X.1: The Royal Navy's Mystery Submarine by Roger Branfill-Cook

X.1: The Royal Navy's Mystery Submarine by Roger Branfill-Cook

The 'X' stood for experimental, but it might equally have meant extraordinary, exotic or extravagant, as this giant submarine attracted superlatives--the world's largest, most heavily armed, and deepest diving submersible of the day. X.1 was a controversial project conceived behind the backs of politicians, and would remain an unwanted stepchild. This book explores the historical background of submarine cruisers, the personalities involved in X.1's design and service, the spy drama surrounding her launch, the treason trial of a leading RN submarine commander, the ship's checkered career, and her political demise. Despite real technical successes, she would finally fall foul of black propaganda, aimed at persuading foreign naval powers that the cruiser submarine did not work; even today uninformed opinion repeats the myth of her failure. Well-illustrated with technical drawings and historical photographs, this book pays belated tribute to the real importance of the mysterious X.1.

X1: The Royal Navy's Mystery Submarine will be of great interest to readers who are submariners, naval enthusiasts, or historians of military technology. It describes a lost era: before advances in radar and sonar made the life of the submariner more precarious; before the snorkel acoustic quieting and ultimately, nuclear propulsion, turned submersible boats into true submarines. It offers a unique glimpse into an unhappy period of the Royal Navy's epic history."
-- DefenseMediaNetwork.com

Roger Branfill-Cook is a professional translator from French into English. He has written numerous articles for specialist magazines and is both a novelist and an author of non-fiction books.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781848321618
ISBN 10	1848321619
Title	X.1: The Royal Navy's Mystery Submarine
Author	Roger Branfill-Cook
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Year published	2013-02-28
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.