HMS Belfast (C35)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Belfast
HMS Belfast 1 db.jpg
Ship data
flag United KingdomUnited Kingdom (Naval War Flag) United Kingdom
Ship type Light cruiser
class Town class
Shipyard Harland & Wolff , Belfast
Keel laying December 30, 1936
Launch March 17, 1938
Commissioning August 5, 1939
Whereabouts Museum ship
Ship dimensions and crew
length
187.0 m ( Lüa )
176.5 m ( Lpp )
width 19.3 m
Draft Max. 6.02 m
displacement 10550 ts standard
13175 ts maximum
 
crew 750 to 850 men
Machine system
machine 4 Admiralty three-drum boilers
8 Parsons turbines
Machine
performance 		80,000 PS (58,840 kW)
Top
speed 		32 kn (59 km / h)
Armament
Armor
  • Belt: 114 mm
  • Deck: 51-76 mm
  • Towers: 102 mm
  • Transverse bulkheads: 64 mm

The HMS Belfast is a British warship that is now anchored on the River Thames in London as part of the Imperial War Museum . The Belfast is part of the Town class , had the tactical identification C35 and was with her sister ship Edinburgh the largest light cruiser of the Royal Navy in World War II .

construction

The ship was in December 1936 on the shipyard Harland & Wolff in Belfast on keel laid on the 17 March 1938 stack left and made in August 1939 by the Royal Navy in service. It has a length of 187 m, a displacement of 11,553  tn.l. and had a crew of 750 to 850 men. Of the total of nine decks, six are located inside the hull and three in the superstructure. It is equipped with twelve guns of the type BL 6-inch MK XXIII in four triple turrets of the caliber of 15.2 cm (6 inches), six twin gun carriages with a total of twelve guns of the caliber of 10.2 cm (4 inches) and was responsible for the air defense first armed with sixteen 4.0 cm anti-aircraft guns ("pom-pom") . The ship achieved a top speed of 32 knots with four Parsons turbines with a total of 80,000 hp (around 59,000 kW) with a single gear ratio  . Four Admiralty 3-drum boilers supplied the required high pressure superheated steam . The propulsion system was built according to the "unit propulsion" principle so that in the event of an enemy hit, not more than 50% of the propulsion power could fail.

Main mast of Belfast
The aft treble towers of Belfast
Belfast cauldron ; 1 bilge, 2 combustion air, 3 burners, 4 superheater collector, 5 superheated steam to the turbine, 6 saturated steam outlet, 7 drum, 8 feed water inlet, 9 evaporation, 10 superheating, 11 boiler support structure

Mission (1939)

Shortly after the beginning of the war, in November 1939, the Belfast ran into a German magnetic mine . The repairs and alterations took three years. She was then used, among other things, to accompany the northern sea convoys JW 53 , JW 55B , JW 56A , JW 58 and RA 53 and played an important role in the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst . When landing in Normandy in June 1944 ( Operation Overlord ), the Belfast shelled the stretch of coast where the 2nd  Battalion of the Royal Ulster Rifles landed.

During the Korean War in 1951, in association with other UN units , it fired at North Korean positions and thus again supported units of the Royal Ulster Rifles. It fired more shells in a short time than in the entire Second World War - all the gun barrels were shot out and had to be replaced.

Retirement

The Belfast was decommissioned in 1965 and converted into a museum in 1971. Today the ship belongs to the British Imperial War Museum and can also be booked as a venue. Since its new uses for the museum ship left Belfast their berth only twice for repairs in dry dock , most recently in 1999. With the baptism of their namesake same name of the City class they want to HMS Belfast (1938) be renamed.

Trivia

  • The Belfast served in 1984 as the location for the video of the single " People Are People " by the British band Depeche Mode .
  • In 1985 the release concert for the album " Rum, Sodomy & the Lash " by the band The Pogues took place at Belfast .
  • The cannons in the bow towers are aimed at the London Gateway Services motorway service station on the M1, about 20 kilometers away . When the HMS Belfast anchored as a museum ship in 1971, the well-known rest area was chosen for PR reasons. The rear towers have changed their orientation several times.
  • On New Year's Day 2008 the British band Simply Red played their hit single "Something Got Me Started" on the deck of the Belfast .
  • The composer Orlando Gough commissioned by the Thames Festival used the ship's hull as a body for drummers in 2011 and 2012.

Web links

Commons : HMS Belfast (C35)  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Defense Secretary names new warships HMS Belfast in Northern Ireland ( Memento from September 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ https://londonist.com/2015/02/why-do-the-guns-of-hms-belfast-point-at-a-motorway-service-station

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 24 "  N , 0 ° 4 ′ 53"  W.