text:
Kingstonian F.C.

Kingstonian Football Club is an English semi-professional football club based in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, south west London which currently plays in the Isthmian League Premier Division.

The club was founded in 1885 by YMCA, named Kingston & Surbiton YMCA, and began competing properly in 1893 in the Surrey Junior Cup. There was a split before the start of the 1908–09 season which damaged the club, the two clubs were named Old Kingstonians and Kingston upon Thames A.F.C. After period of quiet during World War I, the two clubs re-united and joined the Athenian League in 1919, named Kingstonian. In 1929, their application to join the Isthmian League was accepted, and they have competed there to the present day. The club, nicknamed "The K's" or "The Ks", spent three seasons at the highest level of non-league football, 1998–99, 1999–2000 and 2000–01, and have won the FA Trophy twice, in consecutive seasons, in 1999 and 2000.

The club is currently without a home ground, and from 2024 will groundshare with Raynes Park Vale at Prince George's Playing Fields in Raynes Park. They have twice previously had their own stadium, Richmond Road from 1902 to 1988 and Kingsmeadow from 1989 to 2017. After Kingstonian went into administration in 2001, Kingsmeadow was bought by AFC Wimbledon two years later, who allowed Kingstonian to stay. With AFC Wimbledon looking to move to a new ground, Kingsmeadow was sold to Chelsea in 2016, who stipulated that Kingstonian could not remain there.

Kingston and Surbiton YMCA
Kingstonian was formed in autumn 1885, under the name Kingston & Surbiton YMCA. In the period, rugby was the dominant sport in the town, but YMCA was unable to support a rugby club. This influenced their decision to create a club to play "Football under Association rules". The new club played their first fixture on 28 November 1885 losing 3–1 to Surbiton Hill with home games played at Bushy Park before moving to the Spring grove the following season. Over the two years the club played only friendly matches against other football teams in the region.

Saxons F.C.
In 1887 the club changed its name to Saxons FC and opened up its membership to players who were not also members of YMCA. The club however maintained its links to YMCA and only allowed YMCA members to serve on the decision making committee. In the Summer of 1888 William Carn, the founder of the club, resigned from YMCA after tensions developed where YMCA were concerned that the organization was becoming more like a sporting club than a religious organization. As non YMCA members were not allowed to serve on the committee this would have meant Carn also resigning his duties with the club. The members decided however to sever links with YMCA which allowed Carn to continue. At the same time the club also moved to a ground in Oil Mill Lane (modern day Villiers Road).

Kingston Wanderers F.C.

At the club's annual general meeting in 1890, the secretary at the time, William G. Carn, proposed that the name became "one more identified with the town". His proposal was successful, and the club became Kingston Wanderers F.C. in the 1890–91 season. The club's first season as Kingston Wanderers also heralded a change of home ground to the Fairfield Recreation Ground.

Kingston-on-Thames A.F.C.
In the Summer of 1893, the association clubs of Kingston considered a proposal to amalgamate and produce one larger club that would represent the whole town. Because many of the clubs had already arranged fixtures for the coming season it was only Kingston Wanderers who moved forward with the plan, although several other clubs were to amalgamate with them in future seasons. On 13 September 1893, the club changed its name to Kingston upon Thames A.F.C. They entered the Surrey Junior Cup affiliated to the Surrey Football Association. The first competitive match in Kingston's history was in November 1893 and resulted in a loss, after a replayed game, to Hampton Court & East Molesey.

When Kingston upon Thames ventured into the Surrey Senior Cup in 1894, the heaviest loss of the club to date was recorded, a 12–0 loss to Weybridge F.C. The club re-entered the Surrey Junior Cup and in 1896 joined the Kingston & District League as founder members. In their first season, they won the league but lost the Surrey Junior Cup 2–1 in the final, to Chertsey F.C. after a replay. They spent two years in the Kingston and District league, coming runners up to Brentford 'A' Team in their second season before moving into the East and West Surrey League at the start of the 1898–1899 season. The club also underwent several ground changes during this period and from 1898 to 1899 season spent 3 years at Dinton Road before one season playing at Lower Marsh Lane in 1901–1902 season. In 1902–1903 they made a final move to Thorpe Road which was virtually on the site of the Richmond Road ground that was to become their home for much of the Twentieth Century. The club continued to compete in the East and West Surrey League and also had a one-season foray into the London League in 1903 alongside the East and West Surrey League but the "experiment" backfired with fixture congestion and selection difficulties caused by having too many games and Kingston upon Thames withdrew from the London League after one season. In 1905–1906 season, the club won the newly renamed West Surrey League, a feat which was replicated in 1906–1907 season. In addition the 1906–1907 season saw them finish runners up in the Surrey Senior Cup which was lost to Clapham F.C. 3–1.

Old Kingstonians
The newfound success in Surrey amateur football was soon lost when the club split before the start of the 1908–09 season after increasing tensions between the First Team members and the "A" Team members. This reached a head after elections for representation on the committee that ran the club. This resulted in treasurer David Judd forming Old Kingstonians F.C. and taking much of the first team with him to a new ground at Norbiton. Kingston upon Thames continued to compete on the old ground at Thorpe Road, and were made up of the former members of the "A" team as well as two members of the first team who chose to stay. Judd's team became known as the "OK's", the "Rupert's" or the "Juddites" while the Kingston upon Thames team was known as "The Boys" or simply "The Town club". Initially Kingston upon Thames had the upper hand both in league and cup success and in matches between the two clubs. To some extent this justified the belief of the former "A" Team members that they were the better team despite effectively representing the club at a lower Junior level than the first team. It also somewhat justified their opinion that the first team had been holding back progress at the club. Gradually however Old Kingstonians improved, winning the West Surrey League in 1910, followed by the Surrey Senior Cup in both 1911 and 1914 and the Southern Suburban League in the two seasons before the war.

By the start of World War One, Old Kingstonians held a definite supremacy of the two clubs, and in 1913–1914 won three trophies including the Southern Suburban League and Surrey Senior Cup. The rivalry between these two clubs was intense and to some extent the competition helped both clubs with their standard of football and improvements to facilities. However, there were occasions in which this rivalry spilled over into more serious incidents. Over the period of the split several appeals had been made by both clubs concerning eligibility of players in matches between the two sides, and in two cases the result of the game was overturned. In the 1913–1914 season the Surrey Charity Shield match between the two clubs saw a number of incidents involving players and spectators and this led to the Surrey FA taking responsibility for the running of the replay with warning notices posted at the ground and a large police presence. An FA enquiry into incidents at the first game led to one of the witnesses being attacked on their return to Kingston after giving evidence. Both teams competed in the West Surrey League in 1908–1909 but in 1909–1910 season Kingston upon Thames FC moved into the Southern Suburban League with Old Kingstonians remaining in the West Surrey League. Kingston upon Thames did however again try a failed "experiment" by re-entering two first teams in both the Southern Suburban League and West Surrey League for the 1910–1911 season but again this resulted in selection problems and was dropped at the end of the season. At the start of the 1911–1912 season Old Kingstonians also moved to the Southern Suburban League where both teams stayed until the outbreak of World War One.

World War One
At the outbreak of World War One, Kingston upon Thames FC immediately cancelled all football. However Old Kingstonians did attempt to continue playing despite heavy political pressure to stop. The club had joined the Athenian League and played two games before the league was cancelled. They also played three rounds in the FA Cup Qualifying stages before losing to Redhill. They then joined the Metropolitan League which had been set up for wartime football and also played in the London Senior Cup (losing to Walthamstow Grange) and were entered for the F.A. Amateur Cup. However. despite resisting political pressure, attendances dropped and in December 1914 the club announced that it was ceasing activities.

Kingstonian F.C.
In 1919 football was rejuvenated in Kingston. The war had dimmed the rivalry between the teams, and they re-united as Kingstonian F.C. Their first match after unification was on 6 September 1919 competing in the Athenian League against Southall F.C. However, the season was plagued with issues regarding their home ground at Richmond Road and a finish in the bottom half of the league meant the team were forced to apply to re-enter the league. Their application was successful, and heralded a change of fortunes for Kingstonian. Before the 1920–1921 season it seemed they had lost their ground after confusion over their desire to renew the rent. This meant that Leyland Motors had been given exclusive use but an agreement was reached to allow for a groundshare with Leyland Motors and Leyland Motors took over the fixtures of the Kingstonian Reserve team who had signed up for the Southern Suburban League. The following season Kingstonian were successful in purchasing the Richmond Road ground, although the groundshare arrangement with Leyland Motors continued. They had a more successful spell from 1923 up to the outbreak of World War II, winning the league in 1924, and in 1926 with a record number of points. The club progressed to several finals of the London and Surrey Senior Cups.

In 1929, Kingstonian were successful in their application to join the Isthmian League after the withdrawal of Civil Service F.C. In 1933, Kingstonian won the FA Amateur Cup, they won the League in 1934 and 1937, and the club won the Surrey Senior Cup in 1935 and 1939. "Competitive Amateur Football" was called off in September 1939 for World War II and Kingstonian were to play only one game at the start of the 1939/1940 season. Their ground was requisitioned by the Civil Defence for the duration of the war and no further games were played until 1945. Depleted of the majority of their pre-war players, Kingstonian came last in the first league after the war in 1945–1946 season, and had to resort to fundraising to gather money to renovate both the stadium and the changing rooms. In 1949, the all-time top goalscorer Johnny Whing arrived at the club, and was top scorer in nine different seasons for the club. In 1955, Kingstonian's heaviest ever home defeat, 12–3, was recorded at the hands of Bishop Auckland FC in front of the club's record attendance of 8,960.

In the 1959–60 season, the K's had their first Wembley Stadium appearance in the FA Amateur Cup final, which was lost to Hendon F.C. 2–1. In 1963, Kingstonian won the double; the Surrey and London Senior Cup. The 1970s were a period of decline for the club, and despite becoming professional in 1975, they were relegated to Division One in 1979. In 1985 Kingstonian were once again promoted to the Isthmian League, finishing second. In 1987, 20 years without silverware was ended by the K's winning the London Senior Cup.

Kingstonian won the Isthmian League in 1998 and the FA Trophy in 1999 and 2000 at Wembley Stadium under manager Geoff Chapple, and then managed to reach the fourth round of the FA Cup in 2001. Entering the competition at the Fourth Qualifying Round, they beat Devizes Town before beating two Football League clubs – Brentford and Southend United, either side of a win over fellow Conference team Southport – on their way to the FA Cup fourth round, where they were drawn with Bristol City before succumbing to a late winner in the replay, losing 1–0.

Relegation and, moreover, financial problems as a result of severe overspending in the chase for success, saw a sharp downturn in the club's fortunes between 2001 and 2005, and in 2003 the then manager Kim Harris said that the owner, property developer Rajesh Khosla, was "raping us"after Khosla sold the Kingsmeadow ground for £2 million in personal profit. However, in February 2005 Khosla stepped down as chairman, selling the club to Jimmy Cochrane, whilst making a profit. While this did not save Kingstonian from relegation that year, the 2005–06 season saw Kingstonian Football Club revitalised. They only narrowly missed out on the promotion playoffs and finished their season by beating AFC Wimbledon in the final of the Surrey Senior Cup at Woking's ground by one goal to nil.

Changes continued during mid-2006 with Mark Anderson and Malcolm Winwright taking charge of the club, installing Stuart McIntyre as successor to Ian McDonald in the role of head coach. However, McIntyre's stay in the role was brief and "unsuccessful", with he himself being replaced by Alan Dowson at the start of 2007. Under Dowson the club was promoted back to the Isthmian Premier in 2009. However, after the 2013–14 Isthmian League in which Kingstonian finished second but missed out on promotion, on 11 May 2014 Dowson resigned, being replaced by Tommy Williams.

With former K's midfielder Tommy Williams installed as manager, the club again reached the FA Cup Third Qualifying Round, losing 3–2 to a last minute goal against Eastbourne Borough. The league campaign saw the club make late challenge for the play-offs falling short in the last couple of weeks of the season. In his second season, the 2015-16 campaign saw the K's lift their first cup in ten years, winning the Isthmian League Cup with a 5–0 victory over Faversham Town. The 2016–17 season started poorly with the club just outside the relegation zone with six games remaining. Tommy Williams was replaced as manager by former Billericay Town man Craig Edwards. He led the club to a 16th-place finish after a five match unbeaten run to end the season. K's left the Kingsmeadow Stadium at the end of the season and moved to Fetcham Grove to groundshare with Leatherhead. Edwards resigned in October 2017 and was replaced by former Whyteleafe manager Leigh Dynan.

At the beginning of the 2018–19 season, Kingstonian moved back to the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and started a ground share with Corinthian-Casuals at King George's Field. A difficult season saw K's have three managers, as Leigh Dynan was replaced by Dean Brennan and then very quickly by stand-in manager Kim Harris - K's moved from second place in the table on New Year's Day to escaping relegation by a single place. New manager Hayden Bird joined the club in 2019, only for the 2019–20 season to be curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In that season's FA Cup the K's reached the First Round for the first time since 2000–01, where they defeated Macclesfield Town 4–0 at Moss Rose, before losing 2–0 at home to AFC Fylde in the Second Round. The 2023–24 season saw Kingstonian relegated from the Premier Division, fifteen years after their promotion to the level.

Colours and badge

The team's current crest contains the motto "Palmam Qui Meruit Ferat", the motto of Lord Nelson which translates as "Let he who has earned it carry the palm", and is inscribed on the Britannia Monument. Kingstonian's home kit is red and white hooped shirts, black shorts and red socks. Their away kit is yellow shirts, shorts, and socks.

Stadiums
The early precursors to Kingstonian F.C. played home matches at various locations around the town including Oil Mill Lane (now Villiers Road) and the Fairfield, near Kingston town centre. In 1891 they participated in a tournament at the rugby club ground in Richmond Road, later to become their home.

In 1898 the club moved to their first private enclosed ground at Dinton Road, next to Kingston Barracks, moving again at the turn of the century to Lower Marsh Lane in 1902, specifically to part of the rugby ground in Richmond Road. The split in 1908–09 between Kingston upon Thames A.F.C. and Old Kingstonians led to the breakaway group Old Kingstonians playing at Norbiton Sports Ground, Kingston upon Thames A.F.C. remaining at Richmond Road. Reunited after World War I, the club continued to play at Richmond Road but, in 1920, the site's owners, the Dysarts, leased the site to Leyland Motors, then establishing a factory base at nearby Ham. The club managed to negotiate a ground-sharing arrangement and were eventually able to buy the land, but the issue impacted their performance.

Kingstonian F.C. remained at Richmond Road for most of the 20th Century, it thus being referred to as the club's 'traditional home'. The club's record home attendance of 8,960 was attained there in 1955 in a match against Bishop Auckland F.C. The maintenance of the site increasingly became more than the club's income could support and parts of the site were sold off for redevelopment; the 'Kingstonian petrol station' occupying much of the Richmond Road frontage since 1956, and the former running track and reserve pitch redeveloped for housing in the 1970s. The club eventually sold the site and moved out of Richmond Road in 1988. The stadium was demolished after 1989 and the remainder of the site redeveloped for housing.

After a season and a half ground-sharing at Hampton F.C.'s Beveree ground, Kingstonian opened their new Kingsmeadow Stadium (on the site of the old Norbiton Sports Ground owned by Kingston Council) in August 1989. After Kingstonian entered administration to avoid bankruptcy and lost the Kingsmeadow lease in October 2001. It was assigned in April 2002 by the administrators to a property developer, Rajesh Khosla, who was also by then owner of the club. The fans of AFC Wimbledon, who at that point were already sub-tenants at Kingsmeadow, raised £2.4 million to enable them to buy the lease from Khosla in June 2003, with a view to making Kingsmeadow their home in the short term until their intended move to a site in Wimbledon became more feasible for them. Kingstonian secured a financially favourable 25-year sub-tenancy agreement with AFC Wimbledon, with customary break clauses. The clubs operated a ground-sharing arrangement, with Kingstonian receiving preferentially cheap rental terms.

In 2015, AFC Wimbledon sold Kingsmeadow to Chelsea to help finance their plans to move back to a new stadium in Wimbledon. Chelsea's intention was to use Kingsmeadow as a base for their own youth and women's teams, and were unwilling to accommodate Kingstonian. The sale proved detrimental to Kingstonian, with them unable to play in a ground where the new owners did not want them. and the club was forced to relocate as a result,   and started a groundshare with Leatherhead F.C. at their ground at Fetcham Grove for the 2017–18 season. The following season they moved again to King George's Field in Tolworth, sharing with Corinthian-Casuals Kingstonian reached agreement with Tooting & Mitcham United to play at their Imperial Fields stadium for the 2022–23 season.

In February 2024 it was announced that, starting with the 2024/25 season, Kingstonian would be groundsharing with Raynes Park Vale at Prince George's Playing Fields, Grand Drive for at least two seasons.

Team management
As of 30 May 2024

Honours
Kingstonian's first final came in 1896, when they came second in the Surrey Junior Cup. A notably prolific spell for the club came in the 1930s, when they won seven, and came runners up in two competitions. The dual FA Trophy victories in 1998–99, 1999–2000 were both at Wembley Stadium, and the 2000 final was the last ever FA Trophy final at the old Wembley before the current stadium was built.

Records

 * Record win: 15–1 v DHC Delft (1951)
 * Record defeat: 3–12 v Bishop Auckland (1955)
 * Most club appearances: Rob Tolfrey – 565*
 * Most club goals: Johnny Whing – 295
 * Record fee paid: £18,000 – Dave Leworthy (from Rushden & Diamonds, 1997)
 * Record fee received: £150,000 – Gavin Holligan (to West Ham United, 1998)
 * Record attendance: 9,844 v Bishop Auckland (Richmond Road, 1955)
 * FA Cup best performance: Fourth round, 2000–01
 * FA Amateur Cup best performance: Winners, 1932–33
 * FA Trophy best performance: Winners, 1998–99, 1999–00

title: Kingstonian F.C.


text: Template:St Vincent class battleship

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Template:St Vincent class battleship


text:
St Vincent-class battleship

The St Vincent-class battleships were a group of three dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. The sister ships spent their entire careers assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets. Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and the inconclusive action of 19 August several months later, their service during the First World War generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. HMS Vanguard (1909) was destroyed in 1917 by a magazine explosion with the near total loss of her crew. The remaining pair were obsolete by the end of the war in 1918, and spent their remaining time either in reserve or as training ships before being sold for scrap in the early 1920s.

Vanguard's wreck was extensively salvaged before it was declared a war grave. Since 2002, it has been designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 and diving on the wreck is generally forbidden.

Background and description
The Admiralty's 1905 draft building plan called for four capital ships in the 1907–1908 Naval Programme, but the new Liberal government cut one of these ships in mid-1906 and postponed another to the 1908–1909 Naval Programme, pending the conclusion of the ongoing Hague Peace Convention. The failure of the Germans to agree to any sort of naval arms control caused the government to reinstate the third ship. The Admiralty took until 12 June 1907 to decide not to build one of them as a battlecruiser, in favour of a squadron of four homogeneous battleships. Three of these would be part of the St Vincent class, while the single battleship planned for the 1908–1909 Naval Programme was later authorised as HMS Neptune (1909).

The design of the St Vincent class was derived from the preceding Bellerophon-class battleship, with more powerful guns and a slight increase in size and armour. The ships had an overall length of 536 ft, a beam of 84 ft, and a normal draught of 28 ft. They displaced 19700 LT at normal load and 22800 LT at deep load. In comparison to the Bellerophon class, the displacement of the St Vincents was increased by 650 LT, the length by 10 ft and the beam by 18 in; their crews numbered about 755 officers and ratings upon completion and 835 during the war.

The St Vincent-class ships were powered by two sets of Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, each of which was housed in a separate engine room. The outer propeller shafts were coupled to the high-pressure turbines and these exhausted into low-pressure turbines which drove the inner shafts. Separate cruising turbines were provided for each shaft. The turbines used steam from eighteen water-tube boilers at a working pressure of 235 psi. They were rated at 24500 shp and were intended to give the ships a maximum speed of 21 kn. During their sea trials, the St Vincents handily exceeded their designed speed and horsepower, reaching 21.7 kn from 28,128 shp. They carried 2700 LT of coal and an additional 850 LT of fuel oil that was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. This gave them a range of 6900 nmi at a cruising speed of 10 kn.

Armament
These ships were the first to carry the new 50-calibre breech-loading (BL) 12 in Mark XI gun, which was 5 calibres longer and had a muzzle velocity about 75 ft/s higher than the 45-calibre Mark X gun used in the earlier dreadnoughts. They had a reputation for drooping at the muzzle, which was believed to have an adverse effect at long range, but testing at sea showed the muzzle droop to be within normal tolerances and the accuracy at long range to be satisfactory. The increased muzzle velocity of the Mark XI gun gave it a longer range over the Mark X gun as well as increasing the distance at which it could penetrate 12 inches of armour from 7600 to 9300 yd using the same shell. The higher velocity reduced its service life by increasing the wear in the barrel.

The St Vincent class were equipped with ten Mark XI guns in five hydraulically powered twin-gun turrets, three along the centreline and the remaining two as wing turrets. The centreline turrets were named 'A', 'X' and 'Y' from front to rear, and the port and starboard wing turrets were 'P' and 'Q' respectively. The guns had a maximum elevation of +20° which gave them a range of 21200 yd. They fired 850 lb projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 2825 ft/s at a rate of two rounds per minute. The ships carried between 80 and 100 shells per gun.

The secondary armament of the St Vincents consisted of twenty 50-calibre BL four-inch (102 mm) Mark VII guns. Pairs of these guns were installed in unshielded mounts on the roofs of 'A', 'P', 'Q' and 'Y' turrets and the other dozen were positioned in single mounts at forecastle-deck level in the superstructure. The guns had a maximum elevation of +15° which gave them a range of 11400 yd firing 31 lb projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 2821 ft/s. They were provided with 150 rounds per gun; the wartime allowance for each gun was 200 rounds. Four 3-pounder 47 mm saluting guns were also carried. The ships were equipped with three 18-inch (450 mm) submerged torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and another in the stern, for which nine torpedoes were provided.

Fire control
The control positions for the main armament were located in the spotting tops at the head of the fore and mainmasts. Data from a 9 ft Barr and Stroud coincidence rangefinder located at each control position, together with the target's speed and course information, was input into a Dumaresq mechanical computer and electrically transmitted to Vickers range clocks located in the transmitting station located beneath each position on the main deck. Wind speed and direction was called down to the transmitting station by either voicepipe or sound-powered telephone. The range clock integrated all the data and converted it into elevation and deflection data for use by the guns. The target's data was also graphically recorded on a plotting table to assist the gunnery officer in predicting the movement of the target. The turrets, transmitting stations and control positions could be connected in almost any combination. As a backup, two turrets in each ship ('A' and 'Y' in St Vincent) could take over if necessary.

In 1910–1911, the four-inch guns on the roof of the forward turret of Vanguard were replaced by a 9 or rangefinder. This was removed about a year later, roughly at the same time when the rooftop guns were removed from the forward turrets of the other two ships. In late 1914, the remaining rooftop guns were replaced on the three sister ships by 9-foot rangefinders protected by armoured hoods.

Fire-control technology advanced quickly during the years between the St Vincents' commissioning and the start of World War I and the most important development was the director firing system. Mounted high in the ship, a fire-control director electrically provided data to the turrets via a pointer on a dial, which the turret crewmen only had to follow. The director layer fired the guns simultaneously, which aided in spotting the shell splashes and minimised the effects of the roll on the dispersion of the shells. While the exact dates of installation are unknown, St Vincent was equipped with a director by December 1915 and the others by May 1916. The ships were fitted with Mark I Dreyer Fire-control Tables in the transmission stations by early 1916, which combined the functions of the Dumaresq and the range clock.

Armour
The St Vincent-class ships had a waterline belt of Krupp cemented armour that was 10 in thick between the fore and aftmost barbettes that reduced to 2 in before it reached the ships' ends. It covered the side of the hull from the middle deck down to 4 ft below the waterline where it thinned to 8 in amidships. Above this was a strake of 8-inch armour. Transverse bulkheads 5 to 8 in thick terminated the thickest parts of the waterline and upper armour belts once they reached the outer portions of the endmost barbettes. The three centreline barbettes were protected by armour 9 in thick above the main deck and thinned to 5 in below it. The wing barbettes were similar except that they had 10 inches of armour on their outer faces. The gun turrets had 11 in faces and sides with 3-inch roofs.

The three armoured decks ranged in thickness from 0.75 to 3 in with the greatest thickness outside the central armoured citadel. The front and sides of the forward conning tower were protected by 11-inch plates, although the rear and roof were 8 inches and 3 inches thick respectively. The aft conning tower had 8-inch sides and a 3-inch roof. The St Vincents had two longitudinal anti-torpedo bulkheads 1 – thick that extended from the forward end of 'A' barbette to the end of 'Y' magazine. In the vicinity of the boiler rooms, the compartments between them were used as coal bunkers.

Modifications
The guns on the forward turret roof were replaced in 1910–1911 by a rangefinder on Vanguard, and on her sisters in 1911–1912. About two years later, gun shields were fitted to most of the guns in the superstructure and the bridge structure was enlarged around the base of the forward tripod mast. During the first year of the war, the base of the forward superstructure was rebuilt to house eight 4-inch guns and the turret-top guns were removed, which reduced their secondary armament to a total of fourteen guns; a pair of 3-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft (AA) guns were added. Approximately 50 LT of additional deck armour were added after the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. By April 1917, the sisters mounted thirteen 4-inch anti-torpedo boat guns as well as single 4-inch and 3-inch AA guns. The stern torpedo tube was removed in 1917–1918 and St Vincent was equipped to operate kite balloons. In 1918, a high-angle rangefinder was fitted on the forward spotting top of the surviving ships and flying-off platforms were installed on the roofs of the fore and aft turrets of Collingwood.

Careers
Upon commissioning, all three ships were assigned to the 1st Division of the Home Fleet and St Vincent became the flagship of the division's second-in-command. In July, they were present when King George V visited the fleet in Torbay and participated in his Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 24 June 1911. Less than a year later, the 1st Division was renamed the 1st Battle Squadron (BS) on 1 May 1912. Collingwood became the squadron flagship on 22 June and reverted to a private ship again two years later. Each of the sisters underwent a lengthy refit before the First World War began in mid-1914.

Between 17 and 20 July 1914, the sisters took part in a test mobilisation and fleet review. Arriving in Portland afterwards, they were ordered to proceed with the rest of the Home Fleet to Scapa Flow two days later to safeguard the fleet from a possible surprise attack by the Imperial German Navy. After the British declaration of war on Germany on 4 August, the Home Fleet was reorganised as the Grand Fleet and placed under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe. According to pre-war doctrine, the role of the Grand Fleet was to fight a decisive battle against the German High Seas Fleet, but German reluctance to commit their battleships against the superior British force led to indecisive operations. The Grand Fleet spent its time training in the North Sea, punctuated by the occasional mission to intercept a German raid or major fleet sortie. In April 1916, Vanguard was transferred to the 4th Battle Squadron while her sisters remained in the 1st Battle Squadron.

Battle of Jutland
In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the German High Seas Fleet departed the Jade Bight early on the morning of 31 May 1916 in support of Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's battlecruisers, which were to act as bait. The British code breakers of Room 40 at the Admiralty had decoded German radio traffic containing plans of the operation and the Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet to sortie the night before the Germans, to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet.

The Grand Fleet rendezvoused with the 2nd Battle Squadron, coming from Cromarty, Scotland, on the morning of 31 May and Jellicoe organised the main body of the Grand Fleet in parallel columns of four-ship divisions. The two divisions of the 2nd BS were on his left (east), the 4th BS was in the centre and the 1st BS on the right. Vanguard and St Vincent were the rear ships of their divisions while Collingwood was the second ship in its division. When Jellicoe ordered the Grand Fleet to deploy to the left and form line astern in anticipation of encountering the High Seas Fleet, this naturally placed the 4th and 1st Battle Squadrons in the centre and rear of the line of battle, respectively, which meant that the sisters were in the rear of the Grand Fleet once it was deployed. This limited their ability to engage the German ships in the poor visibility. All three ships fired at the crippled light cruiser SMS Wiesbaden, possibly scoring some hits, but only St Vincent and Collingwood were able to engage any of the German capital ships. The former hit the battlecruiser SMS Moltke twice, inflicting only minor damage, while Collingwood hit the battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger once, also with little effect. Vanguard and Collingwood also fired at German destroyers, but failed to achieve any hits. None of the sisters fired more than 98 rounds from their main guns during the battle.

Subsequent activity
After the battle, St Vincent and Collingwood joined Vanguard in the 4th BS. The Grand Fleet sortied on 18 August to ambush the High Seas Fleet while it advanced into the southern North Sea, but a series of communication failures and mistakes prevented Jellicoe from intercepting the German fleet before it returned to port. Two light cruisers were sunk by German U-boats during the operation, prompting Jellicoe to decide not to risk the major units of the fleet to German submarines and mines south of 55° 30' North. The Admiralty concurred and stipulated that the Grand Fleet would not sortie unless the German fleet was attempting an invasion of Britain or there was a strong possibility it could be forced into an engagement under suitable conditions. The Admiralty order meant that the Grand Fleet spent far less time at sea. In late February 1917, the 4th BS conducted tactical exercises for a few days. In January 1918, Collingwood and some of the older dreadnoughts cruised off the coast of Norway for several days, possibly to provide distant cover for a convoy to Norway. Along with the rest of the Grand Fleet, she sortied on the afternoon of 23 April when radio transmissions revealed that the High Seas Fleet was at sea, after a failed attempt to intercept the regular British convoy to Norway. The Germans were too far ahead of the British to be caught and no shots were fired. St Vincent was under repair at Invergordon, Scotland, and could not sortie, but was present at Rosyth when the German fleet surrendered on 21 November; Collingwood was refitting in Invergordon.

Vanguard explosion
In the evening of 9 July 1917, Vanguard's magazines exploded while she was anchored in the northern part of Scapa Flow; she sank almost instantly, with only three survivors, one of whom died soon afterwards; 842 men aboard were lost. Collingwood's crew recovered the bodies of three men killed in the explosion. The Board of Inquiry concluded that a fire of unknown origin began in a 4-inch magazine and spread to one or both of the nearby 12-inch magazines, which detonated and sank the ship.

Postwar years
In March 1919, St Vincent was reduced to reserve and became a gunnery training ship at Portsmouth. She then became flagship of the Reserve Fleet in June and was relieved as gunnery training ship in December, when she was transferred to Rosyth. There she remained until listed for disposal in March 1921; she was sold for scrap on 1 December 1921 and demolished.

In January 1919, Collingwood was transferred to Devonport and assigned to the Reserve Fleet. Upon the dissolution of the Grand Fleet on 18 March, the Reserve Fleet was renamed the Third Fleet and Collingwood became its flagship. She became a tender to HMS Vivid on 1 October and served as a gunnery and wireless telegraphy training ship until early August 1920, when the ship returned to the reserve. Collingwood served as a boys' training ship on 22 September 1921 until she was paid off on 31 March 1922. Collingwood was sold for scrap on 12 December and was broken up.

Much of Vanguard's wreck was salvaged before it was declared a war grave in 1984. The amidships portion of the ship is almost completely gone and 'P' and 'Q' turrets are some 40 m away, presumably blown there by the magazine explosions. The bow and stern areas are almost intact as has been revealed by a survey authorised by the Ministry of Defence in 2016 in preparation for the centenary commemoration planned for 2017. The wreck was named a controlled site in 2002 and cannot be dived upon, except with permission from the Ministry.

title: St Vincent-class battleship


text:
Zhang Jue

Zhang Jue (died c. October 184 ) was a Chinese military general and rebel. He was the leader of the Yellow Turban Rebellion during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He was said to be a follower of Taoism and a sorcerer. His name is sometimes read as Zhang Jiao, since the Chinese character of Zhang's given name can be read as either "Jiao" or "Jue". "Jue" is the traditional or literary reading, while "Jiao" is the modern or colloquial one.

Yellow Turban Rebellion
The Yellow Turbans originated as a Taoist movement called the Tàipíng Dào or "Way of the Great Peace" (太平道), which had started well over a decade prior to the rebellion. Zhang Jue's followers hailed him as being able to cure patients who sought his help by giving them water blessed by his rituals; those who recovered then believed in him and his teachings, and his fame spread by word of mouth. Professor Rafe de Crespigny noted that disease outbreaks were reported in Han dynasty China in 171, 173, 179, 182, and 185 CE, with the potential cause theorized as the Antonine Plague of 165 to 180CE of smallpox or measles spreading along the Silk Road.

Giving himself the title of "Great Teacher" (大賢良師), Zhang Jue led the rebellion with his younger brothers Zhang Bao (張寶) and Zhang Liang (張梁). He and his brothers gave themselves titles: Zhang Bao was the "General of Earth" (地公將軍), Zhang Liang was the "General of the People" (人公將軍); and Zhang Jue was the "General of Heaven" (天公將軍). The Yellow Turbans claimed to be Taoists, and rebelled against the Han dynasty in response to burdensome taxes, rampant corruption, and famine and flooding, which were seen as indications that the Han emperor had lost the mandate of heaven.

During this time, Zhang spoke of the magic he thought himself capable of to his followers, and "promised that if they took his medicines, they would be immune from wounds and could fight in battle without fear".

The rebellion began in c. March 184. The Yellow Turbans conquered much in the early years of the rebellion, but later could not hold out against Han imperial forces led by He Jin, Lu Zhi, Dong Zhuo, Huangfu Song, Zhu Jun and others. However, Zhang Jue died from sickness later in October 184.

Although the Yellow Turbans still remained capable even in face of their more powerful foe, they were nonetheless torn apart upon the death of their leader, and were eventually defeated and dispersed. Zhang Bao was defeated and killed by imperial forces led by Huangfu Song and Guo Dian (郭典) in December 184 or January 185 at Xiaquyang County (下曲陽縣; west of present-day Jinzhou, Hebei), while Zhang Liang also met his end in November or December 184 at the hands of imperial forces led by Huangfu Song at Guangzong County (廣宗縣; southeast of present-day Guangzong County, Hebei).

Large groups of Yellow Turbans roamed through China for years after the rebellion's defeat, most of them eventually joining the army of the warlord Cao Cao, whose agrarian reform policies closely matched Zhang Jue's own programme.

In Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Zhang Jue is also featured in the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He is introduced in Chapter 1 as follows:

"At that time, there lived three brothers in Julu Commandery: Zhang Jue, Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang. Zhang Jue was a failure in the county level examination. He had gone into the mountains to gather some medicinal herbs, when he came across an old man; the old man had a youthful countenance, and was carrying a fat-hen walking stick. The old man beckoned Jue into a cave, presented him with a book in three volumes which had come from the heavens, then said, 'This book is called The Essential Art of Great Peace. Once you have mastered its contents, you will represent the heavens in spreading this knowledge, and thereby save all of mankind. If you start to have second thoughts, there will be terrible consequences for you.' Jue enquired as to the old man's name. The old man said, 'I am the old immortal spirit from the southern lands.' With that, the old man vanished into thin air. Upon receiving this book, Jue practiced night and day. Eventually, he could summon the wind and rain, and came to be known as the Great Peace Taoist. (Wikisource translation)"

Zhang Jue then goes on to start the Yellow Turban Rebellion with his brothers. Little time is devoted to Zhang Jue in the book, and his death is given a line in the second chapter: "Zhang Jue had died before his (Huangfu Song's) arrival." After his death, his body was beheaded and his head sent to the capital Luoyang. In the novel, his brother Zhang Bao does not die in battle against imperial forces, but meets his end at the hands of a subordinate, Yan Zheng (嚴政), who cuts off his head and surrenders to imperial forces.

In popular culture
Zhang Jue appears as a playable character in Koei's Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi video games series, as well as serving as an antagonist in Capcom's Destiny of an Emperor for the Nintendo Entertainment System. He is referred to as "Zhang Jiao" in these games. He is also seen as one of the antagonists of the light gun shooting game SEGA Golden Gun.

In Total War: Three Kingdoms' fourth DLC installment, Mandate of Heaven, Zhang Jue and his brothers lead the playable Yellow Turban factions who seek to overthrow the failing Han dynasty and establish a new order in China.

In the action role-playing game  Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Zhang Jue and his brothers appear as separate boss fights.

In the Japanese mobile gacha game Fate/Grand Order, Zhang Jue is a summonable character the player can use in battles. According to the game's story, Zhang Jue is a magic-user who serves an alien life form in Area 51.

title: Zhang Jue


text:
HMS St Vincent (1908)

HMS St Vincent was the lead ship of her class of three dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. After commissioning in 1910, she spent her whole career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets, often serving as a flagship. Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, during which she damaged a German battlecruiser, and the inconclusive action of 19 August several months later, her service during World War I generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. The ship was deemed obsolete after the war and was reduced to reserve and used as a training ship. St Vincent was sold for scrap in 1921 and broken up the following year.

Design and description
The design of the St Vincent class was derived from that of the previous Bellerophon-class battleship, with more powerful guns and slight increases in size and protection. St Vincent had an overall length of 536 ft, a beam of 84 ft, and a normal draught of 28 ft. She displaced 19700 LT at normal load and 22800 LT at deep load. Her crew numbered 756 officers and ratings in 1911, and 835 in 1915.

St Vincent was powered by two sets of Parsons direct-drive steam turbines each driving two propeller shafts using steam provided by 18 coal-burning Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were rated at 24500 shp and were intended to give the ship a maximum speed of 21 kn. During her sea trials on 17 December 1909, the ship reached a top speed of 21.67 kn from 28218 shp. St Vincent carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of 6900 nmi at a cruising speed of 10 kn.

Armament and armour
The St Vincent class was equipped with ten breech-loading (BL) 12 in Mk XI guns in five twin-gun turrets, three along the centreline and the remaining two as wing turrets. The secondary, or anti-torpedo boat armament, comprised twenty BL 4 in Mk VII guns. Two of these guns were each installed on the roofs of the fore and aft centreline turrets and the wing turrets in unshielded mounts, and the other ten were positioned in the superstructure. All guns were in single mounts. The ships were also fitted with three 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and the third in the stern.

The St Vincent-class ships were protected by a waterline 10 in armoured belt that extended between the end barbettes. Their decks ranged in thickness between 0.75 to 3 in with the thickest portions protecting the steering gear in the stern. The main battery turret faces were 11 in thick, and the turrets were supported by 9 or barbettes.

Modifications
The guns on the forward turret roof were removed in 1911–1912 and the upper forward pair of guns in the superstructure were removed in 1913–1914. In addition, gun shields were fitted to all guns in the superstructure and the bridge structure was enlarged around the base of the forward tripod mast. During the first year of the war, a fire-control director was installed high on the forward tripod mast. Around the same time, the base of the forward superstructure was rebuilt to house 4 four-inch guns and the turret-top guns were removed, which reduced her secondary armament to a total of fourteen guns. In addition, a pair of three-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft (AA) guns were added.

Approximately 50 LT of additional deck armour was added after the Battle of Jutland. By April 1917, St Vincent mounted 13 four-inch anti-torpedo boat guns as well as one four-inch and one three-inch AA gun, and the ship was modified to operate a kite balloon around the same time. In 1918 a high-angle rangefinder was fitted and the stern torpedo tube was removed before the end of the war.

Construction and career
St Vincent, named after Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent (1735 – 1823), was ordered on 26 October 1907. She was laid down at HM Dockyard, Portsmouth, on the same date, launched on 10 September 1908 and completed in May 1909. Including her armament, her cost is variously quoted at £1,721,970 or £1,754,615. She was commissioned on 3 May 1910 and assigned as the junior flagship of the 1st Division of the Home Fleet. She was commanded by Captain Douglas Nicholson and was present in Torbay when King George V visited the fleet in late July. St Vincent also participated in the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 24 June 1911. On 1 May 1912, the 1st Division was renamed the 1st Battle Squadron. The ship participated in the Parliamentary Naval Review on 9 July at Spithead before beginning a lengthy refit late in the year. On 21 April 1914, she was recommissioned and resumed her role as the flagship of the second-in-command of the 1st Battle Squadron, Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas.

World War I
Between 17 and 20 July 1914, St Vincent took part in a test mobilisation and fleet review as part of the British response to the July Crisis. Arriving in Portland on 27 July, she was ordered to proceed with the rest of the Home Fleet to Scapa Flow two days later to safeguard the fleet from a possible surprise attack by the Imperial German Navy. In August 1914, following the outbreak of World War I, the Home Fleet was reorganised as the Grand Fleet, and placed under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe. On the evening of 22 November 1914, the Grand Fleet conducted a fruitless sweep in the southern half of the North Sea; St Vincent stood with the main body in support of Vice-Admiral David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron. The fleet was back in port in Scapa Flow by 27 November. The 1st Battle Squadron cruised north-west of the Shetland Islands and conducted gunnery practice on 8–12 December. Four days later, the Grand Fleet sortied during the German raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, but failed to make contact with the High Seas Fleet. St Vincent and the rest of the Grand Fleet conducted another sweep of the North Sea on 25–27 December.

Jellicoe's ships, including St Vincent, conducted gunnery drills on 10–13 January 1915 west of the Orkney and Shetland Islands. On the evening of 23 January, the bulk of the Grand Fleet sailed in support of Beatty's battlecruisers, but the fleet was too far away to participate in the Battle of Dogger Bank the following day. On 7–10 March, the Grand Fleet conducted a sweep in the northern North Sea, during which it conducted training manoeuvres. Another such cruise took place on 16–19 March. On 11 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a patrol in the central North Sea and returned to port on 14 April; another patrol in the area took place on 17–19 April, followed by gunnery drills off Shetland on 20–21 April.

The Grand Fleet conducted sweeps into the central North Sea on 17–19 May and 29–31 May without encountering any German vessels. During 11–14 June the fleet conducted gunnery practice and battle exercises west of Shetland. King George V inspected all of the personnel of the 2nd Division aboard St Vincent during his visit to Scapa on 8 July and the Grand Fleet conducted training off Shetland beginning three days later. On 2–5 September, the fleet went on another cruise in the northern end of the North Sea and conducted gunnery drills. Throughout the rest of the month, the Grand Fleet conducted numerous training exercises. The ship, together with the majority of the Grand Fleet, conducted another sweep into the North Sea from 13 to 15 October. Almost three weeks later, St Vincent participated in another fleet training operation west of Orkney during 2–5 November. She became a private ship that month when she was relieved by HMS Colossus (1910) as flagship.

The fleet departed for a cruise in the North Sea on 26 February 1916; Jellicoe had intended to use the Harwich Force of cruisers and destroyers to sweep the Heligoland Bight, but bad weather prevented operations in the southern North Sea. As a result, the operation was confined to the northern end of the sea. Another sweep began on 6 March, but had to be abandoned the following day as the weather grew too severe for the escorting destroyers. On the night of 25 March, St Vincent and the rest of the fleet sailed from Scapa Flow to support Beatty's battlecruisers and other light forces raiding the German Zeppelin base at Tondern. By the time the Grand Fleet approached the area on 26 March, the British and German forces had already disengaged and a strong gale threatened the light craft, so the fleet was ordered to return to base. On 21 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a demonstration off Horns Reef to distract the Germans while the Imperial Russian Navy relaid its defensive minefields in the Baltic Sea. The fleet returned to Scapa Flow on 24 April and refuelled before proceeding south in response to intelligence reports that the Germans were about to launch a raid on Lowestoft, but only arrived in the area after the Germans had withdrawn. On 2–4 May, the fleet conducted another demonstration off Horns Reef to keep German attention focused on the North Sea.

Battle of Jutland

In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the High Seas Fleet, composed of 16 dreadnoughts, 6 pre-dreadnoughts, and supporting ships, departed the Jade Bight early on the morning of 31 May. The fleet sailed in concert with Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's 5 battlecruisers. The Royal Navy's Room 40 had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation. In response the Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet, totalling some 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. St Vincent, under the command of Captain William Fisher, was assigned to the 5th Division of the 1st Battle Squadron at this time. Shortly after 14:20, Fisher semaphored the Grand Fleet's flagship, HMS Iron Duke (1912), that his ship was monitoring strong radio signals on the frequency used by the High Seas Fleet that implied the Germans were nearby. Detection of further signals was communicated at 14:52.

As the Grand Fleet began deploying from columns into a line of battle beginning at 18:15, the 5th Division was near the rear. St Vincent, the twentieth ship from the head of the battle line after deployment, was briefly forced to stop to avoid overrunning ships further forward as the fleet had been forced to slow to 14 kn to allow the battlecruisers to assume their position at the head of the line. During the first stage of the general engagement, the ship began firing a few salvos from her main guns at the crippled light cruiser SMS Wiesbaden at 18:33, although the number of hits made, if any, is unknown. Between 18:40 and 19:00 the ship turned away twice from what were thought to be torpedoes that stopped short of the ship. From 19:10 St Vincent began firing at what was initially identified as a German battleship, but proved to be the battlecruiser SMS Moltke, hitting her target twice before she disappeared into the mist. The first armour-piercing, capped (APC) shell was probably a ricochet and struck the upper hull abreast the bridge. It wrecked the sickbay and slightly damaged the surrounding superstructure and hull, which caused some minor flooding. One man in the conning tower was wounded by a splinter. The second hit penetrated the rear armour of the superfiring turret at the rear of the ship, wrecking it and starting a small fire that was easily extinguished by the crew. This was the last time that St Vincent fired her guns during the battle. The ship fired a total of 98 twelve-inch shells (90 APC and 8 common-pointed, capped) during the battle.

Subsequent activity
After the battle, the ship was transferred to the 4th Battle Squadron. The Grand Fleet sortied on 18 August to ambush the High Seas Fleet while it advanced into the southern North Sea, but a series of miscommunications and mistakes prevented Jellicoe from intercepting the German fleet before it returned to port. Two light cruisers were sunk by German U-boats during the operation; Jellicoe decided not to risk the major units of the fleet south of 55° 30' North due to the threat from submarines and mines. The Admiralty concurred and stipulated that the Grand Fleet would not sortie unless the German fleet was attempting an invasion of Britain or there was a strong possibility it could be forced into an engagement under suitable conditions.

On 24 April 1918, St Vincent was under repair at Invergordon, Scotland, when she and the dreadnought HMS Hercules (1910) were ordered north to reinforce the forces based at Scapa Flow and Orkney when the High Seas Fleet sortied north for the last time to intercept a convoy to Norway. She was unable to leave port before the Germans turned back after Moltke suffered engine damage. The ship was present at Rosyth when the German fleet surrendered on 21 November. In March 1919, she was reduced to reserve and became a gunnery training ship at Portsmouth. St Vincent then became flagship of the Reserve Fleet in June and was relieved as gunnery training ship in December when she was transferred to Rosyth. There she remained until listed for disposal in March 1921 as obsolete. She was sold to the Stanlee Shipbreaking & Salvage Co. for scrap on 1 December 1921 and towed to Dover for demolition in March 1922.

title: HMS St Vincent (1908)


text:
HMS Collingwood (1908)

HMS Collingwood was a St Vincent-class battleship dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She spent her whole career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets and often served as a flagship. Prince Albert (later King George VI) spent several years aboard the ship before and during World War I. At the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, Collingwood was in the middle of the battleline and lightly damaged a German battlecruiser. Other than that battle, and the inconclusive action of 19 August, her service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. The ship was deemed obsolete after the war; she was reduced to reserve and used as a training ship before being sold for scrap in 1922.

Design and description
The design of the St Vincent class was derived from that of the previous Bellerophon-class battleship, with a slight increase in size, armour and more powerful guns, among other more minor changes. Collingwood had an overall length of 536 ft, a beam of 84 ft, and a normal draught of 28 ft. She displaced 19700 LT at normal load and 22800 LT at deep load. In 1911 her crew numbered 758 officers and ratings.

Collingwood was powered by two sets of Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam from eighteen Yarrow boilers. The turbines were rated at 24500 shp and were intended to give the ship a maximum speed of 21 kn. During her full-power, eight-hour sea trials on 17 January 1910, she only reached a top speed of 20.62 kn from 26789 shp. Collingwood carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of 6900 nmi at a cruising speed of 10 kn.

Armament and armour
The St Vincent class was equipped with ten breech-loading (BL) 12-inch (305 mm) Mk XI guns in five twin-gun turrets, three along the centreline and the remaining two as wing turrets. The secondary, or anti-torpedo boat, armament comprised twenty BL 4-inch (102 mm) Mk VII guns. Two of these guns were each installed on the roofs of the fore and aft centreline turrets and the wing turrets in unshielded mounts, and the other ten were positioned in the superstructure. All guns were in single mounts. The ships were also fitted with three 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and the third in the stern.

The St Vincent-class ships had a waterline belt of Krupp cemented armour (KC) that was 10 in thick between the fore and aftmost barbettes, reducing to a thickness of 2 in before it reached the ships' ends. Above this was a strake of armour 8 in thick. Transverse bulkheads 5 and 8 in inches thick terminated the thickest parts of the waterline and upper armour belts once they reached the outer portions of the endmost barbettes.

The three centreline barbettes were protected by armour 9 in thick above the main deck that thinned to 5 in below it. The wing barbettes were similar except that they had 10 inches of armour on their outer faces. The gun turrets had 11 in faces and sides with 3 in roofs. The three armoured decks ranged in thicknesses from .75 to 3 in. The front and sides of the forward conning tower were protected by 11-inch plates, although the rear and roof were 8 inches and 3 inches thick, respectively.

Alterations
The guns on the forward turret roof were removed in 1911–1912 and the upper forward pair of guns in the superstructure were removed in 1913–1914. In addition, gun shields were fitted to all guns in the superstructure and the bridge structure was enlarged around the base of the forward tripod mast. During the first year of the war, a fire-control director was installed high on the forward tripod mast. Around the same time, the base of the forward superstructure was rebuilt to house eight 4-inch guns and the turret-top guns were removed, which reduced her secondary armament to a total of fourteen guns. In addition, a pair of 3-inch anti-aircraft (AA) guns were added.

By April 1917, Collingwood mounted thirteen 4-inch anti-torpedo boat guns as well as single 4-inch and 3-inch AA guns. Approximately 50 LT of additional deck armour had been added after the Battle of Jutland. Before the end of the war the AA guns were moved from the deckhouse between the aft turrets to the stern and the stern torpedo tube was removed. In 1918, a high-angle rangefinder was fitted and flying-off platforms were installed on the roofs of the fore and aft turrets.

Construction and career
Collingwood, named after Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, was ordered on 26 October 1907. She was laid down at Devonport Royal Dockyard on 3 February 1908, launched on 7 November 1908 and completed in April 1910. Including her armament, the ship's cost is quoted at £1,680,888 or £1,731,640.

On 19 April 1910, Collingwood was commissioned and assigned to the 1st Division of the Home Fleet under the command of Captain William Pakenham. She joined other members of the fleet in regular peacetime exercises, and on 11 February 1911 damaged her bottom plating on an uncharted rock off Ferrol. On 24 June the ship was present at the Coronation Fleet Review for King George V at Spithead. Pakenham was relieved by Captain Charles Vaughan-Lee on 1 December. On 1 May 1912, the 1st Division was renamed the 1st Battle Squadron. On 22 June, Vaughan-Lee was transferred to the battleship HMS Bellerophon (1907) and Captain James Ley assumed command; Vice-Admiral Stanley Colville hoisted his flag in Collingwood as commander of the 1st Battle Squadron. The ship participated in the Parliamentary Naval Review on 9 July at Spithead before beginning a refit late in the year. In March 1913, Collingwood and the 1st Battle Squadron undertook a port visit to Cherbourg, France. Midshipman Prince Albert (later King George VI) was assigned to the ship on 15 September 1913. Collingwood hosted Albert's older brother, Edward, Prince of Wales, during a short cruise on 18 April 1914. She became a private ship when Colville hauled down his flag on 22 June.

World War I
Between 17 and 20 July 1914, Collingwood took part in a test mobilisation and fleet review as part of the British response to the July Crisis. Arriving in Portland on 27 July, she was ordered to proceed with the rest of the Home Fleet to Scapa Flow two days later to safeguard the fleet from a possible German surprise attack. In August 1914, following the outbreak of World War I, the Home Fleet was reorganised as the Grand Fleet, and placed under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe. Most of it was briefly based (22 October to 3 November) at Lough Swilly, Ireland, while the defences at Scapa were strengthened. On the evening of 22 November 1914, the Grand Fleet conducted a fruitless sweep in the southern half of the North Sea; Collingwood stood with the main body in support of Vice-Admiral David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron. The fleet was back in port in Scapa Flow by 27 November. The 1st Battle Squadron cruised north-west of the Shetland Islands and conducted gunnery practice on 8–12 December. Four days later, the Grand Fleet sortied during the German raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, but failed to make contact with the High Seas Fleet. Collingwood and the rest of the Grand Fleet conducted another sweep of the North Sea on 25–27 December.

The Grand Fleet, including Collingwood, conducted gunnery drills on 10–13 January 1915 west of Orkney and Shetland. On the evening of 23 January, the bulk of the Grand Fleet sailed in support of Beatty's battlecruisers, but Collingwood and the rest of the fleet did not participate in the ensuing Battle of Dogger Bank the following day. The ship sailed for Portsmouth Royal Dockyard on 2 February to begin a brief refit and returned on 18 February. On 7–10 March, the Grand Fleet conducted a sweep in the northern North Sea, during which it conducted training manoeuvres. Another such cruise took place on 16–19 March. From 25 March to 14 April 1915, Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas temporarily hoisted his flag aboard Collingwood. On 11 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a patrol in the central North Sea and returned to port on 14 April; another patrol in the area took place on 17–19 April, followed by gunnery drills off Shetland on 20–21 April.

The Grand Fleet conducted sweeps into the central North Sea on 17–19 May and 29–31 May without encountering any German vessels. During 11–14 June the fleet conducted gunnery practice and battle exercises west of Shetland. Collingwood was briefly docked at Invergordon from 23 to 25 June. King George V inspected the ship on 8 July, and the Grand Fleet conducted training off Shetland beginning three days later. Rear-Admiral Ernest Gaunt temporarily used Collingwood as his flagship from 24 August to 24 September and from 10 December to 16 January 1916. On 2–5 September 1915, the fleet went on another cruise in the northern end of the North Sea and conducted gunnery drills. Throughout the rest of the month, the Grand Fleet conducted numerous training exercises. The ship, together with the majority of the Grand Fleet, conducted another sweep into the North Sea from 13 to 15 October. Almost three weeks later, Collingwood participated in another fleet training operation west of Orkney during 2–5 November. On 21 November, she sailed for Devonport Royal Dockyard for a minor overhaul and arrived back at Scapa on 9 December.

The Grand Fleet departed for a cruise in the North Sea on 26 February 1916; Jellicoe had intended to use the Harwich Force to sweep the Heligoland Bight, but bad weather prevented operations in the southern North Sea. As a result, the operation was confined to the northern end of the sea. Another sweep began on 6 March, but had to be abandoned the following day as the weather grew too severe for the escorting destroyers. On the night of 25 March, Collingwood and the rest of the fleet sailed from Scapa Flow to support Beatty's battlecruisers and other light forces raiding the German Zeppelin base at Tondern. By the time the Grand Fleet approached the area on 26 March, the British and German forces had already disengaged and a strong gale threatened the light craft, so the fleet was ordered to return to base. On 21 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a demonstration off Horns Reef to distract the Germans while the Russian Navy relaid its defensive minefields in the Baltic Sea. The fleet returned to Scapa Flow on 24 April and refuelled before proceeding south in response to intelligence reports that the Germans were about to launch a raid on Lowestoft. The Grand Fleet arrived in the area after the Germans had withdrawn. On 2–4 May, the fleet conducted another demonstration off Horns Reef to keep German attention focused on the North Sea.

Battle of Jutland

In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the German High Seas Fleet, composed of 16 dreadnoughts, 6 pre-dreadnoughts, 6 light cruisers, and 31 torpedo boats, departed the Jade Bight early on the morning of 31 May. The fleet sailed in concert with Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's five battlecruisers and supporting cruisers and torpedo boats. The Royal Navy's Room 40 had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation. In response, the Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet, totalling some 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. Collingwood was the eighteenth ship from the head of the battle line after the Grand Fleet deployed for battle.

The initial action was fought primarily by the British and German battlecruiser formations in the afternoon, but by 18:00, the Grand Fleet approached the scene. Fifteen minutes later, Jellicoe gave the order to turn and deploy the fleet for action. The transition from cruising formation caused congestion with the rear divisions, forcing many ships to reduce speed to 8 kn to avoid colliding with each other. During the first stage of the general engagement, Collingwood fired eight salvos from her main guns at the crippled light cruiser SMS Wiesbaden from 18:32, although the number of hits made, if any, is unknown. Her secondary armament then engaged the destroyer SMS G42, which was attempting to come to Wiesbaden's assistance, but failed to hit her. At 19:15 Collingwood fired two salvoes of high explosive (HE) shells at the battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger, hitting her target once before she disappeared into the mist. The shell detonated in the German ship's sickbay and damaged the surrounding superstructure. Shortly afterwards, during the attack of the German destroyers around 19:20, the ship fired her main armament at a damaged destroyer without success and dodged two torpedoes that missed by 10 yd behind and 30 yd in front. This was the last time she fired her guns during the battle.

Following the German destroyer attack, the High Seas Fleet disengaged, and Collingwood and the rest of the Grand Fleet saw no further action in the battle. This was, in part, due to confusion aboard the fleet flagship over the exact location and course of the German fleet; without this information, Jellicoe could not bring his fleet to action. At 21:30, the Grand Fleet began to reorganise into its night-time cruising formation. Early on the morning of 1 June, the Grand Fleet combed the area, looking for damaged German ships, but after spending several hours searching, they found none. Collingwood fired a total of 52 armour-piercing, capped and 32 HE shells from her main armament and 35 four-inch shells during the battle. Prince Albert was a sub-lieutenant commanding the forward turret during the battle and sat in the open on the turret roof during a lull in the action.

Subsequent activity
After the battle the ship was transferred to the 4th Battle Squadron under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, who inspected Collingwood on 8 August 1916. The Grand Fleet sortied on 18 August to ambush the High Seas Fleet while it advanced into the southern North Sea, but a series of miscommunications and mistakes prevented Jellicoe from intercepting the German fleet before it returned to port. Two light cruisers were sunk by German U-boats during the operation, prompting Jellicoe to decide to not risk the major units of the fleet south of 55° 30' North due to the prevalence of German submarines and mines. The Admiralty concurred and stipulated that the Grand Fleet would not sortie unless the German fleet was attempting an invasion of Britain or there was a strong possibility it could be forced into an engagement under suitable conditions.

Collingwood received a brief refit at Rosyth in early September before rejoining the Grand Fleet. On 29 October Sturdee came aboard to present the ship with her battle honour, "Jutland 1916". Captain Wilmot Nicholson briefly assumed command on 1 December before transferring to the new battlecruiser HMS Glorious upon his relief by Captain Cole Fowler on 26 March 1917. Together with the rest of the 4th Battle Squadron, Collingwood put to sea for tactical exercises for a few days in February 1917. The ship was present at Scapa Flow when her sister ship HMS Vanguard (1909)'s magazines exploded on 9 July and her crew recovered the bodies of three men killed in the explosion. In January 1918, Collingwood and other of the older dreadnoughts cruised off the coast of Norway for several days, possibly to provide distant cover for a convoy to Norway. Along with the rest of the Grand Fleet, she sortied on the afternoon of 23 April after radio transmissions revealed that the High Seas Fleet was at sea after a failed attempt to intercept the regular British convoy to Norway. The Germans were too far ahead of the British, and no shots were fired. By early November, Collingwood was at Invergordon to receive a brief refit in the floating dock based there, and missed the surrender of the High Seas Fleet on the 21st. She was slightly damaged on 23 November while attempting to come alongside the oiler RFA Ebonol.

In January 1919, Collingwood was transferred to Devonport and assigned to the Reserve Fleet. Upon the dissolution of the Grand Fleet on 18 March, the Reserve Fleet was redesignated the Third Fleet and Collingwood became its flagship. She became a tender to HMS Vivid on 1 October and served as a gunnery and wireless telegraphy (W/T) training ship. The W/T school was transferred to Glorious on 1 June 1920 and the gunnery duties followed in early August; Collingwood returned to the reserve. She became a boys' training ship on 22 September 1921 until she was paid off on 31 March 1922. Collingwood was sold to John Cashmore Ltd for scrap on 12 December and arrived at Newport, Wales, on 3 March 1923 to be broken up.

Relics
Battle ensigns flown by the ship during Jutland survive at the shore establishment of the same name and at the Roedean School in East Sussex.

title: HMS Collingwood (1908)


text:
HMS Vanguard (1909)

HMS Vanguard was one of three St Vincent-class battleship dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She spent her career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets. Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and the inconclusive action of 19 August several months later, her service during World War I mostly consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea.

Shortly before midnight on 9 July 1917 at Scapa Flow, Vanguard suffered a series of magazine explosions. She sank almost instantly, killing 843 of the 845 men aboard. The wreck was heavily salvaged after the war, but was eventually protected as a war grave in 1984. It was designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, and diving on the wreck is generally forbidden.

Design and description
The design of the St Vincent class was derived from that of the previous Bellerophon-class battleship, with a slight increase in size, armour and more powerful guns, among other minor changes. Vanguard had an overall length of 536 ft, a beam of 84 ft, and a normal draught of 28 ft. She displaced 19700 LT at normal load and 22800 LT at deep load. In 1910 her crew numbered 753 officers and ratings.

Vanguard was powered by two sets of Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam from eighteen Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were rated at 24500 shp and intended to give the ship a maximum speed of 21 kn. During her sea trials on 17 December 1909, she unofficially reached a top speed of 22.3 kn from 25780 shp, although she must have been lightly loaded to reach this speed. Vanguard carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of 6900 nmi at a cruising speed of 10 kn.

The St Vincent class was equipped with ten breech-loading (BL) 12 in Mk XI guns in five twin-gun turrets, three along the centreline and the remaining two as wing turrets. The centreline turrets were designated 'A', 'X' and 'Y', from front to rear, and the port and starboard wing turrets were 'P' and 'Q' respectively. The secondary, or anti-torpedo boat armament, comprised twenty BL 4 in Mk VII guns. Two of these guns were each installed on the roofs of the fore and aft centreline turrets and the wing turrets in unshielded mounts, and the other ten were positioned in the superstructure. All guns were in single mounts. The ships were also fitted with three 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and the third in the stern.

The St Vincent-class ships were protected by a waterline armoured belt 8 - 10 in thick that extended between the end barbettes. Their decks ranged in thickness between 0.75 to 3 in with the thickest portions protecting the steering gear in the stern. The main battery turret faces were 11 in thick, and the turrets were supported by barbettes 9 - 10 in thick.

Modifications
The guns on the forward turret roof were removed in 1910–1911. About three years later, gun shields were fitted to most of the 4-inch guns in the superstructure and the bridge structure was enlarged around the base of the forward tripod mast. During the first year of World War I, the base of the forward superstructure was rebuilt to house eight 4-inch guns and the turret-top guns were removed, which reduced her secondary armament to a total of fourteen guns. In addition a pair of 3-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft (AA) guns were added. A fire-control director was installed high on the forward tripod mast before the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. Approximately 50 LT of additional deck armour were added afterwards. By April 1917, Vanguard mounted thirteen 4-inch anti-torpedo boat guns as well as one 4-inch and one 3-inch AA gun.

Construction and career
Vanguard, the eighth ship of that name to serve in the Royal Navy, was ordered on 6 February 1908. She was laid down by Vickers Armstrong at their Barrow-in-Furness shipyard on 2 April 1908, launched on 22 February 1909, and completed on 1 March 1910. Including armament, the ship cost about £1.6 million. Vanguard was commissioned on 1 March 1910, under the command of Captain John Eustace, and assigned to the 1st Division of the Home Fleet. She was present in Torbay when King George V visited the fleet in late July. Vanguard also participated in the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 24 June 1911 and she trained with the Atlantic Fleet the following month before beginning a refit. Captain Arthur Ricardo relieved Eustace on 23 September.

The ship was recommissioned on 28 March 1912 and rejoined the 1st Division shortly before it was renamed the 1st Battle Squadron on 1 May. She participated in exercises with the 1st Fleet in October. Vanguard was refitted in December, with new bilge keels being installed. On 5 June 1913, Captain Cecil Hickley replaced Ricardo upon the latter's promotion to commodore, second class.

World War I
Between 17 and 20 July 1914, Vanguard took part in a test mobilisation and fleet review as part of the British response to the July Crisis. Arriving in Portland on 27 July, she was ordered to proceed with the rest of the Home Fleet to Scapa Flow two days later to forestall a possible surprise attack by the Imperial German Navy. In August 1914, following the outbreak of World War I, the Home Fleet was reorganised as the Grand Fleet, and placed under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe. On 1 September, the Grand Fleet was anchored at Scapa Flow when the light cruiser HMS Falmouth (1910) spotted a suspected German submarine, provoking a panic across the fleet. Vanguard also spotted what was believed to be a periscope and opened fire, but the whole incident proved to be a false alarm. Submarine scares such as this caused the fleet to be briefly (22 October to 3 November) based at Lough Swilly, Ireland, while the defences at Scapa were strengthened. On the evening of 22 November, the Grand Fleet conducted a fruitless sweep in the southern half of the North Sea; Vanguard stood with the main body in support of Vice-Admiral David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron. The fleet was back in port in Scapa Flow by 27 November. The 1st Battle Squadron cruised north-west of the Shetland Islands and exercised their guns on 8–12 December. Four days later, the Grand Fleet sortied during the German raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, but failed to make contact with the High Seas Fleet. Vanguard and the rest of the Grand Fleet made another sweep of the North Sea on 25–27 December.

Jellicoe's ships, including Vanguard, conducted gunnery drills west of Orkney and Shetland on 10–13 January 1915. On the evening of 23 January, the bulk of the Grand Fleet sailed in support of Beatty's battlecruisers, but they were too far away to participate in the ensuing Battle of Dogger Bank the following day. On 7–10 March, the Grand Fleet made a sweep in the northern North Sea, during which it conducted training manoeuvres. Another such cruise took place on 16–19 March. On 11 April, the fleet patrolled the central North Sea and returned to port on 14 April; another patrol in the area took place on 17–19 April, followed by gunnery drills off Shetland on 20–21 April.

The Grand Fleet swept the central North Sea on 17–19 May and 29–31 May without encountering any German vessels. During 11–14 June the fleet practised gunnery and battle exercises west of Shetland, and on 11 July there was more training off Shetland. On 2–5 September, the fleet went on another cruise in the northern end of the North Sea and conducted gunnery drills. Throughout the rest of the month, the Grand Fleet was performing numerous training exercises before making another sweep into the North Sea on 13–15 October. Almost three weeks later, Vanguard participated in another fleet training operation west of Orkney during 2–5 November.

Captain James Dick relieved Hickley on 22 January 1916. The fleet departed for a cruise in the North Sea on 26 February; Jellicoe had intended to use the Harwich Force to sweep the Heligoland Bight, but bad weather prevented operations in the southern North Sea. As a result, the operation was confined to the northern end of the sea. Another sweep began on 6 March, but had to be abandoned the following day as the weather grew too severe for the escorting destroyers. On the night of 25 March, Vanguard and the rest of the fleet sailed from Scapa Flow to support Beatty's battlecruisers and other light forces raiding the German Zeppelin base at Tondern. By the time the Grand Fleet approached the area on 26 March, the British and German forces had already disengaged and a strong gale threatened the light craft, so the fleet was ordered to return to base. In April the ship was transferred to the 4th Battle Squadron. On 21 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a demonstration off Horns Reef to distract the Germans while the Russian Navy re-laid its defensive minefields in the Baltic Sea. The fleet returned to Scapa Flow on 24 April and refuelled before proceeding south in response to intelligence reports that the Germans were about to launch a raid on Lowestoft. The Grand Fleet arrived in the area after the Germans had withdrawn. On 2–4 May, the fleet conducted another demonstration off Horns Reef to keep German attention focused on the North Sea.

Battle of Jutland

In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the High Seas Fleet, composed of 16 dreadnoughts, 6 pre-dreadnoughts, and supporting ships, departed the Jade Bight early on the morning of 31 May. The fleet sailed in concert with Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's five battlecruisers. The Royal Navy's Room 40 had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation. In response the Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet, totalling some 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet.

During the Battle of Jutland on 31 May, Beatty's battlecruisers managed to bait Scheer and Hipper into a pursuit as they fell back upon the main body of the Grand Fleet. After Jellicoe deployed his ships into line of battle, Vanguard was the eighteenth ship from the head of the battle line after deployment. Shortly after deploying from column into line ahead, her crew recorded that shells from the High Seas Fleet were falling nearby. During the first stage of the general engagement, the ship fired 42 rounds from her main guns at the crippled light cruiser SMS Wiesbaden beginning at 18:32, claiming several hits. Between 19:20 and 19:30, Vanguard engaged several German destroyer flotillas with her main armament without result. This was the last time that the ship fired her guns during the battle, as the poor visibility hindered Jellicoe's ability to close with the Germans before Scheer was able to disengage under the cover of darkness. Vanguard fired a total of 65 high-explosive and 15 common-pointed, capped, twelve-inch shells and 10 shells from her four-inch guns during the battle.

Subsequent activity
The Grand Fleet sortied on 18 August to ambush the High Seas Fleet, while it advanced into the southern North Sea, but a series of miscommunications and mistakes prevented Jellicoe from intercepting the German fleet before it returned to port. Two light cruisers were sunk by German U-boats during the operation, prompting Jellicoe to decide to not risk the major units of the fleet south of 55° 30' North due to the prevalence of German submarines and mines. The Admiralty concurred and stipulated that the Grand Fleet would not sortie unless the German fleet was attempting an invasion of Britain or there was a strong possibility it could be forced into an engagement under suitable conditions. Vanguard was refitted in Rosyth in December.

Explosion
The ship anchored in Scapa Flow at about 18:30 on 9 July 1917 after having spent the morning exercising general evolutions concluding practising the routine for abandoning ship. The Captain made a speech to the ship's company in which he stated that under present conditions a ship would either blow up in a matter of seconds, or would take several hours to sink. Practically this meant that all would go down with the ship or that everybody would be saved. It is a remarkable coincidence that his words were to be so tragically proved in less than 12 hours. There is no record of anyone detecting anything amiss until the first detonation at 23:20. Vanguard sank almost instantly, with only three of the crew surviving, one of whom died soon afterwards. A total of 843 men were lost, including two Australian stokers from the light cruiser HMAS Sydney (1912) who were serving time in the battleship's brig. Another casualty was Commander Eto Kyōsuke, a military observer from the Imperial Japanese Navy, which was allied with the Royal Navy at the time through the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The bodies of 17 of the 22 men recovered after the explosion, plus that of Lieutenant Commander Alan Duke, who died after being rescued, were buried at the Royal Naval Cemetery at Lyness, not far from the site of the explosion. The others are commemorated on the Chatham, Plymouth and Portsmouth Naval Memorials.

A Court of Inquiry heard accounts from many witnesses on nearby ships. They accepted the consensus that there had been a small explosion with a white glare between the foremast and 'A' turret, followed after a brief interval by two much larger explosions. The court decided, on the balance of the available evidence, that the main detonations were in either 'P' magazine, 'Q' magazine, or both. A great deal of debris thrown out by the explosions landed on nearby ships; a section of plating measuring approximately 6 by landed on board the battleship HMS Bellerophon (1907). It was found to be from the No. 2 Hydraulic Room abaft 'A' barbette. It showed no signs of a blast from 'A' magazine, which reinforced the visual evidence suggesting that the explosion took place in the central part of the ship.

Although the explosion was obviously a detonation of the cordite charges in a main magazine, the reason for it was less clear. There were several theories. The inquiry found that some of the cordite on board, which had been temporarily offloaded in December 1916 and catalogued at that time, was past its stated safe life. The possibility of spontaneous detonation was raised, but could not be proved. It was also noted that a number of ship's boilers were still in use, and some watertight doors, which should have been closed in wartime, were open as the ship was in port. It was suggested that this might have contributed to a dangerously high temperature in the magazines. The final conclusion of the court was that a fire started in a four-inch magazine, perhaps when a raised temperature caused spontaneous ignition of cordite, spreading to one or the other main magazines, which then exploded.

Wreck
Vanguard's wreck was heavily salvaged in search of non-ferrous metals before it was declared a war grave in 1984. Some of the main armament and armour plate was also removed.

The wreck and its associated debris cover a large area and lies at a depth of approximately 34 m at 58.8566°N, -3.1062°W. The amidships portion of the ship is almost completely gone and 'P' and 'Q' turrets were blown some 40 m away. The bow and stern areas are almost intact as has been revealed by an extensive survey, carried out by a team of volunteer specialist divers and authorised by the Ministry of Defence in 2016. A report of the survey was published in April 2018.

The wreck was designated as a controlled site in 2002 and cannot be dived upon except with permission from the Ministry of Defence. The centenary of Vanguard's loss was commemorated on 9 July 2017: descendants of the crew laid 40 wreaths above her wreckage, Royal Navy divers placed a new Union Jack on the wreck, and Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery—where some of the crew were buried—held a wreath-laying ceremony.

title: HMS Vanguard (1909)


text:
Fujitsu Lifebook

Lifebook is a line of laptop computers made by Fujitsu, which also offers a range of notebooks and tablet PCs within the same Lifebook family.

History
In partnership with Poqet Computer Corporation, Fujitsu launched the world's first hand-held, one-pound, IBM/PC-XT-compatible computer in 1989. It launched its first single-spindle convertible Tablet PC, the Lifebook T3000 Series, in 2003; the T3010 was a launching pad for its current tablet PCs.

Models
All series, including former series, are listed here; currently (2017) the Lifebook A series is being continued more for the cheaper private sector and the series E, P, S, T, U mostly more for the business sector. Fujitsu is traditionally strong in the touch screen and tablet area (in the Lifebook S, T, and U series). In addition, reference is also made to the Stylistic series.

Lifebook A
The A Series was launched in 2010 and initially consisted of the "all-round" models A530, AH530 and AH550, which are offered in different variants. Similarities were displays with 39.6 cm (15.6 inches) diagonal, false led backlighting and 1366 × 768 pixels (16:9 aspect ratio, with or without anti-glare protection), as well as the built-in Intel HM55 chipset and keyboards with a numeric keypad. The devices are mainly equipped with mobile processors from the Intel Core i series offered. Even today (2017), the A series, for example with the models A555 and A557, are relatively inexpensive larger laptops (15.6 inches) that are offered as "all-rounders" or as private laptops.

Lifebook B
The B series was the Biblo class for subnotebooks. The first models (B110 and B112, 1998) were very compact (DIN A5 size and 1.1 kg) and had an 8.4" color display. The special thing about the larger (DIN A4 format) successor models B213x (1999) was the touch-sensitive 10.4" TFT screen and the input pen. The B series is no longer built and has been replaced by the T series or P series.

Lifebook C
Until 01/2008, the C series was the entry-level series for professional users. It had a simple and robust design, but some additional options such as 3D graphics cards were not available, and on the outside it hardly differed from the E series.

Lifebook E
The E Series is a line of desktop replacement notebooks. They are particularly robust and usually have more powerful components than the C series (faster processors, more RAM, etc.), which is also reflected in the price. The E series usually has a high-quality, high-contrast 15/15.4-inch screen that is specially designed for office use, since no reflective displays are used and 4:3 formats are mostly available.

Lifebook NH
46.7 cm screen width. multimedia and gaming.

Lifebook P
Several ultraportable notebooks are available under the P-series . This includes e.g. B. the P1620, which is one of the lightest convertible tablet PC with a weight of 1 kg. The P stands for piccolo.

Lifebook Q
The Q series are lifestyle notebooks that stand out from the other series with their piano finish and ergonomic covers in stainless steel design and are intended to appeal to a demanding group of buyers. This series is particularly optimized for mobile operation, which is why only ultra-low-voltage processors from the Intel core architecture are used, the main memory is soldered and two batteries with a runtime of more than 10 hours can be used.

Lifebook S
The S Series is a line of notebooks originally intended for frequent travelers. The performance is roughly comparable to the E series, but the construction is a bit lighter and the notebooks are smaller due to 14/13 inch displays.

Lifebook T
The T series consists of convertible tablet PCs. By rotating the screen, they transform into a "tablet". The T here stands for tablet. The T-Series was introduced in September 2003 with the T3010, which was FTS' most powerful tablet PC and first ever convertible at launch. Although FTS had been building computers that could be operated with a pen ( stylistic ) for a long time, these were only suitable for pen input without any additional devices (cf. slate tablet PCs).

Released in June 2006, the T4210 was the first tablet PC to feature an Intel Core Duo processor. The Toshiba Tecra M7 was launched about a month later. The LIFEBOOK T4215 was the first convertible tablet PC with embedded UMTS. Currently (2017) the T936 and T937 are narrow but powerful 'convertibles' in the range.

Lifebook U
In May 2007, Fujitsu Japan presented an extremely small and light convertible tablet PC. The device, which weighs only 580 g, was marketed as a UMPC and is about the size of a PDA. Today (2017), powerful notebooks that are light but not extremely small are sold in the series, which usually have a 13.3 or 14 inch screen diagonal (U747, U757, U937).

Other series
Other series from Fujitsu are:

 * Esprimo Mobile – affordable business series
 * Amilo-PRO - another inexpensive business series
 * Amilo - Consumer series; also with special variants for computer players
 * Celsius – Mobile workstations especially for CAD etc.
 * Stylistic ST - pen-operated computers (slate tablets) without a keyboard
 * NH - Laptops with 46.7 cm screen width, for multimedia and gaming

title: Fujitsu Lifebook


text: Template:Bellerophon class battleship

title: Template:Bellerophon class battleship