HMS Tactician (P314)

HMS Tactician in 1953
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Tactician
Builder:	Vickers Armstrong, Barrow
Laid down:	13 November 1941
Launched:	29 July 1942
Commissioned:	29 November 1942
Fate:	Scrapped December 1963
Badge:
General characteristics
Class and type:	British T class submarine
Displacement:	1,290 tons surfaced 1,560 tons submerged
Length:	276 ft 6 in (84.28 m)
Beam:	25 ft 6 in (7.77 m)
Draught:	12 ft 9 in (3.89 m) forward 14 ft 7 in (4.45 m) aft
Propulsion:	Two shafts Twin diesel engines 2,500 hp (1.86 MW) each Twin electric motors 1,450 hp (1.08 MW) each
Speed:	15.5 knots (28.7 km/h) surfaced 9 knots (20 km/h) submerged
Range:	4,500 nautical miles at 11 knots (8,330 km at 20 km/h) surfaced
Test depth:	300 ft (91 m) max
Complement:	61
Armament:	6 internal forward-facing 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 2 external forward-facing torpedo tubes 2 external amidships rear-facing torpedo tubes 1 external rear-facing torpedo tubes 6 reload torpedoes 1 x 4-inch (102 mm) deck gun 3 anti aircraft machine guns

HMS Tactician was a British submarine of the third group of the T class. She was built as P314 by Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow, and launched on 29 July 1942.

Service

Tactician served in the Mediterranean and the Far East during her wartime career. Whilst operating against the Italians, she sank the Italian auxiliary patrol vessel V17 / Pia and the Italian sailing vessel Bice. She also torpedoed and damaged the Italian merchant Rosandra off the coast of Albania. The ship sank the following day.

On being transferred to the Pacific, commanded by Lt. Cdr. Anthony Collett, DSC, she continued to harass enemy shipping, sinking a small Japanese vessel and two Siamese sailing vessels before the end of the war. She took part in Operation Cockpit, where she rescued a downed US airman, Lt. D. C. Klahn, under fire.^[1]

A Pathe newsreel dated 1952 shows Tactician taking part in an exercise in the Sea of Japan. In it, the submarine is seen diving.

Tactician survived the war and continued in service with the navy, finally being scrapped at Newport on 6 December 1963.^[2]

See also

• List of submarines of the Royal Navy
• British T class submarine

References

1. ↑ http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1944/1944 - 1053.html
2. ↑ HMS Tactician, Uboot.net

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475. 
• Hutchinson, Robert (2001). Jane's Submarines: War Beneath the Waves from 1776 to the Present Day. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-710558-8. OCLC 53783010.