Alentejo Class Battleships.
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The Alentejo class were very superior to Algarves first try at a battleship.
News out of England had leaked the details of the King Edward class with its
mixed armament. Algarves planners and designers thought they could improve on
that, and to a point did. Where the KE-VII had 12" and 9.2", these were all in
turrets. The designers for the Alentejo made the mistake of fitting the single
12" in casemates. To have fitted the 12" into turrets would have required a much
bigger ship and at that stage the Algarvian Naval shipyards at Harbourton could
not handle much bigger ships. Work was underway to build graving docks of much
larger size (over 800 feet) but for now the Alentejo's were as big as could be
built. While an advance on the KE-VII type the ships the Alentejo's were not the
quantum leap of the Dreadnought just a few years in the future.
These four ships made up the fourth Battle Squadron in 1914, and acting in
pairs, patrolled the Dias Strait between Algarve and South Africa. They were
there to intercept Admiral Spee's squadron if they were to come that way. Von
Spee met his match at the Falkands, but the Alentejo and Douro caught the Prinz
Heinrich (9,000 tons, 4x8.2") and in a short yet brisk battle, sunk the German
ship with only slight damage to the Douro, from two 8.2" hits. The salvos of six
12" shells at a time proving too much for the German cruiser.
With the German overseas ships being accounted for, two of the four Alentejo
class were sent to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. The two ships
remaining in Algarvian waters assisted the CDB Dias with patrols around Algarve
and across to South Africa. The two Ships were rotated in and out of the Med
with the two ships assisting with the Gallipoli campaign. During the campaign
the Ribatejo was mined and then torpedoed while being towed back to port. The
other three ships made it through the rest of the war unscathed only to be
discarded in 1919 and sold for scrap.
Displacement: 12,500 tons standard, 15,400 tons full load
Dimensions: 434 x 81 x 27 feet
Machinery: 4 shaft, triple expansion, 18,000ihp,
Speed: 19 knots
Endurance: 8,000 miles at 10 knots
Armour: 12" belt, 2" deck, 10/6/4" turrets
Armament:
8 x 12" (2x2 4x1)
6 x 4.7" (6x1)
8 x 47mm (8x1)
Crew:780
ARS Alentejo (1903)
ARS Estremadura (1903)
ARS Douro (1903)
ARS Ribatejo (1904)
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