HMS Royal Sovereign (pennant number 05) was a (also known as Royal Sovereign and R-class) battleship of the Royal Navy displacing and armed with eight guns in four twin-gun turrets. She was laid down in January 1914 and launched in April 1915; she was completed in May 1916, but was not ready for service in time to participate in the Battle of Jutland at the end of the month. She served with the Grand Fleet for the remainder of the First World War, but did not see action. In the early 1930s, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet and based in Malta.
Unlike the s, Royal Sovereign and her sisters were not modernised during the interwar period. Only minor alterations to her anti-aircraft battery were effected before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. Assigned to the Home Fleet, the ship was tasked with convoy protection until May 1940, when she returned to the Mediterranean Fleet. Royal Sovereign was present during the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, but her slow speed prevented her from engaging the Italian battleships. By March 1942, she was assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean, but after the Indian Ocean raid by Admiral Nagumo's Kido Butai, the ship was withdrawn to eastern Africa to escort convoys. In January 1944, she returned to Britain, and in May the Royal Navy transferred Royal Sovereign to the Soviet Navy, which renamed her Arkhangelsk. She then escorted Arctic convoys into Kola until the end of the war. The Soviets returned the ship in 1949, after which she was broken up for scrap.
Description
Royal Sovereign had a length overall of , a beam of and a deep draught of . She had a designed displacement of and displaced at deep load. She was powered by four Parsons steam turbines using steam from eighteen oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were rated at and a top speed of . She had a range of at a cruising speed of .Burt 2012, p. 156 Her crew numbered 1,240 officers and ratings in 1921. Royal Sovereign cost £2,570,504 upon completion.Burt 1986, p. 277
Armament The ship 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. Her anti-aircraft armament consisted of two quick-firing (QF) 20 cwt Mk I AA guns.Burt 1986, pp. 274–76"Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 20 cwt referring to the weight of the gun.
In August–September 1924, the 3-inch guns were replaced by a pair of QF Mk V guns.Raven & Roberts, p. 140 During the ship's 1927–28 refit, the shelter deck 6-inch guns were removed and another pair of 4-inch AA guns were added.Burt 1986, p. 284 These were replaced by eight QF 4-inch Mk XVI guns in twin turrets during Royal Sovereigns 1937–1938 refit. A pair of eight-barrel 2-pounder "pom-poms" were added in 1932 abreast the funnel, and two four-barrel "pom-poms" were added in early 1942 atop 'B' and 'X' turrets.Raven & Roberts, pp. 176, 186 Ten 20 mm Oerlikon guns were also added in 1941. Another six were added in 1943.Konstam, p. 29 Royal Sovereign was initially equipped with four submerged torpedo tubes on her broadside, though the after pair were removed in 1932. The forward pair were also removed in 1937–1938, during the ship's last prewar refit.Raven & Roberts, p. 176
Fire control Royal Sovereign 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.Raven & Roberts, p. 33 A rangefinder replaced the smaller one originally fitted in 'X' turret in 1919. Similarly, another large rangefinder was fitted in 'B' turret during the ship's 1921–1922 refit. A simple high-angle rangefinder was added above the bridge during that same refit.Burt 1986, p. 282
About 1931, a High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director replaced the high-angle rangefinder on the spotting top.Burt 2012, p. 157 During the 1932 refit two positions for 2-pounder "pom-pom" anti-aircraft directors were added on new platforms abreast and below the fire-control director in the spotting top. In the 1937–1938 refit a HACS Mark III director replaced the Mk I in the spotting top and another was added to the torpedo-control tower aft.Raven & Roberts, p. 177 By 1942, a Type 279 air warning radar, a Type 273 surface-search radar, a Type 284 gunnery radar and two Type 285 anti-aircraft gunnery radars were installed. By September 1943, the Type 284 radar had been replaced by an improved Type 284B and two Type 282 radars had been fitted for the "pom-poms".Raven & Roberts, p. 166
Protection Royal Sovereigns waterline belt consisted of face-hardened 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.Burt 1986, pp. 272–73, 276
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.Raven & Roberts, p. 36 The main conning tower had 13 inches of armour on the sides with a roof. The torpedo control tower 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.Raven & Roberts, p. 44 In 1918 the gun shields for the upper deck 6-inch guns were replaced by armoured casemates.
To protect against underwater explosions, the ship was fitted with longitudinal torpedo bulkheads 1 to inches thick that ran from the forward to the rear magazines. During her 1921 refit, Royal Sovereign was fitted with an anti-torpedo bulge that ran the length of the ship between the fore and aft barbettes. It was divided into a water-tight empty lower compartment and an upper compartment filled with water-tight "crushing tubes" intended to absorb and distribute the force of an explosion. The space between the tubes was filled with wood and cement.Burt 1986, p. 280
Aircraft 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. In 1932 the platforms were removed from the turrets and a trainable catapult was installed on her quarterdeck, along with a crane to recover a seaplane. The catapult and crane were removed by March 1937.
Service history
First World War Royal Sovereign was laid down on 15 January 1914 at the HM Dockyard, Portsmouth. The ship was launched on 29 April 1915 and commissioned in May 1916.Preston, p. 35 On 30 May 1916, three weeks after her commissioning, Royal Sovereign was present in Scapa Flow when the fleet commander, Admiral John Jellicoe ordered the Grand Fleet to sea. Jellicoe purposely left Royal Sovereign behind in port due to the inexperience of her crew; causing her to miss the Battle of Jutland the following day.Massie, p. 576 In the months after the engagement, Royal Sovereign was quickly made ready for service with the fleet to further increase the numerical superiority of the Grand Fleet over the German High Seas Fleet.Massie, p. 665
The Grand Fleet sortied on 18 August 1916 to ambush the High Seas Fleet while it advanced into the southern North Sea, but a series of miscommunications and mistakes during the action of 19 August 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.Halpern, pp. 330–331 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.Halpern, p. 332
In April 1918, the High Seas Fleet again sortied, to attack British convoys to Norway. They enforced strict wireless silence during the operation, which prevented Room 40 cryptanalysts from warning the new commander of the Grand Fleet, Admiral David Beatty. The British learned of the operation only after an accident aboard the battlecruiser forced her to break radio silence to inform the German commander of her condition. Beatty then ordered the Grand Fleet to sea to intercept the Germans, but he was not able to reach the High Seas Fleet before it turned back for Germany. This was the last time Royal Sovereign and the rest of the Grand Fleet would go to sea for the remainder of the war.Halpern, pp. 418–420 On 21 November 1918, following the Armistice, the entire Grand Fleet left port to escort the surrendered German fleet into internment at Scapa Flow.Smith, p. 10
Inter-war period The Royal Marines detachment assigned to Royal Sovereign left the ship on 21 June 1919 to conduct exercises. The ship meanwhile went into drydock at Invergordon in September. Post-war demobilisation in 1919 saw some 500 men leave the ship while she was in dock. Upon returning to service in late 1919, the ship was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet. Conflicts between Greece and the crumbling Ottoman Empire prompted the Royal Navy to deploy a force to the eastern Mediterranean. In April 1920, Royal Sovereign and her sister ship steamed to the region via Malta.Smith, p. 12 While in the Ottoman capital Constantinople, Royal Sovereign and the other British warships took on White émigrés fleeing the Communist Red Army. Among those refugees aboard Royal Sovereign was a princess of the Galitzine family.Smith, p. 13
The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty cut the battleship strength of the Royal Navy from forty ships to fifteen. The remaining active battleships were divided between the Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets and conducted joint operations annually.Smith, p. 14 Royal Sovereign remained with the Atlantic Fleet through 1926. On 4 October 1927, the ship was placed in reserve to effect a major refit. Four new rangefinders and eight searchlights were installed.Smith, p. 17 On 15 May 1929, the refit was finished, and the ship was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet. The squadron consisted of Royal Sovereign, her sisters Resolution and , and , and based in Malta.Castillo, p. 132 By the 1930s, the five ships of the Queen Elizabeth class were rotated through extensive modernisation. Royal Sovereign and her sisters, however, were smaller and slower than the Queen Elizabeth class, and so they were not extensively modernised in the inter-war period. The only changes made were augmentations to their anti-aircraft batteries.O'Hara et al., p. 96