Pinned post for Q&A :)

I'm a trainee Submariner and when I was at the Submarine school, they had a mini-museum with models of all the types and classes of subs we produced since the conception of the Submarine force. The K, X and M classes were definitely among the most bizarre. We had loads of wild and wacky designs. Especially pre-WW2 I honestly found it an excellent point of study. The frankly staggering casualty rate of submariners at the time was terrifying though. My grandfather served on Boats during WW2 and looking back, I think he was mad. Also Please Dranch, continue this as a series. There are a lot of really cool subs and stories that are rarely ever brought to light here. As is the fate of the "Silent Service" I suppose.

Fun fact, Rudolf Diesel drowned in the English channel in 1913. He had been traveling to Britain to discuss the possible licensing of his diesel engine technology to the Royal Navy, specifically for use in their submarines. It is very possible that he was done away with to avoid this.

Cruiser submarines are probably my favorite ships that never established themselves. Guns, popping up where nobody expects them to is such a fun concept!

Huge respect for the people that went in all type of subs as it was quite a death trap if anything goes wrong...

I read somewhere that HMS X1 holds the dubious distinction of being the only RN ship built between the wars that was scrapped before the start of WWII...

A long long time ago in the late 70s-1980s there was a Cartoon/show , called thundersub , A submarine that could turn in to a carrier and space ship . these old weird submarines always remind of that tv show.

Drachism of the day: love affairs with intermediate caliber gun 🤣

Drach can you do a video on cruiser submarine design philosophy and technologies? Would love to see how they solved the problem of exposing a turret to the sea, specifically making a watertight turret in the first place.

Inter war year's r just so amazing in the design and experiment attempts by all nations, it explains why Studio Ghiblli always bases their stories in that time period.

Saturday Lunchtime viewing sorted!! Excellent

Outlawing of Cruiser submarines in the Naval Treaty? I was unaware. I imagine that the designs on the drawing boards at the time (which would have been thrown away after the treaty), would be a very interesting topic for a video or note in a Drydock.

After hearing you talk about this vessel in a recent drydock I was very interested in learning more about such an interesting and very misunderstood submarine

Can't wait to see HMS Celendine and similar Flower Class corvettes pop into my periscope one sunny Saturday morning ❤

Drach, don't take this the wrong way, but your voice and the King's English are soothing as your content is interesting and informative, and there is nothing better than listening to your videos while working/playing/zoning out. I often have to stop what I'm doing and switch back to your video to see the images you're describing. Great work mate, please keep it up.

Staggeringly Ambitious… Touché Drach ..! That phrase is a keeper..and this is an excellent episode as well ..

Was absolutely expecting to hear that she took an age to dive or surface. The fact that she was so "handy" in getting under, manouvering underwater and getting back up on top is possibly the most impressive thing to me!

It is interesting how everyone went nuts with the cruiser submarines while missing what made the German kreuzers u-boots actually work at all. The German kreuzer u-boots were indeed big and made extensive use of their big guns, but their main selling point was they had the operational range to reach regions of the ocean generally not being protected against submarines. Thousands of kilometers from the major shipping routes and all, they could still catch lone merchantmen unescorted, so surfacing to gun down the ships was viable. Documentation left by the Germans also suggests they were aware that the kreuzers were really an inflexible asset that couldn't count on such conditions to allow them to repeat the performance consistently. However, seems all everyone else remembered was "hey, big German submarines made merry hell on the high seas far from home and we want to do that too!" Perhaps that is the real victory for Germany's kreuzer u-boots? Getting everyone to spend small fortunes on cruiser submarines that would have proven mostly ineffective in practice?

This is the British version of a Surcouf type submarine ! I suspect to pack four 6" guns ! ( Oh - 5.2" guns) She actually added new features to submarines. But as you say Drach! She was a bit temperamental.

Douglas Reeman. And the novel "Strike from the sea" Is a good read if you want to know more about cruiser subs. pro's and con's (mostly cons) The story is about surcouf (renamed Soufrière) not the british X-1.

@2:10 ? Wow !! Striking angle, thanks Drach~ 🚬😎👍

This week's theme is now Pirates of the British Isles.

The craziest part about this boat is that it pretty much worked!

I've always had an affection for the, presumably apocryphal, exchange on a K submarine between the captain and his first lieutenant: "My end's submersing No.1, what's your end doing?".

Neat. I was just thinking about this boat yesterday, and here is a guide 👍

I like today's intro music.

I feel like she'd have been rather useful during the Java Sea campaign, especially if they'd managed to design a fire control radar set for her. Japanese invasion convoys wouldn't know what hit them.

When I first saw this title, I thought it was going to be about the prototype X-craft which attacked Tirpitz in 1943! So Royal Navy sort of reused letters?

@Drachinifel Enjoyed it. Listened in my stateroom on the ship, a lovely environment, to hear about historic ships.

That is certainly one of the cooler looking ships I have seen.

Fantastic! i never read or heard anything about this submarine. What a marvellous vessel!

Thanks Drach.

I think that the X1 in WW2 would have been most useful in night shore bombardments, supporting commando raids, like the USS Nautilus (SS-168) of the Narwhal-class.

Keep up the great job Drach!

Fascinating boat. Thank you. ☮

Would love a longer video on this one!

Been waiting for a video on the X1 for a long time, fascinating as usual! Would also be very interested in seeing one for the S-584-163/S-584-166 of the USN, those two proposals havew always fascinated me, but I never found much on them As an aisde; I am quite fond of the intro music for this one

awesome thanks drach

Among the recently tried intro music scores, this one is my favourite one yet 🙂

It really makes you wonder how successful this concept would have been? I mean it could have been an excellent raider, but I guess we'll never know. Great video Drach!

What an interesting ship. I knew nothing about it. Thanks.

Definitely more subs for the future. A short on the turtle would be a challenge, but an amusing July 4th lighearted upload. Hunley as another early submersible to study is nice. But yeah, royal navy European subs are all good, keep it going!

That is amazingly impressive technology and engineering, especially considering we're talking about a century ago!

Top Ten, I'll take it, was asleep at the switch for a few minutes

Cool submarine

would love to here more on communications and clad

I love these designs where the ship/boat itself works as intended, but the intent itself seems bonkers in retrospect.

Wow, that sub was AWESOME!

This is Blake and Mortimer machinery in a nutshell, beautiful.

Love affair with intermediate caliber guns...haha good stuff man

One wonders how they would have operated the guns after surfacing. Were they preloaded and left like that for long periods while under water? Or did the crew have to bring the shells and propellent up with them on surfacing? What would they do in a longer engagement? Was there a watertight elevator for the shells?

Love your Videos, can you review the Attilio Regolo Destroyer/Cruiser?

That's a pretty impressive cruiser sub. I had no idea the UK ever had such a thing.

😳Never heard of or seen her? Nice bulbous turrets on her!😍

Would offer some interesting possibilities in terms of surprise coastal bombardment.

I can really recommend Roger Branfill-Cook's book!

Yeah, I don't know if seeing two twin 5.2" gun turrets coming out of the water would make me laugh or cry. Probably the former. Torpedo wakes seem more scary and the warheads on the torps would do more damage. I suppose if you were on a merchant ship, the X1 would be rather frightening.

They should have gone with steam engines and active diving controls like the nordersteadt class earlier. This way they would had a much bigger speed, manoeverability and range.

It would be extremely cool to see the cruiser submarine concept implemented - at least believably if not realistically - in an alternate reality WWII game. One with 3D graphics of sufficient detail to truly appreciate the spectacle.

Biggest X-craft sub I ever did see! 😊

Submariners are a special breed of humans.

Surcouf was pretty cool too

Neat!🐿

I want one!

Question for those in the US: Which is preferrable ? Fall River, MA or Wilmington, NC ? I live roughly between the two, so BB-55 or BB-59 ? Thanks for any imput on this !! 🚬😎👍

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Maybe some more about the evolution of diesel electric, if you haven't already.

The idea of her surfacing and immediately firing is so cool, i need a painting of that!

Next on the drawing board, the submersible aircraft carrier. Would not surprise me in the least.

You found your new theme music.

Oh I thought we were off to visit KMS Tirpitz.

This is a ship it'd be really interesting to war game out a mission for in a WWII setting.

Had a question of more in depth about the tactical use. You mentioned being at periscope depth to get a general range before surfacing . My question. Did she surface ? or only to the point the deck was just or slightly below surface ( if calm seas ) seems she would have made an almost impossible target at that point.Then possible dive and maneuver to popup again and repeat or torpedo salvo depending on action of target.

Interesting project wondering why destroyer style torpedo tubes where not included into the design. Would have suited its popup ambush tactic rather well.

question how did the gunners get in and out of the sub was there hatchs in the turrets

Fisher rising from the sea with the guns trained

Sounds like our modern LCS program

😮

How successful was the periscope pre-aiming? I'm guessing they did testing.

I like the old theme music better.

New music!

I think this is a pretty cool submarine design that ended up an evolutionary dead-end.

Could you do a piece on the Black Beatles AKA Xlighters. They were designed and built for WW1. I knew of one called X46 Nigel which became a sandreger and worked the Bristol Channel for many years.

more cruiser subs!

a curser submarine would have been very interesting in war. i imagined if it was able to train gun and then surface it would probably be able to overwhelm an unsuspecting frigate before it was able to return fire. not to mention it core role in anti shipping. early in the war when merchants where unarmed it obviously would wreak havoc on merchant ships. but even after it may be able to put out overwhelming fire power to disable the gun on armed merchants before they could fire back (prob before they could hit). and they there is the more crazy uses. it could conduct fire support missions bombarding coastal facilities in a hit and run mission. very interesting to think about.

I've heard also leaked fuel oil excessively.

5.2 inch guns? Did they design the thing in Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts?

What an amazing submersible. A crazy tactical concept to be sure. She could have easily carried 10 torpedo tubes and around 40 torpedoes. Now with that armament, range and speeds, she would have devastated any merchant fleet... what a missed opportunity

Those would have been good at shore bombardment say when trying to take over an enemy harbor. As long as there were no large enemy ships in the harbor, you could land a force, and have this thing surface in the harbor for extra fire power. Idk, it could have worked "once upon a time"!!!!

Ah yes, the "what if we tried the whole Cruiser Submarine idea again but were less stupid about it?" class.

It's too bad M2 was never fully realised.

Huh, it's a pity she never saw action - I've been wondering for a while if a submarine might be a good role for modern use of the big guns historically used on battleships and similar. Given the advent of nuclear propulsion, size has become far less of a concern than it once was, and by and large my read on WWII suggests that a battleship that survives to engage the enemy in a gunnery duel is a battleship that's worth having....the key part being surviving long enough to reach that gunnery duel. Having a submersible battleship would be at least a partial countermeasure to the ability for aircraft carriers to pick them off at a distance. This idea conjures the absurd and awe inspiring idea of having a modern equivalent of the Iowa or Yamato surfacing in the middle of a carrier group, pegging the carrier with a full broadside before they know what's going on, and then systematically obliterating the group's escorts...and we do know a sufficiently crafty submarine can slip into a carrier group undetected and obliterate the carrier, thanks to the crew of Sweden's HSMS Gotland. But, uh...the Gotland has a host of things that help make it hard to find, one of which is the fact that it's small. Taking a submarine the size of the Yamato in would probably make it a lot harder to avoid ASW sensors.

What-if WWII service - she's too big and obvious for the Med, no targets in the Atlantic, too few torpedoes for much fleet use (Norway etc). Does she have the range for the Indian Ocean/Pacific from British bases? Basically same issue as Surcouf - if you are defending shipping you have no use for such a submarine.

Today's intro music is my favourite so far. Don't know if you have used it before? but the way the brass builds into the gun fire comes together lovely 🫡

With the development of torpedo bulges and other form of armor underwater, is there any attempt to develop an “armor” / “bulges” piercing torpedo?

Were the gun turrets pressurized?

What I have always wondered is how did they protect the guns on submarines from the saltwater?

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Soon to appear in World of Warships?

dear lord do NOT let WG see this one