The Drake class was a four-ship class of armoured cruisers built around 1900 for the Royal Navy.
Design and description
The Drake class were enlarged and improved versions of the designed by Sir William White, Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy, to counter the new French armoured cruiser .Friedman 2012, pp. 243–52 The ships had an overall length of , a beam of and a deep draught of . They displaced and proved to be good seaboats in service. Their crew consisted of 900 officers and other ranks.
The ships were powered by two 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, using steam provided by 43 Belleville boilers. The engines produced a total of and the Drakes easily reached their designed speed of .Chesneau & Kolesnik, p. 69 They carried a maximum of of coal.Friedman 2012, p. 336
The main armament of the Drake-class ships consisted of two breech-loading (BL) Mk X guns in single gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. They fired shells to a range of .Friedman 2011, pp. 71–72 The ships' secondary armament of sixteen BL 6-inch Mk VII guns was arranged in casemates amidships. Eight of these were mounted on the main deck and were only usable in calm weather.Friedman 2012, pp. 243, 260–61 They had a maximum range of approximately with their shells.Friedman 2011, pp. 80–81 A dozen quick-firing (QF) 12-pounder 12 cwt guns were fitted for defence against torpedo boats. Two additional 12-pounder 8 cwt guns could be dismounted for service ashore.Friedman 2012, pp. 250, 336 The ships also carried three 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns and two submerged torpedo tubes.
The ship's waterline armour belt had a maximum thickness of and was closed off by transverse bulkheads. The armour of the gun turrets and their barbettes was 6 inches thick while the casemate armour was 5 inches thick. The protective deck armour ranged in thickness from and the conning tower was protected by of armour.
Ships The following table gives the build details and purchase cost of the members of the Drake class. Standard British practice at that time was for these costs to exclude armament and stores. The compilers of The Naval Annual revised costs quoted for British ships between the 1905 and 1906 editions. The reasons for the differences are unclear.
+ Construction dataShip BuilderDate ofCost according to Laid down Launch Completion (BNA 1905)Brassey's Naval Annual 1905, pp. 234–243 (BNA 1906)Brassey's Naval Annual 1906, pp. 208–215 HM Dockyard, Pembroke 24 Apr 1899 5 Mar 1901 13 Jan 1902£1,050,625£1,002,977 (ex-Africa) Fairfield Shipping and Engineering, Govan 11 Sep 1899 21 Feb 1901 8 Nov 1902£1,023,629 £990,759 Vickers, Sons & Maxim, Barrow-in-Furness 11 Aug 1899 28 Oct 1901 22 Dec 1903£1,013,772 £978,125 John Brown, Clydebank 30 Nov 1899 3 Jul 1901 16 Jun 1903£1,043,097£1,012,959
Service history
The ships served in the First World War with only two surviving it. Good Hope was sunk at the Battle of Coronel in 1914 and Drake was torpedoed in 1917. Drake was also used to ferry Russian bullion (gold) in October 1914 from Arkhangelsk. The gold (equivalent of $39 million) was security for western loans. The transfer took place at high seas, 30 miles off the coast in the dead of night.
Notes
Footnotes
Bibliography Brassey, T.A. (ed) The Naval Annual 1905
Leyland, J. and Brassey, T.A. (ed.) The Naval Annual 1906
External links
The Dreadnought Project Technical details of the ships.