HMS Tiger (1913)

Tiger at anchor in her 1916–1917 configuration with only a foremast
Class overview
Operators
Preceded by	Queen Mary
Succeeded by	Renown class
Built	1912–1914
In commission	1914–1931
Completed	1
Scrapped	1
History
United Kingdom
Name	Tiger
Builder	John Brown and Company, Clydebank
Laid down	20 June 1912
Launched	15 December 1913
Commissioned	3 October 1914
Decommissioned	15 May 1931
Fate	Sold for scrap, February 1932
General characteristics
Type	Battlecruiser
Displacement	28,500 long tons (29,000 t) (normal)
Length	704 ft (214.6 m) (o/a)
Beam	90 ft 6 in (27.6 m)
Draught	32 ft 5 in (9.9 m)
Installed power	39 × water-tube boilers 85,000 shp (63,000 kW)
Propulsion	4 × shafts; 2 × steam turbine sets
Speed	28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph)
Complement	1,112 (September 1914)
Armament	4 × twin 13.5 in (343 mm) guns 12 × single 6 in (152 mm) guns 2 × single 3 in (76 mm) AA guns 4 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour	Belt: 3–9 in (76–229 mm) Deck: 1 to 3 in (25 to 76 mm) Barbettes: 8 to 9 in (203 to 229 mm) Casemates: 6 in (152 mm) Turrets: 9 in (229 mm)

HMS Tiger was a battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy during the 1910s. The ship was the most heavily armoured British battlecruiser at the start of the First World War in 1914, but was not yet ready for service. The ship was assigned to the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (1st BCS) for the duration of the war and participated in the Battle of Dogger Bank in early 1915, though she was still shaking down and did not perform well. Tiger next participated in the Battle of Jutland in 1916, where she was only lightly damaged despite suffering many hits by German shells. Apart from providing distant cover during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917, she spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea.

The ship was the oldest battlecruiser retained by the Royal Navy after the tonnage limits of the Washington Naval Treaty came into effect in 1922. She became a gunnery training ship in 1924 and then joined the Battlecruiser Squadron in 1929 when its flagship, Hood, underwent a lengthy refit. Upon Hood's return to service in 1931, Tiger was decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1932 in accordance with the terms of the London Naval Treaty of 1930.

In his book, The Price of Admiralty, British military historian John Keegan described her as "certainly the most beautiful warship in the world then, and perhaps ever[.]"^[1]