HMS Severn (1914)

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Career

Class and type:	Humber-class monitor
Name:	HMS Severn
Builder:	Vickers
Laid down:	August 24, 1912
Launched:	19 August 1913
Acquired:	8 August 1914
Fate:	Sold 9 May 1921 for scrapping
General characteristics
Displacement:	1,260 tons
Length:	266.75 feet (81.3 m)
Beam:	=49 feet (14.9 m)
Draught:	5.6 feet (1.7 m)
Propulsion:	2 shaft Triple Expansion; 2 Yarrow boilers 1450 ihp
Speed:	12 knots (22.2 km/h)
Armament:	2×6-inch (152 mm) guns 2×4.7-inch (119 mm) DP guns 4×3 pndr gun 1×3 pdr (40mm) AA gun
Armour:	Belt 3" - 1.5" (75mm - 40mm); Bulkheads 1.5" (40mm); Barbette 3.5" (90mm); turret face 4" (100mm)

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Severn.

HMS Severn was a Humber-class monitor of the Royal Navy. Originally built by Vickers for Brazil, she was purchased by the Royal Navy in 1914 on the outbreak of World War I along with her sister ships Humber and Mersey. She had been christened Solimoes by the Brazilians, but was renamed by the British.^[1] The three ships were the first of a new type of specialised shore-bombardment warships. She was 265 feet long and 49 feet wide. Her draft when fully loaded was only 6.5 feet, but very un-manoeuvrable and unseaworthy in open waters in anything more than a Force 5 wind.

She had a relatively successful career in World War I and had two prominent incidents. At the Battle of the Yser in 1914, off the coast of Belgium, she bombarded German troops as well as artillery positions. In July 1915 she was towed to the Rufiji River delta in German East Africa where she and Mersey then assisted in the destruction of the Kaiserliche Marine cruiser SMS Königsberg.