Heritage of the Sea by Peter Smith

Author:Peter Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783469765
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

ALLIANCE

The last Second World War design submarines built for the Royal Navy were the A-class boats, designed under the War Emergency Programme for operations in the Pacific Ocean against the Japanese Navy. For this they needed far greater range and better habitability than the average submarine then in service and operating in European and Mediterranean waters. With this in mind, a large new class of submarine was designed and laid down in the years 1943 – 45 but not finally completed until the war was over, in 1945 – 48. Sixteen were finally built, thirty were cancelled and a further order for another twenty was also scrapped before any work was done. The Alliance (P417 and later S67) was one of those which survived the cull, being laid down on 13 March 1945, launched on 28 July 1945 from Vickers Armstrong yard at Barrow-in-Furness but not finally commissioned for service until 14 May 1947.

Previous Royal Navy ships named Alliance included a sixth-rate Dutch vessel named Alliante, (20-guns) which was made a prize off the Norwegian coast on 22 August in 1795 and renamed. She served at the battle of Acre in 1799, later being made over into a store-ship and was finally sold out in May 1802. There was also an Admiralty tug which had been launched on 23 August 1910 and which survived until 19 December 1941, when, during the Japanese capture of Hong Kong, she was scuttled in Deepwater Bay. The submarine Alliance became the third ship to carry the name.

The A-class submarines were built with the circular section welded pressure hull with 1.905cm (0.75-inch) plating which was designed to operate to depths of 152.4m (500ft) and were tested to 182.88m (600ft) as an emergency maximum depth. They were the first British submarines to be designed from scratch to carry the Snorkel device which allowed air to be drawn in while the boat was still submerged. Although not all were so fitted on completion due to peacetime cutbacks, the Alliance had one from the start. They had a standard displacement of 1,120 tons, and 1,590 tons submerged. Their dimensions were 85.11m (279ft 3in) overall with a 6.78 m (22ft 3in) beam and a 5.21m (17ft 1in) maximum draught at normal loading. Their power plant was 2-shaft Vickers 8-cylinder, single-acting, four-stroke supercharged diesel engines each developing 2,150bhp at 460rpm plus two sets of Direct-Drive electric motors each developing 625bhp and driving twin three-bladed screws of 1.524m (5ft 9in) diameter, which gave them a surfaced speed of 18.5 knots and a submerged maximum speed of 8 knots. They carried 165 tons of oil fuel (60 tons internal tanks, 105 tons in external tanks) 219 tons maximum with 54 tons in the main tanks. They were credited with a range of 19,400km (10,500 nautical miles). They were armed with ten 53.34cm (21-inch) torpedo-tubes, whose torpedoes weighed 1,112.308kg (3,452lbs), with four tubes in the bow, two in the stern and four external, two in the bows and two astern. The Mk 8**

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