The third ship taken over from a foreign Government was ordered and commenced in 1911 at Elswick from designs prepared at Els- wick by Mr. Perrett for the Chilean Government. There were two . ships of the class, the " Almirante Latorre " (which became H.M.S. " Canada "), and the sister ship the "Almirante Cochrane" (now H.M.S. " Eagle "). The " Canada " had 10 14-in. guns, twin- mounted, in the centre line, and was originally designed to have 22 4-7-in. as the secondary battery, but this was subsequently altered to 16 6-in. guns. The protection again was somewhat lighter than that of the British " Dreadnoughts," but the speed was rather higher, viz. 22 f knots, and as a matter of fact this speed was con- siderably exceeded on trial. The ship was taken over by the British Admiralty in Sept. 1914, and completed, after certain necessary modifications, a year later. Her fuel consisted of coal, with the addition of a certain amount of oil, as in most British battleships. In 1920 the " Canada " was returned to the Chilean Government under her original name.
The sister ship, " Almirante Cochrane," remained in an uncom- pleted condition on the stocks at Elswick till early in 1918, when she was taken over by the British Government and rearranged as an aircraft-carrying ship. She was renamed H.M.S. " Eagle," and as a compliment to the U. S. navy, she was, at the request of the Admiralty, launched by Mrs. Page, the wife of the then Ameri- can Ambassador to Great Britain.
Battle Cruisers. As regards the British battle cruisers later than the " Princess Royal," particulars are given in Table IV.
The "Tiger" was included in the 1911-2 programme and fol- lowed on the " Queen Mary," the general features of the two ships being much alike, the chief differences being that the secondary armament of " Tiger " is 12 6-in. guns in lieu of 16 4-in. in " Queen Mary," and " Tiger " has two submerged torpedo-rooms, whereas " Queen Mary " had only one.
The " Tiger " was laid down at Clydebank on June 12 1912, and completed in Oct. 1914. In common with so many ships completed during the war, the early commissioning and joining of the fleet was so imperative that no exhaustive trials in deep water were car- ried out, but the runs made on the Polperro course showed that the designed power of 108,000 S.H.P. could be obtained with little diffi- culty, corresponding to a speed of 30 knots. In the early stages of the design the oil-fuel capacity was very largely increased from 1,000 tons originally intended to a maximum oil stowage of 3,480 tons, in addition to the 3,320 tons of coal.
FIG. 7.
At the commencement of the war two additional battleships of slightly modified " Royal Sovereign " type, viz. the " Renown " and " Repulse " (see figs. 7 and 8), had been laid down, but in view of the long time it would take to complete these ships, the construc- tion was not pressed forward. Immediately after the battle of the Falkland Is., in which the British battle cruisers " Invincible " and " Inflexible," in company with other smaller cruisers, annihilated Von Spec's fleet, the value of the battle cruiser type became very apparent, and on the initiative of Lord Fisher, then First Sea Lord, it was decided to stop the construction of " Renown " and " Re-
pulse " as battleships and to alter the design completely into that of very fast battle cruisers.
Instructions to redesign these ships were given about Christmas 1914. The new design had to give a speed of 32 knots, with the largest number of big guns possible for such a vessel, and with pro- tection similar to that of the " Invincible " class. A modified form of bulge was adopted in these ships to give additional under-water protection against torpedo attack. After the war further addi- tions were made to the bulge protection and to the armour.
FIG. 9.
The general outline design was completed and approved in ten days, and 6 15-in. guns adopted as the main armament, the second- ary armament consisting of 17 4-in. guns, of which 15 were mounted in five specially designed triple-gun mountings. It was necessary that the ships should be completed at the earliest possible date, and the "Tiger's " machinery was repeated with some additional boilers, with oil as the fuel, thus increasing the power to 120,000, which, with the extra length given to the ship, made it possible to obtain the desired speed of 32 knots.
Lord Fisher also insisted that the ships must be completed within 15 months an abnormally short time for an entirely new design this period of completion was not realized, although not greatly exceeded. By Jan. 21 1915 the two firms entrusted with the orders, viz. Messrs. John Brown and Fairfield, were supplied with sufficient information to enable them to proceed with the structure, and both keels were laid on Jan. 25, which was Lord Fisher's birthday. All the drawings and specifications were completed by April and the design finally approved in that month.
The arrangement of the whole ship, showing the protection, is given in fig. 7, the plating over the magazines having been consid- erably increased as a result of the Jutland fight.
" Repulse " was launched in Jan. 1916, less than a year from the laying -down, and "Renown" was launched three months later. " Repulse " went through her commissioning trials early in Aug., and " Renown " followed one month later and was completed in September. The speed of " Repulse " on trial was over 31 J knots in the deep condition, and the " Renown " obtained 32-6 knots mean speed in the normal condition.
The construction of these vessels in a little over one and a half years from the first order to get out the design constitutes a record in design and construction of two such important vessels, and reflected great credit, not only upon the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, but also upon the contractors and all concerned in the construction and completion of the vessels. In fact, the Admir- alty conveyed their appreciation of this to Sir E. d'Eyncourt, the Director of Naval Construction, in a letter dated Sept. 1916.
The battle cruiser H.M.S. " Hood " (see figs. 9 and 10), the latest addition up to 1921 to the capital ships of the British Fleet, was designed early in 1916, and had only just been ordered from Messrs. J. Brown & Co. when the battle of Jutland took place. This great event naturally led to a revision of the design and in view of the damage which was then done to British battle cruisers and also to
TABLE IV. Particulars of British Battle Cruisers.
Vessel
Date of Launch
Length between perpendiculars; (length over all)
Breadth
Mean Draught
Load dis- placement : Tons
Speed : Knots
Horse Power
Armament
Thick- est side Armour
" Lion "
1910)
660 ft.
88 ft. 6 in.
28 ft.
26,350
28
70,000
8 i3-5-in.
9 in.
Princess
16 4-in.
t: Royal " .
19" J
(700 ft.)
2 2 1 -in. T.T.
" Queen Mary " .
1912
600 ft.(703ft.6in.)
Sgft.
28 ft.
27,000
28
75,000
8 13-5-in.
9 in.
16 4-in.
2 -21-ift. S.T.
" Tiger "
1913
660 ft. (704 ft.)
90 ft. 6 in.
28 ft. 6 in.
28,500
30
108,000
8 13-s-in.
9 in.
12 6-1 n.
4 2i-in. T.T.
" Renown "
1916!
750 ft.
90 ft.
25 ft. 6 in.
26,500
32
120,000
6 is-in.
6 in.
" Repulse " .
1916;
(794 ft.)
17 4-in.
2 2 1 -in. T.T.
" Hood "
1918
810 ft. (860 ft.)
104 ft.
28 ft. 6 in.
41,200
32
144,000
8 15-in.
12 in.
12 5'5-in.
6 2i-m. T.T.
