United States S Class Submarine

United States S Class Submarine

The United States' S-class submarines, often simply called S-boats (sometimes "Sugar" boats, after the then contemporary Navy phonetic alphabet for "S"), were the first class of submarines built to a United States Navy design.

The United States Navy commissioned 51 S-Class submarines from 1920 to 1925. The first S-boat, USS S-1 (SS-105), was commissioned in 1918 and the last, USS S-51 (SS-162), in 1925. The S class is subdivided into four groups of different designs:

• Group I (S-1 class, or "Holland" type):S-1 and S-18–S-41, built by Bethlehem Steel at Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts and Union Iron Works in San Francisco, California, as subcontractor for Electric Boat Company (Elco).
• Group II (S-3 class, or "Navy Yard" type):S-3-S-17, built at the Portsmouth Navy Yard and Lake Torpedo Boat at Bridgeport, Connecticut.
• Group III (S-42 class): S-42-S-47, built at Fore River.
• Group IV (S-48 class): S-48-S-51, built by Lake.

S-2 was a prototype built by Lake, and was not repeated.

S-1, S-2, and S-3 were prototypes built to the same specification: S-1 designed by Electric Boat (Elco), S-2 by Lake, and S-3 by the Bureau of Construction and Repair (later Bureau of Ships). The Lake boat was considered inferior. The Elco and BuC&R designs were put into production.

The first S-boat, S-1, was launched on 26 September 1918, by Bethlehem at Fore River, but not commissioned until 5 June 1920.

The S-boats were improvements over the O- and R-boats. They were substantially larger. Compared to the R-boats, Group I S-boats were 33 feet (10.1 m) longer, with 3 feet 3 inches (1.0 m) more beam, 2 feet 3 inches (0.7 m) more draft, and 60% greater displacement. This allowed for greater range, larger engines and higher speed, and more torpedo reloads, though the number of forward torpedo tubes was still four. Seven of the Group II and all the Group IV boats had an additional stern tube. Group IV was also longer and had less draft. In 1923, USS S-1 (SS-105) experimented with a seaplane (an idea the Japanese would adopt).