Apollo class

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flag
Apollo- class
HMS Spartan (1891)
HMS Spartan (1891)
Overview
Type Protected cruiser
units 21st
Shipyard
Keel laying 1889-1890
Launch 1890-1891
Commissioning 1892-1894
Technical specifications
displacement

3,700 ts

length

overall: 95.7 m (314  ft )

width

13.3 m (43.5 ft)

Draft

5.3 m (17.5 ft)

crew

273-300 men

drive

5 cylinder boilers 2 triple expansion machines , 2 shafts 7,000 PSi, 9,000 PSi with fresh air blower

speed

18.5 kn , 20 kn with fan

Range

8000 nm at 10 kn (535 t coal)

Armament

2 × 6 inch-152 mm-L / 40-guns
6 × 4.7-inch-120mm-L / 40-guns
8 × Ordnance QF 6-pounder naval gun
1 × Hotchkiss 3-pounder marine gun for boat use
4 × 11 5 mm tube Nordenfelt mitrailleuses
2-4 × 360 mm torpedo tubes

Armor
deck
engine room
command post


33-51mm
127mm
76mm

The Apollo-class was the largest class cruiser of the British Royal Navy . 21 of these small protected cruisers were built from 1889 to 1894 at ten different shipyards and used in the Second Boer War and 12 in the First World War. The most prominent use of these cruisers was the sinking of five of the old cruisers as block ships off the German submarine bases in Flanders in April 1918.

Calls

Side view, deck plan, and cross section of the Apollo class
Cruiser sunk in Zeebrugge

At the beginning of the war , twelve of the 21 cruisers of the class were still available. The HMS Sybille ran aground and sank on January 16, 1901 near Lamberts Bay , South Africa, due to navigation errors. She was the only ship in the Royal Navy that was lost during the Boer War . Eight other ships of the class were sold for demolition between 1910 and 1914.

The seven cruisers Latona , Apollo , Intrepid , Iphigenia , Andromache , Naiad and Thetis had been converted into miners from 1907 and were stationed in Dover when the war began . Brilliant and Sirius were reactivated as cruisers in 1914, as was the Sappho for a time , which had served as a tender for the flagship of the Grand Fleet . The Spartan , also classified as a tender, only served as a residential ship.

The Rainbow had been handed over to the Royal Canadian Navy in 1910 and was the only Canadian warship on the Pacific coast. They secured the west coast against a feared advance by Leipzig . The German small cruiser was stationed on the Mexican Pacific coast at the start of the war and first ran north to San Francisco . The Rainbow did not attack the more modern cruiser, which was looking for prey there from August 11 to 18, but only secured the withdrawal of the sloops Shearwater and Algerine from Mexico to Canada and waited for the announced reinforcement of the station by the light cruiser Newcastle from the China station . The German cruiser finally disappeared to the south after receiving news of a reinforcement of the Canadian station from China and of the imminent entry into the war by Japan, which had already stationed the armored cruiser Izumo on the Mexican coast.

Some of the cruisers came into the public spotlight in April 1918 when they were used as block ships against the German bases in Flanders . The attack on Ostend failed, the one on Zeebrugge did not have the desired success either, as it only briefly blocked the port entrance.

Ships

  • HMS Apollo , launched in 1900, rebuilt in 1909, 1914 Dover miners, 1915 Sheerness , then Nore Command , 1917 depot ship, sold for demolition in 1920
  • HMS Aeolus (1891) 1906 Reserve Devonport , - sold for demolition in 1914
  • HMS Andromache , launched in 1906, reconstruction from 1907 to 1909, 1914 Dover mine-layer, 1915 Mediterranean depot ship, 1916 barge Gibraltar , sold for demolition in 1920
  • HMS Brilliant 1906 Newfoundland / Fisheries Protection, 1914 North Sea security tasks, 1914 Depot ship Tyne, 1915 to Lerwick , April 23, 1918 Block ship during the Ostend raid
  • HMS Indefatigable (1891) , from 1910 Melpomene , 1906 4th Cruiser Squadron / West Indies, - sold for demolition in 1913
  • HMS Intrepid , launched in 1906, reconstruction by 1910, 1914 Dover mine-layer, 1915 depot ship Kolabucht , 1917 in the White Sea , April 23, 1918 Block ship in the Zeebrugge raid
  • HMS Iphigenia , 1906 Special Service, 1914 Dover mine-layer, 1915 Depot ship Kolabucht, 1917 in the White Sea, April 23, 1918 Block ship in the Zeebrugge raid
  • HMS Latona , 1906 Reserve Portsmouth , 1907 to 1908 remodeling, 1914 Dover mine-layer, 1915 Mediterranean, 1920 sold for demolition
  • HMS Melampus (1890) - sold for demolition in 1910
  • HMS Naiad , refurbished until 1910, 1914 Dover mine-layer, 1917 depot ship Tyne, sold for demolition in 1922
  • HMS Pique (1890) - sold for demolition in 1911
  • HMCS Rainbow - with the Royal Canadian Navy since August 4, 1910 , 1910 to the west coast, 1914 in British Columbia , 1917 depot ship, 1920 sold
  • HMS Retribution (1891) - sold for demolition in 1911
  • HMS Sappho 1906 Reserve Sheerness , 1914 Tender, 1915 Reserve, April 1918 on march to Ostend Raid failed, 1921 sold for demolition
  • HMS Scylla (1891) 1906 Reserve Sheerness , - sold for demolition in 1914
  • HMS Sirius 1906 Reserve Devonport , 1914 Reserve, 1915 West Africa, April 23, 1918 Block ship in the Zeebrugge raid
  • HMS Spartan , tender, renamed Defiance II , sold for demolition in 1931
  • HMS Sybille (1890) - died January 16, 1901 in Lamberts Bay (South Africa), one dead
  • HMS Terpsichore (1890) 1906 Cape Squadron - sold for demolition in 1914
  • HMS Thetis , used as a transporter for relief teams in 1906, 1914 Dover mine-layer, 1916 Depot ship in Dover, April 23, 1918 Block ship in the Zeebrugge raid
  • HMS Tribune (1891) - sold for demolition in 1911

literature

  • Geoffrey Bennett: The Sea Battles of Coronel and Falklands. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-453-01141-4 .
  • JJ Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). Chatham, London: 2006 [1969], ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8 .

Web links

Commons : Apollo class  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Bennett, pp. 44, 104.