Mavi Boncuk |1886 |The second (Abdülhamid) and third (Abdülmecid) Nordenfelt submarines [1] were built at the Barrows yard in Britain and shipped in pieces to Turkey for final assembly. These submarines have the same longitudinal stability problem as the first Nordenfelt boat inspite of moving the downhaul screws from midships (port and starboard) to forward and aft locations. The boats were equipped with external torpedo tubes at the forward end and two Nordenfelt deck guns (one forward and one aft). The second boat(named Abdul Hamid) was the first submarine to fire a torpedo while submerged. Unfortunately, Nordenfelt had not accounted for the sudden weight loss. After the torpedo left the tube, the bow came up, all the water in the boiler and steam reservoirs rush aft, and the submarine practically stood on end.
Abdülhamid and Abdülmecid were found by Germany in Istanbul in 1914. The submarines were briefly considered for use in harbour defence but it was found that their hulls were too badly corroded.
Source
[1] Thorsten Nordenfelt (1842-1920), was a Swedish inventor and industrialist. The first Norderfelt submarine was launched in Sweden and under went trials in Britain in 1885. The Nordenfelt I was powered by steam when surfaced and submerged. Downhaul screws located port and starboard were used to submerge and fore and aft planes to maintain an even keel. She was longitudinally unstable due to the water in boiler and steam reservoirs. This led to the belief that the only safe submarine was one that maintained an even keel at all times. The British Admiralty is not interested, so she was sold to Greece 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.
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