HMS Marshal Ney
 The Marshal Ney 1915 monitor
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The HMS Marshal Ney was a British monitor of the Marshal Ney class , named after it, launched in 1915. It was the Royal Navy's first monitor to be armed with 15-inch / 381-mm guns, like the most modern battleships of the time. In addition, she was the first larger ship in the Navy with diesel engines. The engines were intended for merchant ships and should be tested by the Royal Navy as a drive for two small tankers. However, the motors only gave the monitor insufficient machine performance. The monitor could therefore not be used in strong headwinds and was not very suitable for the planned use. In 1916 the ship was therefore re-armed and at the end of the First World War transferred to the reserve fleet of the Royal Navy. In 1920 the armament was removed and the former monitor was only used as a storage ship. It was renamed Vivid in 1922 , Drake in 1934 and Alaunia II in 1947 . On October 6, 1957, the ship arrived in Milford Haven , where the demolition of the former Marshal Ney took place.
History of the ship
When the two Marshal Ney class monitors were started, over 30 monitors of different classes were under construction or already completed. The First Sea Lord Lord Fisher and the First Lord of the Admiralty , Winston Churchill, believed the changes to the heavy unit construction program, such as the construction of the battlecruisers Renown and Repulse , introduced two modern 15 inch (38 cm) towers free that could be used to arm two new monitors, the construction of which was started as monitors M 13 and M 14 . She was finally named as the first British warships after the Napoleonic marshals Michel Ney (1769–1815) and Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult (1769–1851).
Both monitors were commissioned from Palmers in Jarrow ; The battleship Resolution (BNr. 838) was launched at this shipyard on January 14, 1915 and the order for another ship of the class had already been transferred to John Brown to build the battle cruiser Repulse from it. Palmers thus had two large free building sites. At the beginning of January 1915, the shipyard had already received an order for a monitor of the Lord Clive class with General Wolfe (BNr. 858), which was built at the same time as the new order (BNr. 859 f.), But on the former Stevenson, which was taken over in 1912 - Wharf at Hebburn , a little further up the Tyne, took place.
For the first time in the Navy , the two new monitors of the Marshall Ney class received internal combustion engines as drive machines . As a result, the two ships did not need any boiler rooms or large chimneys. The engines were originally intended to power small tankers, but were not very suitable for powering such heavy units. Instead of the expected almost 10 knots , the two ships only reached 6 knots in calm seas. In unfavorable wind or sea conditions, they were - like most new monitors - hardly able to move and hardly controllable; they could not be used in strong headwinds. The tower of the heavy artillery stood on a multi-sided barbette made of straight armor plates in order to shorten the construction time of the two units. In addition, the Marshal Ney had 3-inch (76 mm) cannons for defense against aircraft.
Inserts and conversions
After her commissioning, the Marshal Ney was assigned to the Dover Patrol , where, in addition to many other monitors, her sister ship HMS Marshal Soult was also used from November 1915 . The test drives at sea and the first missions off the Belgian coast were not very convincing. It was therefore decided to remove the turret with the 15-inch guns and install it on one of the two monitors that were still being built . The expansion took place in January 1916 at the Armstrong shipyard in Elswick in January 1916, where the tower was modified in order to be able to shoot with greater cant in the future. Marshal Ney received a single 9.2 (234 mm) gun and four 6 inch (152 mm) guns , all of which were previously used on the Terrible . During a further overhaul around the turn of the year 1916/17, the 234 mm gun was removed again in order to be used on land at the front in France in the future. Two more 6 inch guns were installed as replacements, this time from the disarmed ship of the line Hibernia . After this renewed conversion, the Ney served as a stationary watch ship in the Downs . In April 1917 she was involved in repelling an attack by German torpedo boats on Ramsgate .
In 1919 the Marshal Ney was used as a guard ship in Queenborough . In 1920 the ship was completely disarmed in order to serve as a stationary auxiliary ship at Fort Blockhouse in Gosport (Hampshire) . Renamed Vivid in July 1922 , the ship served as a living ship for stokers in the training area of the naval base in Devonport , where the ship was to remain until 1957. In January 1934 it was renamed Drake as the flagship of Commander Devonport and in 1947 Alaunia II .
On October 6, 1957, the remains of the former monitor arrived at the TW Ward demolition company in Milford Haven , to be finally scrapped.
The monitors built at Palmers
| HMS | shipyard | start of building | Launch | in service | fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M 12 General Wolfe | Palmers, Hebburn BN ° 858 | 01/1915 | 09.09.1915 | October 27, 1915 | Disarmed in 1920, demolished in Hayle in 1923 |
| M 13 Marshal Ney | Palmers, Jarrow BN ° 859 | 01/1915 | 06/17/1915 | 08/31/1915 | Disarmed in 1920, demolished in Milford Haven in 1957 |
| M14 Marshal Soult | Palmers, Jarrow BN ° 860 | 02/1915 | 08/24/1915 | 11/02/1915 | Disarmed in 1940, demolished in Troon in 1946 |
The sister ship Marshal Soult
The Marshal Soult monitor, also built by Palmers, largely corresponded to its sister ship Marshal Ney . The Soult was also powered by two motors, but of the Bolinder type . These engines caused slightly fewer problems than those of the sister ship. Presumably this type was more familiar to the crews, since it - with less power - had been used on many loggers for years.
In October 1918, the two 152 mm cannons were removed again, eight 102 mm L / 44-BL Mk IX cannons and two 40 mm L / 39-2pdr QF Mk II were repositioned and the funnel was slightly lengthened. The monitor was assigned to the HMS Excellent Artillery School in Portsmouth and was relocated to Devonport with similar tasks in March 1919 and decommissioned there in March 1921. In service again since 1924, the monitor came to Chatham in April 1926 as a stationary training ship.
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In 1937 the old 102 mm guns were removed. In 1940 the heavy 381 mm cannons were dismantled and installed in the newly built Monitor Roberts in 1941 . The old monitor served as a stationary base for anti-submarine trawlers in Portsmouth from March 1940 . On July 10, 1946, the remains of Marshal Soult were sold for demolition, which then began in Troon in early August 1946 .
literature
- Ian L. Buxton: Big Gun Monitors: The History of the Design, Construction and Operation of the Royal Navy's Monitors , World Ship Society Tynemouth (1978)
- Frederick J. Dittmar, James J. Colledge: British Warships 1914-1919. Ian Allen, London 1972, ISBN 0-7110-0380-7 .
- Randal Gray (Ed.): Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships, 1906-1921. Conway Maritime Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 .
Web links
- MARSHAL SOULT monitors (1915)
- Monitor MARSHAL NEY launched as M 13
- Monitor MARSHAL SOULT launched as M 14
- HMS Marshal Soult (1915)
- XRF Turmoil (1)
- RFA Trefoil
Individual evidence
- ↑ The source location is somewhat uncertain whether the installation on the terrorist or perhaps on the sister ship Erebus took place
- ↑ Navypedia entry on Robertsmonitors