HMS Marlborough (1912)
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.jpg) The Marlborough |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Battleship |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | January 25, 1912 |
| Launch | October 24, 1912 |
| Commissioning | June 2, 1914 |
| Whereabouts | June 1932 sold for demolition |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
25,820 ts |
| length |
o.a. 189.8 m (622.75 ft) |
| width |
27.4 m (90 ft) |
| Draft |
8.4 m (32.75 ft) |
| crew |
Peace: 925 men. |
| drive |
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| speed |
21.25 kn |
| Range |
4840 nm at 19 kn |
| Armament |
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| Armor |
Armored transverse bulkhead 102–203 mm, |
| Underwater protection |
Longitudinal tank bulkhead 25–38 mm |
The HMS Marlborough was a battleship of the British Royal Navy , which in the First World War was used. The ship was named after the British general John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722). The Marlborough entered service in 1914 just before World War I and was abandoned in 1932 due to the fleet limitation.
technology
The Marlborough belonged to the Iron Duke class , the first British capital ships to receive full medium artillery , while all predecessors since the Dreadnought had limited themselves to light guns for defense against torpedo boats . This measure became necessary because newer foreign destroyers with the previous 102 mm (4 inch) guns could no longer be fought successfully. They were also the first British battleships to be armed with balloon cannons in order to be able to shoot down airships .
The main weak point of this design was the inconsistent torpedo bulkheads . This has been dispensed with since the Orion class , as the ship's width was determined by the size of the available dry docks and the small distance to the outer wall did not offer sufficient expansion space for explosive gases. The side walls of the turbine rooms were made of armored steel, but not those of the boiler rooms, so that they were only protected against surface hits. The boilers of these ships were the last on battleships of the Royal Navy that were still fueled with coal.
The two 152 mm (6 inch) guns, which were initially set up to the side of the rearmost gun turret Y in casemates , were removed in 1915 because they could hardly be used due to the low fire height. Instead, they were placed on the boat deck to the side of the forward funnel.
history
After its commissioning in 1914, the Marlborough belonged to the Grand Fleet and took part in the Skagerrak Battle as the flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron . It fired 162 rounds with its heavy artillery. During the battle, she received a torpedo hit under the bridge , probably from the small cruiser SMS Wiesbaden . Two crew members died and two others were seriously injured. Five boilers were flooded, the ship listed 7 ° and was finally towed in. On July 29, 1916, the Marlborough was operational again and returned to the Grand Fleet.
Part of the Mediterranean Fleet from 1919 to 1926 , it was used in the Black Sea during the Russian Civil War . On the Marlborough , by order of King George V, the Tsar's mother, Maria Feodorovna , and his sister Xenia Alexandrovna Romanova with their daughter and five sons, Grand Duke Nikolai and other members of the Tsar's family were evacuated in April 1919. Grand Duke Nicholas and his family changed in Konstantin Opel on the HMS Lord Nelson that this part of the Romanovs to Genoa brought. The Russian nobles who were on board from Yalta to Malta also included the Rasputin murderer Felix Felixowitsch Jussupow , the son-in-law of the Tsar's sister.
From 1926 to 1929 the Marlborough was used in the Atlantic Fleet . In accordance with the London Naval Agreement of 1930, she was disarmed, from 1931 still used as an artillery training ship and sold for demolition and scrapped in 1932.
literature
- EHH Archibald: The Metal Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy 1860-1970. Blandford Press Ltd, London 1971, ISBN 0-7137-0551-5 .
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 .