{TEXTBOOK} British Battlecruisers: 1905
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BRITISH BATTLECRUISERS: 1905 - 1920 PDF, EPUB, EBOOK John Roberts | 128 pages | 04 Oct 2016 | Pen & Sword Books Ltd | 9781473882355 | English | Barnsley, United Kingdom British Battlecruisers, – | Bookshare Monarch was hulked and used for weapons testing until finally sunk in Thunderer , the last of the sisters, was sold for scrap in In addition, although the King George V class again retained the two Parsons steam turbines and their four shafts , they were faster than previous British battleships with a top speed of All four of the King George V -class ships were assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron on commission , King George V becoming the Squadron's flagship by 18 February , but Centurion began her career early, accidentally ramming and sinking an Italian steamer with all hands. Into early , the sisters remained with the 2nd Squadron, until King George V was moved to the 3rd Squadron and then became the flagship of the Reserve Fleet until when the 3rd Squadron was disbanded. She was refitted and reassigned to the 4th Squadron the same year, then in became a gunnery training vessel before finally being sold for scrap in December Ajax met the same fate, but was sold for scrap on 9 November The last of the King George V -class ships, Centurion was converted into a target ship, but was remilitarised in with light weapons and dummy main guns. On 9 June , she was sunk as a block ship to defend a mulberry harbor established on Omaha Beach. In design the sisters were nearly identical to the King George V class , bearing the same ten Mk V New for British dreadnoughts, the four Iron Duke -class sisters were fairly separated from each other in their careers. Marlborough and Benbow struggled with poor visibility, the former firing seven salvos at a group of Kaiser -class battleships and the latter firing six salvos, both without effect. After the battle, Marlborough underwent three months of repairs and received increased armour plating, [] [] and Emperor of India rejoined the Home Fleet in the 1st Battle Squadron. In March , the Iron Duke -class sisters were assigned to the 4th Battle Squadron with the Mediterranean Fleet to participate in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in the Black Sea , [] [] Marlborough even carrying Maria Feodorovna , Grand Duke Nicholas , and Prince Yusupov , [] and then the sisters served in the Greco-Turkish War until Greece's defeat in the war in , [] at which point Marlborough , Benbow , and Emperor of India underwent refitting at different ports. Her propulsion means was also unusual for British battleships. In April of the next year, she was sold back to Chile and resumed her original name. The new calibre guns were intended to still give the Royal Navy an advantage in range over newer American and Japanese ships which the Admiralty expected were to be armed with inch guns. Secondary armament was fourteen 6-inch, two 3-inch anti-aircraft and four inch torpedoes tubes. The Revenge class sometimes known as the Royal Sovereign class were designed as a cheaper alternative to the Queen Elizabeth class. Plans had initially been for a class of eight ships, but at the start of the First World War work stopped on all new capital ships. The last three ships Renown , Repulse and Resistance were cancelled. The first two of these were eventually redesigned as battlecruisers. However, in , this was changed and they became oil-fuelled only. Secondary armament was fourteen 6-inch, two 3-inch anti-aircraft, four 3- pounder guns and four inch torpedoes. Royal Oak was torpedoed at anchor in the supposedly safe harbour of Scapa Flow soon after the start of Second World War. The N3, like the contemporary G3-class battlecruiser design, were planned in response to other nations' intentions to build superior navies. The design concentrated the main guns forward of the bridge to reduce weight while allowing very thick armour over the critical parts but they would still be about twice the displacement of predecessors. The design was approved in but in the major naval powers agreed the Washington Naval Treaty to limit the size and number of warships in their navies. The treaty set an upper limit of 35, tons displacement and inch guns; the ships had not been ordered and no construction had been started. The two ships of the Nelson class were the only new battleships the Royal Navy were allowed to build under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. The layout was based on that of the N3 battleship and G3 battlecruiser but further reduced to come under the weight limit. Nine BL 16 inch Mk I guns — the same as were to have been used on the G3 battlecruisers — were carried in three forward turrets. Secondary armament was twelve 6-inch guns mounted in six turrets at the rear of the ship, six 4. The King George V class of ships were criticized for having inch main guns the preceding Nelson class had larger, though relatively lighter 16 inch guns. The decision to use inch guns was taken in October , while the United Kingdom was negotiating for a continuation of the Naval Treaties with the other parties to the London Treaty. The British Government favoured a reduction in the maximum gun calibre to 14 inches and, in early October, the government learned that the United States would support this position if the Japanese could also be persuaded to do so. Since the large guns needed to be ordered by the end of the year in order for ships to enter service on time, the British Admiralty decided on inch guns for the King George V class. The guns were arranged in three turrets, two with four and one behind and above the forward turret with two guns. Secondary armament was sixteen QF 5. Anson and Howe had eighteen Oerlikon 20 mm cannon and the Duke of York six. The King George V class were designed to reach a speed of over 27 knots. As the treaty negotiations collapsed, this lack of speed and the smaller size of their main armament left them slower and with a lesser broadside than foreign battleships that were being produced around the same time. However, their main armour belt was thicker than others, with the exception of the two very large ships of the Yamato class from Japan. During the Second London Naval Treaty of , the upper limit for battleships was agreed by the powers attending but an escalator clause allowed for increases if parties defaulted. The Admiralty had planned to scrap the ineffective Revenge class when the King George V ships entered service. These plans were soon changed, the Admiralty's new ambition was to raise a battle fleet of 20 ships, 15 of them to match the new standard, keeping the Revenge class until at least To meet this target the navy wanted three battleships added to the plans, but in the end only two were given the go ahead and even then they had to use reserve slipways, normally only used in emergencies. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia list article. Main article: HMS Dreadnought Main article: Bellerophon-class battleship. Main article: St Vincent-class battleship. Main article: HMS Neptune Main article: Colossus-class battleship Main article: Orion-class battleship. Main article: King George V-class battleship Main article: Iron Duke-class battleship. Main article: HMS Agincourt Main article: HMS Erin. Main article: Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre. Main article: Queen Elizabeth-class battleship. Main article: Revenge-class battleship. Main article: N3-class battleship. Main article: Nelson-class battleship. Main article: Lion-class battleship. Main article: HMS Vanguard Battleships portal. Royal Navy. He planned to reorder two Revenge -class battleships , which had been approved but not yet laid down, to a new design. Fisher finally received approval for this project on 28 December and they became the Renown class. With six inch guns but only 6-inch armour they were a further step forward from Tiger in firepower and speed, but returned to the level of protection of the first British battlecruisers. These ships were essentially light battlecruisers, and Fisher occasionally referred to them as such, but officially they were classified as large light cruisers. This unusual designation was required because construction of new capital ships had been placed on hold, while there were no limits on light cruiser construction. The design was generally regarded as a failure nicknamed in the Fleet Outrageous , Uproarious and Spurious , though the later conversion of the ships to aircraft carriers was very successful. It is often held that the Renown and Courageous classes were designed for Fisher's plan to land troops possibly Russian on the German Baltic coast. Specifically, they were designed with a reduced draught , which might be important in the shallow Baltic. This is not clear-cut evidence that the ships were designed for the Baltic: it was considered that earlier ships had too much draught and not enough freeboard under operational conditions. Roberts argues that the focus on the Baltic was probably unimportant at the time the ships were designed, but was inflated later, after the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign. The final British battlecruiser design of the war was the Admiral class , which was born from a requirement for an improved version of the Queen Elizabeth battleship. The project began at the end of , after Fisher's final departure from the Admiralty. While initially envisaged as a battleship, senior sea officers felt that Britain had enough battleships, but that new battlecruisers might be required to combat German ships being built the British overestimated German progress on the Mackensen class as well as their likely capabilities.