Roberts-class monitor

Class overview
Name: Roberts
Operators:  Royal Navy
In commission: 1 April 1941
Completed: 2
Lost: 0
General characteristics [1]
Type: monitor
Displacement:
  • Roberts:
  • 7,973 tons (Standard)
  • 9,150 tons (Full load)
  • Abercrombie:
  • 8,536 tons (Standard)
  • 9,717 tons (Full load)
Length: 373 ft (114 m)
Beam: 89 ft (27 m)
Draught:
  • Roberts: 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m)
  • Abercrombie: 14 ft 5 in (4.39 m)
Propulsion: 2 shaft, Parsons steam turbines, 2 boilers, 4,800 hp
Speed: 12.5 knots (14.4 mph)
Complement: 442 - 460
Armament:
Armour:
  • Turret: 13 inch
  • Barbette: 8 inch
  • Belt: 4-5 inches
Notes: Ships in class include: HMS Roberts (F40), HMS Abercrombie (F109)

The Roberts class of monitors of the Royal Navy consisted of two heavily gunned vessels built during the Second World War. They were the Roberts, completed in 1941, and Abercrombie, completed in 1943.

Features of the class, apart from two 15-inch guns in a twin mounting (taken from two First World War era Marshal class monitors), were shallow draught for operating inshore, broad beam to give stability (and also resistance to torpedoes and mines) and a high observation platform to observe fall of shot.

Ships

Ship Builder Namesake Laid down Launched Commissioned Fate
Roberts John Brown, Clydebank Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts 30 April 1940 1 February 1941 27 October 1941 Broken up at Inverkeithing, 1965
Abercrombie Vickers-Armstrongs, Wallsend Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Abercromby 26 April 1941 31 March 1942 5 May 1943 Broken up at Barrow-in-Furness, 1955
One of Roberts' guns (formerly in HMS Resolution) is mounted outside the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, South London, together with one from the battleship Ramillies. Roberts herself was sold for scrapping shortly after the war, but hired back by the Royal Navy as an accommodation ship at Devonport until 1965. It was widely rumoured that the ship-breakers who bought her had more than recovered their purchase price in rent before they then sold her remains as scrap metal.

References

  1. Conway, All The World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946
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