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The ''Minotaur'' class was a three-ship class of armoured cruisers built in the first decade of the twentieth century for the Royal Navy. They initially served with the Home Fleet, generally as the flagships of cruiser squadrons. ''Minotaur'' became flagship of the China Station in 1910 and ''Defence'' served as flagship of the 1st Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean from 1912; ''Shannon'' remained at home as flagship of several different squadrons. When World War I began in August 1914, ''Defence'' participated in the pursuit of the German ships and and ''Minotaur'' hunted for the German East Asia Squadron and German commerce raiders in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. ''Shannon'' remained with the Grand Fleet, as the Home Fleet was renamed, for the entire war. All three were present at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, where ''Defence'' was sunk with heavy loss of life. The surviving pair spent most of the rest of the war assigned to the Northern Patrol unsuccessfully searching for German warships and commerce raiders. They were scrapped after the war. ==Design and description== The ''Minotaur''-class ships were the last armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy. They were significantly larger and more heavily armed than their predecessors, although their armour was reduced in an attempt to compensate for the additional weight of the armament. The design was criticized for this weakness as well as the wide dispersal of the turrets along the length of the ship. They have been described by naval historian R. A. Burt as "cruiser editions of the ".〔Burt, pp. 84–86〕 The ''Minotaur'' class displaced as built and at deep load. ''Defence'' and ''Minotaur'' had an overall length of , a beam of and a mean draught of . ''Shannon'' had more beam and one foot less draught than her sister ships to evaluate the theory that she might be faster with these proportions than her sisters. The class displaced more, was longer overall, was one foot broader in beam and had more freeboard than their predecessors of the . At normal load they had a metacentric height of , and at deep load, . The ''Minotaur''s were designed to carry 779 officers and enlisted men, but mustered 802–842 between 1908 and 1912.〔Burt, pp. 84, 86, 93–94〕 The ships were powered by a pair of four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, which developed a total of intended to give a maximum speed of . The engines were powered by 24 water-tube boilers with a working pressure of . They carried a maximum of of coal and an additional of fuel oil that was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. At full capacity, the ships could steam for at a speed of . During her sea trials on 6 December 1907, ''Minotaur'' made her designed speed when she reached 23.01 knots from during her eight-hour full-power test. ''Shannon'' proved to be the slowest of the three and only reached from during her trial three days before ''Minotaur''s.〔Burt, pp. 86, 94–95〕 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「Minotaur-class cruiser (1906)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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