Британдық «Сент-Винсент» линкор кемесі

British Royal Navy battleship

HMS St Vincent was the lead ship of her class of three dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. After commissioning in 1910, she spent her whole career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets, often serving as a flagship. Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, during which she damaged a German battlecruiser, and the inconclusive action of 19 August several months later, her service during World War I generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. The ship was deemed obsolete after the war and was reduced to reserve and used as a training ship. St Vincent was sold for scrap in 1921 and broken up the following year.

The design of the St Vincent class was derived from that of the previous , with more powerful guns and slight increases in size and protection. St Vincent had an overall length of 536 feet (163 m), a beam of 84 feet (26 m), and a normal draught of 28 feet (9 m). She displaced at normal load and at deep load. Her crew numbered 756 officers and ratings in 1911, and 835 in 1915. St Vincent was powered by two sets of Parsons direct drive steam turbines each driving two propeller shafts using steam provided by 18 coal burning Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were rated at and were intended to give the ship a maximum speed of During her sea trials on 17 December 1909, the ship reached a top speed of from St Vincent carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of at a cruising speed of .

The St Vincent class was equipped with ten breech loading (BL) Mk XI guns in five twin gun turrets, three along the centreline and the remaining two as wing turrets. The secondary, or anti torpedo boat armament, comprised twenty BL Mk VII guns. Two of these guns were each installed on the roofs of the fore and aft centreline turrets and the wing turrets in unshielded mounts, and the other ten were positioned in the superstructure. All guns were in single mounts. Friedman shows the QF Mark III as a 40 calibre gun and states that the 50 calibre BL Mark VII gun armed all of the early dreadnoughts.|group=Note The ships were also fitted with three 18 inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and the third in the stern. Approximately of additional deck armour was added after the Battle of Jutland. By April 1917, St Vincent mounted 13 four inch anti torpedo boat guns as well as one four inch and one three inch AA gun, and the ship was modified to operate a kite balloon around the same time. In 1918 a high angle rangefinder was fitted and the stern torpedo tube was removed before the end of the war. was ordered on 26 October 1907. She was laid down at HM Dockyard, Portsmouth, on the same date, launched on 10 September 1908 and completed in May 1909. Including her armament, her cost is variously quoted at £1,721,970 She was commissioned on 3 May 1910 and assigned as the junior flagship of the 1st Division of the Home Fleet. She was commanded by Captain Douglas Nicholson and was present in Torbay when King George V visited the fleet in late July. St Vincent also participated in the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 24 June 1911. On 1 May 1912, the 1st Division was renamed the 1st Battle Squadron. The ship participated in the Parliamentary Naval Review on 9 July at Spithead before beginning a lengthy refit late in the year. On 21 April 1914, she was recommissioned and resumed her role as the flagship of the second in command of the 1st Battle Squadron,

Between 17 and 20 July 1914, St Vincent took part in a test mobilisation and fleet review as part of the British response to the July Crisis. Arriving in Portland on 27 July, she was ordered to proceed with the rest of the Home Fleet to Scapa Flow two days later In August 1914, following the outbreak of World War I, the Home Fleet was reorganised as the Grand Fleet, and placed under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe. On the evening of 22 November 1914, the Grand Fleet conducted a fruitless sweep in the southern half of the North Sea; St Vincent stood with the main body in support of Vice Admiral David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron. The fleet was back in port in Scapa Flow by 27 November. The 1st Battle Squadron cruised north west of the Shetland Islands and conducted gunnery practice on 8–12 December. Four days later, the Grand Fleet sortied during the German raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, but failed to make contact with the High Seas Fleet. St Vincent and the rest of the Grand Fleet conducted another sweep of the North Sea on 25–27 December. Jellicoe's ships, including St Vincent, conducted gunnery drills on 10–13 January 1915 west of the Orkney and Shetland Islands. On the evening of 23 January, the bulk of the Grand Fleet sailed in support of Beatty's battlecruisers, but the fleet was too far away to participate in the Battle of Dogger Bank the following day. On 7–10 March, the Grand Fleet conducted a sweep in the northern North Sea, during which it conducted training manoeuvres. Another such cruise took place on 16–19 March. On 11 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a patrol in the central North Sea and returned to port on 14 April; another patrol in the area took place on 17–19 April, followed by gunnery drills off Shetland on 20–21 April. The Grand Fleet conducted sweeps into the central North Sea on 17–19 May and 29–31 May without encountering any German vessels. During 11–14 June the fleet conducted gunnery practice and battle exercises west of Shetland. King George V inspected all of the personnel of the 2nd Division aboard St Vincent during his visit to Scapa on 8 July She became a private ship that month when she was relieved by as flagship.

In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the High Seas Fleet, composed of 16 dreadnoughts, 6 pre dreadnoughts, and supporting ships, departed the Jade Bight early on the morning of 31 May. The fleet sailed in concert with Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's 5 battlecruisers. The Royal Navy's Room 40 had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation. In response the Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet, totalling some 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. St Vincent, under the command of Captain William Fisher, was assigned to the 5th Division of the 1st Battle Squadron at this time. Shortly after 14:20, Fisher semaphored the Grand Fleet's flagship, , that his ship was monitoring strong radio signals on the frequency used by the High Seas Fleet that implied the Germans were nearby. Detection of further signals was communicated at 14:52. As the Grand Fleet began deploying from columns into a line of battle beginning at 18:15, the 5th Division was near the rear. St Vincent, the twentieth ship from the head of the battle line after deployment, was briefly forced to stop to avoid overrunning ships further forward as the fleet had been forced to slow to to allow the battlecruisers to assume their position at the head of the line. During the first stage of the general engagement, the ship began firing a few salvos from her main guns at the crippled light cruiser at 18:33, although the number of hits made, if any, is unknown. Between 18:40 and 19:00 the ship turned away twice from what were thought to be torpedoes that stopped short of the ship. From 19:10 St Vincent began firing at what was initially identified as a German battleship, but proved to be the battlecruiser , hitting her target twice before she disappeared into the mist. The first armour piercing, capped (APC) shell was probably a ricochet and struck the upper hull abreast the bridge. It wrecked the sickbay and slightly damaged the surrounding superstructure and hull, which caused some minor flooding. One man in the conning tower was wounded by a splinter. The second hit penetrated the rear armour of the superfiring turret at the rear of the ship, wrecking it and starting a small fire that was easily extinguished by the crew. This was the last time that St Vincent fired her guns during the battle. The ship fired a total of 98 twelve inch shells (90 APC and 8 common pointed, capped) during the battle.

After the battle, the ship was transferred to the 4th Battle Squadron. On 24 April 1918, St Vincent was under repair at Invergordon, Scotland, when she and the dreadnought were ordered north to reinforce the forces based at Scapa Flow and the Orkneys when the High Seas Fleet sortied north for the last time to intercept a convoy to Norway. She was unable to leave port before the Germans turned back after Moltke suffered engine damage. The ship was present at Rosyth when the German fleet surrendered on 21 November. In March 1919, she was reduced to reserve and became a gunnery training ship at Portsmouth. St Vincent then became flagship of the Reserve Fleet in June and was relieved as gunnery training ship in December when she was transferred to Rosyth. There she remained until listed for disposal in March 1921 as obsolete. She was sold to the Stanlee Shipbreaking & Salvage Co. for scrap on 1 December 1921 and towed to Dover for demolition in March 1922.