All of the British monitors built during the war were intended to bombard land targets. To this end the Lord Clive class were given a heavy armament modified to increase its range and a shallow draught to allow them to work inshore as necessary. As the Royal Navy did not expect the ships to engage in naval combat, speed was very much not a priority. General Craufurd had an overall length of 335feet 6inches (102.3m), a beam of 87feet 2inches (26.6m) including the torpedo bulge, 57 feet (17.4m) without, and a draught of 9feet 11inches (3.02m) at deep load. She displaced 5,850 long tons (5,940t) at deep load and her crew numbered 12 officers and 182 ratings. The ship was powered by a pair of four-cylinder Harland & Wolfftriple-expansion steam engines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by two water-tube boilers. The engines were designed to produce a total of 2,310 indicated horsepower (1,720kW) which was intended to give her a maximum speed of 10 knots (18.5km/h; 11.5mph). On her sea trialsGeneral Craufurd only made 7.42 knots (13.7km/h; 8.5mph) because her designers were unfamiliar with the proper way to contour her hull to maximise her propeller efficiency; the ship reached 7 knots (13.0km/h; 8.1mph) in service as she was more heavily loaded. The monitor carried 356 long tons (362t) of coal which gave her a range of 1,100 nautical miles (2,000km; 1,300mi) at 6.5 knots (12.0km/h; 7.5mph).[1][2]
The spotting top on the tripod mast between the turret and the funnel housed a rangefinder that fed data to the director on the roof of the spotting top. The director's crew would calculate the amount of traverse and elevation needed to hit the target and transmit that information to the turret for the guns to follow.[4]
The Lord Clive-class ships were protected against gunfire by a sloping waterlinebeltamidships of 6-inch (152mm)Krupp cemented armour (KCA) that was closed off at its ends by transverse bulkheads of equal thicknesses to form the ships' central armoured citadel. The 2-inch-thick (51mm)upper deck of high-tensile steel served as the roof of the citadel and the forecastle deck above it consisted of 1-inch (25mm) plates of high-tensile steel. For protection against torpedoes, the ships were fitted with bulges15 feet (4.6m) deep.[5]
The turret taken from Magnificent retained its original armour, viz.10.5-inch-thick (270mm) faces and 5.5-inch (140mm) sides with a 2-inch roof, all of Harvey armour. Its original circular barbettes was replaced by a new one formed from a dozen plates of 8-inch (203mm) KCA. The ships were also fitted with a cast-steel conning tower just forward of the barbette that had 6-inch sides and a roof 2.5 inches (64mm) thick.[6]
Wartime modifications
Four QF 6-inch guns with 200 rounds per gun were added in early 1916 abreast the funnel when it was realized that the two 12-pounder guns were not powerful enough to defend the ship from German destroyers. Two coal bunkers were turned into magazines for them, reducing the range to approximately 960nmi (1,780km; 1,100mi), and increasing the crew in size to 215, necessitating plating in the sides of much of the upper deck to provide quarters. These guns were later exchanged for longer-ranged 6-inch Mk VII guns. The 3-pounder gun was replaced by another QF 3-inch 20-cwt anti-aircraft gun late in the war.[7]
Construction and career
General Craufurd, named after GeneralRobert Craufurd, commander of the British Light Division during the early years of the Peninsular War who was killed in action at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812,[8] has been the only ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. She was laid down with the name M.7 on 9 January 1915 at Harland & Wolff's Berth no. 3 in its shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as yard number 479 and was renamed General Craufurd on 8 March. The ship was launched on 8 July and completed on 26 August at an estimated cost of about £260,000.[9]
She participated in a bombardment of the German naval base at Ostend, Belgium on 7 September, but Vice-AdmiralReginald Bacon had to order a withdrawal after his flagship, General Craufurd's sister ship, Lord Clive, was hit four times in quick succession by a previously unknown artillery battery. General Craufurd and her three sisters had only managed to shoot 14 rounds before they had to retire, which only started a fire in the dockyard. On the 25th General Craufurd and her sister Prince Eugene bombarded German positions at Zeebrugge, Belgium, as part of a deception operation to suggest that the Allies were launching an attack in that sector. During the remainder of September and October, she occasionally fired on German coastal batteries. On 15 November General Craufurd and the seaplane carrierRiviera were sent to the Thames Estuary where they could develop techniques to allow aircraft to correct the shooting of multiple monitors via wireless in an area that had been laid out to replicate some of the features of the Belgian coast.[10]
During December 1915 and January 1916, General Craufurd was stationed in the Thames Estuary as a propaganda exercise to shoot down approaching German Zeppelins with shrapnel shells fired by her main guns, but the Zeppelins never came within range.[11] The monitors bombarded German batteries at Westende, Belgium, on 26 January to evaluate the newly developed air-spotting techniques, but each ship only fired about eleven rounds during the half-hour bombardment. This was the last bombardment for the next seven months as the monitors were used to support British light forces and the Dover Barrage, the complex of minefields and nets in the Channel.[12]
The uncluttered forecastle deck of the Lord Clives allowed Bacon to use General Craufurd to ferry three 50-long-ton (51t)BL 12-inch Mk X gun barrels and three 28-long-ton (28t)BL 9.2-inch (234mm) Mk X barrels to Dunkirk, France, to be used to bombard the German coastal artillery. The barrels were loaded by crane onto chocks positioned on General Craufurd's portside deck and were then rolled off the deck via a thick wooden ramp onto the stone jetty in Dunkirk. The first barrel was difficult to unload because it was thinner at the muzzle than at the breech and wanted to curve as it rolled. Subsequent barrels were encased in wood to make them easier to roll. General Craufurd delivered the first gun in April and then the rest beginning in July.[13]
One of the second batch of 12-inch guns being unloaded in July; note the wooden jacket around the middle of the barrel
In August the monitor began trials to develop procedures for engaging targets at night while using a gyroscope hooked up to her fire-control system to help maintain the turret on the target while manoeuvring. She fired 38 round at Middlekerk on 16 August as part of these trials. Four days later a Short Type 184floatplane was hoisted aboard to spot the ship's shells and transmit corrections; low cloud cover that prevented the observer aboard the aircraft from seeing any targets. This infuriated Bacon and he prohibited Commander Edward Altham from conducting any more experiments. To add insult to injury, Bacon limited General Craufurd's participation in the diversionary bombardment conducted in support of the Battle of the Somme in early September to only seven rounds spread over the seven days of the operation. This was the last bombardment of 1916 as the monitors reverted to their role of supporting the Dover Barrage and patrolling between Calais and The Downs.[14]
1917–1921
General Craufurd was intended to be used during the Great Landing, a plan to land troops between Westende and Middelkerke to exploit the anticipated Allied gains made during the Battle of Passchendaele in July and pocket German troops between the landing and the advancing troops. The troops were to be landed via three enormous 2,500-long-ton (2,500t)pontoons, each of which could carry a brigade of infantry, an artillery battery and three tanks. Each of the pontoons was lashed in position between two monitors and General Craufurd, together with General Wolfe, was modified in early 1917 to handle one of them. The ship and her sisters rehearsed their role up until mid-July when the battle began, but the Allies could not make the ten-mile (16km) advance necessary to launch the operation. Field MarshalHaig refused to support Bacon's proposal for a more modest landing in the Nieuport-Middelkerke area in September, so the operation was cancelled on 2 October. General Craufurd was then docked at HM Dockyard, Portsmouth, for maintenance and repairs. Beginning in November, the monitors returned to their normal wintertime role of defending the barrage.[15]
Four of the 12-inch monitors, including General Craufurd, were tasked to support the attempt to block the entrance to the Ostend-Bruges Canal that led to the naval base at Bruges by bombarding the coastal artillery defending the port. Before the first attempt on 11 April had to be called off because the wind shifted and the required smoke screen couldn't be laid properly, the monitors had already fired 50 rounds between them. A second attempt was cancelled because of bad weather. During the third attempt of 23 April, which failed when the blockships ran aground, General Craufurd fired about fifty rounds of 12-inch and some 6-inch shells and was near missed in return by the German guns. The monitor played a minor role in another attempt on 9/10 May when she buoyed the approach channel, but the blockship was blinded by smoke and failed to arrive at her intended position at the canal entrance.[16]
The night before the Fifth Battle of Ypres began on 28 September, the monitors bombarded targets along the coast to simulate preparations for an amphibious landing and then switched to other targets after dawn. General Craufurd and the other monitors were tasked to bombard the German lines of communication, firing slowly to keep up a steady pressure. During the day each ship fired about one hundred 12-inch shells and had fired sixty rounds from their secondary armament during the previous night. The bombardment continued at a slower pace for the next five days, but ceased when the Allied advance stopped. When it resumed on 14 October in the Battle of Courtrai, the monitors resumed their task until the Germans evacuated the coast a few days later.[17]
With the war over on 11 November, the monitors were no longer needed and were soon decommissioned. General Craufurd was the first to go and was paid off on the 15th. She was recommissioned as a gunnery training ship in January 1919 and was offered for sale to the Kingdom of Romania. Nothing came of the offer and the monitor was paid off again in early 1920. General Craufurd was sold for scrap to Thos. W. Ward on 9 May 1921 for approximately £11,035, although she did not arrive at the ship breakers until 10 September 1923.[18]
Notes
↑ "Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 20 cwt referring to the weight of the gun.
Buxton, Ian (2008) [1978]. Big Gun Monitors: Design, Construction and Operations 1914–1945 (2nd Reviseded.). Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-84415-719-8.
HMS Queen Mary was the last battlecruiser built by the Royal Navy before the First World War. The sole member of her class, Queen Mary shared many features with the Lion-class battlecruisers, including her eight 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns. She was completed in 1913 and participated in the Battle of Heligoland Bight as part of the Grand Fleet in 1914. Like most of the modern British battlecruisers, the ship never left the North Sea during the war. As part of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, Queen Mary attempted to intercept a German force that bombarded the North Sea coast of England in December 1914, but was unsuccessful. The ship was refitting in early 1915 and missed the Battle of Dogger Bank in January, but participated in the largest fleet action of the war, the Battle of Jutland in mid-1916. She was hit twice by the German battlecruiser Derfflinger during the early part of the battle and her magazines exploded shortly afterwards, sinking the ship.
HMS Erebus was a First World War monitor launched on 19 June 1916 and which served in both world wars. She and her sister ship Terror are known as the Erebus class. They were named after the two bomb vessels sent to investigate the Northwest Passage as part of Franklin's lost expedition (1845–1848), in which all 129 members eventually perished.
HMS Triumph, originally known as Libertad, was the second of the two Swiftsure-class pre-dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy. The ship was ordered by the Chilean Navy, but she was purchased by the United Kingdom as part of ending the Argentine–Chilean naval arms race. Triumph was initially assigned to the Home Fleet and Channel Fleets before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1909. The ship briefly rejoined the Home Fleet in 1912 before she was transferred abroad to the China Station in 1913. Triumph participated in the hunt for the German East Asia Squadron of Maximilian Graf von Spee and in the campaign against the German colony at Qingdao, China early in World War I. The ship was transferred to the Mediterranean in early 1915 to participate in the Dardanelles Campaign against the Ottoman Empire. She was torpedoed and sunk off Gaba Tepe by the German submarine U-21 on 25 May 1915.
The Renown class consisted of two battlecruisers built during the First World War for the Royal Navy. They were originally laid down as improved versions of the Revenge-class battleships, but their construction was suspended on the outbreak of war on the grounds they would not be ready in a timely manner. Admiral Lord Fisher, upon becoming First Sea Lord, gained approval to restart their construction as battlecruisers that could be built and enter service quickly. The Director of Naval Construction (DNC), Eustace Tennyson-D'Eyncourt, quickly produced an entirely new design to meet Admiral Lord Fisher's requirements and the builders agreed to deliver the ships in 15 months. They did not quite meet that ambitious goal, but they were delivered a few months after the Battle of Jutland in 1916. They were the world's fastest capital ships upon their commissioning.
HMS Renown was the lead ship of her class of battlecruisers of the Royal Navy built during the First World War. She was originally laid down as an improved version of the Revenge-class battleships. Her construction was suspended on the outbreak of war on the grounds she would not be ready in a timely manner. Admiral Lord Fisher, upon becoming First Sea Lord, gained approval to restart her construction as a battlecruiser that could be built and enter service quickly. The Director of Naval Construction (DNC), Eustace Tennyson-D'Eyncourt, quickly produced an entirely new design to meet Admiral Lord Fisher's requirements and the builders agreed to deliver the ships in 15 months. They did not quite meet that ambitious goal, but the ship was delivered a few months after the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Renown, and her sister HMS Repulse, were the world's fastest capital ships upon completion.
The Courageous class consisted of three battlecruisers known as "large light cruisers" built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. The class was nominally designed to support the Baltic Project, a plan by Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher that was intended to land troops on the German Baltic Coast. Ships of this class were fast but very lightly armoured, with only a few heavy guns. They were given a shallow draught, in part to allow them to operate in the shallow waters of the Baltic but also reflecting experience gained earlier in the war. To maximize their speed, the Courageous-class battlecruisers were the first capital ships of the Royal Navy to use geared steam turbines and small-tube boilers.
HMS Gorgon and her sister ship Glatton were two monitors originally built as coastal defence ships for the Royal Norwegian Navy, as HNoMS Nidaros and Bjørgvin respectively, by Armstrong Whitworth at Elswick. She was purchased from Norway at the beginning of the First World War, but was not completed until 1918 although she had been launched over three years earlier. She engaged targets in Occupied Flanders for the last several months of the war and fired the last shots of the war against such targets on 15 October 1918. She was used as a target ship after several attempts to sell her had fallen through before being sold for scrap in 1928.
HMS Terror was an Erebus-class monitor built for the Royal Navy during the First World War in Belfast. Completed in 1916, she was assigned to the Dover Patrol where her primary duties involved bombarding German targets on the coast of occupied Belgium, particularly at the ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend. In October 1917 Terror was hit by three torpedoes, taking severe damage to the bow, and had to be towed into Portsmouth for repair. In April 1918 she participated in the Zeebrugge raid and provided gunnery support for the Fifth Battle of Ypres in September of the same year.
The Lord Clive-class monitor, sometimes referred to as the General Wolfe class, were ships designed for shore bombardment and were constructed for the Royal Navy during the First World War.
HMS Swiftsure, originally known as Constitución, was the lead ship of the Swiftsure-class pre-dreadnought battleships. The ship was ordered by the Chilean Navy, but she was purchased by the United Kingdom as part of ending the Argentine–Chilean naval arms race. In British service, Swiftsure was initially assigned to the Home Fleet and Channel Fleets before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1909. She rejoined Home Fleet in 1912 and was transferred to the East Indies Station in 1913, to act as its flagship.
The BL 18-inch Mk I naval gun was a breech-loading naval rifle used by the Royal Navy during World War I. It was the largest and heaviest gun ever used by the British. Only the Second-World-War Japanese 46 cm/45 Type 94 had a larger calibre, 18.1 inches (46 cm), and it fired a lighter shell. The gun was a scaled-up version of the BL 15 inch Mk I naval gun and was developed to equip the "large light cruiser" Furious. Its barrel length of 60 ft (18 m) was just 40 calibres, slightly limiting its muzzle velocity.
HMS Agamemnon was one of two Lord Nelson-class pre-dreadnought battleships launched in 1906 and completed in 1908. She was the Royal Navy's second-to-last pre-dreadnought battleship to be built, followed by her sister ship, Lord Nelson. She was assigned to the Channel Fleet when the First World War began in 1914. The ship was transferred to the Mediterranean Sea with Lord Nelson in early 1915 to participate in the Dardanelles Campaign. She made a number of bombardments against Turkish fortifications and in support of British troops. Agamemnon remained in the Mediterranean after the conclusion of that campaign to prevent the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and light cruiser Breslau from breaking out into the Mediterranean. Agamemnon shot down the German Zeppelin LZ-55 (LZ-85) during a bombing mission over Salonica in 1916. On 30 October 1918, the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros on board the ship while she was anchored at Lemnos in the northern Aegean Sea. She was converted to a radio-controlled target ship following her return to the United Kingdom in March 1919 and began service in 1921. Agamemnon was the last pre-dreadnought in service with the Royal Navy; she was replaced by Centurion at the end of 1926 and sold for scrap in January 1927.
The Swiftsure class was a group of two British pre-dreadnought battleships. Originally ordered by Chile as the Constitución class during a period of high tension with Argentina, they were intended to defeat a pair of armoured cruisers ordered by the latter country and were optimized for this role. This meant that they were smaller and more lightly armed than most battleships of the time. They were purchased by the United Kingdom in 1903 prior to their completion to prevent their purchase by the Russian Empire as tensions were rising between them and the Japanese Empire, a British ally. Completed the following year, Swiftsure and Triumph had roughly similar careers for the first decade of their service careers. They were initially assigned to the Home Fleet and Channel Fleets before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1909. Both ships rejoined the Home Fleet in 1912 and were transferred abroad in 1913, Swiftsure to the East Indies Station as its flagship, and Triumph to the China Station.
HMS Conquest was a C-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy that saw service during World War I. She was part of the Caroline group of the C class.
HMS Prince Eugene was one of eight Lord Clive-class monitors built for the Royal Navy in 1915 to conduct shore bombardments during the First World War. The ship was assigned to the Dover Patrol for the duration of the war and provided cover for the Inshore Squadron during the First Ostend Raid. She was sold for scrap in 1921.
HMS Lord Clive was the lead ship of her class of eight monitors built for the Royal Navy during World War I. Their primary armament was taken from obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships. The ship spent the war in the English Channel bombarding German positions along the Belgian coast as part of the Dover Patrol, often serving as a flagship. She participated in the failed First Ostend Raid in 1918, bombarding the defending coastal artillery as the British attempted to block the Bruges–Ostend Canal. Lord Clive was one of two ships in the class fitted with a single 18-inch (457 mm) gun in 1918, but she only fired four rounds from it in combat before the end of the war in November. The ship conducted gunnery trials after the war and was sold for scrap in 1927.
HMS General Wolfe, also known as Wolfe, was a Lord Clive-class monitor which was built in 1915 for shore-bombardment duties in the First World War. Her class of eight ships was armed by four obsolete Majestic-class pre-dreadnoughts which had their 12-inch guns and mounts removed, modified and installed in the newly built monitors. Wolfe spent her entire war service with the Dover Patrol, bombarding the German-occupied Belgian coastline, which had been heavily fortified. In the spring of 1918 she was fitted with an 18-inch (457 mm) gun, with which she made the longest-range firing in the history of the Royal Navy - 36,000-yard (20 mi) - on a target at Snaeskerke, Belgium. After the war, she was laid up before being stripped and put up for sale in 1920. She was finally scrapped in 1923.
HMS Humber was a Humber-class monitor of the Royal Navy. Originally built by Vickers for Brazil as Javary, she was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1914 on the outbreak of the First World War along with her sister ships Severn and Mersey.
The Gorgon-class monitors were a class of monitors in service with the Royal Navy during World War I. Gorgon and her sister ship Glatton were originally built as coastal defence ships for the Royal Norwegian Navy, as HNoMS Nidaros and HNoMS Bjørgvin respectively but requisitioned for British use. Gorgon commissioned first, in June 1918 and bombarded German positions and other targets in Occupied Flanders. She fired the last shots of the war by the Royal Navy into Belgium on 15 October 1918. She was offered for sale after the war, but was used as a target ship when there were no takers. She was sold for scrap in 1928. Glatton was destroyed by a magazine explosion only days after she was completed in September 1918 while in Dover Harbour. She remained a hazard to shipping until the wreck was partially salvaged and the remains moved out of the way during 1925–26.
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