Germany built up its own fleet of dreadnoughts, Britain responded by providing ten further super-dreadnoughts in the 1912 and 1913 budgets – the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes, which introduced further evolutions in armament, speed and protection. In contrast, Germany laid down only five battleships; she was now concentrating her resources on building up her ground forces. By the beginning of World War I in 1914, Britain had 22 of the new dreadnoughts in service compared to Germany’s 15. Britain also had another 13 under construction compared to Germany’s 5.
Battleships protected their most important and vulnerable parts inside an armoured box called the citadel, which ran from just in front of the forward gun turrets all the way back to aft of the stern gun turrets. Along the side of the citadel, on either side of the ship at the waterline, ran the main vertical armour belt, which was 11 inches thick in the first dreadnoughts but gradually got thicker with successive new classes of battleship.
In front of the forward gun turrets and aft of the stern gun turrets, a transverse armoured bulkhead ran athwartships, right across the ship from one side of the hull to the other. This transverse armour bulkhead connected the ends of the vertical main armour belts on both sides of the ship to form the rectangular framework of the citadel.
The deck over the smaller rapid fire casemate guns that lined either side of the beam of a dreadnought was armoured, and there was a further horizontal armour deck deep within the ship, designed to protect the machinery and magazines at the very bottom of the ship. In all, some 35–40 per cent of the weight of a battleship was made up of armour.
When the first generations of dreadnoughts were developed, the less powerful guns of the day fired in a relatively flat trajectory from relatively close range. Until 1905, normal battle range for capital ships was about 6,000 yards (3–4 miles) with long-range engagements perhaps out to 10,000 yards, or 6 miles. At both these ranges, the shell of a high-velocity gun would strike its target’s side. For this reason, a capital ship’s armour was concentrated on its vertical main belt along the hull side at the waterline and designed to protect the ship’s vital areas, such as magazines, boilers and turbines.
The thickest part of the main belt ran from forward of the forward turrets to aft of the aftmost turrets, whilst thinner armour protected the hull forward and aft of the citadel. At short range, a horizontally fired shell would not be able to strike the deck of the enemy ship – and so, to save unnecessary weight, decks were more lightly armoured than the vertical side armour belt.
As battleship design developed, however, successive generations of new and improved big guns were able to hurl their shells further and further. Soon, shells were being fired with a range of 21,000 yards – some 12 miles. More powerful guns, firing from greater distances, increased the height of the shell’s trajectory and produced a new phenomenon, ‘plunging fire’ or ‘falling shot’. This was more likely to strike the lightly armoured deck of a battleship rather than the thick vertical side armour belt.
As the great naval arms race developed, Audacious was laid down at Cammell Laird’s shipyard at Birkenhead, Merseyside on 23 March 1911. She was launched on 14 September 1912, and after fitting out afloat and the addition of her vertical armour belt plates, she was completed in August 1913. She was commissioned on 15 October 1913 and joined her sister ships in the 2nd Battle Squadron.
Audacious carried ten of the new Mk V 13.5-inch guns set in five twin turrets on her centre line: a super-firing forward pair called A and B turrets; a super-firing aft pair, X and Y turrets; and Q turret amidships. The staggered wing formation on earlier dreadnoughts, where P and Q turrets had been situated either side of the bridge superstructure allowing only 8 guns to fire in a broadside, had been abandoned – all turrets were now on the centre line and all 10 guns could now fire in a broadside. The new 13.5-inch gun could also fire an increased weight 1,400lb shell some 23,800 yards – about 13.5 miles. B turret was a super-firing turret, situated aft and above of A turret, whilst X turret was a super-firing turret forward and above the aftmost Y turret. The increased 1,400lb shell required four 106lb quarter charges of rod- based cordite. Each gun had its own magazine in the bowels of the ship that held 112 rounds per gun.
In addition to her main armament, Audacious was fitted with 16 breech-loading (BL) rapid fire Mark VII 4-inch secondary guns, set eight along either side in a mixture of casemate mounts and deckhouses, which were designed to target fast-moving torpedo boats that might close for a beam shot. These guns however proved to be ineffectual, being too light to deal with the newer and larger torpedo boats and destroyers and the increasing range of torpedoes. The casemates set in the forward superstructure were also found to be ineffectual in any kind of sea. The BL Mark VII 4-inch guns were removed in 1915 and substituted by 12 deck- mounted 4-inch guns. Three 21-inch submerged torpedo tubes were fitted, one in either beam and a third in the stern. She was protected by a 12-inch thick vertical waterline armour belt and an 8-inch upper belt.
The British Grand Fleet, formed in August 1914, was composed of the 1st Fleet and part of the 2nd Fleet; it comprised 35–40 capital ships (battleships and battlecruisers) along with supporting cruisers, destroyers and lighter naval units. It would be based in the great natural harbour of at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, off the north of Scotland.
As the war began, German submarines initially had little success, but as we saw in the preceding chapter, things changed dramatically on 1 September 1914 with the sinking of HMS Pathfinder by a German submarine in the Forth. Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, in command of the Grand Fleet, became very concerned about the threat of submarine attack and the consequent safety of the Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow. The same day that Pathfinder was sunk, he ordered the Grand Fleet to weigh anchor and move out of Scapa Flow to sea. Audacious was at this point in HM Dockyard, Devonport, being refitted – she would rejoin the Grand Fleet at the beginning of October 1914.
The Grand Fleet began to move around the west coast of Scotland and the northern coast of Ireland, marking time until Scapa Flow could be made safe enough to take the fleet there. Initially the fleet laid up in the alternative anchorage of Loch Ewe on Scotland’s north-west coast for 17 days, before returning to Scapa Flow.
A month later, on 17 October 1914, the fleet put to sea again from Scapa Flow, but this time Loch Ewe was regarded as unsafe because a submarine had been reported near there 10 days earlier. The Grand Fleet thus retreated even further from the enemy, to Lough Swilly in the north of Ireland, where the 2nd Battle Squadron, including the recently refitted Audacious, would be based for some months.
As we saw in the preceding chapter, the loss of Pathfinder was quickly followed by the sinking of the three armoured cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy, with great loss of life by a single submarine, U 9, on 22 September 1914. Then, on 15 October 1914, the same German submarine, U 9, sank the British protected cruiser HMS Hawke with the loss of some 500 men.
By now, every report of a submarine was causing grave consternation. In Scapa Flow, the Grand Fleet had been thought safe from attack – but lookouts, now on full alert, began to see German submarines all around, and constant alarms were being raised.
Now fully aware of the potential of the submarine threat, when the Admiralty examined the anti-submarine defences at Scapa Flow, naval commanders were staggered to find just how poor the defences were for the fleet. The astonishing success of the German submarine would subsequently cause the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, to change his view about utilising submarines in the Royal Navy.
On 2 November 1914, Churchill issued a list of decisions taken by the Admiralty. In amongst a raft of war preparations it was provided that extra numbers of destroyers and armed merchant cruisers, along with 48 armed trawlers and three yachts with guns, would be sent to Scapa Flow. Attempts were made to fortify and block all but a few of the main sea entrances into the Flow. In addition to sea defences, coastal defence gun emplacements were installed at strategic locations covering the sounds, and
