HMS Royal Sovereign (05)
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.jpg/250px-HMS_Royal_Sovereign_(Revenge-class_battleship).jpg) |
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| Career ( United Kingdom Soviet Union) |
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|---|---|
| Builder: | Portsmouth Naval Dockyard |
| Laid down: | 15 January 1914 |
| Launched: | 29 April 1915 |
| Commissioned: | 18 April 1916 |
| Renamed: | Arkhangelsk, May 30 1944 |
| Fate: | Sold 5 April 1949 and scrapped |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 27,500 tons standard 31,200 tons max |
| Length: | 624 ft (190 m) |
| Beam: | 88 ft (27 m) , later expanded to 102 ft (31 m) |
| Draught: | 28 ft (8.5 m) |
| Propulsion: | Steam turbines, eighteen boilers, four shafts, 40,000 hp (30 MW) |
| Speed: | 23 knots (43 km/h) |
| Complement: | 997 |
| Armament: | Eight 15 inch (381 mm) guns in twin turrets Fourteen 6 inch (152 mm) guns in single casemates Two 3 inch (76 mm) guns in single mountings Four 47 mm guns in single mountings Four 21 inch (533 mm) submerged torpedo tubes |
| Armour: | belt: 1 to 13 inches, barbettes: 4-10 inches, turrets: 13 inch maximum |
HMS Royal Sovereign (pennant number 05), launched in May 1915, was a Revenge-class (also known as Royal Sovereign and R-class) battleship of the Royal Navy displacing 27,500 tons and armed with eight 15-inch (381 mm) guns.
She did not enter service before the Battle of Jutland in the First World War and had a relatively quiet Second World War service.
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[edit] World War II
At the outset of war in September 1939, Royal Sovereign was with the Home Fleet. By mid 1940, she had moved to the Mediterranean Fleet, where she was present at the Battle of Punta Stilo on July 18, but her slow speed prevented Cunningham forcing Italian battleships Giulio Cesare and Conte di Cavour to a decisive fight.
She performed Atlantic convoy escort duty during 1940-41. In October 1942, Royal Sovereign was briefly assigned to the Eastern Fleet. Initially based at Trincomalee, Ceylon, she was withdrawn, together with the other older battleships of the fleet (Ramillies, Resolution and Revenge), to Kilindini, Kenya. These warships had been deemed too obsolete to challenge the Japanese Navy's warships or to be risked against naval air power.
During 1942-43, Royal Sovereign underwent a refit in the United States.
On May 30 1944 she was transferred on loan to the Soviet Navy as Arkhangelsk in lieu of war reparations from Italy. A Soviet crew commissioned the Arkhangelsk on 30 May 1944 and she sailed with convoy JW.59 on 24 August 1944. The Arkhangelsk remained inactive in the Arctic for the remainder of the war and she was returned to the Royal Navy on 4 February 1949. She arrived at Inverkeithing on the 18 May 1949 to be scrapped.
Part of her gun turret mechanism was later reused in the 250-foot (76 m) "Mark I" radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire built in 1955-57.
[edit] See also
See HMS Royal Sovereign for other ships of this name.
[edit] References
- Soviet Warships of the Second World War by Jurg Meister. Macdonald and Janes, London; (1977), ISBN 0-356-08402-7
[edit] External links
- Maritimequest HMS Royal Sovereign Photo Gallery
- Photos of Russian Northern Fleet during WWII
- Article in World War II magazine describing Churchill's plan to convert HMS Royal Sovereign and other R-class battleships into "armoured turtles" to invade the Baltic Sea in 1940.
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