided by Arthur Dyson)

H Class

These small boats were used for training, for which they would have been replaced by the U Class, but war lengthened their lives. Many submariners trained on these boats and they were also used for the training of ASW escorts. Based mainly around Scotland, at Rothesay and Holy Loch. The boats were constructed for the Royal Navy between 1915 and 1919 and were designed and built in response to German boats which mined British waters and sank coastal shipping with ease due to their small size. The H-Class was therefore created to perform similar operations in German waters, and to attack German submarines operating in British waters. Despite their cramped size and lack of a deck gun, the class became enormously popular amongst submariners, and saw action all around the British Isles, some being transferred as far as the Adriatic. Due to the later arrival of most of the class, they were unable to have a massive impact, only achieving two victories (the German U-Boats U-51 and UB-52) for the loss of four of their own number in the First World War. Post war many were retained in the Royal Navy for training purposes, and four more were lost in wrecks during the twenties. At the outbreak of the Second World War they were drastically obsolete, but nevertheless were retained in training and coastal warfare roles to help the Royal Navy cope with heavy losses to the submarine fleet during the early stages of the war. Of the nine in service, two were sunk during this duty by German countermeasures. More details

L Class

HMS/M L26

Three L Class boats served on training duties in WW2: L23, L26 and L27. They were based at Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Built in and around 1918/19, 17 of the class were originally built. L23 foundered under tow off Nova Scotia en route to the breaker's yard in May 1946.

Details:

Oberon Class

	HMS/M Odin, alongside "Medway"
HMS/M Oberon
HMS/M Osiris HMS/M Otway

The O-class boats had a fairly heavy armament, but at the expense of handling quality. Based on the earlier L9 group, the O boats represented a considerable increase in size on previous boats. The Odin, Otus, Olympus and Orpheus served in the East Indies and then went to the Mediterranean in 1940, joining Oswald and Osiris. The Oxley - built for Australia, like the Otway - had been sunk in error, by HMS/M Triton, off Norway. The older Oberon, persistently troubled by mechanical unreliability, was only capable of training duties. On 14 June 1940, only four days after Italy's entry into the war and while operating out of Malta, the Odin was sunk in the Gulf of Taranto by the Italian destroyer Strale. Orpheus was sunk off Tobruk by the Italian destroyer Turbine two days later, Oswald was sunk by the Italian destroyer Vivaldi south of Calabria on 1 August 1940, and Olympus was mined off Malta on 8 May 1942. Osiris and Otus were scrapped at Durban in September 1946. The boats used in the Mediterranean were employed, at one time or another, on ferrying duties to and from Malta and then training for ASW aircraft.

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Parthian (or 'P') Class

Parthian

Phoenix

Perseus

The six vessels of the Parthian class were laid down in 1928 and completed in 1930-31. Similar design to the 'O' class. All were fitted with Vulcan clutches and high capacity batteries. The 14 torpedoes carried were Mk VIIIs, standard armament on all subsequent British submarines of that period. During WW2, the surviving boats of the Parthian class had a 20mm Oerlikon added and could take 18 M2 mines, laid from the torpedo tubes, in place of torpedoes. All were originally deployed in Chinese waters, but transferred to the Mediterranean in 1940. Poseidon had sunk in a pre-war accident in the far East - an accident which led to the introduction of escape compartments. Parthian went missing in the Adriatic on 11 August 1943, presumed mined; Perseus was mined off Zante; Phoenix was sunk by the Italian torpedo-boat Albatros off Sicily; Pandora was bombed by Italian aircraft at Malta; Proteus survived and became a training boat.

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Porpoise Class

HMS/M Rorqual

The six vessels of the Porpoise class were completed between 1932 and 1938. Three more were originally ordered but were cancelled in 1941, when the need was for much smaller boats for the Mediterranean. They were able to act as minelayers and carried fifty MkXIV mines insides the casing on top of the pressure hull. The mines were loaded onto an 'endless' chain and laid via doors in the stern. The boats of the class served in all theatres from home waters to the West Indies, Mediterranean and Far east. Five were lost in various ways, with Rorqual, deployed to the Eastern Fleet in 1944, the only survivor of the war. Among her other tasks, Rorqual managed to lay 1,284 mines during the war. Grampus was sunk by the Italian torpedo-boats Clio and Circe off Augusta 24 June 1940; Narwhal went missing off Norway in July 1940; Cachalot was rammed by the Italian torpedo-boat Papa of Cyrenaica on 4 August 1941; Seal was damaged by a mine before surrendering to the Germans in the Kattegat/Skagerrak May 1940 - she was re-commissioned by the Germans as the UB.A, but was bombed at Kiel; Porpoise herself was bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft in the Malacca Strait on 19 Jan 1945 - the last British boat to be lost in the war.

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River Class

HMS/M Clyde	HMS/M Severn

Designed with a high surface speed for Fleet work, Thames, Severn and Clyde were built by Vickers Armstrong at Barrow. The high speed was obtained by fitting the diesels with mechanical superchargers which developed a total of 10,000 b.h.p. It was planned that twenty of this class would be built, but the plans were shelved. The outbreak of WW2 found Thames serving with the 2nd Submarine Flotilla and in the winter of 1939-40 she joined other boats of the flotilla (Oberon, Triton, Triumph, Thistle, Triad, Trident and Truant) in operations against enemy shipping off Norway. On 23 July 1940 Thames was sunk by a mine in the Norwegian Sea. On 20 June 1940 Clyde (Lt Cdr D.C. Ingram) obtained a torpedo hit on the bows of the German battlecruiser Gneisenau off Trondheim, Norway. Severn and Clyde served in home waters until 1941, when they deployed to the Mediterranean. Both boats sank a respectable tonnage of enemy ships and were heavily engaged in store-carrying operations to Malta - the Magic Carpet - and in special operations, landing special forces and their supplies. In 1944 they deployed to the Eastern Fleet. Severn was scrapped at Bombay and Clyde at Durban in 1946.

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R Class

HMS Rainbow

HMS Rover

Well-armed boats, also known as the Rainbow Class. Generally too big for coastline or Mediterranean action. Class comprised Rainbow, Regent, Regulus and Rover. (Royalist and Rupert were ordered but cancelled). The lead boat Rainbow was built in the Royal Dockyard at Chatham, the others were built in the shipyard in Barrow, all being launched on the same day, 11 July 1930. First three were lost in the Mediterranean, Rover badly damaged by air attack at Crete and never fully repaired. 

These were the first British submarines to be fitted with a bathroom for the officers. There was however no increase in fresh water capacity.

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Others

As well as those listed above, the Royal Navy retained four S Class submarines that were being built in Barrow for Turkey at the outbreak of war (see P611, P612, P614, P615; Three R Class - (see P511, P512 and P514) - and six S Class from the USA (see P551, P552, P553, P554, P555 and P556); Temporary RN use of captured Italian boats, (see P711, P712, P714) and one famous captured German U-boat (the Graph)

A Class

The Amphion class (also known as the "A" class and Acheron class) of diesel-electric submarines were ordered by the British Admiralty in 1943, upon the realisation that the new Pacific theatre of war following the attack on Pearl Harbor needed a new type of submarine. They were originally designed to replace the S-class and T-class submarines, which were too slow and unable to dive deep enough to be suited to Pacific waters during World War II. They were an enlargement of the T class, arranged for fast, simple construction and to utilize much of the materials and equipment set aside for the T boats. They had a high, flared bow for excellent sea performance and featured an effective air conditioning system essential for Far East submarine operations. They were operated by a crew of between 60 and 68. Originally, 46 submarines were ordered, but only 18 were launched. Of those, 16 were commissioned. Of these 16, despite the class being designed for quicker construction (the hull was entirely welded and could be fabricated in sections - techniques new for the British although already standard practice for German U-boat construction) and taking an average of only 8 months from keel-laying to launching (compared with around 15 months for the T class), only two of the boats were completed before the end of the war - Amphion was launched in August 1944, followed by Astute in January 1945 and neither saw enemy action. The submarines of the class are on page1 and page2 of the list.

The Amphion class was one of only two new British designs produced during World War II - the other being the X-craft 4-man submarines. Wartime experience had shown that submarines had to operate at greater distances from the United Kingdom - in the Far East and Mediterranean for example; and with larger patrol areas than had been foreseen, and consequently the A class was slightly larger and had greater range and habitability than the T class. The class met these needs - it was capable of better speeds and could travel greater range then its predecessors in order to cover the great distances in the Pacific.

After the war, various modifications were made to these Overseas Patrol Submarines, as they were known. Like the surviving T boats, a snort mast based on the schnorkel used by U-boats during the war, a radar which could be used from periscope depth, and a night periscope were added. Later improvements included streamlining and various sonar and weapon control improvements, and many of the boats were still serving into the 1970s. See Post War Developments.

Interesting contrast with the picture at the top of the page - Dolphin in the late 1940s, the boats in the foreground are A Class (left) and T Class right, while the boat standing off is an S boat complete with snort, without gun. Astern of the A and T are two streamlined S Class with one periscope standard. Note Snort (Schnorkel) masts in the down position laying aft of the conning towers. Thanks go to Peter D. Hulme in New Zealand for putting me straight on the classes shown - so many modifications were made in the late 1940's that original identification points in the designs became confused.