HMS Indomitable (1907)

HMS "Indomitable" was an "Invincible"-class battlecruiser of the Royal Navy. She was one of the first of her type of ship, a battlecruiser, and like the "Dreadnought", the class effectively turned every other large cruiser obsolete.

The ship had been designed concurrently with the "Dreadnought", and so when all four ships commissioned, a ripple of pride swelled the Fleets of His Majesty King Edward VII, not to mention the people of the United Kingdom at that time. It seemed Britannia really did rule the waves.

The production of these battlecruisers was ultra-secret; indeed the secrecy led to the Germans countering the "Invincible" class with merely an armoured cruiser, what they believed would be an almost equal type of ships to counter the "Invincibles". What could potentially have been a potent ship, the and warship|French battleship|Vérité|1907|2 bombarded the Turkish forts of Sedd-al-Bahr and Kum Kale. The attack was successful, but only just. The success increased the confidence of the Admiralty of the ability of warships to attack and defeat shore batteries, though this confidence would prove not to be foresighted, for in 1915 shore batteries wreaked havoc among a number of battleships and battlecruisers during the Dardanelles Campaign in 1915. At the Battle of Jutland, "Indomitable", under the command of Captain F.W. Kennedy was part of the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron, which comprised the two other ships of her class. Her gunnery officer was Cdr. Lachlan Donald Ian Mackinnon.

"Indomitable" was placed into Reserve in 1919 and subsequently paid off in 1920 and scrapped in 1922 due to the Washington Treaty. The other remaining ship of the class, "Inflexible", was also paid off in 1920 and scrapped in 1922.

See also

* More Ships Built in Govan

References

External links

* [http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_directory/great_britain/battleships/indomitable/hms_indomitable.htm Maritimequest HMS Indomitable Photo Gallery]