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The B class was a class of 11 submarines, built by Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness for the Royal Navy, and launched in 1904–06. One boat was sunk by a collision in 1912, but the remainder served in World War I. Three boats protected the transfer of the British Expeditionary Force to France in 1914, but were soon relegated to local defence and training duties. Six submarines were in the Mediterranean when the war began and were quickly sent to the Dardanelles to prevent a breakout by the German battlecruiser and the light cruiser into the Eastern Mediterranean. ''B11'' ventured into the Dardanelles in December 1914 and sank the elderly Turkish ironclad . The arrival of more modern submarines to blockade the Dardanelles made the B-class boats redundant and they were mostly withdrawn to Malta in 1915. They were transferred to Venice after Italy entered the war, where ''B10'' became the first submarine to be sunk by air attack in 1916. The B-class submarines were transferred back to Malta in late 1916 as they were no longer deemed suitable for combat. In mid-1917 they were converted to surface patrol boats and sent to patrol the Otranto Barrage. They proved to be unreliable and were soon sent back to Malta where they were finally paid off. Only ''B3'' was still in commission when the war ended and that was only because it was being used for experimental work and serving as a target to train anti-submarine forces. All surviving boats were sold for scrap in 1919–21. ==Design and description== The B-class boats were similar in design to the preceding A class and intended for coastal patrol work. The boats had a petrol engine for surface propulsion and batteries for underwater propulsion. The design was intended to overcome the limitations of speed, endurance and seakeeping that affected the boats of the A class, and the boats were substantially larger than the earlier class. The B-class submarines were long overall. They had a beam of and a draught of . They displaced on the surface and submerged. The boats were over longer, slightly wider, and displaced more than more than the older boats. Their additional size increased their buoyancy and made them far less liable to unexpectedly plunge beneath the surface in bad weather. The addition of a deck casing above the hull also improved their seakeeping abilities.〔Akermann, pp. 120, 123–24〕 Diving planes were initially only fitted at the stern, but additional planes were mounted on the conning tower during construction of ''B1'', ''B2'', and ''B3''; ''B4'' was not fitted with them and it is uncertain if the remaining boats received them during construction. These greatly improved the boats' depth-keeping, surfacing and diving abilities compared to the A-class boats. These were later exchanged for bow planes; the last boat to receive them was ''B6'', which did not get hers until January 1916. The B-class submarines lacked any internal bulkheads which exposed the crew to the petrol engine's exhaust fumes. In fact mice were used to detect any concentrations of carbon monoxide inside the hull.〔Wilson, pp. 40, 44〕 Ventilation was provided for the batteries, but none for the crew's living area. No accommodations were provided for the crew and they were forced to improvise while at sea.〔Wilson, p. 44〕 In recognition of this issue, the crew's endurance was only expected to be four days during the summer and three days during the winter.〔Akermann, p. 124〕 The submarines' hulls were tested to a nominal depth of by filling the hull with water and subjecting it to a pressure of , but the maximum operational depth was considered to be . Nonetheless several boats safely dived to during World War I. It took about three minutes to dive the boat due to the shape of the boat and that it could dive out of control if water was pumped into the ballast tanks too quickly.〔Wilson, p. 40〕 Submerged endurance was officially considered to be 10 hours, but several boats were submerged for 16 hours during the war.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「British B-class submarine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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