Admiral Class
The Admiral-class battlecruisers were intended as improved versions of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, but were recast as battlecruisers after Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet, saw no real need for more battleships. A number of German battlecruisers had been laid down that were superior to the bulk of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers so the design was revised to counter these. The class was going to consist of HMS Hood, Anson, Howe, and Rodney—all names of famous Admirals—but the latter three ships were suspended as the material and labour required to complete them was needed for higher-priority merchantmen and escort vessels. Their designs were updated to incorporate the lessons from the Battle of Jutland, but the Admiralty eventually decided that it was better to begin again with a clean-slate design so they were cancelled in 1919.
Hood, however, was sufficiently advanced in construction that she was completed in 1920 and immediately became flagship of the Battlecruiser Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet. In 1923–24 Hood, accompanied by Repulse and a number of Danae-class cruisers, sailed around the world from west to east via the Panama Canal. On 23 April 1937, after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, she escorted three British merchantmen into Bilbao harbour despite the presence of the Nationalist cruiser Almirante Cervera that attempted to blockade the port. Hood spent most of the early part of the Second World War patrolling against German commerce raiders and escorting convoys. As flagship of Force H based at Gibraltar, she bombarded French ships during the attack on Mers-el-Kébir. In May 1941 Hood and the battleship Prince of Wales were ordered to intercept the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as they attempted to break out into the North Atlantic. In the subsequent Battle of the Denmark Strait Hood's aft magazines exploded, sinking her within five minutes of the start of the battle.
| Ship | Main guns | Armour | Displacement | Propulsion | Service | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laid down | Completed | Fate | |||||
| HMS Hood | 8 × 15-inch | 12 inches | 46,680 long tons (47,429 t) | 4 screws, steam turbines, 31 kn (57 km/h; 36 mph) |
1 September 1916 | 15 May 1920 | Sunk 24 May 1941 by the German battleship Bismarck |
| HMS Anson | 9 November 1916 | Suspended March 1917 | Cancelled 27 February 1919 | ||||
| HMS Howe | 16 October 1916 | ||||||
| HMS Rodney | 9 October 1916 | ||||||
Read more about this topic: List Of Battlecruisers Of The Royal Navy
Famous quotes containing the words admiral and/or class:
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—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“I have been amazed by the Anglo-Saxon’s lack of curiosity about the internal lives and emotions of the Negroes, and for that matter, any non-Anglo-Saxon peoples within our borders, above the class of unskilled labor.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)