Minotaur Class Cruiser (1906)
The three armoured cruisers of the Minotaur Class were completed in 1908 and 1909.
Design and Construction
A fourth member of the class, Orion, was sacrificed from the 1904-1905 estimates along with a third Lord Nelson battleship after the purchase of the two Triumph class battleships from Chile.[1]
Fire Control
Rangefinders
Directors
In 1916, it was approved that the ships of this class should be retrofitted with directors as time, resources and opportunity permitted.[2]
Plans to outfit these ships with directors started in early 1915 but were slow to execute. Defence was lost before receiving hers, and the other Minotaur and Shannon received theirs in August and October 1918, respectively.[3]
Main Battery
Secondary Battery
Torpedo Control
Transmitting Stations
It is weakly implied that there were 2, as one is called the fore T.S. in a 1915 source. This may simply mean that there was a single T.S., and that it was forward.[4]
Dreyer Table
These ships had no Dreyer table.[5]
Fire Control Instruments
The ships in this class primarily used Barr and Stroud Mark II Fire Control Instruments.
The Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909 lists their equipment as:[6]
- Combined Range, Order, Deflection: 8 transmitters, 40 receivers
- Group Switches: 4
- Rate: 4 transmitters, 12 receivers
- Bearing: none
- Range: none
Additionally, this class had the following Siemens fire control equipment:[7]
- Turret fire gongs: 26 with 8 keys
- Fire Gongs: 8 with 2 keys
- Captain's Cease Fire Bells: 16 with 1 key
By 1915, however, some Barr and Stroud bearing instruments had been installed.[8]
The 9.2-in turrets each had 2 bearing receivers that could be driven by a transmitter in the fore T.S. or by one of two special master transmitters mounted port and starboard in the foretop. A C.O.S. in the fore T.S. selected whether the 9.2-in group was driven by the transmitter in the fore T.S. or by one of the masters in the foretop. The fore T.S. had 3 repeat receivers wired off the 9.2-in and both 7.5-in groups to facilitate in changing over. The 7.5-in guns each had a single receiver, and the "special bearing transmitters" in the foretop also had a repeat receiver for their group. The overall bill of fare ran to:
- 2 special bearing transmitters, Graham's type
- 3 Barr and Stroud bearing transmitters (2 in foretop, 1 in fore T.S.)
- 19 bearing receivers:
- 4 in the two 9.2-in turrets
- 10 at the ten 7.5-in guns
- 3 repeats in the fore T.S.
- 2 repeats in the foretop
- Three C.O.S. (one in fore T.S., and two in foretop)
It is not clear to me why "special" bearing transmitters were required, and how these were made compatible with the B&S receivers.
None of the ships had Target Visible or Gun Ready signals.[9]
See Also
Footnotes
- ↑ McBride. "Lord Nelson and Agamemnon." p. 71.
- ↑ Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1916, p. 175.
- ↑ The Technical History and Index: Fire Control in HM Ships, 1919, p. 15.
- ↑ Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1915, p. 219.
- ↑ absent from table in Handbook of Capt. F.C. Dreyer's Fire Control Tables, p. 3.
- ↑ Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909, p. 58.
- ↑ Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909, p. 58.
- ↑ Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1915, p. 219.
- ↑ Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914, p. 11.
Bibliography
- Template:BibUKARTS1915
- Template:BibConways1906-1921
- Admiralty, Gunnery Branch (1910). Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909. Copy No. 173 is Ja 345a at Admiralty Library, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
- Admiralty, Gunnery Branch (1914). Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914. G. 01627/14. C.B. 1030. Copy 1235 at The National Archives. ADM 186/191.
- Template:BibUKDreyerTableHandbook1918
- Template:BibUKFireControlInHMShips1919
