HMS Neptune (1909)
HMS Neptune was a dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She was the first British battleship to be built with superfiring guns. The ship had an overall length of 546 feet, a beam of 85 feet, and a deep draught of 28 feet 6 inches. She displaced 19,680 long tons at normal load and 23,123 long tons at deep load.
About HMS Neptune (1909) in brief
HMS Neptune was a dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She was the first British battleship to be built with superfiring guns. Shortly after her completion in 1911, she carried out trials of an experimental fire-control director and then became the flagship of the Home Fleet. Neptune became a private ship in early 1914 and was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron. She became part of the Grand Fleet when it was formed shortly after the beginning of the First World War in August 1914. Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, and the inconclusive Action of 19 August several months later, her service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. Neptune was deemed obsolete after the war and was reduced to reserve before being sold for scrap in 1922 and subsequently broken up. Her crew numbered about 756 officers and ratings upon completion and 813 in 1914. She displaced 19,680 long tons at normal load and 23,123 long tons at deep load. The ship was powered by two sets of Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, each of which was housed in a separate engine room. She carried a maximum speed of 21,000 knots. She carried 2,710 long tons of coal and an additional 790 tons of fuel that was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. This gave her a cruising speed of 10 knots. Neptune was equipped with ten-calibre breech-loading 12-inch Mark XI guns in hydraulically powered twin turrets, along the centreline and the remaining two wing turrets as designated as ‘A’ and ‘B’ The ship had an overall length of 546 feet, a beam of 85 feet, and a deep draught of 28 feet 6 inches.
She had a metacentric height of 6. 5 feet atdeep load. She had 18 boilers from Yarrow boilers at a working pressure of 235 psi. They were rated at a maximum of 25,000 horsepower and gave Neptune a maximum maximum of 21,000 knots. She was also equipped with 10-inch oil-fired Mark XI-style guns in five hydraulics-powered twin-gun turrets. Unlike the earlier ships, her wing turrets were staggered so all five turrets could shoot on the broadside, although in practise the blast damage to the superstructure and boats made this impractical except in an emergency. The bridge was also situated above the conning tower, which similarly risked being obscured if the bridge collapsed. The Admiralty felt secure in the knowledge that Germany would have only four modern capital ships in commission by 1910, while the British Navy would have eleven. The Liberals, committed to reducing military expenditures and increasing social welfare spending, wished to cut the budget by £1,340,000 below the previous year’s budget, but were ultimately persuaded not to do so after the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
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