Talk:British R-class submarine

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Military history: Maritime / British / European / World War I B‑class

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Importance, and later interest

The R-class was a remarkable design and, as stated in the article, was the fore-runner of the modern Fleet ("hunter-killer") submarine.

My understanding is that, in 1947, the plans were collected from the Public Record Office and re-examined by the Royal Navy with the possibility of putting the thirty-year old design back into production. After further consideration, however, it was decided that this would not be feasible, because the accommodation of contemporary sensors required a minimum displacement of 1680 tons. --Vvmodel (talk) 19:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The postwar Danish Delfinen class submarine was only 573 tons displacement (surfaced), so the talk of 1680 tons being the minimum may have just been a pretext for the Royal Navy to avoid having any coastal submarines. Salmanazar (talk) 15:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Number of torpedo tubes

The R-class were the first Royal Navy submarines to be fitted with six bow torpedo tubes, number of torpedoes being considered more important than range or size of warhead carried when attacking U-boats.

British submarines from around then-on were intended to be used against warships, as most of the UK's likely enemies had little in the way of Merchant Navies, so the main type of vessel that was likely to be encountered were warships, so UK fleet submarines were given a bow tube arrangement of six tubes to ensure that they would have sufficient fire-power to hit and damage a large-size warship without reloading. This had the disadvantage of demanding that the hull section at the bow could not be circular, as for example, German U-boats with only four bow tubes, so the resulting hull was not as strong and had a lower crush depth than the equivalent German submarine. German submarines were optimized for attacking (mostly British) merchant vessels, so a four-tube bow armament was adequate. This accounts for the greater diving depth of the average U-boat over the equivalent RN submarine design. This need to maximise the bow salvo possible led to the later T class submarine having additional external (outside the pressure hull and reloadable only in port) tubes fitted, at one time resulting in a possible bow salvo of ten. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.248.28 (talk) 15:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]