HMS Astraea (1893)
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.jpg) Sister ship Hermione after her completion |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Protected cruiser |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | August 1890 |
| Launch | March 17, 1893 |
| Commissioning | November 5, 1895 |
| Whereabouts | July 1920 sold for demolition |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
4,360 ts |
| length |
overall: 103.5 m (339.5 ft ) |
| width |
15.1 m (49.5 ft) |
| Draft |
5.8 m (19 ft) |
| crew |
318 men |
| drive |
8 cylinder boilers |
| speed |
18 kn , 19.5 kn with fan |
| Range |
7000 nm at 10 kn (1000 t coal) |
| Armament |
2 × 152 mm L / 40 |
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Armor deck engine room gun shields command tower |
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HMS Astraea was a 2nd class armored cruiser built by Devonport Dockyard for the Royal Navy , the keel-laying of which was the first of eight ships in the class named after her . She came into service in November 1895 after some of her sister ships.
In 1913 the cruiser came to the Cape Squadron, to which it remained until the end of the First World War . The bombardment of Dar es Salaam on August 8, 1914 by the Astraea made it clear that Great Britain did not recognize the neutrality of the colonies in the event of war as expected by parts of the German colonial administration and German shipowners on the basis of the Congo Act .
Building history
As a result of the decisions of the Naval Defense Act of 1889 , eight Astraea- class cruisers were procured by the Royal Navy as improved versions of the Apollo- type armored cruisers 2nd class in the 1890s . The cruisers were all built at state naval shipyards and were intended for use in tropical waters and therefore all had a copper-clad hull. They displaced about 1000 ts more than the previous class, had better sea characteristics and had a somewhat stronger and better placed armament. This was achieved through the additional, continuous deck, which gave the ships a higher freeboard and the weapons a higher location. The improvements were nevertheless criticized because the armament with only two additional 120 mm guns was not significantly reinforced and there was no improvement in the areas of speed and range.
The cruisers were armed with two 6-inch 152 mm L / 40 rapid-fire cannons as bow and stern guns and a battery of eight 4.7-inch 120 mm L / 40 rapid-fire guns arranged on the side . Most of the lighter armament was placed on the upper deck between the heavier cannons.
The keel laying of the Astraea was the first of the eight ships in the class. The Astraea was launched on March 17, 1893 as the third ship four months after the HMS Bonaventure , which was launched as the first of the class, although it was started four months later at the same shipyard.
Mission history
The HMS Astraea did not enter service until November 1895. On December 2, 1895, she arrived in Malta for service in the Mediterranean fleet . In March 1897 she was used in the eastern Mediterranean. From there she was sent to South Africa , where she arrived in Delagoa Bay on April 23 . On May 17, 1897, she left Simonstown to return to the Mediterranean, where she returned before the end of the month. In 1898, their marines, along with those of the liner Camperdown, were used in Crete against Turkish militants who had murdered Christians and British soldiers.
In 1901 she was one of the reinforcements sent to the China Station because of the Boxer Rebellion , where she was deployed with her sister ships Bonaventure (in China as early as 1899) and Hermione (in China since 1900). On March 31, 1901, she was in Shanghai , at the beginning of September before Wei Hai Wei . On November 13, 1905, the Shanghai Astraea visited Nagasaki . In the summer of 1906 she served with the sister ship Flora on the China Station. From September 20, 1909, von Shanghai took part in the search for the temporarily lost sloop HMS Clio . On July 8, 1911, she was stationed in Wei Hai Wei. Shortly after the beginning of the Chinese Revolution , after more than 10 years in China, she began the march back home, on which she arrived in Singapore on November 15, 1911 .
After returning in 1911, the cruiser was overhauled and put back into service in the Nore for the 3rd Fleet in June 1912. In April 1913 she moved to the Cape of Good Hope Squadron and was to be used primarily off West Africa.
War effort
On July 27, 1914, the Cape of Good Hope Squadron, concentrated in front of Mauritius because of the threat of war, left Port Louis for the East African coast near Dar es Salaam . In front of the port of the main town of the German colony, the British squadron with the cruisers Astraea , Pegasus and Hyacinth met the departing SMS Königsberg on July 31st, which apparently evaded the squadron with a few turns and at high speed to the south. The older British cruisers could not follow her and ran to Zanzibar , where the squadron coaled on August 1st. After the declaration of war became known, the Astraea and the Pegasus reappeared in front of Dar es Salaam, prevented the Reich post steamer König from leaving the port on the 5th and shelled the city on August 8, 1914, while the flagship of the squadron, the Hyacinth , ran back to South Africa to make arrangements with the station commander was. The fire of the Astraea destroyed the German radio station and the Germans sank the existing floating dock for fear of an imminent landing in order to block the port, which also deprived Königsberg of the possibility of retreat.
On August 26, 1914, the Astraea also returned to South Africa and then accompanied six troop transports (RMS Kenilworth Castle , Guildford Castle , Balmoral Castle , Dunluse Castle , Goorka , Briton ) with the Hyacinth from Cape Town with the majority of the regular ones stationed in South Africa up to now Army units to St. Helena , where the Astraea was replaced by the armored cruiser Leviathan .
At the beginning of October she accompanied eight troop transports to Lüderitz Bay , six of which had South African troops on board for the attack on the German colony of South West Africa . The other two had the last troop units of the British Army from South Africa on board, which were directed from the Astraea to São Vicente (Cape Verde) .
On December 7, 1914, she ran with the new flagship of the squadron, the armored cruiser Minotaur , the liner Albion , the Weymouth and the Hyacinth from Simonstown to Cape Town and on to Lüderitzbucht. On the 12th she was back in Cape Town, and on the 21st again escorted transporters with South African troops to Walvis Bay , which landed there on December 24th and retook the British enclave .
In May 1915 she was transferred to Cameroon to replace the Challenger , where she became the flagship of the senior naval officer , Captain Fuller, who supported the landing .
During the year she then moved back to East Africa. The cruiser remained at the Cape Station until the end of the war and was off West Africa at the end of the war.
Final fate
On July 2, 1919, the Astraea returned to Great Britain decommissioned in Chatham and was offered for sale, which took place on July 1, 1920 to the demolition company Castle, which sold the old cruiser on to Germany, where it was demolished that same year .
literature
- James J. Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy. Chatham, London, Supplemented Edition 2006, ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8 .
- John Roberts, HC Timewell, Roger Chesneau (Eds.), Eugene M. Kolesnik (Eds.): Warships of the World 1860 to 1905 - Volume 1: Great Britain / Germany. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1983, ISBN 3-7637-5402-4 .
- Robert Gardiner, Randal Gray, Przemysław Budzbon: Conway's All the world's fighting ships. 1906-1921. Conway, ISBN 0-851-77245-5 .
- [1919] Jane's Fighting Ships of World War One . Military Press, New York 1990, ISBN 0-517-03375-5 .
Web links
- Astraea (1893)
- HMS Astrea (1893) on battleships-cruisers.co.uk.
- Astraea class on historyofwar.org
- Astraea class on worldwar1.co.uk
- HMS Astraea
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906–1921 , p. 77.
- ↑ Naval Review 1915, p.637 (PDF; 6.3 MB)
- ↑ Naval Review 1915, p. 608 (PDF; 6.7 MB)