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British S-class submarine (1931)

HMS Stonehenge.jpg
HMS Stonehenge
Class overview
Name: S class
Preceded by: Rainbow class
Succeeded by: River class
Completed: 62
General characteristics
Type: Submarine
Class overview
Name: First group
Completed: 4
General characteristics
Type: Submarine
Displacement:
  • 640 tons surfaced
  • 935 tons submerged
Length: 202 ft 6 in (61.72 m)
Beam: 24 ft (7.3 m)
Draught: 10 ft 6 in (3.20 m)
Speed:
  • 13.75 knots (25.47 km/h; 15.82 mph) surfaced
  • 10 knots (19 km/h) submerged
Complement: 36 officers and men
Armament:
Class overview
Name: Second group
Completed: 8
General characteristics
Type: Submarine
Displacement:
  • 670 tons surfaced
  • 960 tons submerged
Length: 208 ft 9 in (63.63 m)
Beam: 24 ft (7.3 m)
Draught: 10 ft 6 in (3.20 m)
Speed:
  • 13.75 knots (25.47 km/h; 15.82 mph) surfaced
  • 10 knots (19 km/h) submerged
Complement: 39 officers and men
Armament:
  • six forward 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes
  • twelve torpedoes
  • one three-inch (76 mm) gun
  • one .303-calibre machine gun
Class overview
Name: Third group
Completed: 50 (excluding cancelled boats)
General characteristics
Type: Submarine
Displacement:
  • 814-842 tons surfaced
  • 990 tons submerged
Length: 217 ft (66 m)
Beam: 23 ft 6 in (7.16 m)
Draught: 11 ft (3.4 m)
Speed:
  • 14.75 knots (27.32 km/h; 16.97 mph) surfaced
  • 8 knots (15 km/h) submerged
Complement: 49 officers and men
Armament:

The S-class submarines of the Royal Navy were originally designed and built during the modernisation of the submarine force in the early 1930s to meet the need for smaller boats to patrol the restricted waters of the North Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, replacing the British H class submarines. As part of the major naval construction for the Royal Navy during the Second World War, the S class became the largest single group of submarines ever built for the Royal Navy. A total of 62 was constructed over a period of 15 years, with fifty of the "improved" S-class being launched between 1940 and 1945.

The submarines operated in the waters around the United Kingdom and in the Mediterranean, and later in the Far East after being fitted with extra tankage.

After the war S-class boats continued to serve in the Royal Navy until the 1960s. The last operational boat in the Royal Navy was Sea Devil, launched in 1945 and scrapped in February 1966. Springer was in Israeli service as INS Tanin and was decommissioned in 1972.

Several S-class submarines were sold on or lent to other navies:

A modified version was ordered by the Turkish navy in 1939 as the Oruç Reis class.

Of the twelve S-class boats that were in service in 1939, only three survived to see the end of World War II, a loss rate that inspired the song "Twelve Little S-Boats", based on a nursery rhyme originally written by Septimus Winner in 1868.

The survivors, left blank in the fatalistic rhyme, were HMS Sealion (scuttled), HMS Seawolf (broken up), and HMS Sturgeon (sold).


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