HMS Inflexible (1907)

Inflexible in New York City, 1909
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Inflexible
Ordered:	1905
Builder:	John Brown & Company, Clyde
Laid 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 Lützow during the Battle of Jutland and watched Invincible explode. She was deemed obsolete after the war and 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.

Inflexible was significantly larger than her armoured cruiser predecessors of the Minotaur class. She had an overall length of 567 ft (173 m), a beam of 78 ft 10.13 in (24.0 m), and a draught of 29 ft 9 in (9.07 m) at deep load. She displaced 17,290 long tons (17,570 t) at load and 20,700 long tons (21,000 t) at deep load, nearly 3,000 long tons (3,000 t) more than the earlier ships.