Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: First Modern Battleship HMS De…

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Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: First Modern Battleship HMS Devastation

AssociatedAssociated with Lord Mountbatten of Burma (Frogmore House, Windsor, England, 1900 - 1979)

Medallist John Pinches, Medallists

DateMay 2004

Object NameMedal

MediumSterling Silver

ClassificationsMedals

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDMS072500.67

Keywords

Commemorative

About MeHMS Devastation, designed by Sir Edward Reed and launched in 1871, may be called the first modern battleship because she was the prototype of all such ships for the next 30 years. She incorporated all the changes which had been made since the days of Nelson-the transition from sail to steam, the use of iron for wood in hull construction, the mounting of a few big guns in turrets rather than a number of small guns broadside.

She was the first mastless ship, except for a short signal mast, thus avoiding the rig which had caused the Captain disaster. But she adopted the principle of a low freeboard to increase the arc of fire, which made her a very wet ship. She was subdivided internally by bulkheads and because of her large fuel capacity, she had a wide radius of action. With her new twin screw triple expansion engines, she had a speed of13 knots. The Devastation was 285 feet long, 63 feet in the beam, and of 9,330 tons displacement. Her arm our plating varied between 8 and 12 inches around the engines. A reactionary feature, in view of the increasing range of fire, was a pronounced ram, due to the fact that at the Battle of Lissa an Italian battleship had been rammed and sunk by the Austrian flagship.

A notable feature was the enormous size of her guns, numbering four 12-inch muzzle- loaders and four 10-inchbreech-Ioaders. The armament firm of W .G. Armstrong had begun a revolution in gunnery by inventing the breech-loading gun. This was adopted without proper trials. There were so many accidents due to guns exploding because the breech was over- strained that the Navy reverted to muzzle-loaders with grooved rifling, though these were now capable of firing 700 Ib shells. In 1881, however, following French precedent, breech- loaders were adopted for good.

As the first mastless capital ship, HMS Devastation was a landmark in naval architecture, though minor developments continued in gunnery. Thus, in her sister ship Thunderer, the turrets were rotated by steam power, whereas in the Devastation they were operated manually. The range was being increased dramatically. Whereas the old 32 lb solid shot could not be fired more than 3,000 yards, in 1860 explosive shells could be fired 6,000 yards and in 1881 a 1,920 lb shell had a range of 9,000 yards fired from breech-loaders. By 1915 the range had increased to 27,000 yards. The big gun changed naval tactics more fundamentally than any other invention.

The Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea, John Pinches Medallists Ltd.