Original research shines a light on the little discussed midget class submarines, from their WW2 inception to the unique and short-lived Stickleback class, developed in the Cold War
The X Class submarines were conceived during WW2, small craft of around 51ft (16m) long, designed to be towed by a ‘mother’ submarine with a passage crew on board. Their midget size meant they could attack with stealth, and return to their towing submarine. Beginning with a look back over the wartime craft, this new study from ex-submariner Keith Hall charts the evolution of the X class subs, from X3 through X and XE, and onto the 1950s short-lived and unique Stickleback class. Only four Stickleback submarines were ever produced, with grand plans to use them to carry a 15-kiloton nuclear naval mine codenamed Cudgel deep into Soviet harbours. Nearly all scrapped, just one remains, an X51 now residing in the Scottish Submarine Centre in Helensburgh. With a wealth of imagery including archive X craft photographs as well as up-to-date views of the X51 Stickleback from the Helensburgh Museum, this book tells the little-known story of Britain's midget class subs.
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Revealing the Midget Class Submarines from X-Class to Stickleback
KEITH HALL was born in Leeds, Yorkshire. After leaving school at 18 years old, he joined the Royal Navy and spent thirty-three years in the medical branch; the majority of this time was spent on nuclear submarines or in shore billets in support of the Nuclear Propulsion Program. After leaving the Navy in 2003, he worked as a health physicist at HM Naval Base Clyde. He retired in 2015. An avid collector of old photographs and postcards, Keith Hall writes about local and naval history, particularly focusing on submarines.
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