The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Great Britain Battleship Vanguard

Laid down on April 2, 1908, launched on February 22, 1909 and commissioned on March 1, 1910, Vanguard carried a main armament of ten 12 inch main guns mounted two per turret; one centerline forward, one centerline aft, one centerline amidships that could fire to both sides and one wing turret per side that could fire only fore and aft and to their own side. Vanguard was part of the three-ship St. Vincent battleship class. They were powered by turbine engines with coal-fired boilers. The Vanguard was an honored and much-used name in the Royal Navy, including a galleon in the 1588 Armada battle and a wooden 74-gun ship of the line that served as Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson’s flagship at the celebrated Battle of the Nile (August 1, 1798). During World War One, she took part in the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916. Her abbreviated career ended when she sank as a result of an accidental internal explosion in the Grand Fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow on July 9, 1917. Later, the Vanguard name was used for the last British battleship ever completed, at the end of World War Two.

See other British battleships: Iron Duke, Bellerophon, Hercules