HMS Centurion (1911)

Type:
Battleship
Class:
Builder:
Devonport Dockyard
Plymouth, England
Pennant Number:
N/A
Ordered:
1910
Launched:
November 18, 1911
Keel Laid:
January 16, 1911
Commissioned:
May 22, 1913
Fate:
Scuttled as breakwater on June 9, 1944 at Normandy, France. Scrapped in 1945.


Dimensions, machinery and performance

Length:
597' 4"
Engines:
4 Parsons steam turbines
Beam:
88' 9"
Boilers:
18 Babcock & Wilcox (coal / oil fired)
Draft:
28' 5" (max full)
Shafts:
4
Displacement:
23,300 std. / 25,700 full
SHP:
27,000
Speed:
21 knots
Crew:
850
Range:
4,060 NM @ 18.1 knots


Armament
Number Carried
Type
Arrangement
Maximum Range / Ceiling
10
13.5"/45 (343mm)
Mk V(H)
5 twin turrets
23,800 yards @ 20° (13.5 miles)
with a 1,250 lb. armor piercing shell

12 (a)
4"/50 (102mm)
BL Mk VII
single mounts
11,600 yards @ 15° (6.5 miles)
with a 31 lb. HE shell

3 (b)
21" (533mm)
torpedo tubes
2 broadside
1 stern
all submerged
4,500 yards @ 45 knots (2.5 miles)
10,750 yards @ 31 knots (6.1 miles)
515 lb. TNT warhead
Armament notes:
(a) In 1917 four additional 4" guns were added.
(b) The stern tube was removed in 1916.
In 1917 two 3" AA guns were added but later replaced with 4" guns.
Centurion had all armament removed in 1937 in preparation for sinking as a blockship.
In 1941 she had two 40mm AA and eight 20mm AA installed and this was increased in
May 1942 to four 40mm and seventeen 20mm.


Builder's Data
Page published Jan. 22, 2007