Page "1880s" Paragraph 49

* 1885 – 1887: Thorsten Nordenfelt of Örby, Uppsala Municipality, Sweden produces a series of steam powered submarines.

The first was the Nordenfelt I, a 56 tonne, 19. 5 metre long vessel similar to George Garrett's ill-fated Resurgam ( 1879 ), with a range of 240 kilometres and armed with a single torpedo and a 25. 4 mm machine gun.

It was manufactured by Bolinders in Stockholm in 1884 – 1885.

Like the Resurgam, it operated on the surface using a 100 HP steam engine with a maximum speed of 9 kn, then it shut down its engine to dive.

She was purchased by the Hellenic Navy and was delivered to Salamis Naval Base in 1886.

Following the acceptance tests, she was never used again by the Hellenic Navy and was scrapped in 1901.

Nordenfelt then built the Nordenfelt II ( Abdülhamid ) in 1886 and Nordenfelt III ( Abdülmecid ) in 1887, a pair of 30 metre long submarines with twin torpedo tubes, for the Ottoman Navy.

Abdülhamid became the first submarine in history to fire a torpedo while submerged under water.

The Nordenfelts had several faults.

" It took as long as twelve hours to generate enough steam for submerged operations and about thirty minutes to dive.

Once underwater, sudden changes in speed or direction triggered — in the words of a U. S. Navy intelligence report — " dangerous and eccentric movements.

" ... However, good public relations overcame bad design: Nordenfeldt always demonstrated his boats before a stellar crowd of crowned heads, and Nordenfeldt's submarines were regarded as the world standard.