HMS Furious (47) - Design and Description

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 ships 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.

Furious had an overall length of 786 feet 9 inches (239.8 m), a beam of 88 feet (26.8 m), and a draught of 24 feet 11 inches (7.6 m) at deep load. She displaced 19,513 long tons (19,826 t) normally and 22,890 long tons (23,257 t) at deep load. She had a metacentric height of 5.33 feet (1.6 m) at deep load. Furious and her half-sisters were the first large warships in the Royal Navy to have geared steam turbines. To save design time the installation used in the light cruiser Champion, the first cruiser in the RN with geared turbines, was copied and simply duplicated to provide two sets of turbines. The four Brown-Curtis turbines were powered by eighteen Yarrow small-tube boilers that were designed to produce a total of 90,000 shaft horsepower (67,000 kW). The ship's speed was an estimated 31.5 knots (58.3 km/h; 36.2 mph), but she never ran her sea trials.

Furious was designed to normally carry 750 long tons (762 t) of fuel oil, but could carry a maximum of 3,160 long tons (3,211 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). The ship was designed to carry two BL 18-inch Mark I guns in two single turrets, one each fore ('A') and aft ('Y'). Her secondary armament consisted of 11 BL 5.5-inch Mk I guns. A pair of QF 3 inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns were mounted before the funnel. Furious also mounted two submerged tubes for 21-inch torpedoes and 10 torpedoes were carried.

Even as she was being built, Furious was modified with a large hangar capable of housing ten aircraft on her forecastle that replaced the forward turret. A 160-foot (49 m) flight deck was built along its roof. Aircraft were flown off and, rather less successfully, landed on this deck. Floatplanes like the Short Type 184 used a four-wheel trolley that ran down a track along the centre of the flight deck for take-off. Aircraft were lifted by crane from the hangar to the flight deck. Although the aft turret was fitted and the gun tested, it was not long before Furious returned to her builders for further modifications. In November 1917, the rear turret was replaced by a 300-foot (91 m) deck for landing aircraft over another hangar. Her funnel and superstructure remained intact, with a narrow strip of decking around them to connect the fore and aft flight decks. Turbulence from the funnel and superstructure was severe enough that only three landing attempts were successful before further attempts were forbidden. Her 18-inch guns were reused on Lord Clive-class monitors General Wolfe and Lord Clive during the war.

Furious was laid down on 8 June 1915 at Armstrong Whitworth's Low Walker shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne. The ship was launched on 18 August 1916 and commissioned on 26 June 1917. As completed, her complement numbered 737 officers and enlisted men.