HMS Tiger (1913)
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.jpg) HMS Tiger |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Battle cruiser |
| Shipyard |
John Brown & Company , Clydebank , Scotland, building no. 418 |
| Keel laying | June 20, 1912 |
| Launch | December 15, 1913 |
| Commissioning | October 3, 1914 |
| Decommissioning | May 15, 1931 |
| Whereabouts | Sold for demolition in February 1932 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
28,500 ts , max. 35,000 ts |
| length |
L p.p. : 201.2 m (660 ft) |
| width |
27.6 m (90.5 ft) |
| Draft |
9.9 m (32.5 ft) |
| crew |
1112-1459 men |
| drive |
39 Babcock & Wilcox -boiler |
| speed |
28 kn , |
| Range |
3300 nm at 24 kn |
| Armament |
from 1918:
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| Fuel supply |
3340 tn.l. Coal, |
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Armor belt armor armored deck towers command tower armored bulkheads |
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The eleventh HMS Tiger of the Royal Navy was a battle cruiser in 1913 at John Brown & Company in Clydebank ( Scotland ) from the stack running. During the First World War she took part in the battle on the Dogger Bank on January 24, 1915 and in the Battle of the Skagerrak on May 31, 1916.
The Tiger was the only older battle cruiser in the Royal Navy that remained in service after 1922 under the tonnage restrictions of the Washington Fleet Treaty and was used as an artillery training ship from 1924. From 1929 until it was decommissioned in May 1931, it belonged again to the "Battlecruiser Squadron" while the HMS Hood was being overhauled. It was canceled in 1932 under the provisions of the London Agreement of 1930.
Building history
HMS Tiger was originally intended to be another sister ship of the HMS Lion . But when Vickers in January 1911 a new battle cruiser for the Japanese Navy, the Kongō , was stacked, its design proved to be superior to that of the Lion class , so that the Royal Navy decided to give up this class. The construction of the first three ships of the class, Lion (in service June 4, 1912), HMS Princess Royal (November 14, 1912 i. D.) and HMS Queen Mary (launched March 20, 1912), had already progressed too far to make big changes, but the plans of the tigers could still be changed (keel laid on June 20, 1912). The result was a ship that had features on both the Lion and the Kongo .
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The Tiger kept the eight 13.5-inch 343-mm guns of its older sisters and did not receive the Kongo Vickers 14-inch L / 45 guns , which became the standard weapon of Japanese ships of the line. However, the arrangement of the heavy towers changed considerably. The modified boiler system of the Tiger led to the three chimneys standing close together. The "Q" tower was installed between the boiler rooms and the engine rooms and not, as with the three previous battlecruisers, in front of the last chimney. It was therefore elevated and built freely above the rear tower and had a considerably better field of fire than on the previous ships.
As medium artillery , instead of the 102 mm batteries of the battlecruisers built up to then, twelve 6-inch 152 mm L / 50 Mk.VII guns were installed in casemates on the Tiger . In addition, the new ship received significantly stronger armor than the Lion- class ships .
In the original design, an 85,000 hp propulsion system was provided that would have enabled a top speed of 28 knots. Even before construction began, the engine output was increased to a maximum of 108,000 PSw in order to increase the speed to 29 knots.
Although there were plans to build a second ship (HMS Leopard ) of the class, this was not ordered, but the funds were used to build a sixth unit of the new Queen Elizabeth class of fast battleships with the new 15-inch standard - Guns deployed. This ship, which was to be called HMS Agincourt , was not built either. Instead, this name was given to the Turkish battleship Sultan Osman I, which was under construction at the outbreak of war in England and confiscated by the Royal Navy . This ship, originally started for Brazil , had 14 × 30.5 cm L / 45 guns in twin turrets and thus had the largest number of heavy artillery pieces, but of a caliber that has otherwise been abandoned.
First World War
The Tiger was put into service in October 1914 and, after a short trial period, was assigned to the First Battlecruiser Squadron under Rear Admiral David Beatty , to which the three other "Splendid Cats" Lion , Princess Royal and Queen Mary already belonged. An early integration of the Tigers into the fleet seemed necessary, since after the battle at Coronel four battle cruisers were parked to hunt the German East Asia Squadron and two were still in use in the Mediterranean. The Princess Royal was sent to the Caribbean, the Australia was to search the South American west coast and Invincible and Inflexible were sent to the South Atlantic and eventually destroyed the squadron in the sea battle at the Falkland Islands .
The Tiger took part in the Dogger Bank Battle on January 24, 1915. With 355 shots she scored a few hits on the Blücher , but only two hits on Seydlitz and Derfflinger . The Moltke , given as the target by the Commander in Chief , did not fire at them at all. She herself was hit six times, a 28 cm shell exploded on the "Q" tower. Shrapnel penetrated through the turret roof and blocked the loading mechanism of the left gun and the turret drive, so that it failed. The battle cruiser had ten dead and eleven seriously wounded as a result of the hits. The necessary repairs were completed on February 8th.
In the Skagerrak battle on May 31, 1916, the Tiger was the rearmost ship of the 1st battle cruiser squadron. In the first seven minutes she received six hits from the Moltke , which temporarily put the towers "Q" and "X" out of action, but did not cause any serious damage. She herself scored a hit on the Moltke , which she shot at even though she was supposed to direct her fire on the Seydlitz . Tiger ran only 500 yards behind the Queen Mary and had to dodge with hard oar when she was devastated. In total, she received 18 hits in the battle, but remained operational. There were 24 dead and 46 seriously wounded. Their heavy artillery fired 303 rounds and scored two hits on the SMS von der Tann in addition to the hit on the Moltke . Only the turret "B" of the tiger was always ready for use during the battle and fired 109 rounds. The right gun of the tower "A" failed after 27 salvos due to a technical defect and could not be used until the end of the fighting. The "Q" turret, which was hit directly again, initially failed completely, later the right gun could be used normally, the left one somewhat makeshift. Overall, this turret only fired 32 shots. The stern turret "X" initially also failed completely due to a hit on the Barbette and displaced armor plates, but was able to fire again at a slower speed after 7 minutes. Of the 75 shots fired, however, most of them will have missed their targets completely, as it was only two hours 17 minutes after the hit that it was found that the aiming device was completely wrong. In addition, the Tiger fired 136 rounds with its medium artillery against German destroyers and the small cruiser SMS Wiesbaden .
Despite the many hits, the Tiger was the first of the heavy battle cruisers to be operational again on July 2, 1916 and temporarily (until July 19, September to December 1916) became the flagship of the Beattys battle cruiser until Lion was fully operational again. On November 17, 1917, the HMS Tiger was part of the cover forces in the second naval battle near Heligoland , without entering the battle.
post war period
The Tiger survived the war and the subsequent downsizing of the Royal Navy. From 1922 she was used as a training ship . In 1929 she was temporarily returned to active service with the battle cruiser squadron (usually consisting of HMS Hood , HMS Renown and HMS Repulse ) when the Hood was in the yard for overhaul. After the London Naval Conference in 1930, and after the Hood had rejoined the fleet, the Tiger was decommissioned on March 30, 1931 and scrapped in 1932. Their demolition was part of the agreement to limit the maximum number of capital ships. She was the last coal-powered capital ship of the Royal Navy.
literature
- Geoffrey Bennett: The Skagerrak Battle. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-453-00618-6 .
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970. JF Lehmanns, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 .
- NJM Campbell: Battlecruisers. Warship special N ° 1, Conway maritime press, Greenwich 1978, ISBN 0-85177-130-0 .
Web links
- Dreadnought Project Technical Specifications for Armament and Fire Control
- HMS Tiger Photo Gallery Maritimequest
Individual evidence
- ↑ 14 "/ 45 (35.6 cm) Vickers Mark" A " for three Japanese-built battlecruiser Kongō class and the four battleships Fuso - and Ise class A similar, from British rival firm Elswick developed weapon came in the Canada originally built for Chile for installation, the guns of this type built for the Yamashiro , the second ship of the Fuso class, remained in England during the war and were converted into railway guns.
- ↑ Campbell, p. 40.
- ↑ Bennett, pp. 53ff.
- ↑ Campbell, p. 42