The ''Drake'' class was a four-ship class of

armoured cruiser The armored cruiser was a type of warship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed like other types of cruisers to operate as a long-range, independent warship, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship and fast eno ...

s built around 1900 for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

Design and description

The ''Drake'' class were enlarged and improved versions of the designed by Sir William White,

Chief Constructor The Director of Naval Construction (DNC) also known as the Department of the Director of Naval Construction and Directorate of Naval Construction and originally known as the Chief Constructor of the Navy was a senior principal civil officer resp ...

of the Royal Navy, to counter the new French armoured cruiser . The ships had an

overall length The overall length (OAL) of an ammunition cartridge is a measurement from the base of the brass shell casing to the tip of the bullet, seated into the brass casing. Cartridge overall length, or "COL", is important to safe functioning of reloads i ...

of , a

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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 engine A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure ''(HP)'' cylinder, then having given up he ...

s, each driving one shaft, using steam provided by 43

Belleville boiler There have been a vast number of designs of steam boiler, particularly towards the end of the 19th century when the technology was evolving rapidly. A great many of these took the names of their originators or primary manufacturers, rather than a m ...

s. The engines produced a total of and the ''Drake''s 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 A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle). Modern firearms are generally breech ...

(BL) Mk X guns in single

gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...

s, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. They fired shells to a range of . The ships' secondary armament of sixteen BL 6-inch Mk VII guns was arranged in

casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which artillery, guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to Ancient history, antiquity, th ...

s amidships. Eight of these were mounted on the main deck and were only usable in calm weather. They had a maximum range of approximately with their shells. A dozen quick-firing (QF) 12-pounder 12 cwt guns were fitted for defence against

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of se ...

s. Two additional 12-pounder 8 cwt guns could be dismounted for service ashore. The ships also carried three 3-pounder

Hotchkiss gun The Hotchkiss gun can refer to different products of the Hotchkiss arms company starting in the late 19th century. It usually refers to the 1.65-inch (42 mm) light mountain gun; there were also a navy (47 mm) and a 3-inch (76&nbs ...

s and two submerged

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s. The ship's

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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 ''The Naval Annual'' was a periodical that provided considerable text and graphic information (largely concerning the British Royal Navy) which had previously been obtainable only by consulting a wide range of often foreign language publications. ...

revised costs quoted for British ships between the 1905 and 1906 editions. The reasons for the differences are unclear.

Service history

HMS Leviathan LOC ggbain 19124 (uncropped, 800 dpi)

The ships served in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

with only two surviving it. ''Good Hope'' was sunk at the

Battle of Coronel The Battle of Coronel was a First World War Imperial German Navy victory over the Royal Navy on 1 November 1914, off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. The East Asia Squadron (''Ostasiengeschwader'' or ''Kreuzergeschwader'') ...

in 1914 and ''Drake'' was torpedoed in 1917. ''Drake'' was also used to ferry Russian bullion (gold) in October 1914 from

Arkhangelsk Arkhangelsk (, ; rus, Арха́нгельск, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲsk), also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk, is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies o ...

. 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. {{DEFAULTSORT:Drake Class Cruiser Cruiser classes Ship classes of the Royal Navy