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HMS ''Britannia'' was a ''King Edward VII''-class pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy. She was named after Britannia, the Latin name of Great Britain under Roman rule. After commissioning in September 1906, she served briefly with the Atlantic and Channel Fleets before joining the Home Fleet. In 1912, she, along with her sister ships of the ''King Edward VII'' class, was assigned to the 3rd Battle Squadron but in June 1913, she returned to duties with the Home Fleet. When the First World War broke out, ''Britannia'' was transferred back to the 3rd Battle Squadron, which was part of the Grand Fleet. In 1916, she was attached to the 2nd Detached Squadron, then serving in the Adriatic Sea. After a refit in 1917, she conducted patrol and convoy escort duties in the Atlantic. On 9 November 1918, just two days before the end of the war, she was torpedoed by a German submarine off Cape Trafalgar and sank with the loss of 50 men. ==Technical characteristics== HMS ''Britannia'' was built at Portsmouth Dockyard. She was laid down on 4 February 1904, launched on 10 December 1904, and completed in September 1906. Although ''Britannia'' and her seven sister ships of the ''King Edward VII'' class were a direct descendant of the ''Majestic'' class, they were also the first class to make a significant departure from the ''Majestic'' design, displacing about 1,000 tons more and mounting for the first time an intermediate battery of four 9.2-inch (234-mm) guns in addition to the standard outfit of 6-inch (152-mm) guns. The 9.2-inch was a quick-firing gun like the 6-inch, and its heavier shell made it a formidable weapon by the standards of the day when ''Britannia'' and her sisters were designed; it was adopted out of concerns that British battleships were undergunned for their displacement and were becoming outgunned by foreign battleships that had begun to mount 8-inch (203-mm) intermediate batteries. The four 9.2-inch were mounted in single turrets abreast the foremast and mainmast, and ''Britannia'' thus could bring two of them to bear on either broadside. Even then, ''Britannia'' and her sisters were criticised for not having a uniform secondary battery of 9.2-inch guns, something considered but rejected because of the length of time it would have taken to design the ships with such a radical revision of the secondary armament layout. In the end, it proved impossible to distinguish 12-inch and 9.2-inch shell splashes from one another, making fire control impractical for ships mounting both calibres, although ''Britannia'' had fire-control platforms on her fore- and mainmasts rather than the fighting tops of earlier classes.〔''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1860–1905'', p. 38〕 Like all British battleships since the ''Majestic'' class, the ''King Edward VII''-class ships had four 12-inch (305-mm) guns in two twin turrets (one forward and one aft), although the final three ''King Edward''s, including ''Britannia'', mounted the Mark X 12-inch, a improvement on the Mark IX mounted by the first five ''King Edward''s. Mounting of the 6-inch guns in casemates was abandoned in ''Britannia'' and all seven of her sister ships, the 6-inch instead being placed in a central battery amidships protected by 7-inch (178-mm) armoured walls. Otherwise, ''Britannia''s armour was much as in the ''London''-class battleships, although there were various differences in detail from the ''London''s.〔 ''Britannia'' and her sisters were the first British battleships with balanced rudders since the 1870s and were very manoeuvrable, with a tactical diameter of 340 yards (311 m) at 15 knots (27.75 km/h). However, they were difficult to keep on a straight course, and this characteristic led to them being nicknamed "the Wobbly Eight" during their 1914–1916 service in the Grand Fleet. They had a slightly faster roll than previous British battleship classes, but were good gun platforms, although very wet in bad weather.〔 Primarily powered by coal, ''Britannia'' had oil sprayers installed during her construction, as did all of her sisters except , the first time this had been done in British battleships. These allowed steam pressure to be rapidly increased, improving ''Britannia''s acceleration. The eight ships between them were given four different boiler installations for comparative purposes; ''Britannia''s boiler installation is reported both as 12 Babcock and Wilcox and three cylindrical boilers〔 and as 18 Babcock and Wilcox and three cylindrical.〔 during which she made 18.24 knots (33.8 km/h).〔Burt, p. 241〕 ''Britannia'' was a powerful ship when she was designed, and completely fulfilled the goals set for her at that time. However, she was unlucky in that the years of her design and construction were ones of revolutionary advancement in naval guns, fire control, armour, and propulsion. She joined the fleet in September 1906, but was made obsolete three months later by the completion of the revolutionary battleship in December 1906 and the large numbers of the new dreadnought battleships that commissioned in succeeding years. By 1914, ''Britannia'' and her ''King Edward VII''-class sisters were, like all pre-dreadnoughts, so outclassed that they spent much of their 1914–1916 Grand Fleet service steaming at the heads of divisions of the far more valuable dreadnoughts, protecting the dreadnoughts from naval mines by being the first battleships to either sight or strike them.〔Burt, p. 235〕 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 Britannia (1904)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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