In 1917, the British navy decided to explore the world of submarines and consolodate its position as a major player in the waters of the world. The K-boats were the result. And what a result. They may have looked the business, but there were just one or two teething problems…

» K-1 collided with K-4 off the coast of Denmark, then sank.

» On its first test dive, K-2 caught fire.

» K-3 got the hang of the diving side of things, but, having plunged to the sea bed (with the current Prince of Wales on board), refused to resurface. When it was eventually persuaded to have a go at the rising side of the equation, it broke the surface only to be rammed by K-6.

» K-4 ran aground.

» Bored with the normal day-to-day drudgery, K-5 decided it needed a holiday and foundered in the Bay Of Biscay.

» (This one’s a good one, try to keep up…). Even before its first trial, K-14 sprang a leak. After the leak was plugged, it was allowed out on manoeuvers in the North Sea, where it collided with K-22 (which had been, somewhat unwisely, named K-13, before it keeled over in Loch Gare, Scotland, on seaworthiness trials). Following the collision, K-14 sank. K-22 needed a little more, however: It immediately got in the way of the appropriately named HMS Inflexible and was damaged beyond repair.

» In the same set of manoeuvers, and having already been struck by K-7, K-17 was then hit by HMS Fearless and was completely incpacitated.

» K-4 saw the problems and wisely decided to do something about it. Less than wisely, the crew decided that something should be ‘shut off all engines and change course’. Following this brilliant piece of clear thinking, it was rammed by K-6, which later got stuck on the ocean bed.

» Absent from the chaos in Scotland was K-15. Not through choice however – it had sunk in Portsmouth harbour before doing anything or going anywhere.

It finally dawned on the top brass that matters weren’t progressing along ideal lines, so K-boats 18, 19, 20 and 21 were never completed, and the nautical world breathed a sigh of relief.

However…

Waste not want not; the keels for the catastrophic K-boats were kept and modified for the new M-class of submarines.
M-1 went on diving patrol in the English Channel and was rammed by a merchant vessel, and M-2 sank like a stone after it sprang a leak….

Now, that’s what I call an epic fail.