They were best known for their many accidents. 18 units were built, of which six were lost in accidents. Only one K-boat ever engaged an enemy vessel U 95, hitting her amidships, but the Torpedo failed to explode…!! 

Steam power was chosen as the only means of the Fleet submarine being able to maintain the required 24 knots cruising speed. The oil-fired steam turbine plant required space and was heavy - this in turn dictated the impressive dimensions of the class.

The boats were 338 ft (103 m) long and displaced 1,980 tons (2566 tons submerged).

As such they were very large for a submarine and quite unwieldy for the technology of their time; most of the class at some stage hit the bottom of the sea with their bows at one time or another whilst the stern was still on the surface.

Dive time was around 5 minutes, with the record being 3 minutes 25 seconds, claimed by K-8.

*The subject of my model, HMS K13, shortly after completion *suffered an accident when heavy seas had damaged one of the funnels and water had nearly flooded her engine room .After repairs, on the last day of her sea trials she sank during a routine dive in early 1917 in Gareloch (Scotland) . Whilst salvage operations were being initiated, after 56 harrowing hours on the bottom, eventually 48 crewmembers were rescued; nevertheless the accident claimed 32 lives. 

Six weeks later the unluckily numbered K 13 was raised and after an extensive refit was re-commissioned as *HMS /K22/*, in a uncharacteristic Admiralty gesture to sailors superstition. 

A year after the accident, K13 now renamed K 22 was part of the 13th Submarine Flotilla that was involved in the "Battle" of May Island on 31 January 1918.

During night exercises off the Firth of Forth, together with 5 battle cruisers, 3 battleships, many light cruisers and destroyers, and 9 other K Class boats, K14's helm stuck fast and she collided with K22. Both boats were severely damaged. Battle cruiser HMS Inflexible then added to the pile up by crashing heavily into K22's starboard side. Although badly injured K22 did survive. That same night K4 and K17 were accidentally sunk and 4 other K Class subs were also damaged!

After some peacetime service including a visit with the first Flotilla to Algiers in 1924 K22 was finally scrapped in 1926.
 

An enforced break in a major battleship project, due to lack of critical PE, afforded me the opportunity of an ‘easy and quick’ build….

Despite the beautiful underwater hull shape, I decided upon a waterline display format, as Submarines can be visually not as interesting as surface ships.

This gave me also a definite colour scheme, as the demarcations of dark to light varied from boat to boat, as well as size and colours of ID numbers.

The first stage in this build was to waterline the hull; this was done as ever using my trusty belt-mounted belt sander.

Long immersion in hot water, thereafter being taped to a stout piece of timber failed to effect a permanent cure, so I resorted to a 3mm stainless steel plate—into which countersunk holes had been pre-drilled in feasible intervals and positions for the submarine. I then pre-drilled the hull with a 3mm bit and then drew the hull down to the plate using No 8 Pozi-drive self-tapping screws into the resin hull body.

The conning tower was well shaped, however the distinctive wind/spray deflector around the top perimeter was missing. An alternative to cutting a elliptical shape with straight run out in brass, a tricky and painstaking shape indeed, was to make the shape in easy to bend thin solder-wire, and then flatten the wire in flat-faced jewellers pliers to preserve the shape prior to attaching to the top face of the previously lightly sanded conning tower coaming.

I drilled out the position of the hatch, added a PE hatch in an open position and the made the canvas structure from scrap PE and sprue to form a metal frame, and then infilled with white glue to simulate the saggy and loose canvas.

The hatches on the after superstructure were also opened, a galley stove pipe was added, a depth charge thrower( !) was made of aluminium tubing and paper, along with a number of smaller details such as bollards and fairleads etc…

I could not see any way in which a PE railing could be attached without the end result looking clunky, as the entire vessel was really quite plain, and photos showed the guardrails to be very lightweight in appearance. 

I therefore decided to cut stanchions from 1/350 PE railing longitudinals and insert them into pre-drilled holes. Once set and straightened they were spanned with fine grey stretched sprue using matt varnish and Polystyrene liquid cement. 

The model was set into a sea of previously crumpled artists watercolour embossed paper, and painted in enamel paints with a wet-on-wet technique, whereby the darker colour was laid over the lighter toned initial layer heavily thinned. 

This ensured that the embossed dimples would fill with the darker paint, whilst the high points dried off very quickly. This gave a pleasing soft dimpled effect, not dissimilar to a stiff breeze gusting across flat water. 

The admiralty buoy was made of a piece of round wood dowel; the rubber fender strips being made of styrene micro-strip. I painted the antifouling onto the buoy at an angle, so as to convey the impression of the strong tide dragging the K-boat and the buoy somewhat downstream, hence the water gurgling down the sides of the hull and piling up against the aft hydroplanes. 
 

The sea was given a few coats of Humbrol Klear-kote varnish to give some depth.

The Pennant numbers (small) were from a WEM RN decal sheet, whilst the larger items came from an old Matchbox Stranraer Flying boat kit, the shape of the K and the numbers conveniently being of RN pattern! 

The flags came from my dwindling supply of Dunagain decals, crumpled up within paper to prevent cracking. The vessel was crewed with some resin figures from l’Arsenal.

A most enjoyable project that I found educational as well as challenging. 
 

K Boats by Don Everitt.

Along with various internet sources the following books were used for photographic references:

A Century of Submarines	Peter Lawrence
Submarines	Anthony Preston
Submarines (War beneath the Waves)	Robert Hutchinson
HM Submarines in Camera	J J Tall / Paul J Kemp
British Submarines of World War1	Paul J Kemp
Warship Volume 2 (article)	John Lambert