Monmouth-class cruiser

HMS Suffolk
Class overview
Name:	Monmouth
Operators:	Royal Navy
Preceded by:	Drake class
Succeeded by:	Devonshire class
In commission:	1903–1921
Completed:	10
Lost:	2
Scrapped:	8
General characteristics
Type:	Armoured cruiser
Displacement:	9,800 long tons (10,000 t) (normal)
Length:	463 ft 6 in (141.3 m) (o/a)
Beam:	66 ft (20.1 m)
Draught:	25 ft (7.6 m)
Installed power:	22,000 ihp (16,000 kW) 31 water-tube boilers
Propulsion:	2 × shafts 2 × 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines
Speed:	23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph)
Complement:	678
Armament:	2 × twin, 10 × single BL 6-inch (152 mm) Mk VII guns 10 × single QF 12-pounder (3 inch, 76 mm) 12 cwt guns[Note 1] 3 × QF 3-pounder (47 mm) Hotchkiss guns 2 × single 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour:	Belt: 2–4 in (51–102 mm) Decks: .75–2 in (19–51 mm) Barbettes: 5 in (127 mm) Turrets: 5 in (130 mm) Conning tower: 10 in (254 mm) Bulkheads: 5 in (127 mm)

The Monmouth class was a ten-ship class of 10,000 ton armoured cruisers built around 1901 to 1903 for the Royal Navy and designed specifically for commerce protection. The ships were also referred to as County-class cruisers as they carried the names of British counties.

Design

Left elevation and deck plan as depicted in Jane's Fighting Ships 1914

Aft port casemate guns on Berwick, illustrating the unfortunate positioning

Expected only to fight light cruisers and armed merchant ships, the class was armed with fourteen 6-inch guns at a time when most British armoured cruisers also carried at least a pair of 9.2-inch guns: Four of the guns were mounted in two twin turrets at a good height, the remaining ten were installed in hull-mounted casemates, five on each side. The lower casemate guns were just a few feet above water, making them impossible to use in heavy seas. Sir John Fisher commented that "Sir William White designed the County class but forgot the guns."^[1] On the other hand, they were relatively fast ships for their time.

Building programme

The following table gives the build details and purchase cost of the members of the Monmouth 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.^[2]

Ship	Builder	Engine Maker	Date of			Cost according to
			Laid Down	Launch	Completion	(BNA 1905)[3]	(BNA 1906)[4]
Monmouth	London and Glasgow Shipping Company	London & Glasgow Shipping Company	29 Aug 1899	13 Nov 1901	2 Dec 1903	£709,085	£979,591
Bedford	Fairfield, Govan	Fairfield	19 Feb 1900	31 Aug 1901	11 Nov 1903	£734,330	£706,020
Essex	Pembroke Dockyard	J Brown	1 Jan 1900	29 Aug 1901	22 Mar 1903	£770,325	£736,557
Kent	Portsmouth Dockyard	Hawthorn	12 Feb 1900	6 Mar 1901	1 Oct 1903	£733,940	£700,283
Berwick	W. Beardmore & Company	Humphrys	19 Apr 1901	20 Sep 1902	9 Dec 1903	£776,868	£750,984
Cornwall	Pembroke Dockyard	Hawthorne	11 Mar 1901	29 Oct 1902	1 Dec 1904	£789,421	£756,274
Cumberland	London & Glasgow Shipping Company, Glasgow	London & Glasgow Shipping Company	19 Feb 1901	16 Dec 1902	1 Dec 1904	£751,508	£718,168
Donegal	Fairfield, Govan	Fairfield	14 Feb 1901	4 Sep 1902	5 Nov 1903	£752,964	£715,947
Lancaster	Armstrongs, Elswick	Hawthorn	4 Mar 1901	22 Mar 1903	5 Apr 1904	£763,084	£732,858
Suffolk	Portsmouth Dockyard	Humphrys	25 Mar 1901	15 Jan 1903	21 May 1904	£783,054	£722,681

Service

Upon completion, the ships served briefly in home waters before being assigned to various oversea stations (China, Halifax, and the Caribbean). During this time HMS Bedford was wrecked in the East China Sea and scrapped.

Following the outbreak of WW1, the ships were primarily tasked with combatting German commerce raiders, patrolling in both the North and South Atlantic. HMS Monmouth was assigned to Admiral Craddock's squadron, and was sunk at the Battle of Coronel. HMS Kent was also assigned to Craddock's squadron, but failed to join in time; she remained at the Falklands and joined Admiral Sturdee's squadron, which also included HMS Cornwall. In the ensueing Battle of the Falklands, HMS Kent pursued and sank Nürnberg, while HMS Cornwall pursued and sank Leipzig. HMS Kent continued the pursuit of Dresden, eventually locating her and forcing her to be scuttled at the Battle of Más a Tierra. Later HMS Cornwall participated in the blockade of Königsberg in the Rufiji river.

After the war, several of the ships served briefly as training ships. All were withdrawn from service and scrapped in 1920-21.

Notes

1. "Cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 12 cwt referring to the weight of the gun.

Footnotes

1. Massie, Robert K. (2004). Castles of Steel. Balantine Books. ISBN 0-345-40878-0.
2. The 1906 figure for Monmouth is particularly high. but is as quoted in the original. The 1914 edition also quotes £979,591 as the cost of Monmouth.
3. Brassey's Naval Annual 1905, p234-243
4. Brassey's Naval Annual 1906, p208-215

Bibliography

• Brassey, T.A. (ed)The Naval Annual 1905
• Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M., eds. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
• Corbett, Julian. Naval Operations to the Battle of the Falklands. History of the Great War: Based on Official Documents. I (2nd, reprint of the 1938 ed.). London and Nashville, Tennessee: Imperial War Museum and Battery Press. ISBN 0-89839-256-X.
• Friedman, Norman (2012). British Cruisers of the Victorian Era. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-59114-068-9.
• Friedman, Norman (2011). Naval Weapons of World War One. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-84832-100-7.
• Leyland, J. and Brassey, T.A. (ed)The Naval Annual 1906
• Massie, Robert K. (2004). Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-04092-8.
• Silverstone, Paul H. (1984). Directory of the World's Capital Ships. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-88254-979-0.

External links

• The Dreadnought Project Technical details of the ships.