Queen Elizabeth class (battleship)
 The HMS Queen Elizabeth
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The Queen Elizabeth class was a class of five battleships in the Royal Navy . They were used in the First and Second World Wars . The class was superior to its predecessors in terms of firepower, armor and speed, which is why it is often referred to as the first representative of the new type of fast battleship .
history
The battleships should originally have the same configuration as the previous Iron Duke class with five twin towers and a speed of 21 knots. Instead of a caliber of 343 mm (13.5 inches ), the new class was to receive guns with a caliber of 381 mm (15 inches). The transition to a new gun was accelerated by the use of the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill by one to two years. The design was optimized before the prototypes of the new gun were available on the drawing board. The Admiralty took a high risk because a return to the smaller caliber would have led to significantly weaker ships. By saving the so-called Q-tower amidships, it was possible to create weight and space for a significantly enlarged machine system and, thanks to the larger caliber, still fire a heavier broadside than the HMS Iron Duke .
The 1912 building program saw three battleships and a battle cruiser , an improved version of the HMS Tiger called the Leopard . After a speed of 25 knots had been projected, the decision was made that the battle cruiser was not needed and that a fourth battleship should be built instead. When the Federated Malay States offered to finance another capital ship, it was decided to build a fifth unit, the HMS Malaya .
The Director of Naval Construction saw the concept as feasible only with a drive with heavy fuel oil. Previous classes, including those under construction, used the relatively rare heavy fuel oil as an additive to coal, which was abundantly available in the UK. Churchill, who was politically responsible, guaranteed the oil supply in times of war and so the program could be continued.
Another ship was approved in 1913 under the name Agincourt . The order was canceled when the First World War broke out.
Extensive improvements were made between the wars. These included new machinery, small boilers, improvements to the deck armor, torpedo protection, new secondary and anti-aircraft armament and many improvements to the weapon system and electronics. The HMS Queen Elizabeth , the HMS Valiant and the HMS Warspite were the most modernized and received the new, "Queen Anne's castle" called structure of the bridge and a multi-purpose secondary armament in turrets.
draft
Main armament
The 381 mm gun was a complete success. It was reliable, very accurate, and could fire effective volleys over a distance of 20 km. In the Battle of the Skagerrak , the effectiveness was still impaired by bad projectiles, which was remedied with the introduction of new projectiles - called "Green Boy" in 1918. The cannon was still competitive even in World War II. The projectiles have been improved several times and the elevation range of the mounts has been improved. The Warspite in scoring Battle of Calabria a hit over about 23.5 km, one of the hit with the largest width in the history of naval warfare artillery ausgefochtener.
Secondary armament
The 152 mm (6 inch) L / 45 caliber middle artillery was housed in casemates in the Queen Elizabeth class . Six guns were placed on each side of the upper deck between the B-tower and the second vent, two more in the hull on each side of the main deck. The installation in casemates in the hull dramatically reduced the buoyancy reserve, as water could penetrate if the casemates were submerged. In practice, this could already happen with normal ship movements in rough seas. In addition, the riot ammunition was very endangered during the Skagerrak Battle, which started a fire on the Malaya that almost led to the loss of the ship.
The four rear casemate guns of the Queen Elizabeth were soon removed because of their inability to use them and the casemates were closed with steel plates. The other ships in the class were completed without them. The rear casemates of all ships were replaced by a cannon on either side of the front fort. The ten guns, which were therefore no longer needed on the ships of the class, were used in 1915 to arm the monitors of the M29 class . The guns on the fore fort were removed again in 1916, leaving twelve 152 mm guns until the 1930s.
Armor
The armor has been changed compared to the Iron Duke class. The belt armor was reinforced and the underwater protection improved. The deck armor was not as strong as it was at the time. Since four of the ships survived severe hits in the Battle of the Skagerrak, it can be considered sufficient for the state of the art at the time.
Conclusion
The ships could not meet all of the high expectations placed on them. They were too heavy, which resulted in great draft. As a result, they were unable to reach the planned maximum speed of 25 knots in action. Nevertheless, a speed of 24 knots was achieved through the use of an oil furnace, which was still an improvement on the previously common speed of 21 knots. Since the slowest ship of the class only reached 23 knots, Admiral John Jellicoe was convinced after the Battle of the Skagerrak that the ships would reduce the speed of a squadron and therefore could not operate too far away from the main battle. Despite these problems, which hardly showed up in action, the ships had a good reputation and proved to be very successful in battle.
In the following Revenge class , the configuration of the Queen Elizabeth class was adopted and the speed was again based on the standard of 21 knots - albeit with an improved tank arrangement.
The intended successor to the class was a fast battleship with a high freeboard, the auxiliary armament of which would have been outside of the spray. Due to the planned shallow draft, it should have reached a speed of at least 30 kn. The First Sea Lord, John Fisher, changed that to an even faster and weaker armored battle cruiser , the Admiral class . Of the four planned ships of this class, only the HMS Hood was completed.
Ships of the class
- The HMS Barham took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak. During the Second World War she fought in the Battle of Cape Matapan . On November 25, 1941, she was hit by three torpedoes from U 331 and sank. 850 crew members were killed.
- The HMS Malaya took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak. During the Second World War she escorted convoys and was damaged by a torpedo from U 106 in 1941 . She took part in the Normandy invasion and was decommissioned in 1945.
- The HMS Queen Elizabeth was involved in the Battle of Gallipoli . During the Second World War in 1941 she was so badly damaged by Italian combat swimmers in the port of Alexandria that she sank to the bottom of the harbor basin. It was then repaired and served in the Far East until the end of the war. From February 1917 to July 1919 she served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet.
- The HMS Valiant took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak. During World War II she took part in Operation Catapult . It was damaged in Alexandria in 1941 by Italian combat swimmers in the port of Alexandria . After repairs, it served in the Far East until 1944. On August 8, 1944, while staying in a floating dock, she was badly damaged when the dock collapsed. As a result, the repair work was stopped.
- The HMS Warspite took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak. During World War II, she participated in several battles including Narvik , Cape Matapan , Crete and Operation Avalanche , where she was hit by a German Fritz X guided bomb. It was never fully repaired and was used to bombard the coast during Operation Overlord and other operations in France.
literature
- David K. Brown: The Grand Fleet. Warship Design and Development 1906-1922. Caxton Editions, London 2003, ISBN 1-84067-531-4 .
Web links
- HMS Warspite on warspite.dk (English)
Footnotes
- ^ Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and Battle Cruisers, 1905-1970. Doubleday, Garden City NY 1973, pp. 135, 141.
- ^ Winston S. Churchill : The World Crisis, 1911-1918. Free Press, New York NY 2005, ISBN 0-7432-8343-0 .
- ↑ The Battleship Congo .
- ^ Robert Gardiner (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906-1921. Conway Maritime Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 , p. 34.
- ^ NJM Campbell: Jutland. An Analysis of the Fighting. Conway Maritime Press, London 1986, ISBN 0-85177-379-6 , p. 132.
- ^ Hugh and David Lyon: Warships from 1900 to today . Buch und Zeit Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne 1979, p. 32-33 .