HMS Anson (1886)

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Career

Laid down:	April 24, 1883
Launched;	February 17, 1886
Completed:	May 1889
Broken up:	1909
General Characteristics
Displacement:	10,600 tons
Length:	330 ft
Beam:	68 ft 6 inches
Draught:	27 ft 10 inches
Engine:	Two-shaft Humphreys compound inverted I.H.P.= 7,500; 11,500 with forced draught
Speed:	15.7 knots; 17.4 knots with forced draught
Complement:	530
Armament:	Four 13.5 inch breech loaders Six 6 inch breech-loaders Twelve 6-pounders Five above-water torpedo tubes
Armour:	Belt 18 inches upper strake, 8 inches lower strake Bulkheads 16 inches to 7 inches Barbettes 14 inches to 12 inches Conning towers 12 inches to 2 inches Battery screens 6 inches Upper deck 3 inches Lower deck 2.5 inches

HMS Anson was a Victorian era battleship of the Royal Navy, and was the last member of the Admiral class to be laid down.

In common with HMS Rodney, HMS Howe, HMS Camperdown and HMS Benbow she was a progressive development of the design of HMS Collingwood and was an exact sister-ship of Camperdown.

She was armed with guns of 13.5 inches in calibre, which was a significant advance on earlier ships. The 13.5 inch calibre gun was chosen because it was of virtually the weight and power as the artillery which the French naval architects were shipping in their Formidable and Amiral Baudin. It was a much more powerful weapon than the 12 inch gun mounted in Collingwood and in some earlier ships, and would in theory penetrate the thickest armour carried on any warship currently afloat. Tests indicated that a charge of 630 pounds of gunpowder or 187 pounds of cordite would fire a shell weighing 1,250 pounds through an iron plate of thickness 27 inches at a range of 1,000 yards. Because of delays in the manufacture of these weapons the completion of Anson, and of all of her sisters, was vastly prolonged, there being some six or seven years between laying-down and commissioning.

In Anson and Camperdown the thickness of the armour plate on the barbettes was increased, as compared to Howe and Rodney, as was the length of the armour belt. To accommodate these changes without an increase in displacement these later two ships were lengthened by five feet, and had their beam increased by six inches over their earlier sister-ships.

[edit] Service History

She arrived at Portsmouth from the builder's yard in Pembroke in March 1887, and lay at anchor for two years, slowly completing for sea while waiting for her guns to be manufactured. She finally commissioned May 28, 1889 as flagship of the Rear-Admiral, Channel Fleet. In September 1893 she as transferred to the Mediterranean, where she served until January 1900, with a refit at Malta in 1896. She returned home and paid off at Devonport in January 1901, re-commissioning for the newly-formed Home Fleet in March of the same year. In May 1904 Anson finally paid off into reserve, where she remained until sold on July 13, 1909.