Genesis.
When rumors of a supposed super-Battlecruiser being constructed in Germany reached the Admiralty in 1912 they feared that these rumoured super ships would be able to wipe out the Royal Navies battlecruisers and even outclassed the latest vessel the Tiger that was currently under construction.
With public and political pressure applied by both Churchill and Fisher whom worked in concert with friends in the press and government they created a 'battlecruiser panic' that would be near similar to the 'We want eight and we wont wait!' scare a few years previous. This recived quiet support from the Admiralty and enough pressure was applied to force a budgetary change. Still something had to be axed and that blow fell on the Navy's next class of Dreadnought.
In their stead a new battlecruiser would be built that would feature the same armament, the fearsome 15-inch Mk1 gun. The DNC when trying to solve the conundrum of 'speed, firepower, protection, choose two' instead pressed hard for the introduction of geared shaft turbines and small tube boilers.
The boilers would be lighter and more efficient and could save weight which could be used for more machinery whilst the geared shaft turbines would be able to use this extra power more effectively. Weight saved in machinery also went into the ships protection. Whilst not up to German standards the new design would feature an 11-inch thick belt, equal to the earlier Dreadnought type ships and superior to the 9-inches shielding the Tiger and Lion classes.
Like the Tiger the new ships would also feature 6-inch secondary guns but they were rather poorly sighted with foud guns under B turret whilst the four guns under Y being near useless in anything but a flat calm, and they were soon deleted and plated over with the guns remounted on open shields on the aft superstructure.
Five of the class were authorised as part of the 1913 budget with HMS Revenge, Renown and Repulse all laid down in 1913. HMS Royal Oak and Resolution would be laid down in 1914.
The first three saw action at Jutland whilst Royal Oak just missed the battle due to condenser problems and Resolution was fitting out at the time. At Jutland the Renown is credited with landing the blows that finally crippled the SMS Von Der Tann and made her fall out of the line of battle with heavy damage, later being scuttled after her crew were unable to stop flooding. The Revenge took heavy damage including a serious battery on her port 6-inch battery that almost flashed back to the secondary magazine. Repulse lived a charmed life in the battle and suffered only two hits, one of which failed to explode. In return she and the Lion heavily damaged the SMS Lutzow until the arrival of the High Seas Fleet caused the battlecruisers to disengage.
All five ships served with the Battlecruiser force and Renown became Admiral Sir Horace Hood's flagship as commander of the BCF following Beatty's retirement due to the injuries he suffered at Jutland. All five ships would be modernised in the interwar period and, alongside the Queen Elisabeth class were vital components of the Royal Navy in World War II.
Refits and modernization.
With the Revenge class being seen as some of the most important surface ships in the Royal Navy, the class was the subject of several upgrades.
Like the 30’s modernisation plan that was budgeted for the Queen Elizabeth class the Revenge class was also modernized and given a comprehensive refit.
Whilst two Queen’s were still refitting at the outbreak of war in 1939 the last R completed her refit just two weeks before the outbreak of War.
The refits were extensive and quite expensive, deck armour was thickened over the magazines and engines in light of the aircraft threat whilst the engines were overhauled to keep the speed up. The last of the 6-inch casemated guns were plated over and in their place each ship recived 10 x 4.7-inch dual purpose guns as well as an extra pair of octuple pompom’s giving them six in total. Several dual .50cal Vickers machine guns were also mounted as well along with some single barrelled 2lb mounts.
The 15-inch guns had their elevation increased to increase the range whilst a hangar and catapult was also fitted. With all the weight speed did suffer slightly but the modernised machinery and meant that only half a knot was lost. (Basically the OTL QE refits that the QE and Vanguard got, the Queens in this TL get the one the Warspite got).
With the class split between the Home fleet and the Meditteranian at the outbreak of war the Revenge’s were on station from day one.
Individual records
HMS Revenge – Flagship of the First Battlecruiser Squadron the Revenge and her sisters the Renown and Repulse were deployed to escort troops heading to Norway along with the carrier Dauntless and the older carrier Eagle. Whilst escorting a convoy the Revenge had a short engagement with the Scharnhorst and Gnisenau and managed to secure several hits on the latter before the battle had to be halted due to mountainous seas.
Revenge was also hit by several bombs whilst off the Norwegian coast but suffered little damage and remained on station.
After the fall of France the Revenge and Royal Oak remained in home waters to help guard against the threat of Invasion.
The ship was involved in the hunt for the Deutschland but the Pocket battleship evaded detection and returned home.
The Revenge remained with the Home Fleet for the remainder of the war, escorting convoy’s to Russia before taking part in the bombardment of Normandy and helping with the bombardment of the Scheld Estury Defences during Operation Market. Quite worn out after the war the Revenge was laid up and decommissioned in 1946, finally being scrapped in 1948.
HMS Renown – Coming off neutrality patrols off Spain the Renown was damaged whilst escorting the carrier Defiance on an anti-submarine sweep. Hit by one torpedo amidships the ship took on water and started to list but returned home and was patched up in time to take part in operations off Norway.
Here she was attacked, all be it unsuccessfully by the Luftwaffe whilst supporting the troops with her guns and she also supported the Warspite when she lead the attack into Narvik, the R classes greater length and with them being slower to answer the helm made it too risky to send her into the fjord against the German destroyer squadron.
Refitted again the Renown was then sent to the meditteranian after the fall of France where she alongside HMS Hood took part in Operation Catapult and helped escort the French ships at Mers El Kibir to Martinique and internment.
She would remain in the Meditteranian and would take part in the battles off Crete and Malta, sinking the Italian cruiser Bolanzo whilst escorting a convoy run to Malta.
Unfortunately whilst returning from Malta to Gibraltar, the Renown was hit by three torpedoes fired from a U-Boat, and would capsize and sink 30 minutes after being struck.
HMS Repulse – Like her older sisters the Repulse served off Norway and claimed several German aircraft before ferrying the Norwegian Royal Family to the UK when the country fell.
Sent to the Meditteranian the Repulse was involved in the battle of Sirte where she crippled the Andrea Doria, allowing the Nelson to catch up and help sink the damaged Italian battleship. Struck several times off Crete the Repulse was repaired and then rejoined the Meditteranian fleet before being redeployed to the Home Fleet when the Valiant was repaired.
Badly damaged in the Battle of Iceland the Repulse lost her two aft turrets and suffered several belt penetrations, but her 15-inch guns claimed the Admiral Scheer in the melee.
Sent to America for repairs she rejoined the fleet in 1943 but her wounds were never truly healed and she would spend the rest of the war as a convoy escort before shooting her guns smooth supporting Canadian troops as they tried to clear the defences round Antwerp. After Operation Market the Repulse was put into reserve with a skeleton crew and would be scrapped after the war.
HMS Royal Oak – The Royal Oak got a reputation as an unlucky ship, she injured herself when she was launched and struck a mine in WW1. In WW2 she struck another mine but suffered little damage and so missed the Norway campaign. Off Crete the ships ‘bad luck’ held as she became quite a bomb magnet. Repaired she was then sent to the Far East with HMS Rodney, HMS Duke of York and HMS Dauntless. Based at Singapore Force H took part in the battle of the Celebes Sea where ABDA forces clashed with the Imperial Japanese Navy.
The Royal Oak claimed a Japanese light cruiser and badly damaged a Kongo class battlecruiser but her own damage sent her first to Sydney and then to Pearl Harbour for repairs.
With the ABDA forced from the seas round Malaya the Royal Oak was in turn attached to the American fleet as she was one of the few capital ships capable of keeping up with carrier operations.
During the Battle of Midway the Royal Oak’s AA fire helped the USS Yorktown survive despite several bomb hits whilst the battleship took yet another torpedo and was forced back to Pearl.
Refitted and repaired the Royal Oak returned home via the Panama Canal when the USS Washington was available. The Royal Oak then sailed home with elements of the Free French Navy and taking part in bombardment duties off Sicilly and Salerno where she was again, struck by more bombs.
When the Royal Navy returned to the Pacific the Royal Oak was there and she was present at the surrender of Japan. Attempts to save the ship post war failed but one of her gun turrets was given to the United States where it was put on display at Pearl Harbour. Another complete turret was put on display at the Imperial War Museum.
HMS Resolution – Serving alongside the Royal Oak in the Meditteranian the Resolution saw action during the Battle of Sirte where she traded fire with the battleship Littorio whilst the Warspite and Valiant engaged the Vittorio Vento. Damaged by 8-inch gunfire and several near misses from 15-inch shells the Resolution was assigned to the Home Fleet when the Germans attempted the breakout that would lead to the Battle of Iceland.
The threat of five German capital ships loose in the Atlantic had to be met and the Royal Navy deployed two carriers as well as five of their own battleships to counter this threat.
Together with the Repulse the two fast ships worked with the KGV and Prince of Wales whilst the Rodney with her heavier guns engaged what targets she could, somewhat held back by her slower speed.
Whilst the Scharnhorst and Prinz Euigen would return to Germany the Bismarck, Admiral Scheer and Gnisenau would all be sunk with tremendous loss of life. But not before the Resolution was struck by a salvo from the Bismarck that caused a magazine fire in her 4.5-inch guns, the explosion triggering the adjacent 15-inch shells and blowing the Resolutions bow section into ruin, the ship sinking with the loss of all but seven of her crew.
Dimensions: 207,3m (pp) x 29,3m x 8,84m
Displacement: 31.350tons standard
Engine: 108.000shp Steam Turbines, 4 shafts
Maximum Speed: 56km/h (30knots)
Armour: 279mm Belt, 64mm Deck
Armaments:
4x2 15" (381mm) Cannons
16x1 6" (152mm) Casemated Guns
4x1 3" (76mm) AA Guns
4x1 21" (533mm) Underwater Torpedo Tubes
The Washington Treaty
What was meant to be a rather cut and dry treaty actually dragged on for months. The British gave away most of their fleet strength, although they were glad to retire or scrap the old 12 and 13.5-inch gunned ships, most of whom were obsolete or tired, or both. But it was on the weight agreements of new ships that the British dug their heels in, saying that 35,000 tons was too tight a limit. Whilst the Americans pressed for the 35,000 ton limit the British wanted more and this deadlock was suddenly broken when the American representatives agreed to a compromise.
Whilst the cause for this sudden change of heart has never been fully explained, there are indications that the Americans were spying on the British and Japanese representatives and that this was discovered by the British but not revealed to the Japanese.
A new 38,000 ton limit for ships was offered, not the full 40,000 the UK wanted, nor the 35,000 tons wanted by the United States but a compromise of the two. The Japanese readily agreed, seeing a chance to alter the Mutsu whilst the Americans would alter their Colorado class at their first major refit.
The British were allowed to build 3 16-inch gunned ships to counter the American and Japanese shps. The Royal Navy was also allocated a greater tonnage for cruisers and destroyers, arguing (and threatning to reveal the American spying) that the Empire had a far greater area to cover and patrol and needed more ships for the job.
This would result in somewhat soured relations between the UK and USA but ill diplomatic tempers came to nothing. It also lead to the construction of the Admiral Class battleship.
The Admiral Class
Unable to build the G3 design due to the treaty limitations the DNC and his staff produced a hybrid of designs that matched the G3's protection on a smaller and slower hull that would still be capable of 25 knots. The design was also more conventional than the radical G3 design and featured two turrets forwards and one aft for the newly made 16-inch Mk1 gun.
The HMS
Nelson,
Rodney and
Hood would join the fleet between 1925 and 1926 after being laid down in 1923. Unfortunately there was numerous problems with the triple gun turrets for the 16-inch guns that were not fully solved until the 1930's after expensive alterations and the introduction of a heavier 'blue boy' shell.
As built the Mk1 16-inch gun was designed to fire a light, high velocity shell but this resulted in a short barrel life and poor accuracy at long range. Extensive anti-flash and fire features in the turrets also slowed the rate of fire and numerous jams. The heavier shell extended barrel life and improved accuracy but it would take a re-design of the loading systems for the guns to fully fix the jamming problems.
The other aspects of the class were far less troublesome. The 6-inch secondaries in their turret mounts were popular with their gun crews and a big advance over the older casemate mounts. And at their time of introduction the Admiral class was the most heavily protected battleship in the world against air attack thanks to their 'chicago piano' 2lb AA gun mounts and 4.7-inch single mount AA guns.
38,000t standard: 44,400t deep load
Dimensions: 720ft oa X 106ft X 29ft 3in
Machinery: 2-shaft Brown-Curtis geared turbines, 9 Admiralty 3 drum boilers 75,000shp = 25kts Oil 5200t
19,500nm @ 10kts
Armour: Belt 15in abreast magazines - 14in abreast machinery, bulkheads 12" forward 10" aft, barbettes 13in, turrets 16" faces, 9-
7" sides, 7" roof, decks 7.25" upper deck over magazines 5" upper deck over machinery Torpedo Bulkhead 2in
Armament: 9 X 16in/45 Mk I (3X3), 12 X 6in/50cal MkXXIII, 6 X 4.7in/43cal AA 40 X 2pdr pom-poms (10 X 4)
More to follow. I had done the service history of the Admirals, but my Firefox crashed and I lost the lot :s
As always, thoughts, input and comments are most welcome!