Design and Description
No battlecruisers were ordered after the three Invincible-class ships in 1905 until Indefatigable became the lone battlecruiser of the 1908–09 Naval Programme. A new Liberal Government had taken power in January 1906 and demanded reductions in naval spending, and the Admiralty submitted a reduced programme, requesting dreadnoughts but no battlecruisers. The Cabinet rejected this proposal in favor of two outmoded armoured cruisers but finally acceded to a request for one battlecruiser instead, after the Admiralty pointed out the need to match the recently published German naval construction plan and to maintain the heavy gun and armour industries. Indefatigable's outline design was prepared in March 1908, and the final design, slightly larger than Invincible with a revised protection arrangement, was approved in November 1908. A larger design with more armour and better underwater protection was rejected as too expensive.
The ship had an overall length of 590 feet (179.8 m), a beam of 80 feet (24.4 m), and a draught of 29 feet 9 inches (9.1 m) at deep load. She normally displaced 18,500 long tons (18,800 t) and 22,130 long tons (22,490 t) at deep load. Her turbines were designed to produce a total of 43,000 shaft horsepower (32,000 kW), but reached over 55,000 shp (41,000 kW) during sea trials in 1911. She was designed for 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph), but reached 26.89 knots (49.80 km/h; 30.94 mph) during trials.
Indefatigable's main armament was eight breech-loading BL 12-inch Mark X guns mounted in four hydraulically powered twin turrets. Two turrets were mounted fore and aft on the centreline, identified as 'A' and 'X' respectively. The other two were wing turrets mounted amidships and staggered diagonally: 'P' was forward and to port of the centre funnel, while 'Q' was situated starboard and aft. 'P' and 'Q' turrets had some limited ability to fire to the opposite side. Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen BL 4-inch Mark VII guns positioned in the superstructure. She mounted two 17.72-inch (450 mm) submerged torpedo tubes, one on each side aft of 'X' barbette, and twelve torpedoes were carried.
Indefatigable was unique among British battlecruisers in having an armoured spotting and signal tower behind the conning tower, protected by 4 inches (102 mm) of armour. However, the spotting tower was of limited use, as its view was obscured by the conning tower in front of it and the legs of the foremast and superstructure behind it. During a pre-war refit, a 9-foot (2.7 m) rangefinder was added to the rear of the 'A' turret roof, and this turret was equipped to control the entire main armament as an emergency backup for the normal fire-control positions.
Read more about this topic: HMS Indefatigable (1909)
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