HMS Indomitable (1907)

Indomitable during the celebrations of the tercentenary of Quebec City in 1908
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Indomitable
Ordered:	1906 Naval Programme
Builder:	Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan
Laid down:	1 March 1906
Launched:	16 March 1907
Commissioned:	25 June 1908
Out of service:	February 1919
Struck:	31 March 1920
Fate:	Sold for scrap, 1 December 1921
General characteristics
Class and type:	Invincible-class battlecruiser
Displacement:	17,408 long tons (17,687 t) at load 20,722 long tons (21,055 t) at deep load
Length:	567 ft (172.8 m)
Beam:	78 ft 7.75 in (23.97 m)
Draught:	25 ft (7.6 m) normal; 29 ft 9.5 in (9.08 m) deep
Installed power:	41,000 shp (31,000 kW) 31 Babcock & Wilcox boilers
Propulsion:	4 shafts, 2 steam turbine sets
Speed:	25.5 knots (47.2 km/h; 29.3 mph)
Range:	3,090 nmi (5,720 km; 3,560 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:	784 (up to 1000 in wartime)
Armament:	4 × twin BL 12-inch (305 mm) Mk X guns 16 × single QF 4-inch (102 mm) Mk III guns 5 × 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes
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 Indomitable was one of three Invincible-class battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy before World War I and had an active career during the war. She tried to hunt down the German ships Goeben and Breslau in the Mediterranean when war broke out and bombarded Turkish fortifications protecting the Dardanelles even before the British declared war on Turkey. She helped to sink the German armoured cruiser Blücher during the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915 and towed the damaged British battlecruiser HMS Lion to safety after the battle. She damaged the German battlecruisers Seydlitz and Derfflinger during the Battle of Jutland in mid-1916 and watched her sister ship HMS Invincible explode. Deemed obsolete after the war, she was sold for scrap in 1921.

The Invincible-class ships were formally known as armoured cruisers until 1911 when they were redesignated as battlecruisers by an Admiralty order of 24 November 1911. Unofficially a number of designations were used until then, including "cruiser-battleship", "dreadnought cruiser" and "battle-cruiser".

Indomitable was significantly larger than her armoured cruiser predecessors of the Minotaur class. She had an overall length of 567 feet (172.8 m), a beam of 78 feet 7.75 inches (24.0 m), and a draft of 30 feet (9.1 m) at deep load. She displaced 17,250 long tons (17,530 t) at load and 20,420 long tons (20,750 t) at deep load, nearly 3,000 long tons (3,000 t) more than the earlier ships.