500ft Payne and Griffiths, Birmingham Submarine Depth Gauge

[Ian K]

Can anybody tell me which class of submarine this 500ft depth gauge would have been on. Thank you

 

[Pedrocut]

Grace’s Guide…

Payne and Griffiths - Graces Guide

 

[Pedrocut]

May not be used on an actual submarine…could be pressure chamber ?

 

[Ian K]

Thanks Pedrocut, you may be right. All I can find are 700ft gauges on the older subs. Hopefully somebody might come up with an idea.

 

[Morturn]

I have just done a image reverse search and found this:

This item is a vintage submarine depth gauge manufactured by Payne & Griffiths Ltd of Smethwick, Birmingham. It is believed to be from a British Royal Navy T-Class submarine dating back to the 1930s or 1940s.

The gauge features two scales: one measuring depth in feet (up to 500 or 350 depending on the specific model) and another measuring pressure in pounds per square inch (lb/in²).

The maximum depth a British Royal Navy T-Class submarine could submerge to was 350 feet so a gauge to 500ft gave a good margin.

There is also a Wikipedia entry telling you all you need to know about the T Class sub you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_T-class_submarine

 

[Ian K]

Thank you, Morturn, that's terrific info. I spent 29 years of my 31 years Service in the Submarine Service and still every day is a school day

 

[Morturn]

Thank you, Morturn, that's terrific info. I spent 29 years of my 31 years Service in the Submarine Service and still every day is a school day

Your most welcome! You have come to the right place. By coincidence I was in Bewdley the other day chatting to a sub mariner who said he had served for 8 years on submarines. An absolutely fascinating guy.

 

[Pedrocut]

That is interesting. It begs the question as to the difference, if there is one, between a depth guage in the control room of the submarine, and that which would be used for say for submarine escape training or diving chambers,
The British T-class submarine submarines did indeed have operational depths of around 300–350 ft,

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[Ian K]

This is indeed very interesting, getting different takes on the depth gauge and where it might have been. From memory there were no gauges in the submarine escape training tank in HMS Dolphin but that is only 100ft deep. Thank you guys for the information

 

[Morturn]

I suspect it could salt water. Fresh water is approximately 3% less dense than salt water, resulting in slightly lower pressure at any given depth in fresh water compared to salt water.

 

[Ian K]

and significantly less buoyancy if your sub runs into a fresh water layer. Fortunately that doesn't happen too often