OBERON–CLASS SUBMARINE
http://www.britainatwar.com^27The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre’s
Mk.VII NX611 ‘Just Jane’ is being restored
to eventually re-fly. (IMAGE VIA IBCC)The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre’s
Mk.VII NX611 ‘Just Jane’ is being restored
to eventually re-fly. (IMAGE VIA IBCC)Sea Lord Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson
once referred to subs as “underhanded,
unfair and damned un-English”!
The Cold War, perhaps more than
any other period in history, was a
time when clandestine activity was
essential to maintain tactical advantage.
The Royal Navy’s Oberon-class
submarine, which entered service at
the turn of the 1960s, was among the
most advanced and effective stealth
machines of the era.
BIRTH OF THE OBERON
The Oberon-class is named after the
king of fairies in Germanic folklore,
most famously depicted by Shakespeare
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and who
was known as a mysterious master of
deception that reigns over others. It
seems rather an apt description.
The class was, in fact, a development
of its predecessor, the post-war
Porpoise-class sub, which it resembled
almost identically in physical
dimensions. Essentially, the Oberon-
class was the Porpoise 2.0.
The Porpoise-class were diesel-
electric boats, developed in the
immediate aftermath of the Second
World War to succeed the Triton-
class, which had performed valiantly
in that conflict. In total, eight were
built in the late 1950s. Note that
the Porpoise boats should not to
be confused with the minelaying
Grampus-class submarines of the
1930s, occasionally also referred to as
Porpoise-class after the prototype boat
of that name.
Like many military developments
of the 1950s, the class was heavilyABOVE
HMS Ocelot being
launched at
Chatham in 1962.
She was the last
Royal Navy warship
built at the famous
Kent dockyard.
(CHATHAM HISTORIC
DOCKYARD TRUST)OPPOSITE
Today, Ocelot is an
excellent museum
at the Chatham
Historic Dockyard.
(SCOTT NICHOLL/
CHATHAM HISTORIC
DOCKYARD TRUST)influenced by its forebears, the most
influential of which were developed
by Nazi Germany, in this case the
Type XXI submarine. A product of
the Cold War, the Porpoise boats
were particularly adept at surveillance,
clandestine and special forces
operations. Technical innovations,
including better air circulation, enabled
it to stay underwater and avoid
detection for relatively long periods of
time.
In the development of the Oberon-
class, the qualities that made the
Porpoise boats such an attractive
proposition were streamlined and
accentuated further. The key difference
between the two was that the new hulls
were constructed out of an innovative
alloy known as ‘QT28’ steel, rather
than the ‘UXW’ steel used previously