Seven ships of 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 ...

have been named HMS ''Invincible''. * was originally the French 74-gun ship of the line ''L'Invincible'', captured off Cape Finisterre in 1747. She was the first purpose-built 74-gun ship of the line to serve in the Royal Navy. The ship sank in February 1758 when she hit a sandbank in the East Solent. * was a 74-gun

third rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker). Years of experience proved that the third ...

launched in 1765 at

Deptford Dockyard Deptford Dockyard was an important naval dockyard and base at Deptford on the River Thames, operated by the Royal Navy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It built and maintained warships for 350 years, and many significant events ...

and commissioned at Portsmouth in 1776. Her career saw her involvement in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1780) (against the Spanish fleet) and the

Battle of St. Kitts The Battle of Saint Kitts, also known as the Battle of Frigate Bay, was a naval battle fought on 25 and 26 January 1782 during the American Revolutionary War between a British fleet under Rear Admiral Sir Samuel Hood and a larger French fleet u ...

and the

Glorious First of June The Glorious First of June (1 June 1794), also known as the Fourth Battle of Ushant, (known in France as the or ) was the first and largest fleet action of the naval conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the First French Republic ...

(both against the French fleet). She was also involved in the capture of

St. Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerin ...

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and Surinam. She was wrecked off the Norfolk coast in 1801, with the loss of 400 lives. * was a 74-gun ship, launched at

Woolwich Woolwich () is a district in southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was maintained thr ...

in 1808. She saw action in the

Peninsular War The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain ...

, supporting the British forces. She was

paid off Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to placing a warship in ...

in 1814, and broken up in 1861, in Plymouth. * HMS ''Invincible'' was to have been the world's second ocean-going iron-hulled armoured frigate, and sister to , but she was renamed before her launch. * was an armoured "broadside battleship" built in 1869. She was renamed ''Erebus'' in 1904 and ''Fisgard II'' in 1906, before foundering in a storm in 1914. * was a battlecruiser of 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 ...

attached to the

1st Cruiser Squadron The First Cruiser Squadron was a Royal Navy squadron of cruisers that saw service as part of the Grand Fleet during the World War I then later as part of the Mediterranean during the Interwar period and World War II it first established in 190 ...

, Home Fleet at the end of 1908. She saw action at Battle of Heligoland Bight, the

Battle of the Falkland Islands The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a First World War naval action between the British Royal Navy and Imperial German Navy on 8 December 1914 in the South Atlantic. The British, after their defeat at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, s ...

, and the Battle of Jutland, where she blew up and sank after taking a hit from , with the loss of 1,026 crew. Only six crew members survived. * was a light aircraft carrier, the first of three in the . She served from 1980 to 2005, including service in the Falklands War.About Sixth HMS Invincible
- Royal Navy website She was scrapped in Turkey in 2011.

Battle honours

* St Vincent, 1780 *

St Kitts Saint Kitts, officially the Saint Christopher Island, is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean. Saint Kitts and the neighbouring island of Nevis cons ...

, 1782 *

, 1794 *

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

, 1882 *

Heligoland Heligoland (; german: Helgoland, ; Heligolandic Frisian: , , Mooring Frisian: , da, Helgoland) is a small archipelago in the North Sea. A part of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein since 1890, the islands were historically possessions ...

, 1914 *

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...

, 1914 *

Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

, 1916 *

, 1982

In fiction

* HMS Invincible, an aircraft carrier in the 1941 film ''

Ships with Wings ''Ships with Wings'' is a 1941 British war film directed by Sergei Nolbandov and starring John Clements, Leslie Banks and Jane Baxter. The film is set during the Battle of Greece (1940-1941). It depicts military aviation. Plot During the S ...

'', portrayed by

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Invincible, Hms Royal Navy ship names

Battle honours

In fiction

See also

References