HMS Minotaur (1906)
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|---|---|
| Minotaur- class | |
 HMS Minotaur |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Armored cruiser |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | January 2, 1905 |
| Launch | June 6, 1906 |
| delivery | April 1, 1908 |
| Whereabouts | Sold for demolition on May 12, 1920 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
14,600 ts , |
| length |
pp .: 149.5 m (490 ft); |
| width |
22.7 m (74.5 ft) |
| Draft |
7.9 m (26 ft) |
| crew |
802 men (peace) |
| drive |
|
| speed |
23 kn |
| Range |
8150 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
|
| Fuel supply |
2080 t coal |
| Belt armor |
76-152 mm (3-6 in) |
| deck |
38-52 mm (1.5-2 in) |
| Armored bulkheads |
51-151 mm (2-6 in) |
| Towers |
110-203 mm (-8 in) |
| Command tower |
254 mm (10 in) |
The HMS Minotaur was the lead ship of the last class of British armored cruisers named after her . It was launched in 1906. At the beginning of the First World War it was the flagship of the China Station . She arrived back in Great Britain in 1914 and became the flagship of the Grand Fleet's 2nd cruiser squadron . It was present at the Battle of the Skagerrak , survived the war and was sold for demolition in 1920.
The Minotaur- class armored cruisers
The three Minotaur- class ships were the last armored cruisers built for the Royal Navy. They had fewer 9.2-inch (234-mm) guns than the previous Warrior class , but the same number of guns in the broadside as their predecessors due to the installation in two twin turrets on the center line. The 7.5-inch (191-mm) armament was considerably reinforced with five individual turrets on each side. With the new 12-pounder-18-cwt (76-mm) rapid-fire guns, they also had a considerably strengthened defense weapon against destroyers and torpedo boats. The fact that of these eight stood on the front 7.5-inch individual towers without protective shields is unlikely to have proven itself in a battle.
The armor was weaker than that of the Warrior class. The armored deck was a little thinner and the upper area of the armored belt was omitted as there were no more casemates. The three ships were all built at state shipyards. The keel was laid in early 1905, launched in 1906 and 1907, and the cruisers came into service in early 1909.
The Minotaur- class was followed by the first battlecruisers of the Invincible- class .
Construction and operational history of the HMS Minotaur
The keel laying of the HMS Minotaur took place on January 2, 1905 at the Devonport naval shipyard in Plymouth . The launch took place there on June 6, 1906. On April 1, 1908, she came as the second ship of the new class three weeks after the HMS Shannon in the service of the Royal Navy for the 5th cruiser squadron, in which all three cruisers of the class served after the arrival of the HMS Defense . However, in April 1909 the Minotaur switched to the 1st cruiser squadron, whose flagship it then became. 1910 HMS was Minotaur to China Station sent where it until the outbreak of World War I remained. When the Chinese Revolution broke out , the flagship of the Minotaur was the armored cruiser Kent and Monmouth , the modern light cruiser Newcastle and the old cruisers Flora and Astraea as well as many smaller ships at the China Station, which tried to prevent any excesses against Europeans . On July 26, 1914, the Minotaur under Vice Admiral Martyn Jerram met with the main association of the China Station from the last voyage in peace a. a. to Vladivostok together with HMS Hampshire , HMS Yarmouth and five destroyers back in Weihawei .
War effort
In order to replenish their supplies, the ships of the China Station ran from the small base in Weihawei to Hong Kong , which was left on August 6th together with HMS Triumph , HMS Newcastle , the French cruiser Dupleix and other units for German warships and their suppliers deliver. At sea, Minotaur , Newcastle and Hampshire separated from the association and tried to intercept SMS Emden , which had recently left the German base in Tsingtau , on the way to the cruiser squadron . The association of other British ships running towards Tsingtau with the liner Triumph was supposed to give the impression through its radio operation that the cruisers were still with him. After the Hampshire had been released back to Hong Kong because of too high coal consumption, Minotaur and Newcastle ran on to Yap , where the commander suspected a German assembly point and destroyed the German radio station on August 10 without finding any other German ships. The Minotaur returned to Hong Kong on August 17th .
The ships of the China Station then controlled the shipping traffic off the Chinese coast in order to make further supplies impossible without knowing where the German cruiser squadron under Vice Admiral Graf Spee had actually ended up. When Japan entered the war, the Royal Navy gave up security north of Hong Kong. The Minotaur , Hampshire and Yarmouth searched the coasts of Java and Sumatra from August 22nd, especially for possible supply ships of the Germans, and they were soon supported by the Japanese cruisers Ibuki and Chikuma . On September 13, the Minotaur Singapore ran for supply.
When the first news of an operation of the Emden in the Bay of Bengal became known on September 15, 1914 , the Hampshire ran there and coordinated the search, supported by Yarmouth and Chikuma , while the Minotaur , on the 15th and 16th without the admiral one Had carried out a search trip towards Bengal, and Ibuki patrolled off Indonesia to prevent the Emden from returning to the Pacific.
The Minotaur then took over the leadership of the first Anzac convoy with 38 transporters, which was supposed to transport around 30,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers and 10,000 horses to Egypt. During the march, the light cruiser HMAS Sydney was sent to the Cocos Islands , which were attacked by the Emden , and was able to take out the German cruiser there on November 9, 1914. This meant that there was no longer any immediate threat to the convoy and the Hampshire took over the lead on November 13th outside Colombo , while the previous command cruiser Minotaur marched to South Africa, where it arrived in Simonstown on November 29th to stop the Spees squadron if necessary had eliminated the squadron Cradocks on the west coast of South America .
The Minotaur became the flagship of the Cape Squadron under Rear Admiral King-Hall , to whom the protected cruisers HMS Hyacinth and HMS Astraea were available. The light cruiser HMS Weymouth arrived as reinforcement . At about the same time as the Minotaur , the ship of the line HMS Albion reached South Africa and Hall received instructions, in view of the fate of Cradock at Coronel , to use the armored cruiser only together with the ship of the line. On December 7th Hall left Cape Town with his squadron on the Minotaur to secure the transport of South African troops to German South West Africa . Before Lüderitz Bay they met with the sister ship Defense , which had actually been sent to the Cradocks squadron from the Mediterranean via Gibraltar , but had only reached Montevideo on November 10th . She was then dispatched to the African coast via Abrolhos and St. Helena .
After the sea battle in the Falkland Islands and the sinking of Spee's squadron, the two armored cruisers were withdrawn on December 10th and the admiral switched back to the Hyacinth .
In the Grand Fleet was Minotaur flagship of the second cruiser squadron with which it at the Battle of Jutland under Rear Admiral Herbert Heath , the former naval attache in Berlin, and commanded by Captain Hughes D'Aeth participated without having Shannon , HMS Cochrane and Hampshire active to be able to intervene in the action while the 1st cruiser squadron lost three of its four armored cruisers, including the sister ship of the Minotaur , the Defense .
Whereabouts
There were no special missions for the Minotaur . On December 12, 1917, she was at sea with the sister ship Shannon and four destroyers when the Germans attacked a convoy from Lerwick to Bergen just off the Norwegian coast with the torpedo boats G 101 , V 100 , G 103 and G 104 under Corvette Captain Hans Kolbe and its six freighters, four security trawlers and the destroyer HMS Partridge sank. Only the damaged destroyer HMS Pellew was able to escape. Minotaur and Shannon arrived too late to intervene in very bad weather. The HMS Minotaur was decommissioned after the war and sold on May 12, 1920 to Ward in Milford Haven for demolition.
| ship | Shipyard | machine | Day of / s | fate | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keel laying | Launched | Commissioning | ||||
| HMS Minotaur | Devonport | Hawthorn | January 2, 1905 | June 6, 1906 | April 1, 1908 | Sold for demolition in 1920 |
| HMS Shannon | Chatham | Humphreys | January 2, 1905 | 20th September 1906 | March 10, 1908 | Sold for demolition in 1922 |
| HMS Defense | Pembroke | Scotts | February 22, 1905 | April 24, 1907 | February 9, 1909 | on 30 May 1916 at the Skagerrak sunk |
literature
- Geoffrey Bennett: The Sea Battles of Coronel and Falklands. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-453-01141-4 .
- RA Burt: Minotaur: Before the Battlecruiser. In: Warship. 42, pp. 83ff., Conway Maritime Press, London 1987, ISSN 0142-6222 .
- Roger Chesneau (Ed.), Eugene M. Kolesnik (Ed.): Warships of the World 1860 to 1905 - Volume 1: Great Britain / Germany. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1983, ISBN 3-7637-5402-4 .
- JJ Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy. Chatham, London 2006, ISBN 1-86176-281-X .
- Paul G. Halpern: A naval history of World War I. Routledge, London 1995, ISBN 1-85728-498-4 .
Web links
- HMS Minotaur
- HMS Minotaur on Minotaur Class Cruiser
Individual evidence
- ↑ 9.2 "/ 50 Mk.XI
- ↑ 7.5 "/ 50 Mk.V
- ^ Bennett, pp. 63ff.
- ^ Bennett, p. 85.
- ^ Bennett, p. 87.
- ↑ Bennett, pp. 153f.
- ↑ Halpern, p. 95.
- ↑ Halpern, p. 378f.