HMS Revenge was the lead ship of five s built for the Royal Navy during the First World War in the mid-1910s. The ships were developments of the s, with reductions in size and speed to offset increases in armour protection whilst retaining the same main battery of eight guns. She was laid down in 1913, launched in 1915 and commissioned in February 1916, early enough to be worked up to see action with the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May that year. During the engagement, she engaged German battlecruisers, damaging two of them before being forced to turn away to avoid torpedoes that damaged her squadron flagship and caused the squadron to lose contact with the rest of the fleet. Revenge emerged from the battle unscathed, but she saw no further action during the war, as the British and German fleets turned to more cautious strategies owing to the risk of submarines and naval mines.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Revenge alternated between the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet. Whilst serving in the Mediterranean in the early 1920s, the ship went to Turkey twice in response to crises arising from the Greco-Turkish War, including the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. The ship's interwar career was otherwise uneventful. With the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Revenge was used to escort convoys and transport significant quantities of the country's gold reserves to Canada as part of Operation Fish; these activities continued into 1940. She was involved in the seizure of French warships in Portsmouth after the French surrender in July 1940.
In October 1940, she conducted Operation Medium, an attack on German transport ships that had been collected along the English Channel in preparation for the later-cancelled invasion of Britain. Revenge thereafter resumed convoy escort duties until October 1941, when she was reassigned to the 3rd Battle Squadron and sent to the Far East as tensions with Japan began to rise. British naval forces were strengthened further after the start of the Pacific War in December, leading to the creation of the Eastern Fleet. Revenge and her sister ships were deemed too old to be of use against the Japanese fleet, so they were relegated to convoy escort duties in the Indian Ocean. Badly worn out by 1943, Revenge returned home, where she was removed from front-line service. Her last voyage was to carry Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Tehran Conference in November 1943. Upon returning, she was assigned to the training establishment , disarmed and eventually broken up in 1948.
Design and description
The Revenge-class ships were designed as slightly smaller, slower, and more heavily protected versions of the preceding s. As an economy measure they were intended to revert to the previous practice of using both fuel oil and coal, but First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher rescinded the decision for coal in October 1914. Still under construction, the ships were redesigned to employ oil-fired boilers that increased the power of the engines by over the original specification.
Revenge had a length overall of , a beam of and a deep draught of . She had a displacement of and displaced at deep load. She was powered by two sets of Parsons steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam provided by eighteen Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were rated at and intended to reach a maximum speed of , although the ship only reached a top speed of from during her sea trials on 24 March 1916. She had a range of at a cruising speed of . Her crew numbered 940 officers and ratings in 1917. Her metacentric height was at deep load.
The Revenge class was equipped with eight breech-loading (BL) Mk I guns in four twin gun turrets, in two superfiring pairs fore and aft of the superstructure, designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear. Twelve of the fourteen BL Mk XII guns were mounted in casemates along the broadside of the vessel amidships; the remaining pair were mounted on the shelter deck and were protected by gun shields. The ship also mounted four 3-pounder () guns. Her anti-aircraft (AA) armament consisted of two quick-firing (QF) 20 cwt Mk I guns. She was fitted with four submerged torpedo tubes, two on each broadside.
Revenge was completed with two fire-control directors fitted with rangefinders. One was mounted above the conning tower, protected by an armoured hood, and the other was in the spotting top above the tripod foremast. Each turret was also fitted with a 15-foot rangefinder. The main armament could be controlled by 'X' turret as well. The secondary armament was primarily controlled by directors mounted on each side of the compass platform on the foremast once they were fitted in March 1917. A torpedo-control director with a 15-foot rangefinder was mounted at the aft end of the superstructure.
The ship's waterline belt consisted of Krupp cemented armour (KC) that was thick between 'A' and 'Y' barbettes and thinned to 4 to 6 inches (102 to 152 mm) towards the ship's ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. Above this was a strake of armour 6 inches thick that extended between 'A' and 'X' barbettes. Transverse bulkheads 4 to 6 inches thick ran at an angle from the ends of the thickest part of the waterline belt to 'A' and 'Y' barbettes. The gun turrets were protected by of KC armour, except for the turret roofs which were thick. The barbettes ranged in thickness from above the upper deck, but were only 4 to 6 inches thick below it. The Revenge-class ships had multiple armoured decks that ranged from in thickness. The main conning tower had 11 inches of armour on the sides with a 3-inch roof. The torpedo director in the rear superstructure had 6 inches of armour protecting it. After the Battle of Jutland, 1 inch of high-tensile steel was added to the main deck over the magazines and additional anti-flash equipment was added in the magazines.
The ship was fitted with flying-off platforms mounted on the roofs of 'B' and 'X' turrets in 1918, from which fighters and reconnaissance aircraft could launch. During the 1928 refit the platform was removed from 'X' turret. The platform on 'B' turret was removed in 1933.
Major alterations
Revenge was fitted with anti-torpedo bulges between October 1917 and February 1918. They were designed to reduce the effect of torpedo detonations and improve stability. They increased her beam by over 13 feet (4 m) to , her displacement to and reduced her draught to , all at deep load. They increased her metacentric height to . Later in 1918, rangefinders were fitted in 'B' and 'X' turrets. In 1919 her complement was 1,240 officers and ratings.
The gun shields for the shelter-deck six-inch guns were replaced by armoured casemates in 1922. Two years later, her anti-aircraft defences were upgraded by replacing the original three-inch AA guns with a pair of QF AA guns. During the ship's 1928–1929 refit, two more four-inch AA guns were added and the six-inch guns from the shelter deck were removed. In addition a High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director was installed on the spotting top. In 1931 one octuple mount for two-pounder Mk VIII "pom-pom" guns was added abreast the funnel (only on the starboard side) for trials. Its director was added abreast and below the fire-control director in the spotting top. The aft torpedo tubes were also removed at that time. The ship's 1936–1937 refit saw the removal of the torpedo director and its associated rangefinder. Two years later, Revenges anti-aircraft defences were strengthened by replacing the single mounts of the AA guns with twin mounts and adding the portside octuple two-pounder "pom-pom" mount and its director. A HACS Mk III director replaced the Mk I on the roof of the spotting top and another was added in the position formerly occupied by the torpedo director. A pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers .50 machine guns were added abreast the conning tower. The forward torpedo tubes were also removed at that time.
Wartime modifications for the Revenge-class ships were fairly minimal. Revenge was fitted with a Type 279 early-warning radar in 1941. The following year saw the addition of a Type 273 surface-search radar, a pair of Type 285 anti-aircraft gunnery sets and two Type 282 radars for the "pom-poms". Two four-barrel "pom-poms" were added in late 1941 atop 'B' and 'X' turrets as well as ten 20 mm Oerlikon guns that replaced the quadruple .50-caliber mounts. To save weight and make more room available for the additional crew required to man the new equipment like the radars and Oerlikons, four 6-inch guns were removed in 1943.
Construction and service
First World War
Revenge was laid down at the Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness on 22 December 1913. She was launched on 29 May 1915 and was commissioned into the Grand Fleet on 1 February 1916, though she was not completed and ready for service until 24 March, with the time between her commissioning and completion including a period of sea trials. The ship cost a total of £2,406,368. On entering service, Revenge was assigned to the 6th Division of the 1st Battle Squadron (BS), Grand Fleet, along with the battleships (the divisional and squadron flagship), , and .
Battle of Jutland
In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the German High Seas Fleet with 16 dreadnoughts, six pre-dreadnoughts, six light cruisers and 31 torpedo boats commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, departed 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. The Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet of 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. On the day of the battle, Revenge and the rest of the 6th Division, 1st BS were stationed toward the rear of the British line.
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 their cruising formation caused congestion with the rear divisions, forcing Revenge and many of the other ships to reduce speed to to avoid colliding with each other. The German fleet quickly came into range and many British ships began to engage them starting at 18:17. The British ships initially had poor visibility and Revenge waited several minutes before opening fire at 18:22; her target during this period is unclear, and she may have engaged the crippled cruiser , the German battle line, or both. She fired intermittently for seventeen minutes and made no hits in the haze.
At 19:09, Revenge was forced to turn away to avoid a torpedo that was probably launched by the torpedo boat ; the torpedo passed harmlessly in her wake. Shortly thereafter, she engaged the battlecruiser ; her first salvo estimated the range to be , but overshot the target. Revenges gunlayers quickly brought the range down to and straddled Derfflinger with their second salvo. With the range found, Revenge quickly scored five hits before shifting fire to the battlecruiser , since other battleships were concentrating their fire on Derfflinger. Two of her hits on Derfflinger disabled her aft turrets; the other three caused less significant damage, with one of them passing through a funnel without exploding. Revenge hit Von der Tann once near her aft conning tower at 19:19, doing minor damage; she also fired a torpedo at the ship during this period that failed to hit.