The K class - Lawn-darts of the sea?

Pinned post for Q&A :)

The scariest part about the K class is that the stern can be poking out of the water and the bow can still be below crush depth.

I alternated between cringing for the safety (danger) of the crews, and wanting to thrash the leadership that refused to recognize the utter unsuitability of these deathtraps.

Has any class of ship's design caused its crews to receive medals for Bravery simply for being assigned and operating it? Cause these crews deserve to have them.

To be fair, the future was steam-powered. It's just that it would require much higher energy density than an oil boiler.

The most insane thing about this class of ships is that they built THAT many of them

Monty Python couldn't write a more tragically hilarious skit. "When Royal Navy wanted a fleet submarine that could keep up with the Battle fleet everyone said they were daft, but the Royal Navy built the K Class all the same, just to show them. The first sank into the sea. So they built a second one. And that one sank into the sea. So they built a third. That burned down, rolled over, and then sank into the sea. But the fourth one stayed up. Until it got rammed by a Battlecruiser, the pumps failed and then sank into the sea. But that didn't matter Son, because we're British and we never admit a mistake." It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Rest in peace all those brave, unfortunate souls.

There were so many awful incidents that I had to keep notes: 17:22: K3 sea trials 20:47: K13 disaster 33:58: K1, K2, K4, K6, K14, K16 incidents 37:46: K2 uncontrolled dive 38:05: K11 boiler room fire 40:32: “Battle” of May Island chaos 50:58: K15 stern sinking 51:43: K3 crushing dive 53:54: K8, K14, K15 incidents 54:19: K5 stuck at bottom, collision with towed destroyer 54:35: Fleet exercise disaster, K5 implosion 56:14: K15 sinking at port 57:04: K22 emergency rapid blow

Having scuba dived on both the subs sank in the battle of isle of May it was one of the most sombre set of dives thinking of all the poor buggers that got killed that night. We looked, paid respects but did not touch the 4 pieces of those 2 subs on the sea floor. That was 25 years ago and they were still on remarkably good condition. I hope that they still are as a memorial to the brave men who sailed in them knowing their history even then.

With all the "friendly fire" incidents between RN cruisers and submarines that were traveling together, you'd think one of those incidents would include the claim of "Japanese torpedo boats".

There was a quote from a K boat captain that went " the K boats handled like a battle ship but had the bridge of a picket boat"

I can't believe that they actually put Prince Albert in a can.

A major reason for the USN trying to develop Fleet Boats was the Treaty Regime. Commerce raiding had to be conducted under the Cruiser Rules, which it considered suicidal. So the prewar USN subs were designed and crews trained under the doctrine that they would only be used against warships. Of course, that was ditched on the afternoon of Dec 7 1941 when the famous signal, "Execute unrestricted air and submarine warfare against Japan" was broadcast

The K-class: a submarine with the engineering of the Mk 14 torpedo and the luck of the Second Pacific Squadron

Subs are supposed to sink but the K-Class are a little bit too enthusiastic on the sinking part

Really enjoy the 3D animation bits..they definitely help to visualize the ship's systems as you describe their functions. Hopefully you can collaborate with Dr. Willis more in the future!

As a long time commercial fisherman, the idea of fuel tanks being open to the sea at the bottom is currently giving me a waking nightmare

I really liked the 3-D renderings, they really helped show exactly how the machinery plant was supposed to work, as well as give an idea of the actual size of the subs.

I think this is the first time one of these lists about a class had to dedicate most of its time to a series of truely horrible series of accidents. Good lord these were terrible boats.

The whole Battle of May Island sequence is something straight out of a very dark comedy film.