The Naval Arms Race Before WWI

[Filipe Ramires]

How much was incompetence vs pushing the technology of the time beyond the limits of complexity to achieve a goal of an ideal submarine as considered at the time?

Those were times of experiences. The submarine was a recent weapon that had just proved or was in process of doing so along WWI. The M, K and X class are examples of what the Royal Navy was up to regarding new uses or doctrines for submarine warfare. Apart from the minelaying and aircraft carrying capability I find of little use if not useless or dangerous at all the remaining prototypes but then they had to build them and test them and in some cases loose them to make sure that the case did not work well.