HMS Cumberland (1902)

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HMS Cumberland
HMS Cumberland
Overview
Type Armored cruiser
Shipyard

London & Glasgow Shipbuilding Co. , Govan

Keel laying February 19, 1901
Launch December 16, 1902
delivery December 1, 1904
Namesake former county of Cumberland
period of service

1904-1920

Whereabouts Sold for demolition
May 9, 1921
Technical specifications
displacement

9,800 tn.l.

length

pp: 134.11 m (440 ft )
above sea level 141.42 m (463.5 ft)

width

20.12 m (66 ft)

Draft

7.6 m (25 ft)

crew

678 men

drive
speed

23 kn

Armament
Coal supply

1,600 tn.l.

Armor
belt armor / casemates


50–100 mm (2–4 in )

Towers / barbeds

127 mm (5 in)

deck

50–170 mm (2–7.5 in)

Command tower

250 mm (10 in)

The ninth HMS Cumberland Royal Navy was an armored cruiser of Monmouth - or County class , which was used from 1904 to 1920. From 1907 to 1914 and from 1918 to 1920 she served as a cadet training ship. During the First World War , in autumn 1914, she supported the occupation of the German colony of Cameroon and captured the German merchant ships that had fled there. Later it was used in the North Atlantic to secure the sea routes.

The sister ships of the Cumberland were HMS Monmouth , HMS Essex , HMS Bedford , HMS Kent , HMS Donegal , HMS Berwick , HMS Cornwall , HMS Suffolk and HMS Lancaster .

history

The Cumberland was launched on December 16, 1902 at the London & Glasgow Shipbuilding Co. in Govan near Glasgow , which was already the lead ship of the class that Monmouth had built. In 1912, the shipyard became part of the Glasgow branch of the Belfast major shipyard Harland & Wolff , which initially mainly built warships in Govan. The Cumberland and her sister ship Cornwall entered service in December 1904 as the last ships of the class by the Royal Navy.

The unfavorable casemate arrangement of the Monmouth- class

Like her sister ships, she displaced 9800 ts, had a maximum speed of 23.7 knots at 22.784 PSi drive power with the usual Belleville boilers of almost all sister ships in the acceptance test .

The main armament, consisting of fourteen 6-inch (152-mm) quick-loading guns, four of them in a bow and a stern twin tower and ten in casemates , was comparatively weak for an armored cruiser of the time. Since the lower six casemate guns were not very far above the waterline, they could only be used effectively when the sea was calm. The armor wasn't very strong either. The relatively heavy twin towers did not prove their worth either, as they offered little artillery advantage but had an unfavorable effect on the sea behavior of the ships.

Missions before the world war

When the Cumberland came into service with the sister ship Cornwall in 1904, both armored cruisers of the Cruiser Squadron were assigned to the Canal Fleet. This cruiser squadron was divided into the 1st and 2nd cruiser squadrons in 1905 and the 2nd squadron was assigned to the Atlantic fleet under Rear Admiral Prince Louis Alexander von Battenberg .

HMS Drake ,
flagship of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron

It initially consisted of the HMS Drake as the flagship and four Monmouth- class armored cruisers with Berwick , Cornwall , Cumberland and Essex . In addition, Bedford joined in the summer of 1905 . In 1905 Prince Louis and his squadron first visited ports on the Mediterranean and then from August to November 1905 Canadian and American ports. The return trip from New York to the squadron base in Gibraltar was held as a race in which the Cumberland excelled when she was able to catch up with the two leading cruisers on the last two days of the crossing, although she had already fallen significantly behind with the other ships. However, she stayed just behind the Berwick in third place, both of which were unable to catch up with Drake, who was initially safe . In 1906 the Cumberland with her sister ships Berwick and Cornwall and the Drake continued to belong as flagship to the 2nd cruiser squadron in the Atlantic fleet, which now also includes the newer armored cruisers HMS Duke of Edinburgh and HMS Black Prince . On September 3, 1907, the Cumberland was commissioned as a training ship for the cadets of the Britannia Royal Naval College . She remained so until the outbreak of war and took over this task again after the peace treaty until she was finally decommissioned on April 13, 1920.

War effort

In August 1914, the Cumberland was sent to West Africa to the 5th Cruiser Squadron under Rear Admiral Archibald P. Stoddart , who initially owned the Carnarvon and Cornwall and briefly also the Monmouth . In September 1914, the Cumberland was one of the attack forces against the German colony of Cameroon with the cruiser HMS Challenger , the gunboat HMS Dwarf and ten improvised gunboats of the Niger Flotilla. During the occupation of Duala on September 27, 1914, the Cornwall captured eleven German merchant ships that had fled there because they believed they were safe from attack in the colony. When Stoddart moved to the other side of the Atlantic to fend off an attack by the German East Asia Squadron after the sea ​​battle at Coronel , the Cumberland stayed off West Africa, where the armored cruisers Warrior , Black Prince and Donegal , the cruiser Highflyer and the ship of the line Vengeance also arrived. in order to block the way to the north for the German East Asia Squadron in an emergency. The Cumberland moved home to the Grand Fleet's 6th Cruiser Squadron in January 1915 . As early as 1915 she was sent to the West Indies and North America Station to fend off German trade troublemakers. Later she was also used to escort convoys between Canada and Great Britain.

Final Fate of the Cumberland

At the end of the war, the Cumberland was again until April 13, 1920 cadet training ship of the Britannia Royal Naval College . The battleship HMS Temeraire was to replace her in this task and the armored cruiser was put up for sale on November 12, 1920. On May 9, 1921, it was acquired by TW Wards and from March 28, 1923, it was demolished in Briton Ferry .

literature

  • Geoffrey Bennet: The sea battles of Coronel and Falkland and the sinking of the German cruiser squadron under Admiral Spee (= Heyne books. 5697). Translated from English, supplemented and with an afterword by Reinhard K. Lochner. Wilhelm Heyne, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-453-01141-4 .
  • Roger Chesneau, Eugene M. Kolesnik (Ed.): Warships of the world 1860 to 1905. Volume 1: Great Britain and Germany. Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1983, ISBN 3-7637-5402-4 .
  • Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships. Achievements of the merchant navy and their men in World War II. Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
  • Arnold Kludas : The ships of the German Africa Lines 1880-1945. Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg 1975, ISBN 3-7979-1867-4 .
  • John Moore: Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I. Studio Editions, London 1990, ISBN 1-85170-378-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The only difference between Mk.VII and Mk.VIII was that with Mk.VIII the shutter opened to the left instead of to the right.
    The Mk.VIII were installed as a left tube in the twin towers, which made reloading easier,
    as the locks swiveled away from the tower walls.
  1. ↑ Description of the 6 "-45 Mk.VII / VIII
  2. ↑ Erna Woermann 5528 BRT (1902), Max Brock 4579 BRT (1907), Hans Woermann 4059 BRT (1900), Renata Amsinck 3824 BRT (1912), Aline Woermann 3133 BRT (1910), Arnfried 2899 BRT (1911), Henriette Woermann 2426 BRT (1903), Jeanette Woermann 2286 BRT (1893), Paul Woermann 2238 BRT (1898), Haussa 387 BRT (1913), Fullah 367 BRT (1913), the Germans had previously sunk two larger and five coastal steamers to close the port , only one ship left the colony in the first days of the war to supply German warships: the Eleonore Woermann 4624 BRT, 12.5 kn (1902), which supplied SMS Dresden off Brazil , then was to support the auxiliary cruiser SMS Cap Trafalgar and 303 Mann rescued after its sinking and brought it to Argentina, intended to supply the Spees squadron , then the Dresden , it was discovered and sunk by HMAS Australia on January 6, 1915 off the Argentine coast