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HMS ''Courageous'' was the lead ship of the cruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by First Sea Lord John Fisher, the ship was very lightly armoured and armed with only a few heavy guns. ''Courageous'' was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later. ''Courageous'' was decommissioned after the war, but rebuilt as an aircraft carrier during the mid-1920s. She could carry 48 aircraft compared to the 36 carried by her half-sister on approximately the same tonnage. After recommissioning she spent most of her career operating off Great Britain and Ireland. She briefly became a training carrier, but reverted to her normal role a few months before the start of the Second World War in September 1939. ''Courageous'' was torpedoed and sunk in the opening weeks of the war, going down with more than 500 of her crew. ==Origin and construction== During the First World War, Admiral Fisher was prevented from ordering an improved version of the preceding s by a wartime restriction that banned construction of ships larger than light cruisers in 1915. To obtain ships suitable for the doctrinal roles of battlecruisers, such as scouting for fleets and hunting enemy raiders, he settled on ships with the minimal armour of a light cruiser and the armament of a battlecruiser. He justified their existence by claiming he needed fast, shallow-draught ships for his Baltic Project, a plan to invade Germany via its Baltic coast.〔Burt 1986, p. 303〕〔Roberts, pp. 50–51〕 ''Courageous'' had an overall length of , a beam of , and a draught of at deep load. She displaced at load and at deep load.〔Roberts, pp. 64–65〕 ''Courageous'' and her sisters were the first large warships in the Royal Navy to have geared steam turbines. To save design time, the installation used in the light cruiser , the first cruiser in the navy with geared turbines, was simply replicated for four turbine sets. The Parsons turbines were powered by eighteen Yarrow small-tube boilers. They were designed to produce a total of at a working pressure of . The ship reached an estimated during sea trials.〔Roberts, pp. 71, 76, 79〕 The ship was designed to normally carry of fuel oil, but could carry a maximum of . At full capacity, she could steam for an estimated at a speed of .〔Burt 1986, p. 306〕 ''Courageous'' carried four BL 15-inch Mk I guns in two twin hydraulically powered gun turrets, designated 'A' and 'Y' from front to rear. Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen BL 4-inch Mk IX guns mounted in six manually powered mounts.〔 The mount placed three breeches too close together, causing the 23 loaders to get in each other's way, and preventing the intended high rate of fire.〔Burt 1986, p. 294〕 A pair of QF 3-inch 20 cwt〔"cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 30 cwt referring to the weight of the gun.〕 anti-aircraft guns were fitted abreast the mainmast on ''Courageous''. She mounted two submerged tubes for 21-inch torpedoes and carried 10 torpedoes for them.〔 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 Courageous (50)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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