The ''Abercrombie'' class of monitors served in the

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during the

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History

Abercrombie class monitor 14-inch turret

The four ships in this class came about when the contracted supplier of the main armament for the

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battleship being built in Germany was unable to supply due to the British

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. The company –

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in the

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– instead offered to sell the four twin

gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechani ...

s to the Royal Navy on 3 November 1914. The Royal Navy was using obsolete

pre-dreadnought battleship Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, prot ...

s for shore bombardment in support of the army in

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, and a design for a shallow-draught warship (known as "Monitors") suitable for shore-bombardment was quickly designed and built to use these turrets. The ships were laid down and launched within six months. The ships carried a single main gun turret forward of a tripod mast, which was itself in front of a single funnel. A secondary armament of two 12-pounder (76 mm) guns was fitted, with a single 3-pounder (47 mm) anti-aircraft gun and a 2-pounder

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completed the ships armament.Gardiner and Gray 1985, p. 44. The monitors had a box-like hull, with very bluff bow and stern, and were fitted with anti-torpedo bulges. In order to speed construction, it was intended to use off-the shelf merchant ship engines, giving about , which were expected to drive the ships to . The rushed design, however, meant that the ships were much slower than expected — ''Raglan''s engines gave but the ship could only reach .Gardiner and Gray 1985, pp. 43–44. During the planning and build, they were to be the ''Styx''-class named after four American figures;

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Ulysses S. Grant, General

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, Admiral David Farragut and General Stonewall Jackson and they were launched under these names. Because the United States was still a neutral power at that time, using these names would have been undiplomatic and so they were renamed as simply ''M1'' through ''M4'' before completion, then receiving their final names. The design included a

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for spotting the guns, but it was found that land-based aircraft were more effective; as monitors, they would never operate in the open sea, and storing the seaplane on top of the turret meant it had to be removed to avoid damage, even if not required before the guns could fire.

Ships

References

Bibliography

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Vol. 2
* * *Dittmar, F. J. & Colledge, J. J., "British Warships 1914-1919", (Ian Allan, London, 1972), * * *Gray, Randal (ed), "Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921", (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1985), * {{WWI British ships Monitor classes