HMS Dartmouth (1911)
HMS Dartmouth was a light cruiser built for the Royal Navy in the 1910s. She was one of the Weymouth sub-class of the Town class. The ship survived the First World War and was sold for scrap in 1930. Construction and design Dartmouth was laid down by Vickers at their Barrow shipyard on 19 February 1910, one of four Town-class protected cruisers ordered under the 1909–1910 Naval Estimates. The four 1909–10 ships, also known as the Weymouth class, were an improved version of five similar Town-class ships laid down under the 1908–1909 Estimates, known as the Bristol class, with a heavier main armament of eight 6 inch (152 mm) Mk XI guns, compared with the two 6 inch and ten 4 inch of the earlier ships. The ships had a secondary armament of four Vickers 3-pounder (47 mm) guns, with two submerged 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes mounted on the ships' beams. Dartmouth was long overall, with a beam of and a draught of . She displaced normal and deep load. Machinery was the same as in the Bristol class, with 12 Yarrow boilers feeding Parsons steam turbines, driving four shafts. The turbines were laid out in three separate engine rooms, with high pressure turbines, located in wing compartments, driving the outer shafts and low pressure turbines in a central compartment. The engines were rated at , giving a design speed of . The ship had four funnels. Dartmouth was launched on 14 February 1911, reaching a speed of during sea trials. She was completed in October 1911, at a cost of £320,406. Service history On commissioning, Dartmouth joined the Atlantic Fleet, being attached to the Third Battle Squadron from 1912 to 1913. After a 1913 cruise to the Mediterranean Sea, she was briefly attached to the Second Light Cruiser Squadron at Devonport to participate in the 1913 Naval Manoeuvres before leaving to join the East Indies Squadron of the Eastern Fleet. On the outbreak of the First World War, Dartmouth was docked at Bombay, but was soon returned to sea, escorting a troop convoy from Karachi to Mombasa in Kenya and then taking part in the search for the German cruiser . On 9 October that year she captured the German tug Adjutant in the Mozambique Channel. On 30 October, the cruiser spotted Königsberg moored up the Rufiji delta, and on 2 November, Dartmouth attempted to engage Königsberg or the supporting steamer Somali but the German ships were too far upstream to be successfully engaged. On 10 November, the British scuttled the collier Newbridge in the Rufiji River as a blockship to prevent Königsberg from escaping, and on 11 November, Dartmouth left to reinforce the Cape of Good Hope Station in the aftermath of the Battle of Coronel. In January 1915, Dartmouth was reassigned to the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet but was detached to operate in the South Atlantic in the search for the commerce raider . (Unknown to the Royal Navy, Karlsruhe had