HMS Agincourt (1913)
Agincourt in 1915
| |
History | |
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Brazil | |
Name | Rio de Janeiro |
Namesake | Rio de Janeiro |
Builder | Armstrong, Newcastle upon Tyne |
Cost | $14,500,000 (estimated)[1] |
Yard number | 792 |
Laid down | 14 September 1911 |
Launched | 22 January 1913 |
Fate | Sold December 1913 to the Ottoman Empire |
Ottoman Empire | |
Name | Sultan Osman-ı Evvel |
Namesake | Sultan Osman I |
Acquired | December 1913 |
Fate | Seized in August 1914 by the United Kingdom |
United Kingdom | |
Name | Agincourt |
Namesake | The Battle of Agincourt of 1415 |
Cost | £2,900,000 (estimated)[2] |
Completed | 20 August 1914 |
Acquired | 3 August 1914 |
Commissioned | 7 August 1914 |
Decommissioned | April 1921 |
Nickname(s) | Gin Palace |
Fate | Sold for scrap, 19 December 1922 |
General characteristics (in British service) | |
Type | Dreadnought battleship |
Displacement | |
Length | 671 ft 6 in (204.7 m) |
Beam | 89 ft (27.1 m) |
Draught | 29 ft 10 in (9.1 m) |
Installed power |
|
Propulsion | 4 × shafts; 4 × steam turbines |
Speed | 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph) |
Range | 7,000 nmi (13,000 km; 8,100 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
Complement | 1268 (1917) |
Armament |
|
Armour |
HMS Agincourt was a
Brazil ordered the ship in 1911 as Rio de Janeiro from the British company
Renamed Agincourt by the Royal Navy, she joined the Grand Fleet in the North Sea. During the war, the ship spent the bulk of her time on patrols and exercises, although she did participate in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Agincourt was put into reserve in 1919 and sold for scrap in 1922 to meet the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.
Background
In the unstable period during and following the
Alarmed at the Brazilian move, Argentina and Chile quickly nullified their 1902 pact and sought dreadnoughts of their own.[6] Argentina's orders, after a drawn-out bidding process, went to an American company, Fore River Shipbuilding Company, while Chile's orders, delayed by the 1906 Valparaíso earthquake, went to Armstrong.[10] Since Brazil's relations with Argentina were warming and the country's economic boom was losing steam, the government negotiated with Armstrong to remove the third dreadnought from the contract, but without success. They borrowed the necessary money, and Armstrong laid down Rio de Janeiro's keel in March 1910.[11]
The Brazilian Navy had divided into two distinct factions, based on the size of the main battery. The outgoing naval minister favoured an increase over the 12-inch guns mounted on board the Minas Geraes class, while his incoming counterpart, Admiral
By May 1911, Fonseca had made up his mind:When I assumed office, I found that my predecessor had signed a contract for the building of the battleship Rio de Janeiro, a vessel of 32,000 tons, with an armament of 14 in. guns. Considerations of every kind pointed to the inconvenience of acquiring such a vessel and to the revision of the contract in the sense of reducing the tonnage. This was done, and we shall possess a powerful unit which will not be built on exaggerated lines such as have not as yet stood the time of experience.[14]
A contract to build the ship that would become Agincourt was signed on 3 June 1911, and its keel was laid on 14 September 1911. The design called for fourteen 12-inch guns, an extreme number that historian David Topliss attributed to political necessity: the ship had to appear more powerful to the Brazilian populace than her predecessors (with twelve 12-inch guns) but, without increasing the gun size, the only option left was increasing the total number of guns.[15]
Design and description
General characteristics
Agincourt had an
When she came to serve in the Royal Navy, Agincourt was considered a particularly comfortable ship and very well-appointed internally. A knowledge of Portuguese was necessary to work many of the fittings—including those in the heads—as the original instruction plates had not all been replaced when she was taken over by the British.[17] In 1917, her crew numbered 1,268 officers and men.[2]
Propulsion
Agincourt had four Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, each of which drove one propeller shaft. The high-pressure ahead and astern turbines drove the wing shafts while the low-pressure ahead and astern turbines drove the inner shafts. The three-bladed propellers were 9 feet 6 inches (2.9 m) in diameter. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 34,000 shaft horsepower (25,000 kW), but achieved more than 40,000 shp (30,000 kW) during her sea trials, slightly exceeding her designed speed of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph).[18]
The steam plant consisted of twenty-two
Armament
Agincourt mounted fourteen
As built, Agincourt mounted eighteen
Close-range defence against
Fire control
Each turret was fitted with an armoured
Armour
So much weight had been devoted to Agincourt's armament that little remained for her armour. Her waterline belt was just 9 inches (229 mm) thick, compared with twelve inches or more found in other British dreadnoughts. It ran some 365 feet (111.3 m), from the forward edge of "Monday" barbette to the middle of "Friday" barbette. Forward of this the belt thinned to six inches for about 50 feet (15.2 m) before further reducing to 4 inches (102 mm) all the way to the bow. Aft of the midships section the belt reduced to six inches for about 30 feet (9.1 m) and then thinned to four inches (102 mm); it did not reach the stern, but terminated at the rear bulkhead. The upper belt extended from the main to the upper deck and was six inches thick. It ran from "Monday" barbette to "Thursday" barbette. The armour bulkheads at each end of the ship angled inwards from the ends of the midships armoured belts to the end barbettes and were three inches thick. Four of Agincourt's decks were armoured with thicknesses varying from 1 to 2.5 inches (25 to 64 mm).[29]
The armour of the barbettes constituted a major weakness in Agincourt's protection. They were 9 inches thick above the upper deck level, but decreased to 3 inches between the upper and main decks and had no armour at all below the main deck except for "Sunday" barbette (which had 3 inches), and "Thursday" and "Saturday" barbettes (which had 2 inches). The turret armour was 12 inches thick on the face, 8 inches (203 mm) on the side and 10 inches (254 mm) in the rear. The turret roofs were 3 inches thick at the front and 2 inches at the rear. The casemates for the secondary armament were protected by 6 inches of armour and were defended from raking fire by 6-inch-thick bulkheads.[2]
The main conning tower was protected by 12 inches of armour on its sides and it had a 4-inch roof. The aft conning tower (sometimes called the torpedo control tower) had 9-inch sides and a 3-inch roof. The communications tube down from each position was 6 inches thick above the upper deck and 2 inches thick below it. Each magazine was protected by two armour plates on each side as torpedo bulkheads, the first one an inch thick and the second one and a half inches thick.[25]
Agincourt had another weakness in that she was not subdivided to Royal Navy standards as the Brazilians preferred to eliminate all possible watertight bulkheads that might limit the size of the compartments and interfere with the crew's comfort. One example was the officer's wardroom, which was 85 by 60 feet (25.9 by 18.3 m) in size, much larger than anything else in the Grand Fleet.[30]
Wartime modifications
Approximately 70 long tons (71 t) of high-tensile steel was added to the main deck after the Battle of Jutland to protect the
Construction and seizure
Rio de Janeiro, as Agincourt was named by her first owners, was
The war broke out during her sea trials before delivery. Even though the Ottoman crew had arrived to collect her, the British Government took over the vessel for incorporation into the Royal Navy. The Turkish captain, waiting with five hundred Turkish sailors aboard a transport in the
The takeover caused considerable ill will in the
The Royal Navy made modifications to Agincourt before commissioning her: in particular, it removed the flying bridge over the two centre turrets. The ship was also initially fitted with Turkish-style lavatories that had to be replaced.[39] Her name, "Agincourt", was a favourite of Churchill's, and had initially been allocated to a sixth vessel of the Queen Elizabeth class ordered under the 1914–15 Naval Estimates, but not yet begun at the war's outbreak.[40] Her nickname, The Gin Palace, came from her luxurious fittings and a corruption of her name ("A Gin Court"), pink gin being a popular drink among Royal Navy officers at the time.[41]
The Admiralty was unprepared to man a ship of Agincourt's size on such short notice and her crew was drawn "from the highest and lowest echelons of the service: the Royal yachts, and the detention barracks." Agincourt's captain and executive officer came from HMY Victoria and Albert, most of whose crew was also transferred to Agincourt on 3 August 1914. Most of the naval reservists had already been called up by this time and sent to other ships, so a number of minor criminals who had had their sentences remitted were received from various naval prisons and detention camps.[42]
Service
Agincourt was working up until 7 September 1914, when she joined the 4th Battle Squadron (BS) of the Grand Fleet.[43] The fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow was not yet secure against submarine attack and much of the fleet was kept at sea, where Agincourt spent forty of her first eighty days with the Grand Fleet. This was the beginning of "a year and a half of inaction, only broken by occasional North Sea 'sweeps' intended to draw the enemy from his bases."[44]
On 1 January 1915, Agincourt was still assigned to the 4th BS, but had been assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron before the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. She was the last ship of the Sixth Division of the 1st BS, along with Hercules, Revenge and the flagship, Marlborough, the most heterogeneous group possible as each ship was from a different class. The Sixth Division was the starboardmost column of the Grand Fleet as it headed south to rendezvous with the ships of Admiral Beatty's Battle Cruiser Fleet, then engaged with their opposite numbers from the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea.[45] Admiral Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet, kept it in cruising formation until 18:15,[D] when he ordered it to deploy from column into a single line based on the port division, each ship turning 90° in succession. This turn made the Sixth Division the closest ships in the Grand Fleet to the battleships of the High Seas Fleet, and they fired on each ship as they made their turn to port. This concentration of fire later became known as "Windy Corner" to the British, as the ships were drenched by German shell splashes although none were hit.[46]
At 18:24, Agincourt opened fire on a German battlecruiser with her main guns. Shortly afterwards her six-inch guns followed suit as German destroyers made torpedo attacks on the British battleships to cover the turn to the south of the High Seas Fleet.[47] Agincourt successfully evaded two torpedoes, although another struck Marlborough.[48] Visibility cleared around 19:15, and she engaged a Kaiser-class battleship without result before it was lost in the smoke and haze.[49] Around 20:00, Marlborough was forced to reduce speed because of the strain on her bulkheads from her torpedo damage and her division mates conformed to her speed.[50] In the reduced visibility the division lost sight of the Grand Fleet during the night, passing the badly damaged battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz without opening fire.[51] Dawn found them with only the detritus from the previous day's battle in sight and the division arrived back at Scapa Flow on 2 June.[52] Agincourt fired 144 twelve-inch shells and 111 six-inch shells during the battle, although she is not known to have hit anything.[43]
Although the Grand Fleet made several sorties over the next few years it is not known if Agincourt participated in them. On 23 April 1918, Agincourt and Hercules were stationed at Scapa Flow to provide cover for the Scandinavian convoys between Norway and Britain when the High Seas Fleet sortied in an attempt to destroy the convoy. The reports from German Intelligence were slightly off schedule, as both the inbound and outbound convoys were in port when the Germans reached their normal route, so Admiral Scheer ordered the fleet to return to Germany without spotting any British ships.[53]
Agincourt was later transferred to the
The ship was sold on 22 January 1923 to
Notes
- ^ The only modern armoured ships in the Brazilian Navy were two small coast-defence ships launched in 1898.[5]
- ^ Brazil's external and internal debt would reach $500 and $335 million (respectively) by 1913, partly through rising deficits, which were $22 million in 1908 and $47 million by 1912.[13]
- ^ The price of coffee declined by 20% and Brazilian exports of it dropped 12.5%(This figure is unduly precise) between 1912 and 1913; rubber saw a similar decline of 25 and 36.6%,(This figure is unduly precise) respectively.[13]
- ^ The times used in this article are in GMT, one hour behind CET, which is often used in German works.
Footnotes
- ^ "Brazil's 32,000-Ton Dreadnought," Bulletin of the International Bureau of the American Republics 31, no. 1 (July 1910): 515.
- ^ a b c d e f Burt, p. 245
- ^ Grant, p. 148; Livermore, p. 32; Topliss, p. 240
- ^ Scheina, pp. 45–52
- ^ a b Preston, p. 403
- ^ a b Livermore, p. 32
- ^ Preston, p. 403; Livermore, p. 32
- ^ Scheina, p. 80
- ^ Scheina, p. 80; Preston, p. 403; Topliss, p. 240
- ^ Hough, p. 22; Livermore, pp. 39–41
- ^ Topliss, pp. 247–249
- ^ Scheina, pp. 81–82; Topliss, p. 269; Martin, p. 37
- ^ a b Martin, p. 37
- ^ Hermes Rodrigues da Fonseca, 3 May 1911, in Scheina, p. 354
- ^ Topliss, p. 280
- ^ Burt, p. 244
- ^ a b Parkes, p. 604
- ^ Burt, pp. 245, 250
- ^ Preston, p. 37
- ^ Hough, p. 150
- ^ Gibbons, p. 201
- ^ "British 12"/45 (30.5 cm) Mark XIII". navweaps.com. 20 February 2009. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
- ^ Parkes, p. 603
- ^ Hough, p. 160
- ^ a b c d e Burt, p. 250
- ^ "British 6"/50 (15.2 cm) BL Mark XIII". navweaps.com. 22 January 2009. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
- ^ Parkes, pp. 600, 603
- ^ Friedman, p. 46
- ^ Burt, pp. 244–245
- ^ Hough, pp. 89–90
- ^ Martin, pp. 36–37
- ^ Vanterpool, p. 140
- ^ Hough, pp. 72, 75
- ^ Hough, pp. 109–122
- ISBN 978-0-307-56762-8.
- ^ Fromkin, pp. 57–58
- ^ Hough, p. 121
- ^ Hough, pp. 143–144
- ^ Hough, pp. 152–153
- ^ Parkes, p. 600
- ^ Hough, p. 147
- ^ Hough, pp. 148–152
- ^ a b c Parkes, p. 605
- ^ Hough, p. 161
- ^ Hough, p. 174
- ^ Hough, p. 179
- ^ Tarrant, pp. 131, 133
- ^ Massie, p. 630
- ^ Hough, p. 183
- ^ Burt, p. 206
- ^ Massie, p. 651
- ^ Hough, pp. 184–185
- ^ Newbolt, pp. 236–237
- ^ Hough, p. 186
- ^ a b Dodson 2021, p. 196
- ^ Harner, p. 152
- ^ Dodson 2022, pp. 219–224
Bibliography
- Burt, R. A. (1986). British Battleships of World War One. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-863-8.
- Dodson, Aidan (2021). "Warship Notes: The Mobile Naval Base". In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2021. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing. p. 196. ISBN 978-1-4728-4779-9.
- Dodson, Aidan (2022). "Warship Gallery: The Scrapping of HMS Agincourt, New Zealand, and Princess Royal at Rosyth, 1923–1925". In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2022. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. pp. 219–224. ISBN 978-1-4728-4781-2.
- ISBN 978-1-59114-555-4.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-0857-9.
- Gibbons, Tony (1983). The Complete Encyclopedia of Battleships: A Technical Directory of Capital Ships from 1860 to the Present Day. New York: Crescent Books. ISBN 0-517-37810-8.
- Grant, Jonathan (2007). Rulers, Guns, and Money: The Global Arms Trade in the Age of Imperialism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. OCLC 166262725.
- Harner, Robert (2006). "Question 18/02: British Naval Base at Addu Atoll". Warship International. XLIII (2): 152. ISSN 0043-0374.
- OCLC 914101.
- Livermore, Seward (1944). "Battleship Diplomacy in South America: 1905–1925". Journal of Modern History. 16 (1): 31–48. S2CID 145007468.
- Martin, Percy Allen (1967) [1925]. Latin America and the War. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith. OCLC 468553769.
- ISBN 0-224-04092-8.
- Murfin, David (2020). "Warship Notes: The Mobile Naval Base". In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2020. Oxford, UK: Osprey. pp. 188–192. ISBN 978-1-4728-4071-4.
- ISBN 1-870423-72-0.
- ISBN 1-55750-075-4.
- ISBN 0-85177-245-5.
- Scheina, Robert (1987). Latin America: A Naval History, 1810–1987. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-295-8.
- Tarrant, V. E. (1999) [1995]. Jutland: The German Perspective: A New View of the Great Battle, 31 May 1916. London: Brockhampton Press. ISBN 1-86019-917-8.
- Topliss, David (1988). "The Brazilian Dreadnoughts, 1904–1914". Warship International. XXV (3): 240–289. ISSN 0043-0374.
- Vanterpool, Alan (1969). "The Riachuelo". Warship International. VI (2): 140–141. ISSN 0043-0374.
External links
- Dreadnought Project – Technical material on the weaponry and fire control for the ship
- Maritimequest HMS Agincourt Photo Gallery
- Agincourt Class Battleship – includes a diagram of her layout
- Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project – HMS Agincourt Crew List