HMS Renown (1916)
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 The Renown , 1918 |
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| Construction and service time | |
| Construction contract: | December 30, 1914 |
| Keel laying: | January 25, 1915 |
| Launch: | March 4, 1916 |
| In service: | September 20, 1916 |
| Motto: | “ Hit first, hit hard! ” |
| Fate: | Wrecked in 1948 |
| Technical data 1916 |
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| Displacement : | Standard: 27,950 ts Maximum: 32,730 ts |
| Length: | 242 m (794 ft) |
| Width: | 27.4 m (90 ft) |
| Draft : | 8.94 m (29 ft 8 in ) |
| Machinery: |
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| Speed: | 32 kn (57 km / h) |
| Range: | 3,650 nm at 10 kn |
| Crew: | 970 men |
| Armament: | 6 × 15 in (38.1 cm; 3 × 2) 17 × 4 in (10.2 cm; 5 × 3 + 2 × 1) 2 × 3 in (7.62 cm) 2 × torpedo tubes 53.3 cm |
| Technical data from 1939 |
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| Displacement: | Standard: 31,988 ts Maximum: 37,411 ts |
| Length: | 242 m (794 ft) |
| Width: | 31.3 m (90 ft) |
| Draft: | 9.68 m (31.75 ft) |
| Machinery: |
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| Speed: | 30.75 kn |
| Range: | 9,360 nm at 10 kn |
| Crew: | 1,181 |
| Armament: | 6 × 15 in (38.1 cm, 3 × 2) 20 × 4.5 in (114 mm, 10 × 2) 28 × 2-pdr (40 mm, "pom-pom", 3 × 8, 1 × 4) 64 × 20 mm flak |
| Airplanes: | 4, a double catapult |
The HMS Renown was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy . She was the lead ship of her class and was put into service in 1916.
history
Early years
The ship was built in 1915/16 by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd. built in Glasgow . The commissioning took place on September 20, 1916. Then she joined the Grand Fleet . During the First World War, the ship was not used in combat.
Between the two world wars, she belonged to the Grand Fleet's battlecruiser squadron together with her sister ship HMS Repulse , the modern HMS Hood and the older HMS Tiger . In addition, it was extensively rebuilt, first in 1920 and 1921. Finally, it was fundamentally rebuilt again from September 1936 to August 1939, which also greatly changed the external appearance of the ship. The conversion was largely in line with the previous modernization of the battleships HMS Warspite , HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant .
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The Renown received a new massive bridge structure, behind it an aircraft hangar with a catapult system for seaplanes and flying boats . The anti-aircraft armament was equipped exclusively with new artillery 11.4 cm (4.5 inch) caliber, ten turrets with two tubes each in two groups of two and two groups of three were installed on either side of the superstructure. Further measures of the conversion concerned the horizontal armor, the propulsion system and newly installed torpedo bulges . When she returned to the fleet in September 1939, she differed significantly from her non-modernized sister ship, the Repulse . Their combat value had increased considerably.
Second World War
The Renown was used in the first half of the Second World War mainly in the Home Fleet and occasionally in the Mediterranean ( Force H in Gibraltar ). At the end of 1939 she was sent to the South Atlantic to operate against the German ironclad Admiral Graf Spee . Accompanied by the cruiser Sussex , she placed the German passenger steamer Watussi (9,552 GRT) off South Africa on December 2, 1939 , which was able to evade detachment by sinking itself.
To repel the German attack on Norway , the Renown was used in April 1940 as remote security for mine layers ( Operation Wilfred ). On April 9, she met the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in front of the Ofotfjord , which were supposed to cover the invasion fleet approaching Narvik as remote security . In the following battle, the Renown scored two or three hits, including a direct hit in the fire control station on the fore mars of the Gneisenau and a hit in one of the two front turrets, which put it out of action. Thereupon the two German ships turned away. The Renown itself also received two hits from the Gneisenau . Towards the end of the year the Renown was relocated to Gibraltar and operated mainly in the Mediterranean. She took part in the sea battle at Cape Teulada , which was fought on November 27, 1940 between the Italian Navy (Regia Marina) and the British Royal Navy south of Sardinia. On February 6, 1941, the Renown was involved in the bombardment of the port of Genoa . Four ships lying in the roadstead were sunk and 18 others were damaged.
In 1942 and 1943 the Renown was again stationed with the Home Fleet. It was used several times in autumn and winter as remote security for convoys that brought war material to Murmansk . In the summer, missions in the Mediterranean followed as an escort for aircraft carriers , from which aircraft took off against Malta . The battle cruiser was also used for remote security during the Allied landing in North Africa ( Operation Torch ).
In 1943 the Renown transported Winston Churchill from the Quadrant Conference to the Cairo Conference . Then she was transferred to the Eastern Fleet at the end of the year , where she remained until July 1945 and carried out strategic defensive tasks in the Indian Ocean from Ceylon . The Renown was also used several times as an escort ship for offensive advances by the aircraft carriers, especially against targets in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies . Most recently she was used again in the Atlantic; on August 3, 1945 met while on the ship King George VI. and US President Harry S. Truman on board the USS Augusta on his way back from the Potsdam Conference .
After the war she served briefly as a training ship, but was finally decommissioned in 1948 and in the same year the last battle cruiser of the Royal Navy was scrapped in Faslane-on-Clyde, Scotland .
