HMS Indomitable (1907)
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|---|---|
| Invincible class | |
 The HMS Indomitable |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Battle cruiser |
| units | 3 |
| Shipyard |
Fairfield Shipbuilding , Govan , BauNr. 445 |
| Keel laying | March 1, 1906 |
| Launch | March 16, 1907 |
| Namesake | English for "indomitable" |
| Commissioning | June 20, 1908 |
| Decommissioning | March 31, 1920 |
| Whereabouts | Sold for demolition December 1922, broken up in 1923 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
17,410 tn.l. |
| length |
o.a. 172.8 m (567 ft) |
| width |
23.9 m (78.5 ft) |
| Draft |
7.9 m (26 ft) |
| crew |
784 - 1000 men |
| drive |
31 Babcock - water tube boiler |
| speed |
25.00 kn |
| Range |
2270 nm at 23 knots |
| Armament |
8 × 305 mm (BL-12 "-L / 45-Mk.X) gun in twin turrets |
| Fuel supply |
up to 3083 tn.l. Coals, 710 ts OIL |
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Armor belt armor |
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HMS Indomitable was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy and was one of the group consisting of three ships Invincible class . The ships were officially designated as battle cruisers from November 1911. Until then, the cruisers, which for the first time had the same heavy artillery pieces as the battleships built at the same time, were officially referred to as armored cruisers . Until then they were unofficially called "cruiser battleship", "dreadnought cruiser" and "battle cruiser"
The Indomitable was the first ship of the class, which was provisionally put into service on June 20, 1908 for a trip to Canada by the British Crown Prince George . She then joined the general fleet service in October 1908 with the sister ship Inflexible . The lead ship Invincible was not taken into service with the fleet until March 1909 because of difficulties with the electrically operated towers.
The Indomitable took part in the World War in August 1914 in the unsuccessful pursuit of the German Mediterranean division consisting of the battle cruiser Goeben and the small cruiser Breslau . On November 3rd, together with the Indefatigable and the French liners Suffren and Vérité, they shelled the Turkish fortifications on the Dardanelles before the British declaration of war on Turkey. On January 24, 1915, she took part in the battle on the Dogger Bank and the sinking of the armored cruiser Blücher . In the Skagerrak battle on May 31, 1916, she and her sister ships attacked first the II reconnaissance group and then the German battle cruisers. The oldest British battle cruisers scored numerous hits on the small cruisers and battle cruisers, which ultimately led to the loss of the Wiesbaden , the Rostock and the battle cruiser Lützow . In the fight against the battlecruisers, the Invincible was hit in a powder magazine, exploded and went down with almost the entire crew, while the other two ships were hit. Due to the deficits of the horizontal armor, which the sinking of the type ship had revealed, the Indomitable was hardly used and was not involved in any further combat. As obsolete, it was sold for scrapping in 1922.
Building history
The ships of the Invincible- class, officially designated as armored cruisers until November 1911, were considerably larger than the ships of the preceding Minotaur- class . With a length of 173 m over all, they were over 23 m longer than their predecessors and also about 1 m wider. The new ships displaced almost 3,000 tons. more than the Minotaur s. One reason was the side armor, which was reinforced from 4 to 6 inches in the midship area, but thinned in front of the bow tower and ended after the stern tower. The turrets and barbettes and the magazines of the heavy artillery were also more heavily armored than on the Minotaur class.
In addition, Indomitable and her sisters were the first large cruisers to have a turbine drive. They had two Parsons turbine sets without gears, which were separated by a longitudinal bulkhead. The high pressure turbines acted on the outer shafts, while the low pressure turbines acted on the inner shafts. There were turbines for both forward and reverse travel. In addition, there were two marching turbines that were rarely used, were mostly not connected and also acted on the inner shafts. Indomitable had three-winged screws, the ones on the inner shafts being 3.2 m in diameter and those on the outer shafts being slightly smaller with 2.9 m in diameter. The turbines should deliver 41,000 hp and enable a speed of 25 knots . In the acceptance tests, the Indomitable achieved almost 48,000 hp and 26.1 knots. In August 1908 she ran an average of 25.3 knots for three days on her return voyage across the North Atlantic. The necessary steam was generated in 31 water tube boilers of the Babcock and Wilcox design in four boiler rooms. The fuel supply consisted of up to 3083 tn.l. Coal and 713 tn.l. Oil that has been sprayed over the coals to increase the burning capacity. With a full supply of fuel, a range of 3090 nautical miles at 10 kn was possible.
The main armament of the Indomitable was eight 12-inch L / 45-Mk.X -305-mm cannons in four hydraulically operated twin turrets , which were deployed in 1906 on the battleships Dreadnought and the last three ships of the King Edward VII class ( Africa , Britannia and Hibernia ) first came to the fleet. Two towers stood as bow ('A') and stern tower ('X') on the midship line. In the middle of the ship, the other two towers ('P' and 'Q') were slightly offset between the second and third chimneys. The 'P' tower on the port side was a little further forward and was usually facing forward. The aft tower 'Q' on the starboard side was mostly oriented to the rear. Both towers had a large fire area on their side and a limited angle to fire on the opposite side as well. Intensive use in the Skagerrakschlacht hindered more than it brought success and it should therefore be limited to emergencies in the future.
During construction, it was decided to increase the defensive armament against torpedo boats to sixteen 4-inch Mk.III -102-mm rapid-fire guns, which were open on the towers (two each) and between the superstructures. These guns were also used as salute and signal guns.
In 1915 the guns on the towers were removed and the remaining twelve guns were installed in casemates with protective shields to offer the operator more protection against enemy fire and the weather. The old type Mk.III guns were replaced on Indomitable 1917 by twelve type Mk. VII guns, which had a longer range and used a heavier projectile. In addition, these guns were equipped with a protective shield.
The initial armament of the Indomitable and her sisters also included five underwater torpedo tubes for 18-inch torpedoes, two of which fired to each side and another to the rear. The stern torpedo tube was removed in 1916.
The Indomitable's first anti-aircraft weapon was a 3 pounder 47 mm Hotchkiss anti-aircraft gun installed in November 1914 with a maximum elevation of 60 °, which remained on board until August 1917. In July 1915 it was reinforced by a 76 mm anti-aircraft gun at the end of the superstructure. In April 1917 an additional 4-inch MK.VII gun was added in an anti-aircraft mount.
In early 1918, the Indomitable, like almost all capital ships, also received two launch platforms for aircraft on its middle towers.
Mission history
The keel of the Indomitable took place on March 1, 1906 at Fairfield Shipbuilding at their shipyard in Govan near Glasgow , the launch on March 16, 1907. On June 20, 1908, the Indomitable was provisionally put into service to join the heir to the throne at 300- Anniversary Celebration of Quebec City . The official visit of the Royal Navy made the Atlantic Fleet with the liners Russel and their sister ships Exmouth , Albemarle and Duncan as well as the cruiser Venus , which collided with the Russel on July 16, 1908 when entering Québec . On the return voyage, the Indomitable was only slightly below the Lusitania's transatlantic record of 25.08 kn. When she returned on August 10th, final testing and equipment work was being done at Fairfield. On October 28, she was assigned to the Nore Division of the Home Fleet together with the sister ship Inflexible and then formed the 1st Cruiser Squadron (CS) with her sister ships in March 1909. On July 26, she became the flagship of the squadron under Rear Admiral Colville. Until 1913 she was overtaken several times and in a collision with the miner C4 in the Stokes Bay des Solent on March 17, 1913, she suffered minor damage.
On August 27, 1913, they moved to the Mediterranean, where they formed the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron with the sister ship Invincible . During the European crisis in July 1914, the battle cruiser was in Malta for an overhaul, which was then canceled at the end of the month.
First deployments in the world war
During the First World War , the Indomitable , her sister ship Inflexible and the somewhat improved battle cruiser Indefatigable were the only heavy units of the British Mediterranean fleet in Malta . On the morning of August 3, 1914, the light cruiser Chatham , dispatched to Messina for reconnaissance , reported that the German Mediterranean Division had left the Sicilian port. Then the 1st cruiser squadron ran under Admiral Ernest Troubridge with the armored cruisers Defense , Warrior and Duke of Edinburgh , as well as the 2nd division the battle cruisers Indomitable and Indefatigable towards the Adriatic , as it was assumed that the Germans would be united with the Austro-Hungarian fleet . The light cruiser Dublin was dispatched to Bizerta to establish contact with the French. In the evening Troubridge was ordered to deploy the battle cruisers to Gibraltar to prevent the Germans from breaking out of the Mediterranean. Under Captain Francis Kennedy of Indomitable , they increased their speed from 14 to 22 knots and ran west. On August 4th at 10:32 a.m. they met the Germans north of Bône on their way back from the bombardment of Algerian ports to Messina. Since Germany and Great Britain were not yet at war, the British battlecruisers turned to follow the Goeben , which tried to escape at top speed. However, with its damaged boilers it only reached 22 to 24 knots. The faster Breslau tried several times to pull the British apart by running sideways, which did not succeed. Dublin , which had been ordered from Bizerta , was added as a further pursuer at noon. But the British battle cruisers also had boiler problems. Goeben and Breslau kept running away from them and from 4:45 p.m. only the Dublin was in contact with the Germans. In fog and falling darkness, she too lost it at 19:37 in front of Cape San Vito on the north coast of Sicily. The Breslau entered Messina on August 5 at 5:15 am to prepare for the coal takeover. The Goeben followed at 7.45 a.m. after having ordered three coal steamers over the radio for the route to Constantinople. The German commander Souchon assumed that there would not be enough coal in Messina. Meanwhile, there was also a state of war with Great Britain and the Italians made it clear immediately after arriving that the neutrality regulations were to be observed. When the Germans left again on the evening of August 6th, the British Commander-in-Chief Milne had released Indomitable to refill their coal reserves to Bizerta and stood with the other two battle cruisers in the west of Sicily. Milne followed the German ships into the Aegean only on August 8 with the three battle cruisers and the light cruiser Weymouth , without seriously pursuing the Germans who reached the Dardanelles without a fight.
Indomitable and Indefatigable remained in the area of the Aegean Sea off the Dardanelles in order to prevent a possible breakout of the German ships brought to Turkey back into the Mediterranean. At the end of September, the French liners Suffren and Vérité reinforced the British units off the Dardanelles. On 29 October 1914, the new commander of the Turkish Navy Souchon opened with in Yavuz Sultan Selim renamed Goeben , who now Lesbos called Breslau and other Turkish ships naval warfare in the Black Sea with attacks on the Russian ports of Novorossiysk , Odessa and Sevastopol , which the formal Turkish declaration of war on Russia and France followed. On November 3, the two British battlecruisers shelled the Turkish fortifications at the entrance to the Dardanelles before the British declared war, and on November 5, together with the French ships of the line. They wanted to test the strength of the fortifications and the reactions of the Turks. The 20-minute bombardment in Fort Sedd el Bahr at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula put ten cannons out of action with a hit in a magazine and killed 86 soldiers. However, the guns were not destroyed. The brief bombardment made it clear to the Turks that reinforcement and mobility of their positions were urgently needed and that their minefields had to be expanded.
The Indomitable was withdrawn from the Mediterranean in December 1914 and transferred to the 2nd battle cruiser squadron now deployed in the North Sea.
Battles in the North Sea
As early as January 24, 1915, Indomitable was involved in a battle with German ships for the first time during the battle on Dogger Bank . The British battle cruisers were at sea under Admiral Beatty to intercept a German advance recognized by radio reconnaissance. In the morning around 8:20 am, the HMS Aurora had discovered the German ships under Admiral Franz von Hipper and Beatty tried to intercept them at maximum speed. Although the Indomitable ran over 26 knots at times, she could not follow the newer and faster ships and slowly fell back. Hipper did not immediately realize that the British battlecruisers were his pursuers and only increased his speed late, especially since he did not want to leave his slowest ship, the armored cruiser SMS Blücher , behind. The catching British ships all fired at the last German ship if they could reach it, so that at 11:48 a.m. the Blücher was badly hit, her speed dropped to 17 knots and her controls partially failed. Beatty ordered the Indomitable to destroy them. Due to incorrect signals and the failure of the radio system on the HMS Lion , which was also badly hit , the other British battlecruisers also broke off their pursuit and shot at the Blücher again . Indomitable fired 134 shells at the armored cruiser until it capsized and sank at 13:07. Indomitable then took the badly damaged flagship Lion in tow, on which one machine had completely failed and the other was only partially operational. After a day and a half, the 7 to 10 kn tug train, under strong destroyer protection, reached Rosyth .
In February 1915, the Indomitable was transferred to the 3rd battle cruiser squadron, which it formed with its sister ships returned from the Falkland Islands and whose leadership was taken on May 27, 1915 by Rear Admiral Horace Hood . The attempt to place the German ships together with the 1st Battle Cruiser Squadron after the attack on Yarmouth and Lowestoft on April 24/25, 1916 failed in bad weather.
Battle of the Skagerrak
At the end of May 1916, the 3rd battle cruiser squadron was temporarily assigned to the Grand Fleet for artillery exercises, when all units went to sea on May 30 to intercept an anticipated advance of the German deep-sea fleet. Hood ran with his three battle cruisers in front of the Grand Fleet in order to be able to support Beatty if necessary. He received reports over the radio about the German ships, but no precise locations. Since the other battle cruisers were in action according to the radio reports and were running east, he increased the speed to cut off the German ships. It was only around 6.40 p.m. that he encountered the first fighting units when he found the light cruiser Chester , which was attacked by the small cruisers of the Second Reconnaissance Group. Hood's cruisers shot the Wiesbaden immobile, hit the Pillau badly and damaged the Rostock , which attacked the battlecruisers, which were incorrectly identified as battleships, with 31 torpedo boats. The attack failed, only twelve torpedoes were fired at the 3rd battle cruiser squadron. The attack was repelled mainly by the light cruiser Canterbury and the squadron's five destroyer escorts, from which the Shark was badly damaged and eventually sank. At 7:21 p.m. Hood changed course and was now running in front of Beatty's battlecruisers towards Hipper's ships. Hood's ships opened fire at a distance of approx. 9000 yards (8.2 km) and shot at the Lützow and Derfflinger in particular . The Indomitable met the Derfflinger three times and the Seydlitz once . At 7:30 p.m. the Invincible was hit by salvos from Lützow and Derfflinger , broke in two and sank in 90 seconds. Only six of their 1032 crew could be saved. Inflexible and Indomitable now stayed with Beatty and later came back into action with Hippers battlecruisers, which pushed through the line of the deep sea fleet. The old ships of the line under Rear Admiral Franz Mauve intervened and three of them were hit, including by Indomitable the later sunk Pomerania . In total, the Indomitable fired 175 shells of its heavy artillery, twice as many as its sister ship Inflexible . On the march back, the Indomitable shot at the airship L 11, which was shading the Grand Fleet .
The loss of the Indefatigable , the Queen Mary and the Invincible led to a reorganization of the battlecruisers into only two squadrons. The Indomitable and her surviving sister ship Inflexible came to the 2nd BCS together with the New Zealand and Australia . Although outdated and provided with some additional armor and protective devices (tower ceiling armor, ammunition chamber armor, armor around the barbeds, fire extinguishing and flooding devices in the ammunition chambers), Indomitable and Inflexible were hardly ever used.
fate
In 1919 the Indomitable and Inflexible were assigned to the reserve and finally decommissioned in March 1920. On December 1, 1922, Indomitable was sold for demolition, which took place in Dover in 1923 .
literature
- Geoffrey Bennett: The Skagerrak Battle. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-453-00618-6 .
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , pp. 136-137.
- NJM Campbell: Battlecruisers. Warship special N ° 1, Conway maritime press, Greenwich 1978, ISBN 0-85177-130-0 .
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Koehler, Herford 1979 ff., DNB 550720391 .
- Robert Massie: Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the winning of the Great War. Random House 2004, ISBN 0-224-04092-8 .
- Randolph Pears: British Battleships 1892–1957: The Great Days of the Fleets. G. Cave Associates 1979, ISBN 978-0-906223-14-7 .
- John Roberts: Battlecruisers. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD 1997, ISBN 1-55750-068-1 .
- VE Tarrant: Battlecruiser Invincible: The History of the First Battlecruiser, 1909-16. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD 1986, ISBN 0-87021-147-1 .
Web links
- The Conspiracy Behind the Escape of 'Goeben' and 'Breslau' on Superior Force
- HMS Category: Invincible class battlecruiser battleships-cruisers
- HMS Indomitable dreadnought project
- HMS Indomitable maritimequest
- 1906 British battle Cruisers ( Invincible Class) Jane's Fighting Ships 1919
- Invincible battlecruisers navypedia
- Invincible Class worldwar1
Footnotes
- ↑ Roberts, p. 24f.
- ↑ Roberts, p. 109ff.
- ↑ Roberts, p. 76, p. 80. Breyer, p. 137 gives 43780 WPS and 25.3 kn.
- ^ Roberts, p. 75
- ↑ Roberts, pp. 70 ff.
- ↑ Roberts, pp. 96f.
- ^ Roberts, p. 83
- ↑ QUEBEC'S Tercentenary .; Prince of Wales Will Represent King at Great Historic CelebrationQUEBEC'S TERCENTENARY .; Prince of Wales Will Represent King at Great Historic Celebration, NYT July 13, 1908
- ↑ Cameron p. 8.
- ↑ Cameron, p. 25.
- ↑ Cameron, p. 9.
- ^ Bennett, p. 52
- ↑ Bennett, pp. 53f.
- ↑ Massie, p. 410 ff.
- ↑ Tarrant, pp. 95f.
- ^ Bennett, p. 116.
- ^ Bennett, p. 118.
- ↑ Cameron, p. 12, Bennett. P. 128.
- ^ Bennett, pp. 135, 139.
- ↑ Cameron, p. 12