H.M.S. Invincible (1907)

HMS Invincible
Career	Details
Pennant:	85 (1914)
Ordered:	1906 Naval Program
Laid down:	2 April, 1906
Launched:	13 April, 1907
Commissioned:	20 March, 1909
Fate:	Sunk at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916
General Characteristics
Displacement:	17,526 tons
Length:	567 ft (172.8 m)
Beam:	78 ft 6 in (23.9 m)
Draught:	25 ft (7.6 m) normal; 29 ft 7 in (9 m) deep
Armament:	Eight 12 inch (305 mm) 45 caliber (4x2) Sixteen 4 inch (102 mm) (16x1) Seven Maxim machine guns (7x1) Five 18 inch (45.7 mm) torpedo tubes (4 broadside, 1 stern) One 3 inch anti aircraft gun added 1914
Propulsion:	Parsons geared steam turbines producing 41,000 shp; 4 shafts
Speed:	25.5 knots
Range:	2,270 nautical miles at 23 knots 3,050 nautical miles at 23 knots using fuel oil
Complement:	722 (as designed) 1,032 (as a flagship, May, 1916)

The fifth Invincible of the Royal Navy was a battlecruiser, the lead ship of her class of three, and the first battlecruiser to be built by any country in the world.

The ship was built at Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Ltd on Tyneside. She was laid down on 2 April 1906, and launched at 3 p.m. on 13 April 1907 by Lady Allendale. On 28 December, while still fitting out, she was hit by the collier Oden, which resulted in the buckling of beams and frames in the hull and 5 bottom plates were stove in. She was officially completed on 16 March 1909. On 18 March, she sailed from the Tyne to Portsmouth, where she would be commissioned. On the way, she collided with the brigantine Mary Ann, and stood by until the lifeboat John Birch arrived from Yarmouth to take the brigantine in tow. She was commissioned into the fleet on 20 March 1909.

She participated in fleet manoeuvres in April and June of 1909, the Spithead Review on 12 June 1909, and the Fleet Review off Southend on 2 July. Invincible initially served with the 1st Cruiser Squadron until 1913, when she was assigned to the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron. In March 1913, she collided with the Submarine C-34. At the beginning of the First World War, she took part in the action at the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914, before being sent along with her sister Inflexible to the South Atlantic where she fought in the first Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914. In this battle, she fired off 513 12 inch shells at the enemy.

At the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, she was the flagship of the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron. She was hit in her "Q" turret by a salvo from Lützow, which blew the roof off the turret over the site. It was either this shell hit which caused a flash down the magazine or a second shell in the same salvo that penetrated the armor and exploded in the magazine, causing a massive explosion. The ship broke in two and sank with the loss of all but six of her crew of 1,021. Admiral Hood was among the dead.

After the war, the wreckage was located by a minesweeper at 57-02-40 North Latitude, 06-07-15 East Longitude, 180 feet down.

General Design

In 1904 the Royal Navy was at a crossroads. Since 1887 successive governments, most notably that of Lord Salisbury in its second and third iteration, pursued a “Two-Power Standard” for the Royal Navy, building it up to the size of the next two largest naval power combined. This policy had seen Naval Estimates rise from less than £12.5 million in 1887 to a new peak of £36.8 million by 1904.

The navies of France, Russia, Japan, the United States and now Germany were growing at a rapid rate, and so too was the effort which the Royal Navy had to make to stay ahead. Of particular threat were the large numbers of large, powerful armoured cruisers being built by all these powers. These ships were large, fast and well suited to attacking Great Britain’s trade routes.

Between 1897 and 1904, the Royal Navy ordered 457,300 tons of large armoured cruisers and 434,670 tons of battleships. The cost of this construction was ruinous, as was the cost of maintaining extensive fleets and squadrons of large and small warships on a worldwide basis. The new Liberal Government, and the new First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher were determined to cut naval expenditure. Fisher himself was convinced that the Royal Navy of the future needed to be leaner, less costly and more powerful. In particular he was disdainful of the many small cruisers on foreign stations, deeming them “too small to fight and too slow to run away” from the modern, large armoured cruisers. Fisher wanted smaller numbers of larger, fast ships and very powerful ships that could run down and destroy smaller enemy vessels. HMS Dreadnought was one part of the solution found by Fisher’s committee. The other part was a new class of armoured cruisers.

The Naval Estimates continued to decline over the next three years, reaching a low of 31 million pounds, as Fisher paid off obsolete small cruisers and closed or downgraded overseas bases. These ships and bases were to be replaced by the new ships - able to sail quickly from one point to the next, hunt down their opposition and move on.

The new battlecruisers, as they were eventually named, retained the protection scheme of the last armoured cruisers, but added the all big gun armament and turbine propulsion of the Dreadnought-design. The result was a large, fast and powerful ship that rendered every existing armoured cruiser obsolete and soon saw that type disappear from the building programmes of every navy. Very quickly though, the Invincible-design was overtaken by new battlecruiser designs and was itself rendered obsolete, particularly with regard to protection.

The Battle of the Falkland Islands completely vindicated her design thinking, yet very soon after, at the Battle of Jutland, the obsolescence of this initial class was demonstrated by its vulnerability to large calibre fire of other ships, built of course in answer to her own design!

It was often said of the armoured cruisers -- particularly after the Canopus-class battleships used the properties of face hardened Krupp armour in 6 in (152 mm) thickness, identical to contemporary armoured cruiser protection -- that armoured cruisers would be a valuable addition to the battleline in some circumstances. With their powerful armament, use of battlecruisers in the line of battle was often postulated. However, at no time during First World War were British battlecruisers used in the battle line, although they suffered heavy losses while being deployed in the scouting forces of the main fleet.

See HMS Invincible for other ships of the same name.

References

• V. E. Tarrant, Battlecruiser Invincible: The History of the First Battlecruiser, 1909-1916 (Arms and Armour Press, London, 1986) ISBN 0-87021-147-1
• Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906 - 1921 (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1985)

HMS Invincible was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy and the lead ship of the