The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Great Britain Battle Cruiser Repulse

Laid down on January 25, 1915, launched on January 8, 1916 and commissioned on August 18, 1916, Repulse carried a main armament of six 15 inch main guns mounted two per turret; two centerline superfiring forward and one centerline aft. Repulse was half of the two-ship Renown battle cruiser class. This was the first full British battle cruiser class powered by turbines with oil-fired boilers. The small number of big guns was unusual because, at the time, at least six guns were considered to be necessary to properly straddle a target for adequate firing accuracy and the loss of even one turret could render these ships ineffective. The reason was that only 12 of the 15 inch guns would be available while the ships were being built, so that’s how they were armed! The speed was very high and the armor was very thin (they were nicknamed the “Tin Cans” because of this) on this class but they did incorporate an anti-torpedo bulge. The Repulse name has a long history as a ship name in the Royal Navy. The two battle cruisers had many early problems and were dubbed the H. M. S. Refit and H. M. S. Repair. Repulse spent the Great War with the Grand Fleet or the Battle Cruiser Squadron and put to sea whenever there was a German sortie. In November 1917, she participated in operations in the German Bight. Between the wars, Repulse served with the Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets and underwent conversions and modernization from 1919-1922 and 1934-1936 that added armor (up to 9 inches in the belt), increased her displacement to 32,000 tons and reduced her speed to 29 knots. On the outbreak of World War II, she operated in the North Sea, escorted troopships between Canada and Great Britain and saw action off the coast of Norway during the nazi invasion there and took part in the fruitless pursuit of the damaged German battle cruiser Gneisenau. During late 1940 through mid 1941, she attacked German weather ships, escorted minelayers off Iceland, and took an unsuccessful part in hunts for the German battle cruisers Gneisenau and Sharnhorst and, later, for the German fast battleship Bismarck. Transferred to Singapore in late 1941, she sortied as part of Force “Z” in company of the battleship Prince of Wales , the flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Tom “Tom Thumb” Phillips (1888–1941) and was sunk by land-based Japanese bombers on December 10, 1941, with a loss of 327 killed.

See other British capital ships: Queen Elizabeth, Courageous, Royal Oak