Calliope Class Cruiser (1914)
The two light cruisers of the Calliope Class were completed in 1915.
Contents
Armament
Guns
Torpedoes
2 Service Bar 21-in submerged broadside tubes amidships depressed 2 degrees and bearing 90.[1]
These could not be fired at speeds over 24 knots, as divergent waves would make depth-taking very uncertain.[2]
Fire Control
Rangefinders
Evershed Bearing Indicators
The Centaur class were the first light cruisers fitted with Evershed gear for gun control, but it is not clear whether older light cruisers were ever fitted.[3]
Orders for Evershed installations for searchlight control from February 1917 first applied to the Danae class, but seem unlikely to have applied to earlier ships.[4]
Gunnery Control
Control Positions
Control Groups
Directors
In 1916, it was approved that the ships of this class should be retrofitted with directors as time, resources and opportunity permitted.[5]
Circumstances being what they may ("don't you know there's a war on?"), both were fitted with directors in 1918.[6]
The director was on a pedestal mounting without a tower. Likely, there was no directing gun.[7]
Torpedo Control
Transmitting Stations
Dreyer Table
These ships probably had had no fire control tables during the war, but by 1930 each had Dreyer Turret Control Tables in her T.S..[8]
Fire Control Instruments
Alterations
In 1916, it was approved that the Calliope (and conceivably her class), should have range receivers in the fore top to show rangefinder ranges, presumably transmitted from the T.S.[9]
See Also
Footnotes
- ↑ Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1915, p. 35.
- ↑ Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1916, pp. 35, 81. (T.O. 145/1916; C.I.O. 1449 of 1917)
- ↑ The Technical History and Index: Fire Control in HM Ships, 1919, p. 29.
- ↑ The Technical History and Index: Fire Control in HM Ships, 1919, p. 29.
- ↑ Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1916, p. 175.
- ↑ The Technical History and Index: Fire Control in HM Ships, 1919, pp. 11-12.
- ↑ Handbook of Captain F.C. Dreyer's Fire Control Tables, 1918., p. 142 and plate opposite.
I am inferring that the 2 light cruisers shown in the plate are meant to represent those with and without a tower. - ↑ absent from list in Handbook of Capt. F.C. Dreyer's Fire Control Tables, p. 3, Pamphlet on the Turret Dreyer Table as fitted in the turrets of H.M. battleships and in the transmitting stations of certain cruisers, 1930, p. 4.
- ↑ Annual Report of the Torpedo School, 1916, p. 145.
Bibliography
- Template:BibUKARTS1915
- Template:BibUKDirectorFiringHandbook1917
- Admiralty, Gunnery Branch (1910). Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909. Copy No. 173 is Ja 345a at Admiralty Library, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
- Template:BibUKDreyerTableHandbook1918
- Template:BibUKFireControlInHMShips1919
