Линкоры типа "Сент-Винсент": История и характеристики

Warship class of the British Royal Navy

The St Vincent class battleships were a group of three dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. The sister ships spent their entire careers assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets. Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and the inconclusive action of 19 August several months later, their service during the First World War generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. was destroyed in 1917 by a magazine explosion with the near total loss of her crew. The remaining pair were obsolete by the end of the war in 1918, and spent their remaining time either in reserve or as training ships before being sold for scrap in the early 1920s. Vanguards wreck was extensively salvaged before it was declared a war grave. Since 2002, it has been designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 and diving on the wreck is generally forbidden.

The Admiralty's 1905 draft building plan called for four capital ships in the 1907–1908 Naval Programme, but the new Liberal government cut one of these ships in mid 1906 and postponed another to the 1908–1909 Naval Programme, pending the conclusion of the ongoing Hague Peace Convention. The failure of the Germans to agree to any sort of naval arms control caused the government to reinstate the third ship. The Admiralty took until 12 June 1907 to decide not to build one of them as a battlecruiser, in favour of a squadron of four homogeneous battleships. Three of these would be part of the St Vincent class, while the single battleship planned for the 1908–1909 Naval Programme was later authorised as
The design of the St Vincent class was derived from the preceding , with more powerful guns and a slight increase in size and armour. The ships 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). They displaced at normal load and at deep load. In comparison to the Bellerophon class, the displacement of the St Vincents was increased by , the length by 10 feet (3 m) and the beam by ; their crews numbered about 755 officers and ratings upon completion and 835 during the war. The St Vincent class ships were powered by two sets of Parsons direct drive steam turbines, each of which was housed in a separate engine room. The outer propeller shafts were coupled to the high pressure turbines and these exhausted into low pressure turbines which drove the inner shafts. Separate cruising turbines were provided for each shaft. The turbines used steam from eighteen water tube boilers at a working pressure of They were rated at and were intended to give the ships a maximum speed of During their sea trials, the St Vincents handily exceeded their designed speed and horsepower, reaching from They carried of coal and an additional of fuel oil that was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. This gave them a range of at a cruising speed of .

These ships were the first to carry the new 50 calibre breech loading (BL) Mark XI gun, which was 5 calibres longer and had a muzzle velocity about higher than the 45 calibre Mark X gun used in the earlier dreadnoughts. They had a reputation for drooping at the muzzle, which was believed to have an adverse effect at long range, but testing at sea showed the muzzle droop to be within normal tolerances and the accuracy at long range to be satisfactory. The increased muzzle velocity of the Mark XI gun gave it a longer range over the Mark X gun as well as increasing the distance at which it could penetrate 12 inches of armour from using the same shell. The higher velocity reduced its service life by increasing the wear in the barrel. The St Vincent class were equipped with ten Mark XI guns in five hydraulically powered twin gun turrets, three along the centreline and the remaining two as wing turrets. The centreline turrets were named 'A', 'X' and 'Y' from front to rear, and the port and starboard wing turrets were 'P' and 'Q' respectively. The ships carried between 80 and 100 shells per gun. refn|Sources disagree on the number, type and composition of the secondary armament. Burt gives only eighteen 4 inch guns and claims that they were the older quick firing QF Mark III guns; he also lists a 12 pounder (three inch (76 mm)) gun. 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. They were provided with 150 rounds per gun; the wartime allowance for each gun was 200 rounds. Four 3 pounder saluting guns were also carried. The ships were equipped with three 18 inch (450 mm) submerged torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and another in the stern, for which nine torpedoes were provided. As a backup, two turrets in each ship ('A' and 'Y' in St Vincent) could take over if necessary. In 1910–1911, the four inch guns on the roof of the forward turret of Vanguard were replaced by a rangefinder. This was removed about a year later, roughly at the same time when the rooftop guns were removed from the forward turrets of the other two ships. In late 1914, the remaining rooftop guns were replaced on the three sister ships by 9 foot rangefinders protected by armoured hoods. Fire control technology advanced quickly during the years between the St Vincents' commissioning and the start of World War I and the most important development was the director firing system. Mounted high in the ship, a fire control director electrically provided data to the turrets via a pointer on a dial, which the turret crewmen only had to follow. The director layer fired the guns simultaneously, which aided in spotting the shell splashes and minimised the effects of the roll on the dispersion of the shells. While the exact dates of installation are unknown, St Vincent was equipped with a director by December 1915 and the others by May 1916. The ships were fitted with Mark I Dreyer Fire control Tables in the transmission stations by early 1916, which combined the functions of the Dumaresq and the range clock.

The St Vincent class ships had a waterline belt of Krupp cemented armour that was thick between the fore and aftmost barbettes that reduced to before it reached the ships' ends. It covered the side of the hull from the middle deck down to 4 feet (1 m) below the waterline where it thinned to amidships. Above this was a strake of 8 inch armour. Transverse bulkheads thick terminated the thickest parts of the waterline and upper armour belts once they reached the outer portions of the endmost barbettes. The three centreline barbettes were protected by armour thick above the main deck and thinned to below it. The wing barbettes were similar except that they had 10 inches of armour on their outer faces. The gun turrets had faces and sides with 3 inch roofs. The three armoured decks ranged in thickness from with the greatest thickness outside the central armoured citadel. The front and sides of the forward conning tower were protected by 11 inch plates, although the rear and roof were 8 inches and 3 inches thick respectively. The aft conning tower had 8 inch sides and a 3 inch roof. The St Vincents had two longitudinal anti torpedo bulkheads thick that extended from the forward end of 'A' barbette to the end of 'Y' magazine. In the vicinity of the boiler rooms, the compartments between them were used as coal bunkers.

After the battle, St Vincent and Collingwood joined Vanguard in the 4th BS. The Admiralty order meant that the Grand Fleet spent far less time at sea. In late February 1917, the 4th BS conducted tactical exercises for a few days. In January 1918, Collingwood and some of the older dreadnoughts cruised off the coast of Norway for several days, possibly to provide distant cover for a convoy to Norway. Along with the rest of the Grand Fleet, she sortied on the afternoon of 23 April when radio transmissions revealed that the High Seas Fleet was at sea, after a failed attempt to intercept the regular British convoy to Norway. The Germans were too far ahead of the British to be caught and no shots were fired. St Vincent was under repair at Invergordon, Scotland, and could not sortie, but was present at Rosyth when the German fleet surrendered on 21 November; Collingwood was refitting in Invergordon.

In the evening of 9 July 1917, Vanguards magazines exploded while she was anchored in the northern part of Scapa Flow; she sank almost instantly, with only three survivors, one of whom died soon afterwards; 842 men aboard were lost. Collingwoods crew recovered the bodies of three men killed in the explosion.

In March 1919, St Vincent was reduced to reserve and became a gunnery training ship at Portsmouth. She 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; she was sold for scrap on 1 December 1921 and demolished. Much of Vanguards wreck was salvaged before it was declared a war grave in 1984. The amidships portion of the ship is almost completely gone and 'P' and 'Q' turrets are some away, presumably blown there by the magazine explosions. The bow and stern areas are almost intact as has been revealed by a survey authorised by the Ministry of Defence in 2016 in preparation for the centenary commemoration planned for 2017. The wreck was named a controlled site in 2002 and cannot be dived upon, except with permission from the Ministry.