HMS Indefatigable was the lead ship of her class of three battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy during the first decade of the 20th Century. She was sunk on 31 May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the war.
About HMS Indefatigable (1909) in brief
HMS Indefatigable was the lead ship of her class of three battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy during the first decade of the 20th Century. She was sunk on 31 May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the war. The ship had a main armament of eight breech-loading BL 12-inch Mark X guns mounted in four hydraulically powered twin-gun turrets. They mounted two 17.inch submerged torpedo tubes, one on each side of ‘X’ barbette, and twelve torpedoes were carried. Their armour was protected by a waterline 4–6-inch armoured belt that ranged in thickness between 5 and 2.5 inches with the thickest portions protecting the steering gear in the stern. During refit, a pre-war range of 9-foot was added behind the spotting tower, protected by 4 inches of armour behind the conning tower. However, this was of limited use as its view was obscured by the front of the superstructure and the legs of the fore and aft superstructure were behind it. Only three of the crew of 1,019 survived the battle, and the ship was sunk by a German shell that hurled large pieces of the ship 200 feet in the air. No battlecruiser ships were ordered after the three Invincible class ships in 1905 until Indef atigable became the lone battlecruizer of the 1908–1909 Naval Programme. A larger design with more armour and better underwater protection was rejected as too expensive.
She had an overall length of 590 feet, a beam of 80 feet, and a draught of 29 feet 9 inches at deep load. She normally displaced 18,500 long tons and 22,130 long tons atDeep load. The ship was powered by two sets of Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, each driving two propeller shafts, using steam provided by 31 coal-burning Babcock & Wilcox boilers. During her sea trials on 10 April 1911, IndefAtigable reached a top speed of 26. 89 knots from 55,140 shp after her propellers were replaced. She carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of 6,330 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 10 knots. The ship’s secondary armament consisted of sixteen BL 4- inch Mark VII guns positioned in the superst structure. Their armoured deck extended and covered the end of the 1,500-foot-long superstructure, with the barbettes supported by the same thickness of the turret faces and the turrets were supported by barbettes of 7 inches and 7 inches, respectively. The Admiralty rejected a proposal in favour of two outmoded armoured cruisers but finally acceded to a request for one battle Cruisers instead, after the Admiralty pointed out the need to match the recently published German naval construction plan and to maintain the heavy gun and armour industries.
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