O'Neill's Midget Submarine

Produced by the O'Neill's Company of Belfast and crewed by actual midgets, the iconic Midget Submarine was perfectly designed for operations in shallow coastal waters.

Only the shortage of potential crew members limited a wide deployment of this submersible for duties throughout the Empire. Missives from the Admirality Office at the time bemoaned "the lack of available midget sailors for use in a Navy which modern sensibilities forbade the employ of children".

The only Midget Submarine to see action was the "Little Pig", captained by Jock "Stumpy" McGurk. In a daring incursion into the Vulgarian fjords, the small craft used its single Explosive Harpoon to sink the battleship "Dragon", bringing an abrupt end to Vulgarian naval ambitions in the Baltic.

More images of the Midget Submarine, many of them in full colour, may be seen here.

Prussian Submersible "Ocean Predator"

In 1868 the Kaiser, increasingly-frustrated with Prussia's inability to compete with the Imperial Navy, gave his approval to increase the size and sophistication of Prussia's fleet of submersible craft. The Mark III (pictured above in a rare photograph) was the result.

Although the Mark III could travel further, faster and deeper than any previous submersible, it was never popular amongst Prussian sailors. Constructed predominantly of wood, it was prone to leaking at even moderate depths and soon earned itself the nickname "the water closet". This was to detract somewhat from the Kaiser's objective of establishing a fearsome reputation for his submersible fleet.

Nonetheless, Prussian submersibles began roaming freely throughout the North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean, much to Admiralty Office chagrin, and as Prussian naval engineering techniques developed, subsequent vessels were to become the envy of navies across the world.

Only a handful of images of the Mark III have ever been recorded. A small collection of them is available for viewing here.

HMSV "Nautica"

Despite the rapid buildup in numbers of submarine craft in other navies (notably the Prussian and Manchurian), Imperial Naval Chiefs were initially sceptical of the promise held by these vessels. An announcement in The Times regarding the launch of Nautica's sister-craft "Thorn", makes clear the prevailing Navy attitude;

"It is understood that no ceremony will take place at the forthcoming launch of the first British submarine at Barrow-in-Furness. The Admiralty regards these boats as wholly in the nature of an experiment and like all other experiments carried out from time to time this one will be carried out with every privacy."

This attitude was to change markedly with the decimation of the Russian Pacific Fleet by Manchurian submarines during the short conflict of 1882. HMSVs Thorn and Nautica were to be quickly followed by bigger and more-heavily armed submarines, as a new branch of the Imperial Navy came into existence; "The Silent Service".

Both Nautica and Thorn were decommisioned and scrapped in 1897, however a collection of photographic images of Nautica survives, and can be viewed by the interested reader here.