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HMS ''Vengeance'' was a Royal Navy pre-dreadnought battleship of the ''Canopus'' class. Built by Vickers, her keel was laid down in August 1898 and she was launched eleven months later. Her main battery consisted of four 12-inch (305-mm) guns in twin turrets fore and aft, and she had top speed of 18 knots. Commissioned in April 1902, ''Vengeance'' served initially in the Far East, transferring to the Channel Fleet in 1906 and then the Home Fleet two years later. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, she was based in the Mediterranean, and saw action in Dardanelles Campaign in 1915. After further service in East and South African waters, she returned to England in 1917 and was used for research and ammunition storage. She was sold for scrap in 1921 and broken up the following year. ==Design and construction== HMS ''Vengeance'' was laid down by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness on 23 August 1898 and launched on 25 July 1899.〔Burt, p. 141〕 Her completion was delayed by damage to the fitting-out dock,〔 and she was not completed until April 1902.〔 She was the first British battleship completely built, armed, and engined by a single company.〔 ''Vengeance'' and her five sister ships were designed for service in the Far East, where the new rising power Japan was beginning to build a powerful and dangerous navy, and to able to transit the Suez Canal. They were designed to be smaller (by about 2,000 tons), lighter, and faster than their predecessors, the ''Majestic''-class battleships, although they were slightly longer at 430 feet (131 m). In order to save weight, ''Vengeance'' and her sisters carried less armor than the ''Majestic''s, although the change from Harvey armour in the ''Majestic''s to Krupp armour in ''Vengeance'' meant that the loss in protection was not as great as it might have been, Krupp armour having greater protective value at a given weight than its Harvey equivalent. Still, her armour was light enough to make her almost a second-class battleship. Part of her armour scheme included the use of a special 1-inch (2.54 mm) armoured deck over the belt to defend against plunging fire by howitzers that France reportedly planned to install on its ships, although this report proved to be false.〔 ''Vengeance'' had four 12-inch (305-mm) 35-caliber guns mounted in twin turrets fore and aft; these guns were mounted in circular barbettes that allowed all-around loading. Unlike any of her sisters, whose guns could be loaded only at a fixed elevation, ''Vengeance'' had an improved mounting that also allowed loading at any elevation; her turret gunhouses also differed from those of her sisters in being Krupp-armored and flat-sided, Krupp armor plates being difficult to curve.〔 ''Vengeance'' also mounted twelve 6-inch (152-mm) 40-caliber guns (sponson mounting allowing some of them to fire fore and aft) in addition to smaller guns, and four 18-inch (457-mm) submerged torpedo tubes.〔''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905'', p. 35, 36〕〔Gibbons, p. 145〕 ''Vengeance'' and the other ''Canopus''-class ships were the first British battleships with water-tube boilers, which generated more power at less expense in weight compared with the cylindrical boilers used in previous ships. The new boilers led to the adoption of fore-and-aft funnels, rather than the side-by-side funnel arrangement used in may previous British battleships. The ''Canopus''-class ships proved to be good steamers, consuming 10 tons of coal per hour at full speed,〔 with a high speed for battleships of their time, a full two knots faster than the ''Majestic''s.〔''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905'', p. 35; Gibbons, p. 145〕 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 Vengeance (1899)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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