Battleship HMS Revenge

The battleship HMS Revenge belonged to the same class of ships, which consisted of five ships, were put into service during the First World War, with only two ships could be used.

 

Launching and design:

The battleship of the Revenge class were ordered in 1913 by the Royal Navy. First, the number of pieces was set to eight ships, the end of 1914, it was apparent that the calculated construction time could not be met, so three ships were canceled.

The construction was similar to the Queen Elizabeth class, but was smaller in size and the speed was slightly lower. In return, the belt armor was strengthened and the deck armor set higher and also reinforced. In addition, the ships were equipped with Torpedowülsten to strengthen the protection against torpedoes.

The ships of the Queen Elizabeth class, a pure oil-fired drive system was installed. In the ships of the Revenge class, an oil mixed coal plant should be installed again, as the Marineleitung feared to become too dependent on oil supplies. However, after Lord John Fisher retired from his retirement in November 1914 as First Sea Lord, he also insisted that the Revenge-class ships should receive a pure oil-fueled propulsion system. This should reduce the operator crew by 75, increasing performance and speed.

The launching of the HMS Revenge took place on 29 May 1915, the commissioning on 1 February 1916.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use in the war:

After the commissioning and the test drives the HMS Revenge was assigned to the 1st battle squadron of the Grand Fleet.

With this squadron, the ship also took part from May 31 to June 1, 1916 at the Battle of the Skagerrak. After the flagship HMS Marlborough was hit by torpedoes, the squadron leader vice-admiral Sir Cecil Burney switched to the Revenge, who continued to participate in the battle, but was slightly offside. Thus, the ship received no hits or damage.

Until the end of the war, some attempts were made in the North Sea, but there was no more contact with the enemy.

 

 

 

Use after the war:

After the First World War, the HMS Revenge was relocated to the Mediterranean in January 1920. The ship was there to monitor the situations in the Russian Civil War as well as in the Greek-Turkish war and possibly take in British refugees and injured.

By the end of 1935, the ship changed again and again between the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean. Due to the constant tensions between Greece and Turkey and later between Italy and Abyssinia, the presence of British ships was often necessary.

1936 and 1937 were major overhauls and some reconstruction work, subsequently the ship was assigned to the Home Fleet.

 

 

 

Use in the Second World War:

When World War II broke out in Europe, HMS Revenge, along with its sister ship HMS Resolution, was used to secure convoys between Canada and the United Kingdom.

After the ceasefire of Compiègne between France and Germany, many French warships fled to Britain. To prevent these ships from being handed over to Germany or being placed under the Vichy regime, the United Kingdom began Operation Grasp on July 3, 1940, whose aim was to confiscate or destroy all French ships in British ports. Port of Portsmouth was home to most French ships, as was HMS Revenge, which during the confiscation took over the crew of the battleship Paris and the submarines Thames and Surcouf.

Until October 1943, the ship was used almost exclusively for securing convoys, especially in the Pacific, to bring the Australian units back to Australia, where an invasion of Japanese troops was feared.

After leaving the convoy security service and returning to the UK, the ship was decommissioned because it was considered too old to use. Only for the training of heaters it was still used.

In May 1944, finally, the main guns were dismantled to use them as a reserve for the still used battleships HMS Ramillies and HMS Warspite.

 

 

 

 

 

Whereabouts:

After the Second World War, the HMS Revenge was sold in 1948 and scrapped.

 

 

 

Ship data:

Name:	HMS Revenge
Country:	Great Britain
Ship Type:	Battleship
Class:	Revenge-Class
Boatyard:	Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness
Building-costs:	2.406.368 pounds sterling
Launched:	May 29, 1915
Commissioning:	February 1, 1916
Whereabouts:	Sold and scrapped in 1948
Length:	190,3 meters
Width:	27 meters
Draft:	8,5 meters
Displacement:	Max. 31.200 tons
Crew:	997 men
Drive:	18 Yarrow steam boiler 4 sets of steam turbines with Parson gear
Power:	40.000 shp (30 MW)
Maximum speed:	23 kn (ca. 43 km/h)
Armament:	8 x 38,1 cm guns 14 x 15,2 cm guns 2 x 7,6 cm guns 4 x 4,7 cm guns 4 x 53,3 cm torpedo tubes
Armor:	Belt 330 mm Deck 64 mm Towers 330 mm Command post 254 mm Citadel 152 mm

 

 

 

 

 

You can find the right literature here:

 

British Battleships of World War One

This new edition of a classic work on British battleships is the most sought after book on the subject. Containing many new photographs from the author's exhaustive collection this superb reference book presents the complete technical history of British capital ship design and construction during the dreadnought era. Beginning with Dreadnought, all of the fifty dreadnoughts, 'super-dreadnoughts' and battlecruisers that served the Royal Navy during this era are described and superbly illustrated with photographs and line drawings.

Click here!

 

 

The British Battleship: 1906-1946

Norman Friedman brings a new perspective to an ever-popular subject in The British Battleship: 1906-1946. With a unique ability to frame technologies within the context of politics, economics, and strategy, he offers unique insight into the development of the Royal Navy capital ships. With plans of the important classes commissioned from John Roberts and A D Baker III and a color section featuring the original Admiralty draughts, this book offers something to even the most knowledgeable enthusiast.

Click here!

 

 

British Battlecruisers 1905-1920

The brainchild of Admiral Sir John Fisher, battlecruisers combined heavy guns and high speed in the largest hulls of their era. Conceived as "super-cruisers" whose job it was to hunt down and destroy commerce raiders, their size and gun-power led to their inclusion in the battlefleet as a fast squadron of capital ships. This book traces in detail the development of Fisher's original idea into the first battlecruiser Invincible of 1908, through to the "Splendid Cats" of the Lion class, and culminating in HMS Hood in 1920, the largest warship in the world for the next twenty years. The origins of the unusual "light battlecruisers" of the Courageous type are also covered.

The well-publicized problems of British battlecruisers are examined, including the latest research throwing light on the catastrophic loss of three of the ships at the Battle of Jutland. The developmental history is backed by chapters covering machinery, armament, and armor, with a full listing of important technical data. The comprehensive collection of illustrations includes the author's superb drawings and original Admiralty plans reproduced in full color. This revised and updated edition of the classic work first published in 1997 will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in the most charismatic and controversial warships of the dreadnought era.

Click here!

 

 

British Battlecruiser vs German Battlecruiser: 1914–16 (Duel)

Battles at Dogger Bank and Jutland revealed critical firepower, armor, and speed differences in Royal Navy and Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) Battlecruiser designs.

Fast-moving and formidably armed, the battlecruisers of the British and German navies first encountered one another in 1915 at Dogger Bank and in the following year clashed near Jutland in the biggest battleship action of all time. In the decade before World War I Britain and Germany were locked in a naval arms race that saw the advent of first the revolutionary dreadnought, the powerful, fast-moving battleship that rendered earlier designs obsolete, and then an entirely new kind of vessel - the battlecruiser. The brainchild of the visionary British admiral John 'Jacky' Fisher, the battlecruiser was designed to operate at long range in 'flying squadrons', using its superior speed and powerful armament to hunt, outmanoeuvre and destroy any opponent. The penalty paid to reach higher speeds was a relative lack of armour, but Fisher believed that 'speed equals protection'. By 1914 the British had ten battlecruisers in service and they proved their worth when two battlecruisers, Invincible and Inflexible, sank the German armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off the Falklands in December 1914.

Based on a divergent design philosophy that emphasised protection over firepower, the Germans' battlecruisers numbered six by January 1915, when the rival battlecruisers first clashed at Dogger Bank in the North Sea. By this time the British battlecruisers had been given a new role - to locate the enemy fleet. Five British battlecruisers accompanied by other vessels intercepted and pursued a German force including three battlecruisers; although the battle was a British tactical victory with neither side losing any of its battlecruisers, the differences in the designs of the British and German ships were already apparent. The two sides responded very differently to this first clash; while the Germans improved their ammunition-handling procedures to lessen the risk of disabling explosions, the British drew the opposite lesson and stockpiled ammunition in an effort to improve their rate of fire, rendering their battlecruisers more vulnerable. The British also failed to improve the quality of their ammunition, which had often failed to penetrate the German ships' armour.

These differences were highlighted more starkly during the battle of Jutland in May 1916. Of the nine British battlecruisers committed, three were destroyed, all by their German counterparts. Five German battlecruisers were present, and of these, only one was sunk and the remainder damaged. The limitations of some of the British battlecruisers' fire-control systems, range-finders and ammunition quality were made clear; the Germans not only found the range more quickly, but spread their fire more effectively, and the German battlecruisers' superior protection meant that despite being severely mauled, all but one were able to evade the British fleet at the close of the battle. British communication was poor, with British crews relying on ship-to-ship flag and lamp signals even though wireless communication was available. Even so, both sides claimed victory and the controversy continues to this day.

Click here!

 

 

 

 

 

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