Erebus class Monitors.
Being a Fisherless RN causes its own problems. There were originally to be 7 R
class battleships when Jackie Fisher hi-jacked the last two for his Renown class
battlecruisers. With three turrets on the Renowns and four on the R's this
leaves 2 spares which became the monitors Erebus and Terror. Since I have
cancelled the two Renowns and the three Courageous type LBC's and replaced them
with the three Barfleur class there is now a glut of twin 15" and of course the
two single 18" that were to arm the Furious. The two Erebus still get built with
two of the spare twin 15" but the rest of the guns are used by mounting them in
the new triple turrets built for the Barfleur class. This leaves the two single
18" turrets to get to sea. I build two extra Erebus class hulls and fit them
with the two single 18". Completed in 1917 the two ships spend the last year of
the war bombarding the German positions in the Flanders region of Belgium. They
also lend support to the Zeebruge raid.
Used as training ships during the inter-war period Gorgon and Medusa had very
little done to them to prepare them for the next war. By 1939 the low angle 4"
had been replaced with high angle 4" and the 3" AA had been replaced with single
2pd AA guns. By 1941 the Gorgon was armed with 1x18", 8x4", 4x2pd, 8x20mm. The
Medusa had been sunk, by aircraft, off Dover during the Dunkerque withdrawal.
The Gorgon had been in the Mediterranean and along with the other Monitors of
the support squadron spent their time running stores along the coast of Egypt
and Libya supplying both stores and gunfire support where needed. Their greatest
enemy were the aircraft of the Germans and Italians with two of the three
Monitor losses being to aircraft. They were just too slow to dodge. In one
memorable engagement the Gorgon engaged a regiment of German tanks, exchanging
fire with Panzer III and IV tanks armed with 37, 50, and 75mm guns. The 18" and
4" of the Gorgon took deadly toll of the German tanks that were forced off the
coast road and into the desert, holding up the advance of the Regiment for days
while repairs were made to the remaining tanks. The end for Gorgon came in 1943
while supporting the Anzio landings, when the ship was hit by two glider bombs,
the ship turned turtle and remained above water with the tripod stuck in the
sand below the water and only the hull showing. The next tide flipped the ship
over but not before several holes had been cut in the hull to allow trapped
sailors to escape.