Revenge-class battleship: Difference between revisions

Wartime changes to the battleships were generally limited to augmenting their deck armour, their anti-aircraft suites and the addition of radars. Each ship received a pair of quadruple two-pounder mounts and anywhere from 10 (''Revenge'' and ''Resolution'') to 42 (''Royal Sovereign'') [[Oerlikon 20 mm cannon|{{convert|20|mm|1|adj=on}} Oerlikon guns]]. Radars were added beginning in 1941, including [[early-warning radar|early-warning]], [[search radar|search]] and [[Fire-control radar|fire-control systems]]. Armour plates {{convert|2|in|}} thick were added over the magazines on ''Resolution'', ''Royal Sovereign'' and, partially, in ''Ramillies'' in 1941–1942. To increase the accommodations available for the greatly-enlarged wartime crew, the four forward six-inch guns were removed from each ship in 1943, except for ''Resolution'', which only lost two guns.{{sfn|Raven & Roberts|pp=166, 185, 189}}

 

 

In late 1940, ''Revenge'' and ''Royal Sovereign'' returned to convoy escort duties in the North Atlantic, and ''Ramillies'' joined them in January 1941 after completing a refit. During this period, ''Ramillies'' discouraged the two German {{sclass|Scharnhorst|battleship|1}}s from attacking a convoy she escorted. ''Revenge'' and ''Ramillies'' were at sea during [[Operation Rheinübung]], the sortie of the German battleship {{ship|German battleship|Bismarck||2}} in May and they joined the hunt for the ship, but did not locate her.{{sfn|Burt 2012b|pp=317–320}}{{sfn|Johnston|p=121}} ''Resolution'' spent much of 1941 under repair, first in [[Freetown]], South Africa and then the United States.{{sfn|Smith 2008|pp=156–158}} Late in the year, the Admiralty decided to deploy the four ''Revenge''-class ships to the [[Far East]] as the [[3rd Battle Squadron]] in anticipation of war with Japan. They arrived in early 1942, by which time the Japanese had already declared war and inflicted a string of defeats on the Allied countries in the region. The ships fled in advance of the Japanese [[Indian Ocean raid]], as they were no match for the [[aircraft carrier]]s of the powerful [[1st Air Fleet (Imperial Japanese Navy)|1st Air Fleet]]. The battleships thereafter primarily operated off the coast of Africa, escorting troop convoys.{{sfn|Burt 2012b|pp=317–320}}{{sfn|Smith 2008|pp=287, 297}}{{sfn|Jackson|pp=293, 295–296, 298}} ''Ramillies'' was present during the [[Battle of Madagascar]] in May, where she was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. She was repaired first in [[Durban]], South Africa, and then [[HMNB Devonport|Devonport]].{{sfn|Burt 2012b|p=318}}