HMS Audacious (1912)

Audacious about 1913–1914
History
United Kingdom
Name	Audacious
Ordered	1910
Builder	Cammell Laird, Birkenhead
Laid down	23 March 1911
Launched	14 September 1912
Completed	August 1913
Commissioned	15 October 1913
Fate	Sunk by a mine, 27 October 1914
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type	King George V-class dreadnought battleship
Displacement	25,420 long tons (25,830 t) (normal)
Length	597 ft 9 in (182.2 m) (o/a)
Beam	89 ft 1 in (27.2 m)
Draught	28 ft 8 in (8.7 m)
Installed power	18 × Yarrow boilers 27,000 shp (20,000 kW)
Propulsion	4 × shafts; 2 × steam turbine sets
Speed	21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Range	5,910 nmi (10,950 km; 6,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	860 (1914)
Armament	5 × twin 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns 16 × single 4-inch (102 mm) guns 3 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour	Belt: 12 in (305 mm) Decks: 1–4 in (25–102 mm) Turrets: 11 in (280 mm) Barbettes: 10 in (254 mm)

HMS Audacious was the fourth and last King George V-class dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the early 1910s. After completion in 1913, she spent her brief 2-year career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets. The ship struck a German naval mine off the northern coast of County Donegal, Ireland, early during the First World War. Audacious slowly flooded, allowing all of her crew to be rescued, and finally sank after the British were unable to tow her to shore. However, a petty officer on a nearby cruiser was killed by shrapnel when Audacious subsequently exploded. Even though American tourists aboard one of the rescuing ships photographed and filmed the sinking battleship, the Admiralty embargoed news of her loss in Britain to prevent the Germans from taking advantage of the weakened Grand Fleet. She is the largest warship ever sunk by naval mines.^[1]