SOLID ARMOUR OF RODNEY

Southland Times, Issue 24152, 14 June 1940, Page 9

SOLID ARMOUR OF RODNEY

Big German Bomb

Resisted

BATTLESHIP COST £7,000,000

H.M.S. Rodney, which resisted a neavy bomb during an air attack off the Norwegian coast, is a 33,000-ton batHeship and was completed in 1925. She carries 9 16-inch, 12 6-inch and 6 4.7-inch guns, as well as multiple A. A. machine-guns and 224 J-inch submerged torpedo tubes. The Rodney, which is a sister ship of the Nelson, carries one aircraft. These battleships cost over £7,000,000 each and are unique in design in the Royal Navy by having triple turrets all in the forepart of the ship and by reason of their enormous central tower, enclosing bridges, control towers and so on, thus protecting them from shell Are. The secondary armament is arranged m turrets on either quarter. These guns of the Rodney have an elevation of 60 degrees and the 16-inch guns can be elevated to 40 degrees. Her speed is 23 knots. These sister ships are known as “Queen Anne’s Mansions,” the bridge structure bearing some resemblance to the well-known block of flats in London. H.M.S. Renown is the battle cruiser that scored several direct hits on the German batHeship Schamhorst. Completed in 1916, the Renown is 794 feet long overall, her tonnage being 32,000. She carries 6 15-inch, 12 5.5-inch (arranged in triple mountings) and 4 4-inch A.A. guns. There are two submerged torpedo tubes. The battle cruiser has a speed of 28 knots and carries a complement of about 1200. The Renown is a fine ship which has undergone much refit and rearmouring. She was originally <?-signed as a fast, shallow draught cruiser for an enterprise in the Baltic.

TWO AIRCRAFT CARRIED

The German battleship Scharnhorst, which was damaged and put to flight by H.M.S. Renown, was laid down in 1936. She has a speed of 30 knots and is of 26,000 tons. Her armament consists of 9 11-inch, 12 5.9-inch and 6 4.1inch A.A. guns. . The Scharnhorst has no tubes, but has at least two aircraft. The Scharnhorst and her sister ship, the Gneisenau, were the first German battleships built since the Great War unhampered by treaty restrictions and in consequence were much more formidable craft than the Deutschland class. They bear the names of the two ships of Admiral Graf von Spee which were the crack German gunnery ships in 1914, and were sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. The Scharnhorst is similar in appearance to the Deutschland class, but has a super-imposed turret forward. The British destroyer Ghurka, which was sunk by enemy bombs, was a very large and fast type. She was of 1850 tons and carried 8 4.7-inch guns (in twin mountings) and four torpedo tubes. She had a speed of 36 knots. H.M.S. Zulu, which destroyed a German submarine, is a destroyer of the same class. H.M.S. Glowworm, the British destroyer which was lost during the laying of the minefields off the west coast of Norway, was a destroyer of the Greyhound class. Of about 1350 tons, the Glowworm carried 4 4.7-inch guns and eight torpedo tubes. She had a speed < 5 36.5 knots and carried a complement of about 145 men. The Glowworm made contact with three German destroyers during the mine-laying operations and as reports from the destroyer suddenly ceased it could only be presumed that she had sunk.