From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Rainbow class submarine or R class was a class of four submarines built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. They were designed as long range patrol submarines for the Far East and were essentially repeats of the preceding Parthian class submarines with minor modifications. Six ships were planned but two boats, HMS Royalist and HMS Rupert were cancelled for economic reasons.
[edit] General characteristics
From Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships
- Displacement
- Surfaced - 1,763 tons
- Submerged - 2,030 tons
- Length: 87.53 m / 287 ft 2 in
- Beam: 9.12 m / 29 ft 11 in
- Draught: 4.90 m / 16 ft 1 in
- Machinery - 2 shaft diesel electric
- Admiralty diesels - 4,640 hp
- Electric motors - 1,635 hp
- Speed
- Surfaced - 17.5 knots
- Submerged - 8.6 knots
- Armament
- Eight 21-inch torpedo tubes (6 bow, 2 stern 14 torpedoes)
- 1 - 4.7 in deck gun, 2 x 20 mm fitted after 1942
- After 1942, surviving submarines were fitted to be able to jettison mines through the torpedo tubes.
- Crew: 53
It is often stated that HMS Rainbow was sunk by the Italian submarine Enrico Toti but the submarine sunk by the Enrico Toti was HMS Triad - [-Ref]
[edit] References
