Renown class battlecruiser

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Renown
Renown class RN Ensign
General Characteristics
(designed)
Displacement: 26,500 tons (design)

30,100 tons (maximum)

Length: 794 ft, 2.5 in (240 m) o/a
Beam: 89 ft, 11.5 in (30 m)
Draught: 29 ft, 8 in (8.94 m)
Propulsion: 42 Babcock & Wilcox type boilers, Brown-Curtis steam turbines, 4 shafts, 120,000 shp
Speed: 30.25 knots (service)

31.7 knots (Repulse trials)
32.68 knots (Renown trials)

Range:
Complement:
Armament:
  • 6 x BL 15 in /42 Mark I in 3 twin mountings Mark I
  • 15 x BL 4 inch /45 (102 mm) Mk.IX in 5 triple mounts TI Mk.I
  • 2 x BL 4 inch /45 (102 mm) Mk.IX in 2 single mounts CP Mk.I
  • 2 x QF 12 pdr 20 cwt (76.2 mm) Mark II in 2 single mounts HA Mk.II
  • 2 x single submerged tubes for 21 inch (533 mm) torpedoes
Armour:

Belt

  • 9 in, tapering to 2 in at lower edge

Main Deck

  • 4 in over magazines
  • 1 - 2.5 in over boiler rooms
  • 3 in over engine rooms
  • 3.75 - 4 in slope to side

Lower Deck

  • 3.75 - 4 in over magazines

Boiler Uptakes

  • 2 in over longditudnals
Aircraft: flying-off platforms on 'B' and 'X' turrets

The Renown class was a class of 2 battlecruisers of the Royal Navy built during the First World War.

They were originally going to be the last ships of the Revenge-class of battleships. The initial expectation of a short war led to their construction being suspended on the grounds they would not be ready in time. Admiral Fisher, upon becoming First Sea Lord, restarted the building as battlecruisers that could be built and enter service quickly. Eustace Tennyson-D'Eyncourt as Director of Naval Construction had designed the Revenges and the Renowns were produced by reducing the number of turrets from four to three and providing thinner armour. As a result build time was reduced and they were delivered not long after the battle of Jutland in 1916.

The two ships were HMS Renown, and HMS Repulse. A third ship, Resistance, was cancelled before construction started. They were the world's largest capital ships upon completion, until the commissioning of HMS Hood. The ships were notorious maintenance hogs and widely derided as "HMS Refit" and "HMS Repair".

Both ships served in World War I and World War II. Repulse was sunk on 10 December 1941 in the South China Sea off Kuantan, Pahang by Japanese aircraft. Renown survived the war, to be scrapped in 1948.

Repulse as she was in 1919
Repulse as she was in 1919
Renown, as reconstructed, in 1939
Renown, as reconstructed, in 1939

[edit] See also


Renown-class battlecruiser
Renown | Repulse
Preceded by: Tiger class - Followed by: Admiral class

List of battlecruisers of the Royal Navy
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