HMS Rainbow (N16)


HMS Rainbow was a submarine built for the Royal Navy during the 1930s.

Design and description

The Rainbow-class submarines were designed as improved versions of the Parthian class and were intended for long-range operations in the Far East. The submarines had a length of overall, a beam of and a mean draft of. They displaced on the surface and submerged. The Rainbow-class submarines had a crew of 56 officers and ratings. They had a diving depth of.
For surface running, the boats were powered by two diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by a electric motor. They could reach on the surface and underwater. On the surface, the boats had a range of at and at submerged.
The boats were armed with six British 21 inch torpedo| torpedo tubes in the bow and two more in the stern. They carried six reload torpedoes for a grand total of fourteen torpedoes. They were also armed with a QF 4.7-inch Mark IX deck gun.

Construction and career

Rainbow ran aground in the English Channel off Ventnor, Isle of Wight, on 22 January 1932. She was refloated later the same day.
Rainbow served in the Far East until 1940, when she moved to the Mediterranean. She left for a patrol off Calabria on 23 September 1940
and was due to be back in Alexandria on 16 October, she was last heard from on 25 September. She is believed to have been sunk on 4 October in a collision with the Italian merchant ship Antonietta Costa, which reported striking a submerged object at 03:30, followed by a huge underwater explosion while sailing in convoy from Albania on that date.
Until 1988 it was believed that Rainbow had been sunk by the, but eventually it was determined that was the submarine that Enrico Toti sank.