HMS Albion (1898) - Technical Description

Technical Description

HMS Albion was laid down by Thames Iron Works at Leamouth, London on 3 December 1896. Tragedy struck when she was launched on 21 June 1898; after the Duchess of York christened her, a wave created by Albion's entry into the water caused a stage from which 200 people were watching to collapse into a side creek, and 34 people, mostly women and children, drowned. This was probably one of the first ever ship launchings to be filmed. Albion's completion then was delayed by late delivery of her machinery. She finally began trials late in 1900, during which she was further delayed by machinery and gun defects, and she was not finally completed until June 1901.

Albion was designed for service in the Far East, and to be able to transit the Suez Canal. She was designed to be smaller (by about 2,000 tons), lighter, and faster than her predecessors, the Majestic-class battleships, although she was slightly longer at 430 feet (131 meters). In order to save weight, she carried less armour than the Majestics, although the change from Harvey armour in the Majestics to Krupp armour in Albion meant that the loss in protection was not as great as it might have been, Krupp armour having greater protective value at a given weight than its Harvey equivalent. Still, her armour was light enough to make her almost a second-class battleship.

Part of her armor scheme included the use of a special 1-inch (2.54 mm) armoured deck over the belt to defend against plunging fire by howitzers that France reportedly planned to install on its ships, although this report proved to be false.

Albion had four 12-inch (305-mm) 35-caliber guns mounted in twin turrets fore and aft, mounted in circular barbettes that allowed all-around loading, although at a fixed elevation. She also mounted twelve 6-inch (152-mm) 40-caliber guns (sponson mounting allowing some of them to fire fore and aft) in addition to smaller guns, and four 18-inch (457-mm) submerged torpedo tubes.

The Canopus class ships were the first British battleships with water-tube boilers, which generated more power at less expense in weight compared with the cylindrical boilers used in previous ships. The new boilers led to the adoption of fore-and-aft funnels, rather than the side-by-side funnel arrangement used in may previous British battleships. The Canopus-class ships proved to be good steamers, consuming 10 tons of coal per hour at full speed, with a high speed for battleships of their time, a full two knots faster than the Majestics.