HMS Africa (1905) - Technical Characteristics

Technical Characteristics

HMS Africa was laid down at Chatham Dockyard on 27 January 1904, launched on 20 May 1905, and completed in November 1906. She was the last battleship constructed at Chatham, later classes of battleships being too large for the yard.

Although Africa and her seven sister ships of the King Edward VII class were a direct descendant of the Majestic class, they were also the first class to make a significant departure from the Majestic design, displacing about 1,000 tons more and mounting for the first time an intermediate battery of four 9.2-inch (234 mm) guns in addition to the standard outfit of 6-inch (152 mm) guns. The 9.2-inch was a quick-firing gun like the 6-inch, and its heavier shell made it a formidable weapon by the standards of the day when Africa and her sisters were designed; it was adopted out of concerns that British battleships were undergunned for their displacement and were becoming outgunned by foreign battleships that had begun to mount 8-inch (203 mm) intermediate batteries. The four 9.2-inch were mounted in single turrets abreast the foremast and mainmast, and Africa thus could bring two of them to bear on either broadside. Even then, Africa and her sisters were criticised for not having a uniform secondary battery of 9.2-inch guns, something considered but rejected because of the length of time it would have taken to design the ships with such a radical revision of the secondary armament layout. In the end, it proved impossible to distinguish 12-inch and 9.2-inch shell splashes from one another, making fire control impractical for ships mounting both calibres, although Africa had fire-control platforms on her fore- and mainmasts rather than the fighting tops of earlier classes.

Like all British battleships since the Majestic class, the King Edward VIIs had four 12-inch (305 mm) guns in two twin turrets (one forward and one aft), although the final three King Edwards, including Africa, mounted the Mark X 12-inch, an improvement on the Mark IX mounted by the first five King Edwards. Mounting of the 6-inch guns in casemates was abandoned in Africa and her sister ships, the 6-inch instead being placed in a central battery amidships protected by 7-inch (178 mm) armoured walls. Otherwise, Africa's armour was much as in the London class battleships, although there were various differences in detail from the Londons.

Africa and her sisters were the first British battleships with balanced rudders since the 1870s and were very maneuverable, with a tactical diameter of 340 yards (310 m) at 15 kn (28 km/h). However, they were difficult to keep on a straight course, and this characteristic led to them being nicknamed "the Wobbly Eight" during their 1914–1916 service in the Grand Fleet. They had a slightly faster roll than previous British battleship classes, but were good gun platforms, although very wet in bad weather.

Primarily powered by coal, Africa had oil sprayers installed during her construction, as did all of her sisters except HMS New Zealand, the first time this had been done in British battleships. These allowed steam pressure to be rapidly increased, improving Africa's acceleration. The eight ships between them were given four different boiler installations for comparative purposes; Africa's outfit of Babcock and Wilcox and cylindrical boilers, reported by some sources to have been 12 Babcock and Wilcox and three cylindrical and by others to have been 18 Babcock and Wilcox and three cylindrical allowed her to exceed her designed speed on trials, during which she exceeded 18.95 knots (35 km/h).

Africa was a powerful ship when she was designed, and completely fulfilled the goals set for her at that time. However, she was unlucky in that the years of her design and construction were ones of revolutionary advancement in naval guns, fire control, armour, and propulsion. She joined the fleet in November 1906, but was made obsolete the next month by the commissioning of the revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought and the large numbers of the new dreadnought battleships that commissioned in succeeding years. By 1914, Africa and her sisters were, like all pre-dreadnoughts, so outclassed that they spent much of their 1914–1916 Grand Fleet service steaming at the heads of divisions of the far more valuable dreadnoughts, protecting the dreadnoughts from naval mines by being the first battleships to either sight or strike them.