HMS ''K7'' was a K class submarine built by HM Dockyard, Devonport. She was laid down on 8 November 1915 and commissioned in July 1917. ''K7'' was the only one of the disastrous K class to engage with an enemy; on 16 June 1917 she fired a salvo of torpedoes at the U-boat '' U-95'' and scored a direct hit. However, the

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...

failed to explode with what has been described as typical "K" luck; K-7 escaped retaliation by steaming away at speed. ''K7'' was involved in an accident with the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron. She was also involved in the catastrophic series of accidents during a night exercise that came to be known sarcastically as the Battle of May Island; ''K7'' was damaged by running over the sinking . ''K7'' was sold on 9 September 1921 at

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

Design

''K7'' displaced when at the surface and while submerged. It had a total length of , a beam of , and a draught of . The submarine was powered by two oil-fired

Yarrow Shipbuilders Yarrow Shipbuilders Limited (YSL), often styled as simply Yarrows, was a major shipbuilding firm based in the Scotstoun district of Glasgow on the River Clyde. It is now part of BAE Systems Surface Ships, owned by BAE Systems, which has also o ...

boilers supplying one geared Brown-Curtis or Parsons

steam turbine A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...

that developed 10,500 ship horsepower (7,800 kW) to drive two screws. Submerged power came from four electric motors each producing . It also had an diesel engine to be used when steam was being raised, or instead of raising steam. The submarine had a maximum surface speed of and a submerged speed of . It could operate at depths of at for . ''K7'' was armed 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, two

deck gun A deck gun is a type of naval artillery mounted on the deck of a submarine. Most submarine deck guns were open, with or without a shield; however, a few larger submarines placed these guns in a turret. The main deck gun was a dual-purpose w ...

s, and a

anti-aircraft gun Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-ba ...

. Its torpedo tubes were fitted to the bows, the midship section, and two were mounted on the deck. Its

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 fifty-nine crew members.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:K07 British K-class submarines Royal Navy ship names 1916 ships Maritime incidents in 1918