HMS Lion was a battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy in the 1910s. She was the lead ship of her class, which were nicknamed the "Splendid Cats". They were significant improvements over their predecessors of the in terms of speed, armament and armour. This was in response to the first German battlecruisers, the , which were very much larger and more powerful than the first British battlecruisers, the .
Lion served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers throughout World War I, except when she was being refitted or under repair.Campbell, p. 29 She sank the German light cruiser during the Battle of Heligoland Bight and served as Vice-Admiral David Beatty's flagship at the Battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland. She was so badly damaged at the first of these battles that she had to be towed back to port and was under repair for more than two months. During the Battle of Jutland she suffered a serious propellant fire that could have destroyed the ship had it not been for the bravery of Royal Marine Major Francis Harvey, the gun turret commander, who posthumously received the Victoria Cross for having ordered the magazine flooded. The fire destroyed one gun turret which had to be removed for rebuilding while she was under repair for several months. She spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea, although she did provide distant cover during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917. She was put into reserve in 1920 and sold for scrap in 1924 under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.
Design The Lion-class battlecruisers were designed to be as superior to the new German battlecruisers of the Moltke class as the German ships were to the Invincible class. The increase in speed, armour and gun size forced a 65 per cent increase in size over the Indefatigable class.Burt, pp. 172, 176 Lion had an overall length of , a beam of , and a draught of at deep load. The ship displaced at normal load and at deep load.Roberts, pp. 43–44
Propulsion
Lion had two paired sets of Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, each driving two propeller shafts using steam provided by 42 Yarrow boilers. The turbines were designed to produce a total of , but achieved more than during her trials, although she did not exceed her designed speed of . She carried of coal, and an additional of fuel oil that was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate.Roberts, pp. 70–76, 80 At full capacity, she could steam for at a speed of .Preston, p. 29
Armament Lion mounted eight BL Mk V guns in four twin-gun turrets, designated 'A', 'B', 'Q' and 'X' from front to rear. Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen BL Mark VII guns, most of which were mounted in casemates.Roberts, p. 83 The two guns mounted above the forward group of casemates were given gun shields during 1913–1914 to better protect the gun crews from weather and enemy action. The starboard forward group of 4-inch guns was removed after April 1917.Burt, p. 179
She was built without anti-aircraft (AA) guns, but a single quick-firing (QF) 6-pounder (57 mm) Hotchkiss gun on a high-angle mounting was fitted from October 1914 to July 1915. A single QF AA gun was added in January 1915, and another the following July. Two submerged torpedo tubes were fitted, one on each broadside; fourteen torpedoes were carried.
Armour The armour protection given to the Lions was heavier than that of the Indefatigables; their waterline belt of Krupp armour measured thick amidships. It thinned to 4 inches towards the ships' ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. The upper armour belt had a maximum thickness of over the same length as the thickest part of the waterline armour and thinned to abreast the end turrets. The gun turrets and barbettes were protected by of armour, except for the turret roofs which used . The thickness of the nickel steel deck ranged from . Nickel steel torpedo bulkheads 2.5 inches thick were fitted abreast the magazines and shell rooms.Roberts, pp. 109, 112 After the Battle of Jutland revealed her vulnerability to plunging shellfire, of additional armour, weighing approximately , was added to the magazine crowns and turret roofs.Roberts, p. 113
Wartime modifications Lion received a fire-control director between mid-1915 and May 1916 that centralised the pointing and firing of the guns under the command of the director positioned on the foremast. The turret crewmen merely had to follow pointers controlled by the director to align their guns on the target. This greatly increased accuracy as it was easier to spot the fall of shells and eliminated the problem of the ship's roll dispersing the shells as each turret fired individually.Roberts, pp. 92–93
By early 1918 Lion carried a Sopwith Pup and a Sopwith 1½ Strutter on flying-off platforms fitted on top of 'Q' and 'X' turrets. Each platform had a canvas hangar to protect the aircraft during inclement weather.Roberts, p. 92
Construction and career
Lion was laid down at the Devonport Dockyard, Plymouth, on 29 November 1909. She was launched on 6 August 1910 and was commissioned on 4 June 1912.Roberts, p. 41 Upon commissioning, Lion became the flagship of the 1st Cruiser Squadron, which was renamed the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (BCS) in January 1913. Rear Admiral Beatty assumed command of the 1st BCS on 1 March 1913. Lion, along with the rest of the 1st BCS, made a port visit to Brest in February 1914 and the squadron visited Russia in June,Burt, p. 180 where Lions officers entertained the Russian imperial family aboard while in Kronstadt.
World War I Battle of Heligoland Bight
Lions first action was as flagship of the battlecruiser force under the command of Admiral Beatty during the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914. Beatty's ships had originally been intended as distant support of the British cruisers and destroyers closer to the German coast in case the large ships of the High Seas Fleet sortied in response to the British attacks. They turned south at full speed at 11:35The times used in this article are in UT, which is one hour behind the time zone now known as CET, which is often used in German works. when the British light forces failed to disengage on schedule and the rising tide meant that German capital ships would be able to clear the bar at the mouth of the Jade Estuary. The brand-new light cruiser had been crippled earlier in the battle and was under fire from the German light cruisers and when Beatty's battlecruisers loomed out of the mist at 12:37. Strassburg was able to duck into the mists and evade fire, but Cöln remained visible and was quickly crippled by fire from the squadron. Beatty, however, was distracted from the task of finishing her off by the sudden appearance of the elderly light cruiser directly to his front. He turned in pursuit and reduced her to a flaming hulk in only three salvos at close range–under . At 13:10 Beatty turned north and made a general signal to retire. Beatty's main body encountered the crippled Cöln shortly after turning north and she was sunk by two salvos from Lion.Massie, pp. 109–113
Raid on Scarborough
The German Navy had decided on a strategy of bombarding British towns on the North Sea coast to draw out the Royal Navy and destroy elements of it in detail. An earlier Raid on Yarmouth on 3 November had been partially successful, but a larger-scale operation was devised by Admiral Franz von Hipper afterwards. The fast battlecruisers would actually conduct the bombardment while the entire High Seas Fleet was to station itself east of Dogger Bank to provide cover for their return and to destroy any elements of the Royal Navy that responded to the raid. But what the Germans did not know was that the British were reading the German naval codes and were planning to catch the raiding force on its return journey, although they were not aware that the High Seas Fleet would be at sea as well. Admiral Beatty's 1st BCS, now reduced to four ships, including Lion, as well as Vice-Admiral Sir George Warrender's 2nd Battle Squadron with six dreadnoughts, was detached from the Grand Fleet in an attempt to intercept the Germans near Dogger Bank.Massie, pp. 333–334
Admiral Hipper set sail on 15 December 1914 for another such raid and successfully bombarded several English towns, but British destroyers escorting the 1st BCS had already encountered German destroyers of the High Seas Fleet at 05:15 and fought an inconclusive action with them. Warrender had received a signal at 05:40 that the destroyer was engaging enemy destroyers although Beatty had not. The destroyer spotted the German armoured cruiser and her escorts at about 07:00, but could not transmit the message until 07:25. Admiral Warrender received the signal, as did the battlecruiser , but Beatty did not, despite the fact that New Zealand had been specifically tasked to relay messages between the destroyers and Beatty. Warrender attempted to pass on Sharks message to Beatty at 07:36, but did not manage to make contact until 07:55. Beatty reversed course when he got the message and dispatched New Zealand to search for Roon. She was being overhauled by New Zealand when Beatty received messages that Scarborough was being shelled at 09:00. Beatty ordered New Zealand to rejoin the squadron and turned west for Scarborough.Massie, pp. 342–343
The British forces split going around the shallow Southwest Patch of the Dogger Bank; Beatty's ships passed to the north while Warrender passed to the south as they headed west to block the main route through the minefields defending the English coast. This left a gap between them through which the German light forces began to move. At 12:25, the light cruisers of the II Scouting Group began to pass the British forces searching for Hipper. The light cruiser spotted the light cruiser and signalled a report to Beatty. At 12:30 Beatty turned his battlecruisers towards the German ships. Beatty presumed that the German cruisers were the advance screen for Hipper's ships, however, those were some 50 km (31 mi) behind. The 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, which had been screening for Beatty's ships, detached to pursue the German cruisers, but a misinterpreted signal from the British battlecruisers sent them back to their screening positions.Beatty had intended on retaining only the two rearmost light cruisers from Goodenough's squadron; however, s signalman misinterpreted the signal, thinking that it was intended for the whole squadron, and thus transmitted it to Goodenough, who ordered his ships back into their screening positions ahead of Beatty's battlecruisers. See Massie, pp. 347–348. This confusion allowed the German light cruisers to escape, and alerted Hipper to the location of the British battlecruisers. The German battlecruisers wheeled to the northeast of the British forces and made good their escape.Tarrant, p. 34
Battle of Dogger Bank
On 23 January 1915, a force of German battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Franz von Hipper sortied to clear the Dogger Bank of any British fishing boats or small craft that might be there to collect intelligence on German movements. However, the British were reading their coded messages and sailed to intercept them with a larger force of British battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Beatty. Contact was initiated at 07:20 on the 24th when the British light cruiser Arethusa spotted the German light cruiser . By 07:35 the Germans had spotted Beatty's force and Hipper ordered a turn to the south at , believing that this would suffice if the ships that he saw to his north-west were British battleships and that he could always increase speed to 's maximum speed of if they were British battlecruisers.Massie, pp. 376–384