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HMS ''New Zealand'' was a ''King Edward VII''-class battleship of the Royal Navy. Like all ships of the class (apart from HMS ''King Edward VII'') she was named after an important part of the British Empire, namely New Zealand. She was renamed HMS ''Zealandia'' in 1911, the only Royal Navy ship to have carried this name. ==Technical Characteristics== HMS ''New Zealand'' was ordered under the 1902/03 Naval Estimates and built at Portsmouth Dockyard. She was laid down on 9 February 1903, launched on 4 February 1904, and completed in June 1905.〔Burt, p. 232〕 Although ''New Zealand'' 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 ''New Zealand'' 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 ''New Zealand'' thus could bring two of them to bear on either broadside. Even then, ''New Zealand'' 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 ''New Zealand'' 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), the first five ''King Edward''s, including ''New Zealand'', mounting the Mark IX 12-inch. Mounting of the 6-inch guns in casemates was abandoned in ''New Zealand'' and her sister ships, the 6-inch instead being placed in a central battery amidships protected by 7-inch (178-mm) armoured walls. Otherwise, ''New Zealand''s armour was much as in the ''London''-class battleships, although there were various differences in detail from the ''London''s.〔 ''New Zealand'' 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.〔 Uniquely among the coal-powered ''King Edward VII''-class ships, ''New Zealand'' did not have oil sprayers installed during her construction; their installation in the other seven ships was the first time this had been done in British battleships and allowed steam pressure to be increased rapidly, improving acceleration. The eight ships between them were given four different boiler installations for comparative purposes; ''New Zealand''s outfit of 12〔 (or 18,〔 according to some sources) Niclausse boilers and three cylindrical boilers allowed her to exceed her designed speed on trials,〔 but installation of oil sprayers was impractical in Niclausse boilers.〔Burt, p. 241〕 ''New Zealand'' 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 mid-1905, but quickly was made obsolete by the commissioning of the revolutionary battleship at the end of 1906 and the large numbers of the new dreadnought battleships that commissioned in succeeding years. By 1914, ''New Zealand'' and her 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 New Zealand (1904)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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