Anchusa-class sloop

HMS President on the Thames
Class overview
Name: Flower class, Anchusa type
Operators:  Royal Navy
Preceded by: Cadmus class
Succeeded by: Kil class
In service: - 1988
In commission: 1917
Completed: 28
Preserved: One
General characteristics
Type: Convoy escort Q-Ship: ("Warship-Q")
Displacement: 1,290 long tons (1,311 t)
Length:
  • 250 ft (76.2 m) p/p
  • 262 ft 3 in (79.93 m) o/a
Beam: 35 ft (10.7 m)
Draught:
  • 11 ft 6 in (3.51 m) mean
  • 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) – 13 ft 8 in (4.17 m) deep
Propulsion: 4-cylinder triple expansion engine, 2 boilers, 2,500 hp (1,864 kW), 1 screw
Speed: 16 knots (29.6 km/h; 18.4 mph)
Range: Coal: 260 tons
Complement: 93
Armament:
  • Designed to mount :
  • 2 × 12-pounder gun
  • 1 × 7.5 inch howitzer or 1 × 200 lb stick-bomb howitzer
  • 4 × Depth charge throwers
  • As built:
  • 2 × 4 in (102 mm) guns
  • 1 or 2 × 12-pounder guns
  • Depth charge throwers

The twenty-eight Anchusa-class sloops were built under the Emergency War Programme for the Royal Navy in World War I as the final part of the larger "Flower class", which were also referred to as the "Cabbage class", or "Herbaceous Borders".

They were single-screw fleet sweeping vessels (sloops) with triple hulls at the bows to give extra protection against loss when working.

The Anchusa class of corvettes or convoy sloops were completed in 1917 and 1918. They were a small class of convoy protection ships built to look like merchant ships for use as Q-ships in World War I.

Two members of the Anchusa group, HMS Chrysanthemum and HMS Saxifrage (renamed HMS President in 1922), survived to be moored on the River Thames for use as Drill Ships by the RNVR until 1988, a total of seventy years in RN service. HMS President (1918) was sold and preserved, and is now one of the last three surviving warships of the Royal Navy built during the First World War, (along with the 1914 Light cruiser HMS Caroline in Belfast, and the 1915 Monitor HMS M33 in Portsmouth dockyard).

Ships

These ships were Q-ships, which were disguised as normal mercantile shipping within convoys. Six ships were ordered on 1 January 1917:

Two more ships were ordered on 15 January 1917:

Twenty more ships were ordered on 21 February 1917:

See also

Media related to Anchusa class sloop at Wikimedia Commons


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