Royal Sovereign class battleship
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History
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HMS Resolution |
The Royal Sovereign-class was an eight ship class of pre-dreadnoughts, built under the 1889 Naval Defence Act, which came about due to rumours of a possible Franco-Russian alliance, as well as shortcomings found in naval manoeuvres the year became the act came about.
Lord Salisbury, the then Prime Minister, authorised the Act, which gave £21 million pounds for a vast expansion program for the
Royal Navy, the pride of which, was the Royal Sovereigns, of which like the distant successor, the
Dreadnought, made all battleships of the Royal Navy, as well as other nations, obsolete. In total, ten battleships, forty two cruisers and eighteen other vessels were built, an astonishing increase in vessels for the Royal Navy. The act thus formed the two-power standard, that the Royal Navy be as large as the next two major powers combined.
The class would become the template of British battleship design, being imrpoved by the Majestics, which were launched just a few years later, becoming the template for subsequent classes. The Royal Sovereigns were designed by the noted warship designer Sir William White. They were much bigger than the Admirals, Victorias and Trafalags, three classes that had preceded the Royal Sovereigns. They used the same 13.5-in guns of the Admirals, though the Royal Sovereigns used barbettes instead of turrets, allowing them to have a much higher freeboard than had been previously available, thus making them better seaboats.
By 1906, the Royal Sovereigns, with every other battleship classes in the world, were made obsolete with the launch of the revolutionary Dreadnought, the first all big-gun battleship. They were consigned to more menial duties for the remainder of their service life, only two ships surviving to see the outbreak of war in 1914, many being used as target practise the year before.
Ships of the Class
- Empress of India - Originally Renown, renamed Empress of India. She was sunk as a target off Portland in 1913.
- Hood - Became a receiving ship at Queenstown in 1910, having her secondary guns removed. Sunk as a blockship at Portland Harbour in November 1914.
- Ramillies - Served in Mediterranean and home waters, before being scrapped in 1913.
- Repulse - Served in Channel Squadron. Scrapped in 1911.
- Resolution - Served in the Channel Squadron, being scrapped in April 1914.
- Revenge - Was flaghsip of Cretan operations in 1898, during that countries break-away from the Ottoman Empire. Was listed for sale prior to WWI. Saved from the breakers for active service, bombarding the Belgium coast from 1914-15. She was renamed Redoubtable to release the name for a state-of-the-art battlecruiser. She became a tender to the iconic ship-of-the-line HMS Victory, until Redoubtable was broken up in 1919, surviving all of her sister-ships.
- Royal Oak - Part of the Special Flying Squadron, later seeing service in home waters. She was scrapped in 1914.
- Royal Sovereign - Served in a number of fleets of the Royal Navy, later, like most of her sister-ships, serving in home waters. She was scrapped in 1913.
Royal Sovereign Class Statistics (original configuration)
- Displacement: 14,150 tons standard
- Length: 410.6 ft
- Beam: 75 ft
- Draught: 27.6 ft
- Complement: 712
- Armament:
- 4 x 13.5-in guns
- 10 x 6-in guns
- 16 x 6-pounder guns
- 12 x 3-pounder guns
- 7 x 18-in torpedo tubes
- Speed: 18 knots
- Propulsion: 2 x Humphreys vertical triple expansion, 8 x cylindrical boilers, 2 x shafts
See Also
