Design and Description
During the First World War, Admiral Fisher was prevented from ordering an improved version of the preceding Renown-class battlecruisers by a wartime restriction that banned construction of ships larger than light cruisers. To obtain ships suitable for traditional battlecruiser roles, such as scouting for fleets and hunting enemy raiders, he settled on a design with the minimal armour of a light cruiser and the armament of a battlecruiser. He justified their existence by claiming he needed fast, shallow-draught ships for his Baltic Project, a plan to invade Germany via its Baltic coast.
Glorious had an overall length of 786 feet 9 inches (239.8 m), a beam of 81 feet (24.7 m), and a draught of 25 feet 10 inches (7.9 m) at deep load. She displaced 19,180 long tons (19,490 t) at load and 22,560 long tons (22,922 t) at deep load. Glorious and her sisters were the first large warships in the Royal Navy to have geared steam turbines. To save time the installation used in the light cruiser Champion, the first cruiser in the Royal Navy with geared turbines, was simply doubled. The Parsons turbines were powered by eighteen Yarrow small-tube boilers. They were designed to produce a total of 90,000 shaft horsepower (67,113 kW) at a working pressure of 235 psi (1,620 kPa; 17 kgf/cm2). During the ship's abbreviated sea trials she reached 31.42 knots (58.19 km/h; 36.16 mph).
The ship was designed to normally carry 750 long tons (760 t) of fuel oil, but could carry a maximum of 3,160 long tons (3,210 t). At full capacity, she could steam for an estimated 6,000 nautical miles (11,110 km; 6,900 mi) at a speed of 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph).
Glorious carried four BL 15-inch Mark I guns in two twin hydraulically powered Mark I* turrets, one each fore ('A') and aft ('Y'). Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen BL 4-inch Mark IX guns mounted in six manually powered triple T.I. Mark I mounts. These mounts had the three breeches too close together and the 23 loaders tended to interfere with each other. This rather negated the mount's intended purpose to provide a high rate of fire against torpedo boats and other smaller craft. A pair of QF 3 inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns were fitted abreast the mainmast on Glorious. She mounted two submerged tubes for 21-inch torpedoes and 10 torpedoes were carried.
Read more about this topic: HMS Glorious
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