HMS Challenger (1902)
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| Challenger class | |
 HMS Challenger |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Protected cruiser |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | December 1, 1900 |
| Launch | May 27, 1902 |
| Namesake | (to German ): the challenger |
| Commissioning | May 30, 1904 |
| Whereabouts | Demolished in 1920 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
5,880 tn.l. |
| length |
pp: 108.2 m (355 ft ) |
| width |
17.0 m (56 ft) |
| Draft |
6.6 m (21 ft 8 in) |
| crew |
475 men |
| drive |
18 Babcock & Wilcox - water-tube boiler |
| speed |
21 kn |
| Range |
5400 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
11 × 6 "152 mm L / 45 Mk.VII gun |
| Coal supply |
600–1300 tn.l. |
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Armor deck |
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| Gun shields |
76 mm (3 in) |
| Sister ship | |
The sixth HMS Challenger of the Royal Navy was one of the two protected cruiser named after her class that came into service the 1,904th These 2nd class cruisers were the last cruisers developed from the Apollo class and are occasionally assigned to the previous Hermes or Highflyer class .
The Challenger first served on the Royal Navy's Australia Station from 1904 to 1912. During the First World War , the cruiser was mainly used on the coasts of Africa fighting the German colonies . After the end of the war, the cruiser was sold for demolition.
Development history
The ships of the class were a minor further development of the previous Highflyer class , with which they shared the basic design and are therefore occasionally assigned to this class. The two sister ships displaced 5880 tn.l. , were 355 ft. long in the waterline and had the usual three funnels of the previous 2nd class protected cruisers. They were slightly longer and wider and differed mainly in the higher machine performance. The drive was provided by two four-cylinder triple expansion machines with a total of 12,500 PSi on two shafts, which were supplied with steam from 18 water tube boilers . Despite the 25% increase, the top speed only increased by one knot. The two sister ships were equipped with different boilers and were also used for further testing of other boiler types. The Challenger boilers were of the type developed by Babcock & Wilcox in the United States . During its acceptance test, it reached a top speed of 21.79 knots with a propulsion power of 12,781 PSi.
The main armament of the cruisers was a battery of eleven 6 "rapid-fire guns behind 3-inch protective shields, one of which stood as a bow gun on the foredeck and two parallel as stern guns, while the other eight stood on the sides on the upper deck. The lighter armament was largely placed on the upper deck between the heavy cannons.
Already during the construction of the two cruisers it was decided that they would be used at Australia Station and should take on tasks in the development of a Navy for the Australian Federation.
Mission history
The Challenger , built at the naval shipyard in Chatham (Kent) , was launched on May 27, 1902 as the first of the two ships ordered and came into service on May 30, 1904, to be transferred immediately to Australia Station . She was supposed to leave with a crew of 505 men who committed themselves to long-term service on the station.
According to the agreements with the Admiralty, the Challenger should have a crew of Australians and New Zealanders as soon as possible after arriving at the station and become the strongest native-operated warship. According to the Naval Agreement Act of 1903, which regulated the stationing of Royal Navy units in the Empire and the participation of the colonies in the costs, the squadron of Australia Station should consist of one 1st class cruiser, two 2nd class and four of the Pass 3rd grade.
Australia Station
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The station's flagship had been the armored cruiser Euryalus since March 26, 1904 , and the Challenger was the first 2nd class cruiser when it arrived in July 1904. Like them, the 3rd class cruiser HMS Psyche , which has been on station since 1903, was supposed to train locals in fleet service. In addition, five old Pearl class cruisers had been in service since 1891, of which HMS Tauranga , HMS Katoomba and HMS Mildura were used as drillships for initial training. They were withdrawn from 1904 and the last to leave Australia in January 1906 , Katoomba and Wallaroo . In addition, there were a number of smaller ships.
With the flagship Euryalus and the Psyche , the Challenger visited New Zealand in February 1905, where the Challenger stayed a little longer, which she repeated several times during her service life at the station. From 1905 the stock of Australia Station filled with further cruisers of the Pelorus class , five of which ( Psyche , Pegasus , Prometheus , Pioneer and Pyramus ) of the nine cruisers of the class finally came to Australia. The Pioneer and Pyramus , intended as drillships , set out together on the voyage on which Pyramus had considerable difficulties with the boilers, had to be towed from the sister ship at times and only arrived in Australia in January 1906, looked after by the opposing psyche . In December 1905 the flagship Euryalus was replaced and replaced by the older protected cruiser HMS Powerful . The old 2nd class cruiser Cambrian of the Astraea class , which was to become the last flagship of the Royal Navy's Australia Station in 1913, also arrived in Australia shortly before Christmas. The last reinforcement of Australia Station was the Challenger's sister ship , the Encounter, arriving at the station in February .
In April 1906 the Australian Navy under construction had 525 men on active ships, of which 267 men were on duty on the Challenger . The cruiser carried out her first crew change in Singapore in July 1906 , where she took over the replacement from the HMS Argonaut . The large cruiser mainly had a replacement for the China Station on board and went on to Hong Kong . The next exchange took place in Sydney in 1908, where the Challenger took over its replacement from HMS Gibraltar . The replacement had previously formed the hull crew of HMS Dido . The Challenger's needs had meanwhile been greatly reduced, as the crew now consisted of 60% Australians.
In 1911 the Challenger carried out a trip abroad across the Pacific, as it was to visit Chile with the armored cruiser HMS Kent of the China Station. The visit was a belated tribute to the 100 years of independence of the South American state, which felt strongly connected to England. Challenger left Sydney on February 14 via Tahiti , Pitcairn and Easter Island to meet the armored cruiser in Caldera, Chile . Two days before reaching their destination, where they wanted to take over coal again, they both came into radio contact. On April 5, the two British ships entered Valparaíso , where they stayed for 14 days. The Challenger's return journey was initially carried out together with the Kent . The British cruisers also visited Iquique , Callao , Panama , San Salvador , San Jose , Acapulco and Los Angeles . On marching back to their wards, they separated in Honolulu . The Challenger then returned to Sydney via Fiji and New Zealand on August 20 after a journey of 24,000 miles.
In January 1912, the armored cruiser HMS Drake took over the duties of the flagship of the HMS Powerful in Colombo . In the meantime, the decision had been made to set up an Australian Navy , and a modern ship building program had been launched for it. The transitional arrangement stipulated that the Challenger would return to Europe, while her sister ship Encounter was to continue the training of Australian marines with a permanent crew. Before the Challenger left , the old cruiser Cambrian was supposed to return to Australia from China. At the beginning of September 1912, the Challenger arrived back in England after eight years at Australia Station.
War missions
At the beginning of the First World War , the HMS Challenger was assigned to the 9th cruiser squadron in Portland , which was supposed to secure the Bristol Channel against possible mine layers and capture German merchant ships. The German freighter Ulla Boog (1698 BRT, 1908 Rostock) was seized by the Challenger and was on the voyage from Arkhangelsk to Wales .
In mid-August, the cruiser moved with the Argonaut to Finisterre Station, commanded by Admiral John de Robeck , to replace her half-sister HMS Highflyer , which was moved further south. On August 30, the Challenger was sent from Madeira to West Africa to take part in the attack against the German colony of Cameroon with the armored cruiser HMS Cumberland and the French cruiser Bruix . She brought Brigadier General Charles Macpherson Dobell and his staff on site.
On September 25, 1914 the Challenger the locks in the driveway of Duala . All superfluous equipment had been dismantled in order to reduce the ship's draft. Two days later, Duala, the capital of the German colony, surrendered. However, the fighting over Cameroon continued. In January 1915, the Challenger blocked Edea , which could not expect any help from outside. Captain Cyril Fuller , who had previously commanded the Cumberland now commanded to England , had taken command of the cruiser . To make up for the invasion troops' shortage of guns, the Challenger put one of its 12 pdr guns ashore. When the Challenger was replaced by the old cruiser Astraea at the end of April , Captain Fuller again changed command and remained the naval commander in front of Cameroon.
The Challenger moved to the coast of German East Africa in the spring of 1915 to take part in the destruction of the German cruiser Königsberg, which was enclosed in the Rufiji Delta . She was temporarily the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, as the Hyacinth had to be overhauled. On September 29, 1915, together with the cruiser Hyacinth in Lindi , she destroyed the steamer President of the DOAL (3310 BRT, 1901 Blohm & Voss) and on March 23, 1916, together with the liner Vengeance, the Reichspoststampfer Tabora (8022 BRT, 1912 Blohm & Voss) in front of Dar- es-salaam . In between, she had carried out attacks on other stretches of coast together with the Monitor Mersey and accompanied by an empty transporter in order to simulate landing intentions and to force the protection force to further distribute. On June 13, 1916, they shelled Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of the German colony. It stayed off East Africa until 1918, when it was not possible to finally eliminate the German armed forces there.
Final fate of the Challenger
On February 3, 1919, the HMS Challenger began to march back from Cape Station to England. In 1920 the Challenger returned home was sold for demolition.
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 .
- Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I. Studio Editions, 1990, ISBN 1-85170-378-0 .
- 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 .
Web links
- The Challenger class in World War I (English)
- Challenger HMS Challenger at battleships-cruisers (english)
- HMS Challenger at historyofwar (English)
- Challenger logbooks at oldweather
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on the 6-inch L / 45 Mk. VII rapid-fire guns
- ↑ New Australia Station ships visit New Zealand
- ↑ The West Australian, April 26, 1906: Other Australian crew members had Prometheus with 103, Psyche with 90 and Pyramus with 65 men
- ^ News and Notes The West Australian, July 31, 1906
- ↑ HMS Gibraltar Sydney Morning Herald September 26, 1908
- ↑ News and Notes The West Australian 29 January 1912
- ^ The Australian Navy The West Australian 5 June 1912
- ↑ Challenger before Duala (PDF; 8.4 MB) Naval Review 1915