HMS Queen (1902)
|
|
|---|---|
 HMS Queen |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | Ship of the line |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | March 12, 1901 |
| Launch | March 8, 1902 |
| Commissioning | April 7, 1904 |
| Whereabouts | Sold for demolition on November 4, 1920 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
14,160 tn.l. , Max. 16,105 tn.l. |
| length |
Lpp. 125.3 m (411 ft); |
| width |
22.9 m (75 ft) |
| Draft |
7.7 m (25.33 ft) |
| crew |
747 man (peace) |
| drive |
|
| speed |
18 kn , 18.04 kn when removed |
| Range |
5550 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
|
| Fuel supply |
?? t coal |
| Belt armor |
38–231 mm (1.5–9 in) |
| deck |
25–65 mm (1–2.5 in) |
| Armored bulkheads |
231–305 mm (9–12 in) |
| Towers |
203-254 mm (8-10 in) |
| Barbeds |
305 mm (12 in) |
| Casemates |
152 mm (6 in) |
| Command tower |
360 mm (14 in) |
The HMS Queen was a battleship of the Formidable class of the British Royal Navy . She served with the Mediterranean Fleet from 1904 to 1908 , the Atlantic Fleet from 1908 to 1912, and then the Home Fleet . During the First World War it was first used in the canal , then off Gallipoli and finally to secure the Strait of Otranto .
History of the ship
The Royal Navy's fifth HMS Queen was launched in Devonport on March 8, 1902 as the seventh Formidable- class ship and entered service in March 1904. The cost of construction amounted to 1.1 million £ . The main armament of the battleship consisted of four 12- inch (305 mm) type Mk IX guns in two twin turrets and twelve 6-inch (152 mm) type Mk VII guns in side casemates . Compared to the first three ships of her class, the Queen - like the sister ships London , Bulwark , Venerable and Prince of Wales - had a slightly different design, above all the deck armor reduced by half an inch, which resulted in a slightly shallower draft. This is why some of these ships are referred to as the London class , but it is only a minor variant of the Formidable class. Due to other smaller variants and the time lag to the six previous sister ships - three years between the launch of the Venerable , the last ship of the first series, and that of the Queen - the Queen and Prince of Wales are sometimes considered to be a separate class of ship ( Queen - Class). Due to technical problems, the Queen received cylindrical Babcock & Wilcox boilers instead of the intended Belleville boilers . She differed from her otherwise identical sister ship Prince of Wales , which was equipped with the Belleville boilers. The eight ships of the class together formed a tactical group. Due to the construction of the dreadnoughts , the Queen and her sister ships were technically obsolete as early as 1906 - two years after their commissioning.
Use until 1914
The Queen commissioned the Mediterranean fleet in Devonport on April 7, 1904 . In April 1906 she returned to England, but on May 8, 1906 she was back in service for the Mediterranean fleet. In the winter of 1906 to 1907 she was overhauled in Malta for service as the flagship. She then took over this task on March 20, 1907. She remained with the Mediterranean Fleet until she was decommissioned on December 14, 1908 in Devonport.
The very next day, the Queen was put back into service for the Atlantic fleet as the first ship of the class. On February 1, 1909, she collided with the Greek steamer SS Dafni off Dover without being seriously damaged. By February 1910, the liner squadron of the Atlantic Fleet stationed in Gibraltar had been converted to six ships of the Formidable class. The Prince of Wales was added to the Queen's flagship as well as the Implacable , Formidable , Venerable and London . The next overhaul of the liner did not take place until the end of 1910 in 1911.
On May 15, 1912, when the fleet was reclassified and the Atlantic fleet was dissolved, the Queen changed its name to the 3rd Battle Squadron, which received slightly more modern ships and was stationed in English ports. In April 1914 she became the 2nd flagship of the 5th Battle Squadron, where she served as an artillery training ship in Portsmouth .
War effort
After the beginning of the First World War the ship of the line belonged to the "5th Battle Squadron" (5th battle squadron) of the Canal Fleet stationed in Portland . On October 17th, the Queen was seconded to Dover to provide artillery support to the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium . On November 3, 1914, she was assigned to the East Coast Patrol after the raid of the German cruisers as far as the British east coast and on November 14, 1914, the entire squadron relocated from Portland to Sheerness as protection against a feared German invasion. December back in the Canal to Portland.
In March 1915, an assignment to the naval force operating in front of the Dardanelles followed and the Queen was transferred from England to Lemnos between the 13th and the 23rd . She took part in the fight for Gallipoli . The battleship was used on May 22, 1915 when the ANZAC troops landed at Ari Burnu (Anzac Cove), where they put parts of the 3rd Australian Brigade ashore with steam launchers.
She was then moved from May 22nd to 27th 1915 with the liners HMS Implacable , HMS London and HMS Prince of Wales to the Adriatic Sea to Taranto as "2nd Detached Squadron". From December 1916 to February 1917 it was converted into a depot ship for the guards. Only a small maintenance unit remained firmly on board while the bulk of the crew returned to England. Little by little the Queen was disarmed. In April 1917, most of her 152 mm guns were already dismantled and in October she also disembarked her heavy 305 mm guns, which the Italian Army received. The HMS Queen became the flagship of the British naval forces until February 1918. In April 1919 the Queen left Taranto and returned to England, where she was placed on the list of ships to be surrendered at Chatham Dockyard. In June 1919 she was removed from this list because she was used in Plymouth for the local naval facilities as a residential ship.
Whereabouts
In March 1920, the Queen came back on the sales list and was then sold for demolition on September 4, 1920. On November 25, it arrived in Birkenhead , where it was dismantled to the extent that it could reach its final dismantling location, Preston , where it finally arrived on August 5, 1921.
literature
- RA Burt: British Battleships 1889-1904. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1988.
- Roger Chesneau, Eugene M. Kolesnik (Eds.): Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships, 1860-1905. Conway Maritime Press, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 .
- Randolph Pears: British battleships 1892–1957. Putnam 1957, ISBN 0-906223-14-8 .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e R. A. Burt: British Battleships 1889–1904. P. 227.
- ^ RA Burt: British Battleships 1889-1904. P. 218.
- ^ RA Burt: British Battleships 1889-1904. P. 227f.
- ^ RA Burt: British Battleships 1889-1904. P. 170.
- ^ RA Burt: British Battleships 1889-1904. P. 172.
- ↑ a b c R. A. Burt: British Battleships 1889-1904. P. 228.