HMS INFLEXIBLE

Career (UK)

Name: HMS Inflexible

Ordered:1905Laid down:5 February 1906 Launched: 26 June 1907 Commissioned:20 October 1908 Struck:31 March 1920

Fate: Scrapped 1922

General characteristics

Class and type: Invincible-class battlecruiser

Displacement: 17,290 long tons (17,570 t) at load, 20,700 long tons (21,000 t) at deep load

Length:530 ft 1 in (161.57 m) waterline 567 ft (173 m) overall Beam:78 ft 10.13 in (24.0317 m) Draught: 29 ft 9 in (9.07 m) at deep load

Installed power: 41,000 shp (30,574 kW)

Propulsion: four-shaft Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, 31 Yarrow water-tube boilers

Speed: 26.48 knots (30 mph; 49 km/h) (trials)

Range: 3,090 nmi (5,720 km) at 14 knots (16 mph; 26 km/h)

Complement: 784

Armament:

4 ? 2 - BL 12-inch (304.8 mm) Mk X guns
16 ? 1 - QF 4-inch (101.6 mm) Mk III guns
7 ? 1 - Maxim machine guns
5 ? 18-inch (450-mm) torpedo tubes (4 broadside, 1 stern)

Armour:

Belt: 4?6 in (102?152 mm)
Decks: 1.5?2.5 in (38?64 mm)
Barbettes: 7 in (178 mm)
Turrets: 7 in (178 mm)
Conning tower: 6?10 in (152?254 mm)
Torpedo bulkheads: 2.5 in (64 mm)


HMS Inflexible was an Invincible-class battlecruiser of the British Royal Navy. She was built before World War I and had an active career during the war. She tried to hunt down the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau in the Mediterranean Sea when war broke out and she and her sister ship Invincible sank the German armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau during the Battle of the Falkland Islands. Inflexible bombarded Turkish forts in the Dardanelles in 1915, but was damaged by return fire and struck a mine while maneuvering. She had to be beached to prevent her from sinking, but she was patched up and sent to Malta, and then Gibraltar for more permanent repairs. Transferred to the Grand Fleet afterwards she damaged the German battlecruiser L?tzow during the Battle of Jutland and watched Invincible explode. She was deemed obsolete after the war and was sold for scrap in 1921.