HMS Tiger was a battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy during the 1910s. The ship was the most heavily armoured British battlecruiser at the start of the First World War in 1914, but was not yet ready for service. The ship was assigned to the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (1st BCS) for the duration of the war and participated in the Battle of Dogger Bank in early 1915, though she was still shaking down and did not perform well. Tiger next participated in the Battle of Jutland in 1916, where she was only lightly damaged despite suffering many hits by German shells. Apart from providing distant cover during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917, she spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea.
The ship was the oldest battlecruiser retained by the Royal Navy after the tonnage limits of the Washington Naval Treaty came into effect in 1922. She became a gunnery training ship in 1924 and then joined the Battlecruiser Squadron in 1929 when its flagship, , underwent a lengthy refit. Upon Hoods return to service in 1931, Tiger was decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1932 in accordance with the terms of the London Naval Treaty of 1930.
In his book, The Price of Admiralty, British military historian John Keegan described her as "certainly the most beautiful warship in the world then, and perhaps ever[.]"Keegan, p. 132
Design and description Tiger was the sole battlecruiser authorised in the 1911–12 Naval Programme. According to naval historian Siegfried Breyer, a sister ship named Leopard was considered in the 1912–13 Programme and deferred until 1914 as a sixth member of the ,Breyer, p. 135 but there is no record of any additional battlecruiser being provided for in any naval estimates before 1914.Brown, p. 60
Tiger had an overall length of , a beam of , and a mean draught of at deep load. She normally displaced and at deep load. Although Tiger was only longer and wider than the previous battlecruiser, , she displaced almost more than the older ship. She had a metacentric height of at deep load.Roberts 1997, pp. 43, 45 In September 1914, her complement consisted of 1,112 officers and ratings; in April 1918, they totalled 1,459.
Propulsion
Tiger had two paired sets of Brown-Curtis direct-drive steam turbines housed in separate engine-rooms. Each set consisted of intermediate-pressure ahead and high-pressure astern turbines driving the outboard shaft; high-pressure ahead turbines and low-pressure ahead and astern turbines, housed in the same casing, drove the inner shaft.Newman, p. 78 Her three-bladed propellers were in diameter.Roberts 1997, p. 76 The turbines were powered by 39 Babcock & Wilcox boilers in five boiler rooms at a working pressure of .Burt 2012b, p. 236 The turbines were designed to produce a total of and a maximum of when forced, but only achieved during her sea trials, although she managed to exceed her maximum designed speed of by over a knot.Roberts 1997, pp. 76, 80
The ship's fuel stowage capacity was of fuel oil and of coal, giving a total fuel supply of —much more than Queen Marys total of . The sole (unofficial) figure for Tigers daily fuel consumption of a day at Parkes, p. 556 would have given a maximum endurance of . The equivalent figure for Queen Mary was roughly .Roberts 1978, p. 11 Four direct current electric dynamos with a total capacity of supplied the common ring main at 220 volts.Roberts 1978, p. 89
Armament
Tiger mounted eight 45-calibre BL 13.5-inch Mk V guns in four twin hydraulically powered turrets, designated 'A', 'B', 'Q' and 'X' from front to rear. The guns could be depressed to −5° and elevated to +20°, although the directors controlling the turrets were limited to 15° 21' until superelevating prisms were installed before the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 to allow full elevation.Campbell 1978, p. 35 They fired projectiles at a muzzle velocity of ; at 20° elevation, this provided a maximum range of . The rate of fire of these guns was approximately 2 rounds per minute.Friedman, pp. 49–52 The ship carried a total of 1040 rounds during wartime for 130 shells per gun.
Her secondary armament consisted of twelve BL 6-inch Mk VII guns in casemates. The guns could depress to −7° and had a maximum elevation of 14°. They fired projectiles at a muzzle velocity of approximately ; this gave a maximum range of at +14° elevation.Friedman, pp. 81–82 They were provided with 120 rounds per gun. The ship mounted a pair of QF 3 inch 20 cwt"Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 30 cwt referring to the weight of the gun. Mk I anti-aircraft guns on high-angle Mark II mounts. The gun had a maximum elevation of +90° and fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of . It had a maximum effective ceiling of .Friedman, pp. 108–110 Originally, Tiger carried 300 rounds per gun, but this was reduced during the war to 150 rounds per gun.Campbell 1978, p. 36
Four submerged torpedo tubes were fitted on the beam, one pair port and starboard forward of 'A' barbette and aft of 'X' barbette. The ship carried 20 Mark II*** torpedoes,The British used asterisks to denote small changes between models. each with a warhead of of TNT. They had two speed settings which governed their range; at , they could reach , or at .Friedman, p. 331
Fire control The main guns of Tiger were controlled from either of the two fire-control directors. The primary director was in the fore-top on the foremast and the other was mounted on the aft superstructure in the torpedo control tower. Data from rangefinders in the armoured hood above the conning tower and in 'B' and 'Q' turrets was transmitted to the Mk IV Dreyer Fire Control Table located in the transmitting station below the waterline. The observations were then plotted and converted into range and deflection data for use by the director and guns.Brooks, p. 170 A Mark VII* Dumaresq in the armoured tower was trained on the target to supply bearing data to one transmitting station for use in plotting and calculations, and a second station was fitted for the ship's secondary armament,Roberts 1997, pp. 91–92 although a pair of fire-control directors for those guns, one for each broadside, were not fitted until 1915.Burt 2012b, p. 237
Fire-control technology advanced quickly during the years immediately preceding the First World War and the development of the director firing system was a major advance. This consisted of a fire-control director mounted high in the ship which electrically provided elevation and training angles to the turrets via pointers, which the turret crewmen had only to follow. The director layer fired the guns simultaneously by an electrical trigger which aided in spotting the shell splashes and minimised the effects of the roll on the dispersion of the shells.Roberts 1997, pp. 92–93
During the war, Tigers rangefinders had increased in number and in size. By the end of the war, 'A' and 'Q' turrets mounted rangefinders while 'X' turret, the armoured hood above the conning tower (also known as the gun control tower), and the torpedo control tower had instruments. A rangefinder was fitted in the fore-top and three instruments were fitted on 'B' turret, the gun control tower and above the compass platform. A high-angle rangefinder was mounted above the roof of the fore-top for use by the anti-aircraft guns.
Armour
Tigers armour protection was similar to that of Queen Mary; her waterline belt of Krupp cemented armour measured thick amidships. It thinned to four inches towards the ship's ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. The depth of the main belt below the waterline was reduced from , although a strake of three-inch armour tall was added below the main belt that stretched from the front of 'A' barbette to the rear of 'B' barbette. It was based on that used on the Vickers built Japanese battlecruiser ,Burt 2012b, p. 232 the only design influence on Tiger that can be attributed to that ship.Roberts 1978, p. 4
Like the ships and Queen Mary, Tiger was given an upper armour belt with a maximum thickness of six inches over the same length as the thickest part of the waterline armour and thinned to abreast the end turrets. Unlike those ships, Tiger had an additional strake of 6-inch armour above the upper belt protecting her secondary armament. Four-inch transverse bulkheads closed off the ends of the armoured citadel. High-tensile steel was used for the protective decks. They generally ranged from in thickness.Roberts 1997, pp. 112–113
The gun turrets had 9-inch front and sides while their roofs were thick. The barbettes were protected above the citadel by of armour, thinning to three to four inches inside the citadel. The main conning tower had a three-inch roof and sides thick. The walls of the communication tube were three to four inches thick. The aft conning tower had 6-inch walls and a 3-inch cast steel roof. High-tensile steel torpedo bulkheads thick were fitted abreast the magazines and shell rooms. After the Battle of Jutland revealed the ship's vulnerability to plunging shellfire, around of additional armour was added to the turret roofs, the decks over the magazines, and the bulkheads separating the 6-inch guns.
Service history First World War Tiger was laid down at the John Brown and Company shipyard in Clydebank on 6 June 1912. She was launched on 15 December 1913 and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 3 October 1914,Roberts 1997, p. 41 at the cost of £2,593,100, including armament.Roberts 1997, p. 83Parkes, p. 551 The ship was still under construction when the First World War broke out in August 1914. On 3 August 1914,Roberts 1997, p. 123 Captain Henry Pelly was appointed to command the incomplete ship. Beatty described Pelly at the time as "a very charming person and, what is more important just now, a very efficient officer".Beatty, p. 160
Tiger was commissioned for the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (1st BCS) on 3 October. After the Battle of Coronel and the deployment of three battlecruisers to hunt for the German East Asia Squadron in November, Tiger was ordered to cut short her firing trials off Berehaven.Goldrick, p. 183 Beatty described Tiger to the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, as "not yet fit to fight. Three out of her four dynamoes are out of action for an indefinite period, and her training is impeded by bad weather, which might continue for many weeks at this time of year, and at present is quite unprepared and inefficient."Fisher, p. 171
Battle of Dogger Bank
On 23 January 1915, a force of German battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Franz von Hipper sortied to clear the Dogger Bank of any British fishing boats or small craft that might be there to collect intelligence on German movements. However, the British were reading their coded messages and sailed to intercept them with a larger force of British battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Beatty. Contact was initiated at 07:20The times used in this article are in UTC, which is one hour behind CET, which is often used in German works. on the 24th, when the British light cruiser spotted the German light cruiser . By 07:35, the Germans had spotted Beatty's force and Hipper ordered a turn to the south at , believing this would suffice if the ships he saw to his north-west were British battleships and that he could always increase speed to 's maximum speed of if they were British battlecruisers.Massie, pp. 376–384