HMS ''Alderney'' (P416/S66), was an of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

, built by

Vickers-Armstrongs Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

at Barrow and launched 25 June 1945 by Mrs Molly Wallis, wife of Sir

Barnes Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack ...

. She was the 12th of the class and was scrapped in 1972.

Design

Like all ''Amphion''-class submarines, ''Alderney'' had a displacement of when at the surface and while submerged. She had a total length of , a beam of , and a draught of . The submarine was powered by two Admiralty ML eight-cylinder diesel engines generating a power of each. She also contained four electric motors each producing that drove two shafts. She could carry a maximum of of diesel, although she usually carried between . The submarine had a maximum surface speed of and a submerged speed of . When submerged, she could operate at for or at for . When surfaced, she was able to travel at or at . She was fitted with ten

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s, one

QF 4 inch naval gun Mk XXIII The QF 4-inch gun Mark XXIII was introduced in late 1945 as a deck gun for Royal Navy submarines. It was the last type of gun to be fitted to British submarines, finally being retired in 1974. Development and service Development of the Mark XXII ...

, one

Oerlikon 20 mm cannon The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons based on an original German Becker Type M2 20 mm cannon design that appeared very early in World War I. It was widely produced by Oerlikon Contraves and others, with various models empl ...

, and a .303 British

Vickers machine gun The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a Water cooling, water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more me ...

. Her torpedo tubes were fitted to the bow and stern, and she could carry twenty torpedoes. Her

complement Complement may refer to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-class collections into complementary sets * Complementary color, in the visu ...

was sixty-one crew members.

Operational service

''Alderney'' completed three commissions between 1954 and 1963 with the 6th Submarine Squadron at

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and most populous municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of 2024, it is estimated that the population of the H ...

, carrying out exercises with the Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force. In September 1952 replaced the damaged ''Alderney'', which had developed issues while training with vessels of the Royal Canadian Navy off Bermuda. She was modernised during a long refit in Portsmouth Dockyard between 1956 and 1958. In 1965 she recommissioned for the eighth time and was allocated to the 1st Submarine Squadron at . In 1965 and 1966 she was present at Portsmouth Navy Days. She was decommissioned in 1966 and was broken up at Troon, Scotland on 1 February 1970.HMS Talent
uboat.net

References

Publications

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alderney (P416) Amphion-class submarines Cold War submarines of the United Kingdom Ships built in Barrow-in-Furness 1945 ships