Броненосец «Триумф»: История и гибель корабля

Swiftsure class pre dreadnought battleship

HMS Triumph, originally known as Libertad, was the second of the two pre dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy. The ship was ordered by the Chilean Navy, but she was purchased by the United Kingdom as part of ending the Argentine–Chilean naval arms race. Triumph was initially assigned to the Home Fleet and Channel Fleets before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1909. The ship briefly rejoined the Home Fleet in 1912 before she was transferred abroad to the China Station in 1913. Triumph participated in the hunt for the German East Asia Squadron of Maximilian Graf von Spee and in the campaign against the German colony at Qingdao, China early in World War I. The ship was transferred to the Mediterranean in early 1915 to participate in the Dardanelles Campaign against the Ottoman Empire. She was torpedoed and sunk off Gaba Tepe by the German submarine on 25 May 1915.

Triumph was ordered by Chile, with the name of Libertad, in response to the Argentine purchase of two armoured cruisers from Italy during a time of heightened tensions with Argentina. After the crisis subsided, financial problems forced Chile to put the ship up for sale in early 1903; concerned that Russia might buy them, the United Kingdom stepped in and with financing via merchant bank Antony Gibbs & Sons purchased the still incomplete ships from Chile on 3 December 1903 for £2,432,000. The ship was designed to Chilean specifications, particularly the requirement to fit in the graving dock at Talcahuano, and was regarded by the British as a second class battleship.

Triumph had an overall length of 475 feet (145 m), a beam of 71 feet (22 m), At deep load she had a metacentric height of 4.01 feet (1 m). In 1906, the crew numbered 729 officers and ratings. She carried a maximum of of coal, enough to steam at .

The ship was armed with four 45 calibre long BL 10 inch Mk VII guns in two twin gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. each gun was provided with 90 shells. Triumphs secondary armament consisted of fourteen 50 calibre long BL 7.5 inch Mk IV guns. Ten of the guns were mounted in a central battery on the main deck; the other four were in casemates abreast the fore and mainmasts on the upper deck. A major problem with the guns on the main deck was that they were mounted low in the ship—only about 10 feet (3 m) above water at deep load—and were unusable at high speed or in heavy weather as they dipped their muzzles in the sea when rolling more than 14°. The guns fired projectiles at a muzzle velocity of at a rate of four rounds per minutes. At their maximum elevation of 15° they had a maximum range of about The ship carried 150 rounds per gun. Defence against torpedo boats was provided by fourteen QF 14 pounder Mk II guns, but the guns were modified in British service to use the standard shell used by the QF 12 pounder 18 cwt gun in British service. 200 rounds per gun was carried by Triumph. The turret faces were thick and their sides and rear were thick. Their roofs were two inches thick and the sighting hood protecting the gunners was thick. Above the upper deck the barbettes were thick on their faces and eight inches on the rear. Below this level they thinned to three and two inches respectively. The conning tower was protected by of armour on its face and eight inches on its rear. The deck armour inside the central citadel ranged from 1 to 1.5 inches in thickness. Outside the citadel, the lower deck was three inches thick and sloped to meet the lower side of the belt armour. She was completed in June 1904

Triumph was recommissioned using the crews of demobilised river gunboats, supplemented with two officers, 100 ratings, and six signallers from the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, and was ready for sea on 6 August 1914. Triumph, together with the French cruiser Dupleix, captured the German merchant ship Senegambia, laden with coal and cattle, on the morning of 21 August, with Dupliex then chasing and eventually capturing a second merchant ship, the C. Ferd Laeiz. On the evening of 21 August, Triumph captured the German merchant ship Frisia, also carrying coal and cattle. On 23 August 1914, she was attached to the Imperial Japanese Navy's Second Fleet, participated in the campaign against the German colony at Qingdao. with Triumph taking part in several bombardments of German positions until the capture of Qingdao by the Japanese. Triumph was hit by a German shell during a bombardment on 14 October, damaging a mast, and killing one crewman and wounding two more. With Qingdao in Japanese hands, Triumph returned to Hong Kong for a refit on 19 November 1914. Upon completion of her refit in January 1915, Triumph was transferred to the Dardanelles for service in the Dardanelles Campaign. The ship departed Hong Kong on 12 January and stopped at Suez from 7 February to 12 February before moving on to join the Dardanelles Squadron. Triumph took part in the opening attack on the entrance forts on 18 February and 19 February, and joined the predreadnoughts and in using her secondary battery to silence the fort at Sedd el Bahr on 25 February. She, Albion, and were the first Allied battleships to enter the Turkish Straits during the campaign when they carried out the initial attack on the inner forts on 26 February. She also took part in the attack on Fort Dardanos on 2 March 1915. She and Swiftsure were detached from the Dardanelles on 5 March for operations against forts at Smyrna, returning to the Dardanelles on 9 March.