HMS Antrim (1903)
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|---|---|
 HMS Antrim |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Armored cruiser |
| Shipyard |
John Brown , Clydebank Building No. 356 |
| Keel laying | August 27, 1902 |
| Launch | October 8, 1903 |
| delivery | June 23, 1905 |
| Namesake | County Antrim in Northern Ireland |
| Whereabouts | sold for demolition on December 19, 1922 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
10,850 tn.l. |
| length |
overall: 144.42 m (473.5 ft ) |
| width |
20.89 m (68.5 ft) |
| Draft |
7.32 m (24 ft) |
| crew |
655 men |
| drive |
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| speed |
22 kn |
| Armament |
|
| Coal supply |
800 (max 1950) tn.l. |
|
Armor belt armor |
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| Casemates |
152 mm (6 in) |
| deck |
51 mm (2 in) |
| Command tower |
305 mm (12 in) |
| Barbeds |
127 or 152 mm (5 or 6 in) |
The HMS Antrim was one of six armored cruisers of Devonshire class of the Royal Navy . It was built by John Brown & Company and launched on October 8, 1903. Like her sister ships, she served in her home waters before and during the First World War . Only from 1916 to 1919 was it used on a station abroad. She survived the war undamaged. After the war, she was the first ship to be equipped with an experimental sonar system in 1920.
Building history
The HMS Antrim was one of six Devonshire class ships. This armored cruiser class, built from 1902 to 1905, was an attempt to improve on the previous Monmouth class .
The two 152 mm twin towers in this class were replaced by 191 mm (7.5 in) single towers. While the ships were still being built, it was decided to replace the front casemates, which were planned one above the other, with two more individual towers. This gave the cruisers an armament that was on a par with the armored cruisers of other nations and gave them an artillery predominance over smaller cruisers. The heavier artillery only led to a small increase in size. The armor of the ships was thicker, but also narrower. In terms of drive, the class was used to test different types of boilers. In the front rooms there were water-tube boilers in different designs depending on the manufacturer, for the Antrim the Yarrow type . The rearmost boiler room on all ships had seven cylinder boilers . Outwardly, the Royal Navy returned to four funnels with the Antrim and her sisters.
The class is always referred to in literature as the Devonshire class, the keel-laying of which took place on March 25, 1902 at Chatham Dockyard as the first ship. The keel-laying of the five sister ships took place until October 1 of the year at five other shipyards, which the HMS Antrim on August 27, 1902 at the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank under hull number 365, where the armored cruiser was the third on October 8, 1903 Ship of the class launched. On June 23, 1905, she was accepted into the service of the Royal Navy as the second ship of the class.
Mission history
The HMS Antrim initially served like the sister ships except for the Carnarvon deployed in the Mediterranean in the Channel Fleet with the 1st cruiser squadron with the Good Hope as the flagship . In March 1907 the Antrim and the Devonshire joined the 2nd cruiser squadron of the Atlantic Fleet , to which the Carnarvon also joined in June . In July King Edward VII visited Ireland on the Antrim , commanded by the future Admiral William Christopher Pakenham . At the request of First Sea Lord Fisher , the commanders of the 1st and 2nd cruiser squadrons exchanged roles with their flagships and other units in 1908, as Rear Admiral Percy Scott , who was valued by Fisher and who publicly argued with his superior Beresford , made a demonstration trip with the 2nd. Squadron should conduct to South Africa and South America.
On September 8, 1908, this journey began in Portsmouth, in which the Antrim , Carnarvon and Devonshire also took part in addition to the flagship Good Hope . On September 18, the squadron made the first supply stop in São Vicente (Cape Verde) , from October 5, the squadron coaled again in Saldanha Bay and entered Durban on October 10 , where the first meeting of the " National Convention "began. The ships could be viewed and large parts of the crews were able to tour South Africa by train. On the 26th, the squadron continued to Port Elizabeth , Simonstown and Cape Town . From there the squadron ran via St. Helena to Rio de Janeiro . On December 12, the squadron anchored off Montevideo , where supplies were replenished from deployed coal steamers. At the request of the President of Uruguay, the squadron stayed in front of Montevideo until Christmas, before heading home via Sao Vicente and Santa Cruz de Tenerife to the squadron's base in Gibraltar . In the course of 1909 all Devonshire cruisers came to the 3rd Division of the Home Fleet except for Argyll, which remained with the Atlantic Fleet . The Antrim became the flagship of the 3rd Cruiser Squadron there in 1912, which became part of the Grand Fleet when the World War broke out .
War missions
On October 9, 1914, the Antrim was unsuccessfully attacked by a German submarine. In December she was used with the squadron under Rear Admiral Pakenham from Rosyth together with Devonshire , Argyll and Roxburgh against the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby , without meeting the German attackers.
In June 1916, after the sinking of the Hampshire , she was sent to Arkhangelsk and secured merchant shipping in the White Sea . At the end of the year, the armored cruiser was transferred to the North America and West Indies station .
Whereabouts
After returning home in 1919, the HMS Antrim came to the reserve in the Nore . Converted into a test ship for radio and submarine hunting ( Sonar , Asdic ), she was put back into service in March 1920. In 1922 she served as a training ship for midshipmen, only to be sold for demolition on December 19, 1922 to Hughes Bolckow , to which she was towed to Blyth in March 1923 .
literature
- Roger Chesneau (Ed.): Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships, 1860-1905. Conway Maritime Press, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 .
- James J. Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy. The complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy from the 15th century to the present. New revised edition. Chatham, London 2006, ISBN 1-86176-281-X .
- Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1905. 2nd edition. Vol. 6, 1905, ZDB -ID 204187-X , on archive.org as Dreischornsteiner !!
Web links
- Devonshire -class
- Devonshire Class Cruiser
- HMS Antrim
- Antrim's logs on oldweather