Operational History
The ships spent their lives in the routine of the Victorian Royal Navy, participating in annual manoeuvres and occasional fleet reviews from their commissioning until the early 1900s. All saw service in home waters and many also served in the Mediterranean, where some saw service in the 1897–1898 blockade of Crete. The class generally went into the commissioned reserve around 1905.
In 1906, the Royal Sovereigns, like every other battleship in the world, were made obsolete with the launch of the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought, the first all-big-gun battleship. They were consigned to less critical duties for the remainder of their service life, and began to appear on the disposal list in 1909. Only two ships survived to see the outbreak of war in 1914, one of them (Hood) quickly being sunk as a blockship. Only one, Revenge (renamed Redoubtable in 1915), saw action in World War I, bombarding the coast of Belgium in 1914 and 1915 before decommissioning.
Read more about this topic: Royal Sovereign Class Battleship
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