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HMS ''Indefatigable'' was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy and the lead ship of her class. Her keel was laid down in 1909 and she was commissioned in 1911. She was an enlarged version of the earlier with a revised protection scheme and additional length amidships to allow her two middle turrets to fire on either broadside. When the First World War began, ''Indefatigable'' was serving with the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron (BCS) in the Mediterranean, where she unsuccessfully pursued the battlecruiser and the light cruiser of the German Imperial Navy as they fled towards the Ottoman Empire. The ship bombarded Ottoman fortifications defending the Dardanelles on 3 November 1914, then, following a refit in Malta, returned to the United Kingdom in February where she rejoined the 2nd BCS. ''Indefatigable'' was sunk on 31 May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the war. Part of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet, she was hit several times in the first minutes of the "Run to the South", the opening phase of the battlecruiser action. Shells from the German battlecruiser caused an explosion ripping a hole in her hull, and a second explosion hurled large pieces of the ship 200 feet (60 m) in the air. Only two of the crew of 1,019 survived. ==Design and description== (詳細はLiberal Government had taken power in January 1906 and demanded reductions in naval spending, and the Admiralty submitted a reduced programme, requesting dreadnoughts but no battlecruisers. The Cabinet rejected this proposal in favour of two outmoded armoured cruisers but finally acceded to a request for one battlecruiser instead, after the Admiralty pointed out the need to match the recently published German naval construction plan and to maintain the heavy gun and armour industries. ''Indefatigable''s outline design was prepared in March 1908, and the final design, slightly larger than ''Invincible'' with a revised protection arrangement, was approved in November 1908. A larger design with more armour and better underwater protection was rejected as too expensive.〔Roberts, pp. 26–28.〕 Note; plan is of ''Invincible''-class battlecruisers; the ''Indefatigable''-class has a third superstructure element with 'P' & 'Q' turrets more widely spaced. The ship had an overall length of , a beam of , and a draught of at deep load. She normally displaced and at deep load.〔Roberts, pp. 43–44.〕 Her turbines were designed to produce a total of , but reached over during sea trials in 1911. She was designed for , but reached during trials.〔Roberts, pp. 76, 80.〕 ''Indefatigable''s main armament was eight breech-loading BL 12-inch Mark X guns mounted in four hydraulically powered twin turrets. Two turrets were mounted fore and aft on the centreline, identified as 'A' and 'X' respectively. The other two were wing turrets mounted amidships and staggered diagonally: 'P' was forward and to port of the centre funnel, while 'Q' was situated starboard and aft. 'P' and 'Q' turrets had some limited ability to fire to the opposite side. Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen BL 4-inch Mark VII guns positioned in the superstructure.〔Roberts, pp. 81–84.〕 She mounted two submerged torpedo tubes, one on each side aft of 'X' barbette, and twelve torpedoes were carried.〔Campbell (1978), p. 14.〕 ''Indefatigable'' was unique among British battlecruisers in having an armoured spotting and signal tower behind the conning tower, protected by of armour. However, the spotting tower was of limited use, as its view was obscured by the conning tower in front of it and the legs of the foremast and superstructure behind it.〔Brooks, pp. 42–43.〕 During a pre-war refit, a rangefinder was added to the rear of the 'A' turret roof, and this turret was equipped to control the entire main armament as an emergency backup for the normal fire-control positions.〔Roberts, pp. 90–91.〕 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 Indefatigable (1909)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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