HMS Thunderer

HMS Thunderer was the third Orion class battleship built for the Royal Navy and was the last vessel to be constructed by Thames Iron Works. She was the last and largest warship ever built on the River Thames, and after her completion her builders declared bankruptcy. By a margin of £1000, she was the most expensive battleship of the 1909 construction programme built. The Admiralty had called for six new 'super-Dreadnoughts' in 1909 to counter the German naval expansion; the Treasury economists would offer only four, but politics intervened in a year of two general elections, and when the cry went up, "We want eight, and we won't wait!", the Orions were built as part of an unusual compromise of four ships in 1910 and four more in 1911. Thunderer and her sisters were huge ships of 22,000 tons, with ten 13.5 inch guns in super-firing turrets, all mounted on the centreline. Her machinery consisted of new steam turbines, and her electrics were provided by four 200 KW generators, installed...