Indefatigable class battle-cruiser - HMS Australia

From SN Guides

The name Australia

Three ships have borne the name Australia , it was first used in 1885 for a member of the eight strong Orlando class of armoured cruisers , this ship built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company at their Govan works on the Clyde was the only ship of the Royal Navy to use the name. Laid down in April 1885 she was launched in November 1886 and commissioned in October 1888, the Orlando class were a series of fairly small first class armoured cruisers 300 feet long they displaced 5,600 tons full load and were powered by twin screws each driven by a three cinder triple expansion engine, under forced draft they developed 8,500 IHP and could make almost 19 knots. Armament was two 9.2” breech loading guns, rather strangely these were initially open weapons with no shields, one gun was fitted fore and aft, They were also carried ten 6” guns, five on either beam, six 6 pounder and ten 3 pounder guns completed the outfit, they class were also fitted with six torpedo tubes, one at the bow and one at the stern were of the submerged type the other four were deck mounted, two on either beam , Australia commissioned for the Mediterranean station in 1889 and in 1903 she was assigned as a coast guard vessel and scrapped in 1905 at Troon. Following on from the royal navy ship was HMAS Australia the subject of this article. Australia was next assigned to the Kent class heavy cruiser HMAS Australia built by John Browns at their Clydebank works 1925-28 she was some 630 feet long and displaced just slightly less than the 10,000 ton 1922 Washington treaty limit for heavy cruisers, the class could make almost 32 knots on their four steam turbines which developed 80,000 shp, they had an excellent range and were very good sea-boats however their main armament of eight 8” guns were new and prone to teething troubles in the early years, four 4”, 4 3 pounder and a single quadruple 2 pounder gun plus two sets of Quadruple torpedo tubes completed their outfit. At the end of a long war Australia was hit by no less than six Kamikaze aircraft, five off the Lingayen gulf, resulting in the loss of 86 of her crew. Repaired she sailed on until 1954 when she was decommissioned and then scrapped at Barrow in 1955 There was to be a fourth use of Australia, the third HMAS Australia but following the Falklands war Britain decided not to sell the Carrier / thru-deck cruiser HMS Invincible ( R05) to Australia, she had been intended as a replacement for the carrier HMAS Melbourne.

This undated and unplaced image shows Australia in what must be Portsmouth - note the transom stern of the Victory on the left, the Australia is fitted with anti-torpedo nets, these were removed aerly in WW1 so this is early in her life and the only tme she was in Portsmouth was at her commissioning in June 1913 so this picture whas highly likely to have been taken at that time

Class information

The indefatigable class of three battle-cruisers – Indefatigable, Australia and New Zealand were intended to be a battle-cruiser variant of the single ship of class HMS Neptune, a battleship, however financial constraints dictated that costs were kept down and instead the class was a virtual repeat of the previous Invincible class but some 23 feet longer to allow the two mid-ships turrets ( P and Q) to be placed on the centre line thus giving them better arcs of fire and removing the problems of cross-deck firing associated with the Invincible class. The armour scheme of the Indefatigable class was virtually identical to the Invincible class apart from the enclosing bulkheads of the citadel, inadequate in the Invincible’s, was actually thinner in the Indefatigable’s. Much has been written about the poor comparison between the Armour of the British battle-cruisers and their German Counter-parts but it should be remembered that the role for the battle-cruiser was not to engage similar ships, in the days before radar and aerial scouting fleets sent ahead fast scouting cruisers, these would make contact with an enemies ships and then steam back at high speed to report to the slower heavy ships in the main fleet. Battle-cruisers were intended to be as fast, if not faster , than these scouting cruisers and to be armed with heavy long range guns, they would then sink these scouting cruisers thus depriving an enemy of its ‘eyes’. For this role the British designed battle-cruisers were ideally suited unfortunately it was all to easy for an Admiral to look at these ships and include their eight heavy guns into the main battle-line, this was a major error, once the battle-cruisers were kept in the main gun line they became a target for ships similarly armed and they were just not protected against this sort of battle and the end results were inevitable, three Invincible, Indefatigable and Queen Mary were to be lost during the Battle Of Jutland., exposed to fire against which they had no armoured defence. Although similar in many ways the Invincible and Indefatigable classes were easy to tell apart, the Invincible two mid-ships turret s were fitted en-echelon and were also together between the second and third funnels whilst the Indefatigable class had the two mid-ships turrets separated by the middle funnel.

Building data

Australia was built by the famous John Brown and Company’s Clydebank Shipyard, she was laid down on the 23rd June 1910, launched on the 25th October 1911 and commissioned in June 1913, finance for the ship being provided by Australia and on her commissioning became the flagship of the Royal Australian Navy ( RAN). Her building costs were a little under £1,800,000. A strange feature of both the Australia and , New Zealand which were funded by their respective countries, was that their construction started at about the same time the RN began building the Lion class, the Lion’s were a far better design of battle-cruiser, the only reason I can think for this occurring was that the Indefatigable’s were a very much cheaper design

Basic Details

Length 590’00” Beam 80’00” Draft 26’06” Displacement 18,500 tons standard and 22,110 tons full load

Machinery

Quadruple propellers were driven by Parsons direct drive steam turbines in a virtually identical layout to that of the Invincible class battle-cruisers , the turbines consisted of a high pressure ahead and astern turbine on the outboard shafts and a low pressure ahead and astern on the two inboard shafts, the inboard shafts also incorporated an ahead cruising turbine for fuel economy, the turbines developed a total of 44,000 shp giving a speed of 25 knots, on her trials on overload she attained 55,881 shp which gave her a speed of 26.89 knots Steam was supplied from a total of 32 Babcock and Wilcox coal fired boilers, the boilers were also fitted with oil sprayers to facilitate raising steam quickly and to provide maximum power when required, the bunker capacity of 3,170 tons of coal and a 840 tons of oil gave them a range of 6,330 miles at 10 knots. The class was fitted with twin rudders which made them quite manoeuvrable with a small tactical diameter.

Armament

Main battery

Eight 12” C45 Mk10 guns in four twin turrets with one turret – A - on the foc’sle deck, Y was right aft and two turrets were amidships P forward of the No2 funnel and Q aft , although P and Q turrets still had restricted arcs of fire ahead and astern they were in a better position than the echelon arrangement in the previous Invincible class and could fire an eight-gun broadside without risking blast damage to the ship, Construction of the gun barrels was of wire winding of several miles of thin flat wire onto a steel inner tube, this was then covered with a steel jacket, bore length was 45 calibre’s or 540 inches and the guns were fitted with an improved mechanical type breech, each gun weighed approximately 57 tons with the two gun turret weighing a total of 450-500 tons, although of a calibre favoured by the Admiralty these guns were not a good weapon at long range as the shell tended to wobble in flight giving poor accuracy. The guns had a range of 16,500 yards at an elevation of 13.5 degrees and fired a shell weighing 850 to 859lbs using a propellant charge of 258lbs. of Cordite MD45 ( MD standing for Cordite Modified - now obsolescent and comprised 65% guncotton and 30% nitro-glycerine and 5% Vaseline) the number indicates this is a rod shaped propellant i.e. it is in long rods not granular. The charges were in four silk bags, the silk was a special type called ‘Shallon’ much coarser than normal silk this ensured that it burnt completely in the barrel so as to leave no residue that might ignite a following charge. The shell life of the guns was reasonable at 220 rounds per gun (RPG) with on board stowage being 800 rounds or 80 RPG. Rate of firing was two rounds per minute on gun-layers tests but in battle it was nearer one round per minute Penetration was given as 10.5” of armour plate at a range of 10,000 yards.

This image scanned from a very old manual shows the layout of the main and secondary weapons of the Indefatigable class battle-cruisers. Note that the two midships (P and Q) turrets are offset, this was to keep the additional length of the ship to a minimun from the original Invincible design. The proximity of the guns to the ships side and thus lack of protection from interior structures entailed a patch of armour having to be added to the side of each respective side of the ship in the area of the vulnerable turret. The side elevation shows the outline of the armour scheme

Secondary battery

Sixteen single 4” C50 Mk7 guns were fitted to this class of ship, thankfully none were installed on the main turret roofs a place that was untenable when the main armament was in action instead they were all in either casemates open mounts around the deck houses.

Torpedo armament

The class were originally fitted with three 18” submerged torpedo tubes, one aft and one on either beam, about 1915 the stern tube was removed from all three of the ships.

Armour Protection

As already mentioned above the armour scheme of these ships was not great nor was it intended to be, fighting a heavily armed opponent was not originally intended, the class was particularly weakly defended against long-range plunging shell-fire. The main belt consisted of a shallow belt just 6” thick with a 4” upper belt, closing the armoured citadel off were two armoured bulkheads which were just 4” thick, The decks over the magazines and machinery spaces were just 2.5” thick and reduced to an inch elsewhere, the barbettes protecting the turret machinery and shell hoists were a little better at 7” were they were outside of other armour but reduced to just 3” inside of other armour. The main turret faces were 10” thick with 6” side and back plates and the control tower armour was 2.75” thick.

Service History

HMAS Australia commissioned into the RAN on the 21st. June 1913 under the command of Captain Stephen H. Radcliffe RN, on the 23rd June she hoisted the flag of Rear Admiral George Edwin Patey as flagship of the Australian fleet , HMAS Australia sailed from Portsmouth on the 21st July 1913 in company with the light cruiser HMAS Sydney – a Chatham class light cruiser which had just been built by the London and Glasgow Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde, Sydney was later to become famous when she was involved in the RAN’s first ship to ship battle with the German light cruiser / raider Emden on the 09th November 1914, the voyage back to Australia was used to publicise the RAN and raise awareness of its role. Australia along with the cruisers Encounter, Melbourne and Sydney escorted by the Destroyers Parramatta, Warrego and Yarra arrived at Sydney on the 04th of October 1913 to an enthusiastic welcome, following this she carried out a tour of Australia visiting most if not all the major ports, one memorial to her at this time is the film ‘Sea Dogs of Australia’ the battle-cruiser in the film is Australia. When World war one broke out the Australian fleet was a major deterrent to the German East Asiatic Fleet under Admiral Graf Von Spee and kept that fleet out of Australia’s waters, during these times Australia captured the German supply ship Sumatra.

I can definitely ID this image from my fathers collection of cuttings as the Australia and can see that the anti-torpedo nets have gone so it was taken post the start of WW1. The photo was obviously taken from above but does not look to be high enough for an aeroplane so I think it was taken from the Forth bridge either leaving or entering the Firth of Forth with what may be the Renown or Repulse astern which indicates it is about 1916/7

At the end of December 1914 Australia sailed for England via the Panama canal, during the crossing of the Pacific she encountered one of Graf Spee’s supply ships the SS Eleonore Woermann, a 5,000 ton collier, Spee at this time had already been defeated by Rear Admiral Sturdee off the Falkland Islands, Australia captures the collier, removed it’s crew then sank her with a single 12” shell. Arriving in Devonport on the 25th January 1915 she sailed shortly afterwards for Rosyth were on the 15th February she hoisted the flag of Rear Admiral Sir William Pakenham assuming the role of flagship of the 2nd Battle-Cruiser Squadron (2BCS) this squadron comprised the three ships of the Indefatigable class : Australia new Zealand and Indefatigable herself and was based on Rosyth. For the next months the 2BCS’s life was one of routine sweeps and patrols of the North Sea then out on manoeuvres on the 22nd April 1916 the 2BCS found itself in dense fog and the New Zealand collided quite heavily with the Australia, New Zealand’s damage was quickly repaired, not so the Australia, her damage was quite severe and so she spent until the 09th June 1916 under repair at Rosyth dockyard ans so missed the Battle of Jutland on the 31st May -01st June 1916, New Zealand taking over as Flag of the 2BCS which sailed as a two ship squadron. When she returned to service she again joined the 2BCS and resumed her life of routine patrols, in December 1917 she opened fire on a possible submarine sighting but this was likely a false alarm. On the 12th December 1917 during fleet manoeuvres she collided with the battle-cruiser HMS Repulse and needed nearly a month under repair. In February 1918 several of Australia’s crew volunteered for special duties leaving the ship temporarily for the raids on Ostend and Zeebrugge were they acquitted themselves very well. Towards the end of the war Australia carried out a number of trials for flying off aircraft from a makeshift platform on top of the barrels of A turrets guns. On the 11th November the armistice was signed and on the 21st November Australia led the port column of the ships greeting the surrendering German High Seas Fleet as they arrived at the Firth of Forth for disarmament checks before being interned in Scapa Flow, In the Firth of Forth each allied ship was given watch over a German counterpart to ensure no foul play, Australia watched over the battle-cruiser Hindenburg. In early 1919 Australia left Northern waters for Plymouth and on the 23rd April 1919 sailed for Freemantle were she arrived on the 28th May 1919 for a planned four day visit, however this proved short of the expectations of her crew , a request was made for a longer stay but this was refused and so a number of the crew, chiefly the stokers, refused to sail the ship. A number of men were charged with mutiny, delayed by all this she did not arrive in Sydney until the 15th June. – she had been away from Australia just short of 5 years so perhaps her men’s behaviour was justified., several of the men involved in the so called mutiny were jailed but outrage in the country saw them freed relatively quickly. Now resuming the role of flagship of the RAN costs of running the ship became the ruling factor and she was reduced to the role of a gunnery training ship with a reduced crew at the Flinders Naval Depot until 1921 when she returned to Sydney to pay off into reserve. The 1922 naval arms limitation treaty held in Washington now ended her career, she had any useful weaponry and equipment removed plus any valuable non-ferrous scrap removed, a large numbers of parts were also sold as souvenirs and on the 24th April 1924 the battle-cruiser was towed out to sea 24 miles from Sydney heads and scuttled – she was less than nine years old, the world of naval war-fare had moved on a long way from the times when she was conceived and built and to be brutally honest she would not have stood the test of combat with the newer ships then around. To have kept were would have been a truly awesome task, she would have need new machinery, her 12” guns were obsolete so new armament and rebuilding the ship to take that armament would have been a massive under-taking. Her battle-cruiser armour woefully inadequate when she was built would not have protected her against the newer light cruisers let alone anything larger, so the decision to delete her was entirely the best solution

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Bibliography

Article completed 26th may 2008 - Steve Woodward

1. IWM
2. Conway’s 1906-21
3. Kew records office

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