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HMS ''Boadicea'' was the lead ship of the scout cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She led the 1st Destroyer Flotilla from completion until 1912. During World War I, she was assigned to battleship squadrons of the Grand Fleet. She was present at, but did not fight in, the Battle of Jutland in mid-1916. The ship was converted into a minelayer at the end of 1917 and made three sorties to lay her mines before the end of the war. ''Boadicea'' was paid off after the end of the war and hulked in January 1921 at Dartmouth. She was sold for scrap in 1926. ==Design and description== Designed to provide destroyer flotillas with a command ship capable of outclassing enemy destroyers with her six guns, ''Boadicea'' proved too slow in service from the start of her career. Her speed was barely capable of matching the speeds of the destroyers she led in her flotilla in 1909 and proved inadequate to match the speed of later destroyers.〔Gardiner & Gray, p. 50〕 Displacing , the ship had an overall length of , a beam of and a deep draught of . She was powered by two Parsons steam turbine sets, each driving two shafts. The turbines produced a total of , using steam produced by 12 Yarrow boilers that burned both fuel oil and coal, and gave a maximum speed of . She carried a maximum of of coal and of fuel oil.〔Friedman 2009, p. 295〕 Her crew consisted of 317 officers and enlisted men.〔 Her main armament consisted of six breech-loading (BL) four-inch Mk VII guns. The forward pair of guns were mounted side by side on a platform on the forecastle, the middle pair were amidships, one on each broadside, and the two remaining guns were on the centreline of the quarterdeck, one ahead of the other.〔 The guns fired their shells to a range of about .〔Friedman 2011, pp. 75–76〕 Her secondary armament was four quick-firing (QF) s and two submerged 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes. During the war, four additional four-inch guns were added amidships to increase her firepower. A QF three-inch 20 cwt〔"Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 20 cwt referring to the weight of the gun.〕 anti-aircraft gun was also added. In 1918 it was replaced by a four-inch gun.〔 As a scout cruiser, the ship was only lightly protected to maximize her speed. She had a curved protective deck that was thick on the slope and on the flat.〔 Her conning tower was protected by four inches of armour.〔 ==Construction and service== The fourth ship to bear her name,〔 ''Boadicea'' was laid down at Pembroke Royal Dockyard, on 1 June 1907 and launched on 14 May 1908. She was completed in June 1909 and became the leader of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla through 1912.〔 On 31 July 1914, she took Vice Admiral John Jellicoe from Wick to Scapa Flow.〔Goldrick, p. 21〕 She was assigned to the Second Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow at the start of the war. On 15 December her bridge and several crewmen were lost overboard due to severe weather in the Pentland Firth as the squadron sortied to intercept German ships bombarding ports in Yorkshire. ''Boadicea'' had to return to port for repairs.〔Massie, p. 335〕 ''Boadicea'' was at the Battle of Jutland but was assigned to a position at the rear of the squadron and did not fire her guns. She actually spotted the German fleet the night after the battle, but her report was not passed to Jellicoe for fear of giving away the position of the Grand Fleet.〔Corbett, Vol. III, pp. 345, 395〕 She was converted into a minelayer in December 1917 and completed three missions in that role, laying 184 mines.〔 She became a hulk in Dartmouth harbour from January 1921, until she was sold for scrap on 13 July 1926 to be broken up at Alloa, Rosyth.〔Colledge, p. 43〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「HMS Boadicea (1908)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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