She did not fire any shots in anger during the war, but does get credit for sinking an enemy vessel. During one of her escort missions, the convoy she was escorting came under two different attacks by German U-boats. On the evening of 14 October 1918, as "New York" led a group of battleships into the Pentland Firth, she was rocked by a violent underwater collision on her starboard side, followed shortly after by another to the stern that broke off two blades on one of her propellers, reducing the ship to one engine and a speed of . It was immediately clear to the men on board that she had struck an underwater object, but the depth of the channel meant it could not have been a shipwreck. Commanders concluded that "New York" must have accidentally collided with a submerged U-boat. They agreed that the submarine had rammed its bow into the ship's side, then been struck moments later by the ship's propeller. In their opinion, the damage would have been fatal to the German craft. Postwar examination of German records revealed that the submarine lost may have been or . This strange—and accidental—encounter marked the only time in all of Battleship Division Nine's service with the Grand Fleet that one of its ships sank a German vessel.