HMS Carnarvon

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flag
Devonshire- class
HMS Carnarvon
HMS Carnarvon
Overview
Type Armored cruiser
units 6th
Shipyard

Beardmore , Dalmuir hull
number 480

Keel laying October 1, 1902
Launch October 7, 1903
delivery May 29, 1905
Namesake City of Caernarfon , Wales .
Whereabouts March 1921,
demolition in Germany
Technical specifications
displacement

10,850 tn.l.

length

ü. a .: 144.32 m (473 ft )
pp: 137.16 m (450 ft)

width

 20.88 m (68.5 ft)

Draft

    7.32 m (24 ft)

crew

655 men

drive
speed

22.25 kn

Armament
Coal supply

800 (max. 1950) tn.l.

Armor
belt armor


51–152 mm (2–6 in )

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 Carnarvon was a British armored cruisers of Devonshire class of 1903 was named it after the town of Caernarfon in Wales . She entered service as the first cruiser of this class on May 29, 1905. The five other ships in the class followed by the end of the year. The Carnarvon became famous for her participation in the naval battle off the Falkland Islands in December 1914. The further participation in the First World War was unspectacular. The ship was retired as obsolete shortly after the war and scrapped soon after.

Draft History of Devonshire class

The Devonshire- class (county-type, second assembly) of six armored cruisers were authorized in the 1901 cruiser-building program and paid from the 1902/03 budget (construction cost per ship approximately £ 850,000 ). It represented a slightly enlarged and differently armed variant of the previous Monmouth class (county type, first assembly). The designer Sir William Henry White (1845–1913) had been criticized for the weak main armament of the Monmouth: "Sir William White designed the County class [...] quite well, but forgot the guns" (quote from Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher , 1849–1921, then First Sea Lord ). To correct this weakness, the second sub-assembly of the County type was enlarged by 1000 ts and provided with a new, heavier main armament, although a certain loss of speed was accepted.

After the Monmouth class had only carried medium- caliber guns (14 × 6 inches) as main armament, heavy calibers (4 × 7.5 inches) came on board again. The middle artillery comprised only six 6-inch guns, which were also set up mostly in low casemates that were unusable in rough seas . The original plan was to replace only the two 6-inch twin towers of the Monmouth class with 7.5-inch single towers, but criticism of the underarming of the County class led to the subsequent decision to remove the two front 6- To replace inch casemate pairs with two further 7.5 inch towers in wing arrangement. (Broadside: 3 × 7.5 inches, 3 × 6 inches). The armor was also slightly improved by increasing the maximum thickness and length of the belt armor (but reducing it by 30.5 cm in height) and stronger casemate armor.

Externally, the ships were generally similar to the other gun turrets compared to their predecessors because they had four instead of three funnels.

The class had a high coal consumption overall, and the experimental mixed boiler arrangement did not work well in the long term. Therefore, the ships were mostly kept in peacetime in the channel and in their home waters (exceptions: HMS Hampshire , Mediterranean and China station , and HMS Carnarvon , Mediterranean).

The class’s war missions were unspectacular. HMS Carnarvon became famous for participating in the 1914 Falklands Battle. In October 1915, HMS Argyll ran aground off Bell Rock (Scotland) on a rock and was a total loss.HMS Hampshire ran into a German mine in June 1916, a few days after the Skagerrak Battle , off the Orkney Islands and sank with high personnel losses ( the embarked British Secretary of War Lord Kitchener ). The other four units survived the World War and were scrapped shortly afterwards.

drive

A special feature was the experimental drive system, which worked with a mixture of cylindrical boilers and water tube boilers. All sister ships had different types, manufacturers and, in some cases, the number of boilers in order to obtain comparative results. The Carnarvon had 17 Niclausse water tube boilers in the front three boiler rooms and six cylindrical boilers in the aft boiler room. The total heating surface was 5100 m².

The mixed arrangement did not work. Good values ​​were achieved on the test drives, with the Carnarvon performing above average and with 21.43 kn (80% power, 15,212 ihp over 30 hours) and 23.3 kn (full power, 21,489 ihp over 8 hours, pressure 200 psi) ) exceeded the design values. In the peacetime operation, 22.1 knots were initially achieved. However, due to the uneven wear and tear, the values ​​quickly sank to below 20 knots, which became unacceptable with the increasing speeds of the more modern ships. In addition, coal consumption was exceptionally high, and sea endurance figures were never published. The Carnarvon was at war a means for partial oil burning 250 tons of oil stock (coal supply since only a maximum of 1,600 tonnes).

Armor

The armor was only slightly improved compared to its predecessor. The armor was 15.2 cm thick, a total of 99.06 m long and 3.20 m high. In the bow area, however, it was reduced to 5.1 cm; it was only full thickness over a length of 75 m. The bottom of the tank was not lined, but made in full thickness. The armored deck was 5.1 cm thick. The barbeds were protected with 15.2 cm or 12.7 cm, the casemates with 15.2 cm, the command tower at the front with 30.5 cm. The elevator shafts were armored 7.6 cm, the bulkheads partially reinforced to 15.2 cm. There were 18 watertight sub-divisions. All armor was made with Krupp steel. The hull structure and armor had a total weight of 6665 ts. The remainder of the ship's weight was accounted for by propulsion, weapons, supplies and equipment.

weapons

The main armament consisted of four 7.5-inch (19.1 cm) L / 45 Mk.I (B) tubes in four individual turrets and six 6-inch (15.2 cm) L / 45 Mk. VII in Casemates (four of them in main deck positions which are unusable in rough seas).

The 7.5-inch tubes weighed 14 tons, the bullet weight was 90.7 kg and the muzzle velocity was 792 m / s. The penetration power was 14.6 cm armor at 5000 yards (4570 m) and 19.1 cm armor at 3000 yards (2740 m). The firing angles were 270 degrees for the two end towers and only 120 degrees for the two wing towers (from almost ahead to slightly aft).

The 6-inch tubes weighed 7.4 tons, fired shells with a weight of 45.3 kg and achieved a muzzle velocity of 773 m / s. The armor thicknesses penetrated were only 7.6 cm and 11.4 cm (5000/3000 yards). The guns on the main deck were moved to the upper deck in 1917 (see section "Conversions").

Overall, the main armament was only a very limited improvement compared to the 14 6-inch models on the previous class. The broadside weight remained the same (408 kg), but decreased the overall firepower, as the 6-incher a cadence had seven rounds per minute, the 7.5-inch model but only two to three rounds per minute. The only thing that spoke in favor of the heavier artillery was their greater range and penetration power, which, however, came at the price of many disadvantages and was hardly particularly relevant for the hunt for mostly weakly armored trade disruptors - the main task of the class.

The towers of the main armament were operated hydraulically (unlike on the previous class, electric there), the ammunition supply (heavy artillery and medium artillery) was electric.

The secondary armament comprised two 12-pounders amidships on the upper deck and 18 partly dismountable 3-pounders. Two torpedo tubes caliber 45.7 cm below the waterline were available, but were never used.

Modifications and scoring

There were no major structural changes before the war, only a new searchlight was installed in the foremars around 1910 and the platforms roofed over.

In the second half of the war - as with all surviving armored cruisers of the Royal Navy with main deck casemates - the four 6-inch guns in the low-lying main deck casemates, which are unusable even in shallow seas, were removed and instead placed behind shields on the upper deck (one pair amidships, one Pair a little further aft, in front of the aft upper deck casemates). The number of three-pounders was reduced to eight, but five machine guns (plus a movable one for a dinghy) and two anti-submarine cannons came on board.

Overall, the redesign of the County class turned out to be a failure. With only four 19.1 cm guns, the class was still too weakly armed, and the wing turrets had limited fields of fire. The original class with only 15.2 cm tubes, on the other hand, was at least suitable for the hunt for trade troublemakers and small cruisers, as their armament was completely sufficient for this and they were able to maintain high speed levels even under war conditions (the Kent, for example, surpassed the in the pursuit battle off the Falkland Islands 25 kn mark). Therefore the ships of the Devonshire class, and with them the Carnarvon, played only a minor role in the war.

Mission history

After commissioning in 1905, the Carnarvon came under the command of Captain Sir George Warrender to the 3rd cruiser squadron in the Mediterranean . In May 1906 she visited Greece (Piraeus) and returned to the base on Malta in late June 1906 . In March 1907 the ship was taken out of service for overhaul. After returning to active service the following June, the Carnarvon was transferred to the 2nd cruiser squadron in the Atlantic. 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 . Carnarvon was in Devonport from April 1909 (identification since then until the start of the war: a white chimney ring each on the 2nd and 3rd chimney). In March 1912 she became the flagship of the 2nd Fleet and returned to the Atlantic Service (now 5th Cruiser Squadron).

War effort

From the beginning of the war, the Carnarvon was used in the Atlantic with the 5th Cruiser Squadron as the flagship of Rear Admiral Archibald P. Stoddart . The chimney identification switched to a white ring on the front and three white rings on each of the remaining chimneys because of the many entrances to reserve ships. On August 24, 1914, she brought up the German mail steamer Professor Woermann (6061 GRT). The West Africa post steamer had run from Tenerife to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on behalf of the Imperial Navy , where it had landed the passengers and then patrolled near Cape Verde with a team reinforced by reservists. The Carnarvon escorted the angry ship to Freetown . In October 1914, after the sea ​​battle at Coronel , she moved to the South Atlantic to take over the tasks of the lost squadron. First she ran to Montevideo , then to the Falkland Islands to stop the German cruiser squadron under Graf Spee .

Used in the Battle of the Falkland Islands

On the morning of December 8, 1914, the German cruiser squadron approached the Falkland Islands after a long voyage through the Pacific and the successful sea ​​battle at Coronel , where Admiral Frederik Doveton Sturdee with the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible and the Stoddart´ Association had just arrived s with the armored cruisers Carnarvon , HMS Kent and HMS Cornwall , the liner HMS Canopus and the light cruisers HMS Glasgow and HMS Bristol and auxiliary ships had arrived. After the guard duty Kent followed the turning German ships first, the Carnarvon ran out immediately afterwards with the two battle cruisers and the light cruiser Glasgow . Although the Carnarvon had the advantage that when the German ships appeared she had finished her coaling and was ready to sail, she sagged quickly. It could not even keep up with the later reduced speed of the British squadron, as it only reached a top speed of 20 knots. Sturdee therefore had the squadron slowed down from 24 knots to 19 knots to enable the Carnarvon to catch up. But when the Carnarvon , now six miles astern, dropped to 18 knots, the squadron went back to 26 knots on its own. The Carnarvon therefore only reached the battlefield late when the Scharnhorst was already sinking. She still participated in the sinking of the Gneisenau .

Afterwards she took part in the rescue of survivors of the Gneisenau , with Admiral Sturdee twice urging the Carnarvon to hurry with Morse code because she was launching her boats too slowly. About 20 survivors of the Gneisenau were rescued by the Carnarvon . The Carnarvon remained undamaged in the battle, as the Gneisenau directed its fire solely against the two British battlecruisers. For this war mission she received a Battle Honor (Falkland).

Further missions

After that, the Carnarvon remained off South America. On February 22, 1915, when she ran out of Abrolhos Rocks , the British coal station off Brazil on a north course, she ran onto a non-mapped underwater rock , and was not insignificantly damaged. The hull was slit to a length of 29 meters, and the ship first had to be beached to prevent sinking. The repair then took place in Rio de Janeiro. Rear Admiral Stoddart first switched to the old cruiser Vindictive , which had just taken over as a guard ship at Abrolhos. At the end of 1915, the cruiser was ordered to the Caribbean and operated against trade disruptors in the area off the North American coast. When the USA entered the war in 1917, it was used to cover the North Atlantic convoys. Since then it wore the complex, multi-colored camouflage that was customary for this, which was retained until 1919.

Whereabouts

After the war ended, the ship was outdated and worn out. In 1919 the Carnarvon became a cadet training ship and in 1920 made a trip to Norway with visits to various ports, including Bergen and Drontheim . In 1921 a training trip led to Menorca and in March 1921 the Carnarvon was decommissioned. The cruiser was sold to the Slough Trading Co. and eventually scrapped in Germany.

The Devonshire- class ships

ship Shipyard Keel laying Launch completion fate
Hampshire Armstrong , Elswick
Hawthorn machines 		August 20, 1902 September 24, 1903 July 15, 1905 sunk on June 5, 1916
Antrim John Brown , Clydebank August 27, 1902 October 8, 1903 June 23, 1905 sold for demolition on December 19, 1922
Carnarvon Beardmore , Govan
machines from Humphrys 		October 1, 1902 October 17, 1903 May 29, 1905 sold for demolition on November 8, 1921
Roxburgh London & Glasgow Shipbuilding Co. June 13, 1902 January 9, 1904 September 5, 1905 sold for demolition on November 8, 1921
Argyll Scotts , Greenock
machines from Greenock Foundry 		September 1, 1902 March 3, 1904 December 1905 sunk on October 23, 1915
Devonshire Chatham Dockyard
machines from Thames Ironworks 		March 25, 1902 April 30, 1904 August 24, 1905 sold for demolition on May 9, 1921

literature

  • Richard Ellis, Ben Warlow: The Royal Navy at Malta, Volume One - The Victorian Era 1865-1906 . Maritime Books, Liskeard 1989, ISBN 0-907771-43-2 .
  • Robert Gardiner (Ed.); John Roberts (arr.): Great Britain . In: Conway's all the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860-1905 . Conway, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 .
  • Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships. Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
  • Fred T. Jane: Jane's Fighting Ships 1914. Sampson, Low & Marston, London 1914.
  • HM Le Fleming: Cruisers (British and German). In: Warships of World War 1. Ian Allan, London (in single deliveries).
  • Douglas Morris: Cruisers of the Royal and Commonwealth Navies. Maritime Books, Liskeard 1987, ISBN 0-907771-35-1 .
  • Kizu Tohru: History of British Cruisers . Kaijinsha, Tokyo 1996. (Ships of the World Vol. 517)

Web links

Commons : HMS Carnarvon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Fred T. Jane: Jane's Fighting Ships 1914. Sampson, Low & Marston, London 1914, p. 53.
  2. ↑ Geoffrey Bennett: The Sea Battles of Coronel and Falklands. German translation by RK Lochner. Heyne, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-453-01141-4 , p. 21.
  3. ^ Douglas Morris: Cruisers of the Royal and Commonwealth Navies. Maritime Books, Liskeard 1987, ISBN 0-907771-35-1 , p. 97; Robert Gardiner (Ed.), John Roberts (Ed.): Great Britain. In: Conway's all the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860-1905. Conway, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 , p. 71.
  4. ↑ a b Robert Gardiner (ed.), John Roberts (arr.): Great Britain. In: Conway's all the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860-1905. Conway, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 , p. 71.
  5. ^ Fred T. Jane: Jane's Fighting Ships 1914. Sampson, Low & Marston, London 1914, p. 58.
  6. ^ Douglas Morris: Cruisers of the Royal and Commonwealth Navies. Maritime Books, Liskeard 1987, ISBN 0-907771-35-1 , p. 97
  7. ^ Robert Gardiner (ed.), John Roberts (arr.): Great Britain. In: Conway's all the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860-1905. Conway, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 , p. 71.
  8. ^ Douglas Morris: Cruisers of the Royal and Commonwealth Navies. Maritime Books, Liskeard 1987, ISBN 0-907771-35-1 , p. 98.
  9. ↑ Main sources: Douglas Morris: Cruisers of the Royal and Commonwealth Navies. Maritime Books, Liskeard 1987, ISBN 0-907771-35-1 , p. 97; Fred T. Jane: Jane's Fighting Ships 1914. Sampson, Low & Marston, London 1914, p. 53; Robert Gardiner (Ed.), John Roberts (Ed.): Great Britain. In: Conway's all the Worlds Fighting Ships 1860-1905. Conway, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 , p. 71.
  10. ↑ Values ​​for the propulsion system mainly from: Fred T. Jane: Jane's Fighting Ships 1914. Sampson, Low & Marston, London 1914, p. 53.
  11. ↑ Bruno Weyer: Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1918 . JF Lehmanns, Munich 1918, p. 256, estimates 4900 nm at 13 kn for 1600 tons of coal and 250 tons of oil, which seems a bit optimistic given the consumption of 21 tons of coal per hour for maximum performance (Janes 1906).
  12. ↑ Data from: Fred T. Jane: Jane's Fighting Ships 1914. Sampson, Low & Marston, London 1914, p. 24; Nauticus: Yearbook for Germany's marine interests, 15th year. Mittler, Berlin 1913, p. 555.
  13. ^ Weyer: Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1914. Munich 1914, p. 37.
  14. ^ All data on artillery from: Fred T. Jane: Jane's Fighting Ships 1914. Sampson, Low & Marston, London 1914, p. 24; Nauticus: Yearbook for Germany's marine interests, 15th year. Mittler, Berlin 1913, p. 555.
  15. ^ Bruno Weyer: Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1916. JF Lehmanns, Munich 1916, pp. 247–248.
  16. ↑ Fred T. Jane: Jane's Fighting Ships 1914. Sampson, Low & Marston, London 1914, p. 24.
  17. ^ Only Douglas Morris: Cruisers of the Royal and Commonwealth Navies. Maritime Books, Liskeard 1987, ISBN 0-907771-35-1 , p. 97, specifies four as the number, which in view of the unanimous indication of "two" in all other sources is likely to be an error, especially since the events class has the same body also only had two pipes.
  18. ↑ Kizu Tohru: History of British Cruisers. Kaijinsha, Tokyo 1996, p. 61. (Ships of the World Vol. 517)
  19. ↑ Oscar Parkes, Maurice Prendergast (ed.): Jane's Fighting Ships 1919. Sampson, Low & Marston, London / Edinburgh 1919, p. 72 with photo proof. The conversion information from the war is missing in all other common literature sources.
  20. ↑ The historical summary is essentially compiled from data in: Douglas Morris: Cruisers of the Royal and Commonwealth Navies. Maritime Books, Liskeard 1987, ISBN 0-907771-35-1 , pp. 98-99; Richard Ellis, Ben Warlow: The Royal Navy at Malta, Volume One - The Victorian Era 1865-1906. Maritime Books, Liskeard 1989, ISBN 0-907771-43-2 , p. 129; Anthony Preston, in: Robert Gardiner (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921. Conway, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 , p. 13; HM Le Fleming: Cruisers (British and German). In: Warships of World War 1. Ian Allan, London (in individual deliveries), p. 71.
  21. ↑ Scott's memoir
  22. ↑ Fred T. Jane: Jane's Fighting Ships 1914. Sampson, Low & Marston, London 1914, p. 58; Corresponding photo from 1911 in: Kizu Tohru: History of British Cruisers. Kaijinsha, Tokyo 1996, p. 61. (Ships of the World Vol. 517)
  23. ^ Imperial War Museum (IWM) photo document SP 3073 (the photo in the info box), official dating of the IWM
  24. ^ Herbert, p. 106.
  25. ↑ Main source: Geoffrey Bennett: The Sea Battles of Coronel and Falklands. German translation by RK Lochner. Heyne, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-453-01141-4 , p. 166 ff.
  26. ^ Imperial War Museum (IWM) photo document SP 325.