HMS Hood (1891)

The second warship to be named HMS "Hood" was a modified "Royal Sovereign"-class battleship of the Royal Navy, and the last of the eight built.

She was named after Admiral Sir Arthur William Acland Hood, First Lord of the Admiralty 1885–1889. (The other two "Hood"s were named after an earlier relative, Admiral Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood.)

Design

HMS "Hood" was laid down at Chatham Dockyard on 12 August 1889. She was launched on 30 July 1891, the Viscountess Hood christening her. She completed her sea trials in May 1893 and was completed on 1 June 1893. [Burt, p. 87]

In their day, the battleships of the "Royal Sovereign" class were the largest warships ever built. "Hood" differed significantly from the other "Royal Sovereigns" in that she had a freeboard of only convert|11|ft|3|in|m compared to convert|19|ft|6|in|m of the other members of the class. The "Royal Sovereign"s had reverted to a higher freeboard after several classes of low freeboard vessel had been constructed, the last being the "Trafalgar" class. Low freeboard had been popular for around ten years since it gave a smaller hull area to armour and made a smaller target for gunfire to hit, although it had the disadvantage that it reduced seaworthiness.

This small freeboard meant that "Hood" was very wet in rough weather and her maximum speed reduced rapidly as the wave height increased, making her only suitable for service in the relatively calm Mediterranean. This was seen as a vindication of the barbette/high-freeboard design in the rest of her class, and all subsequent British battleship classes had high freeboard. In part this was also due to the Entente Cordiale between France and Great Britain in which France took over defence of the Mediterranean and the Royal Navy was concentrated in the rougher home waters around the United Kingdom.

Because the stability of a ship is largely due to freeboard at high rolling angles, she was given a larger metacentric height (the vertical distance between the metacenter and the centre of gravity below it) of around convert|4.1|ft|m instead of the convert|3.6|ft|m of the rest of the "Royal Sovereign"s to make her roll less in rough seas. This had the effect of making her roll period shorter by around 7% compared to her sisters, which in turn made her gunnery less accurate.

In spite of the lower centre of gravity required, the increased displacement to achieve the lower freeboard allowed more weight in or near the keel, allowing the main armament guns and gun crews to be protected by armoured turrets -- a heavy type of rotating gun mounting of the mid- and late 19th century very different from what would later be known as gun "turrets" on ships -- rather than having the guns exposed on top of barbettes -- the ancestor of the modern "turret", which is essentially a barbette enclosed by a rotating gunhouse, a very different concept from the older style of turret "Hood" mounted -- as the other members of the class. The heavy, old-fashioned type of turrets added to the amount of weight high up in the ship compared to barbettes and also drove the design toward a lower freeboard. ["Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905", p. 33, and Burt, p. 85]

The upper 6-inch (152-mm) gun deck in the other "Royal Sovereign"s was enclosed in casemates in 1901-1902 replacing the original gun shields, but the stability of the "Hood" was considered insufficient for this modification.

The "Royal Sovereign" class battleships at first had a tendency to roll heavily in certain conditions; after HMS "Resolution" rolled badly in heavy seas in 1893, the class was nicknamed the "Rolling Ressies," a name which stuck even though the fitting of bilge keels quickly solved the problem. [Burt, p. 66]

Overall, "Hood" was considered a useful comparison to her near-sisters, as the operational utility of old-style heavy turrets and the resulting required low freeboard could be compared to that of lighter barbettes allowing a higher freeboard aboard otherwise nearly identical ships in terms of machinery, protection, armament, and so forth. The Royal Navy concluded that the advantages of barbettes and higher freeboard they allowed outweighed the drawbacks of heavier, old-style turrets and the lower freeboard requirement they imposed, and future British battleships were designed with barbettes and higher freeboard, with the barbettes protected by armored rotating gunhouses (the modern gun "turret"). ["Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905", p. 33, and Burt, p. 85]

Operational History

HMS "Hood" commissioned at Chatham on 1 June 1893 for service with the Mediterranean Fleet. She had an inauspicious beginning, being in commission only six days when she sprang a leak in her forwarad compartments on 7 June 1893 as a result of faulty riveting and excessive strain on the hull when she had been on the blocks. Repairs were complete in two days, and on 9 June 1893 she returned to service. The Duke of Edinburgh inspected her ceremonially, after which she departed Chatham Dockyard on 12 June 1893. She was inspected officially by Vice Admiral Sir Algernon C. F. Heneage, Commander in Chief at the Nore, on 17 June 1893. She departed Sheerness for the Mediterranean on 18 June 1893, stopping at Gibraltar to coal from 26 June 1893 to 29 June 1893. [Burt, p. 89]

"Hood" arrived at Malta on 3 July 1893 to take up her Mediterranean Fleet duties, relieving battleship HMS "Colossus". In 1897 and 1898, "Hood" served as part of the International Squadron blockading Crete and maintaining order during the Greco-Turkish uprising there. Her Mediterranean Fleet service ended in April 1900, when she returned to the United Kingdom without relief in the Mediterranean and paid off into reserve at Chatham Dockyard on 29 April 1900. [Burt, p. 89]

On 12 December 1900, "Hood" recommissioned to relieve battleship HMS "Thunderer" as port guard ship at Pembroke Dock. [Burt, p. 89]

for a refit. [Burt, p. 89]

Her refit completed, "Hood" commissioned at Devonport on 25 June 1903 to relieve battleship HMS "Collingwood" in the Channel Fleet. As a unit of "Fleet B1," she took part in combined exercises of the Channel Fleet, Mediterranean Fleet, and Home Fleet in annual maneuvers off the coast of Portugal from 5 August 1903 to 9 August 1903. On 28 September 1904, battleship HMS "Russell" relieved "Hood" of her Channel Fleet duties. "Hood" commissioned into reserve at Devonport on 3 January 1905, where she remained in reserve until February 1907. [Burt, p. 89]

In April 1909, "Hood" was refitted and partially stripped at Devonport, after which she began service as a receiving ship at Queenstown, Ireland. In September 1910, she recommissioned to continue this service and to serve as flagship of the Senior Naval Officer, Coast of Ireland. [Burt, p. 90]

In March 1911, she was towed to Portsmouth and placed on the disposal list. From 1911 to 1914, she was employed as a target for underwater protection experiments, and in 1913 and 1914 was used in highly secret tests of anti-torpedo bulges, proving their utility for use on Royal Navy capital ships. [Burt, p. 90, and "Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921", p. 7.] She was placed on the Sale List in August 1914. ["Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921", p. 7.]

Fate

After World War I began in August 1914, concerns arose over gaps in the defenses of Portland harbour. On 4 November 1914, "Hood" was scuttled in Portland harbour to block the Southern Ship Channel, a potential access route for U-boats or for torpedoes fired from outside of the harbour. The intention had been for her to gradually settle on the seabed with her seacocks open but she took so long to sink that the tide turned and she started to be pulled out of position, and consequently explosives were quickly used to blow a hole in her hull. She broke her back and came to rest with her keel awash; [Burt, p. 90] the wreck lies upside down, a common position for sunken battleships because of the weight of the turrets, at coord|50|34.10|N|2|25.22|W|display=inline.

Her wreck became known as "Old Hole in the Wall" [Burt, p. 90] and was popular with local scuba divers until diving there was banned at the beginning of January 2004 for safety reasons.

Despite her 1914 scuttling, the Royal Navy included "Hood" on its sale list in both 1916 and 1917. [Burt, p. 90]

Notes

References

*Burt, R. A. "British Battleships 1889-1904". Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1988. ISBN 0870210610.
*D. K. Brown, "Warrior to Dreadnought, Warship Development 1860-1906", ISBN 1-84067-529-2
*Chesneau, Roger, and Eugene M. Kolesnik, eds., "Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships, 1860-1905", (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1979), ISBN 0-85177-133-5
* Gray, Randal, ed. "Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships, 1906-1921". Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1985. ISBN 0870219073.

External links

* [http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_directory/great_britain/battleships/hood_1891/hms_hood_1891.htm Maritimequest HMS Hood Photo Gallery]
*http://css.engineering.uiowa.edu/fluidslab/pdfs/57-020/stability.pdf
*http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/docs/swos/dca/stg4-01.html