HMS Glorious
Contents
Description
One of the trio of the Courageous-class "large light cruisers", the HMS Glorious's design perfectly encapsulates First Sea Lord John ('Jackie') Fisher's obsession with superior speed and firepower. Built with his 'Baltic Project' in mind, the ship was designed with high speed and large guns to devastate enemy cruisers while having a shallow draught to allow operations supporting coastal landings in the Baltics. Despite being a capital ship, it was designed with paper thin armour, partly to allow for the high speed and partly to get around a restriction imposed by the Government on the construction of new capital ships, with First Sea Lord Fisher presenting the ships as simply large light cruisers. In fact, the ships were so lightly built that the lead ship HMS Courageous took not insignificant structural damage in rough seas during sea trials, buckling the hull and deck in several places, shearing off rivets and allowing water to pour in.
As for the Glorious, she saw only a brief action in her "large light cruiser" configuration in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight, where she was forced to retreat after a shell in her forward 15-inch turret prematurely detonated inside the barrel. After the Great war ended, such a specialized ship like the Couragous-class were deemed unnecessary, and all three of the Courageous-class were converted into aircraft carriers to make better use of the hull (and to avoid being scrapped altogether by restrictions imposed by the Washington Naval treaty). In her aircraft carrier configuration, HMS Glorious would go on to serve until the early stages of World War II. After being recalled from the hunt of the Admiral Graf Spee in 1940 to evacuate British aircraft from Norway, Glorious was intercepted and sunk by German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on 8 June 1940, with over 1,200 loss of lives.
Introduced in Update "Fire and Ice", the unconventional design of HMS Glorious in her 1919 configuration makes her very distinctive from the other "pocket battleships" at her BR, such as Graf Spee and the Ikoma. The ship is a true "glass cannon", featuring high offensive firepower in the form of four 381 mm cannons, numerous 102 mm guns, a huge stockpile of torpedoes, along with great mobility to boot, however still lacks adequate armour to shield from even cruiser-calibre guns.
General info
Survivability and armour
Due to how huge the HMS Glorious's hull is, this will be both a blessing and a curse, as on one hand she is capable of soaking huge amount of cruiser-calibre rounds due to her massive empty bow and stern section eating most of the shots before it could hit critical compartments, while on the other hand it makes her stuck out like a sore thumb, and leaves her an easy target against capital ships that can easily demolish her in a few salvoes.
The armour of the HMS Glorious is not good, even when compared to some light cruisers. The front belt armour which protects the forward ammunition storage is 50.8mm, with the rest of the belt armour having a thickness of 76.2mm. The ammunition storage has an extra 25mm plate surrounding them, with the engine rooms having a 38mm plate instead. The main deck armour consists of two plates of 25mm. The citadel roof armour has 44mm protecting the ammunition, with 19mm on the engine room. The front and rear of the citadel has 76.2mm of armour. The bridge is one of the most well protected parts of the ship, with 254mm of cemented armour in all directions, with a respectable 76mm on the roof. The turrets have 330mm of cemented armour on the front, with the sides and rear protected by 228mm and 279mm respectively. The roof armour has a thickness of 108mm with the barbettes being protected by 178-152mm
The HMS Glorious has a relatively small crew of 842, which combined with terrible armour makes most enemies at and below the main BR a significant threat, especially at closer ranges. Though due to most of her crew compartments being located significantly below the deck, this allows the Glorious to tank a lot of cruiser-calibre HE rounds and even some AP rounds at longer ranges.
Mobility
For a ship of this size, the Glorious's mobility is surprisingly good. She has a good top speed that allows her to catch up with most cruisers and can turns surprisingly well when upgraded. Though while stock, the Glorious's traverse speed is quite poor, and as such upgrade for her rudder would be one of your first priority, as you would often have to do evasive manoeuvre quite often to evade the incoming fire and torpedoes.
| Mobility Characteristics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Game Mode | Upgrade Status | Maximum Speed (km/h) | |
| Forward | Reverse | ||
| AB | |||
| Upgraded | 68 | 34 | |
| RB/SB | |||
| Upgraded | 59 | 29 | |
Modifications and economy
| Seakeeping | Unsinkability | Firepower | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Since the Glorious's stock shell are more than adequate against typical targets that she would face at her BR, one may start with upgrading her damage control crews, then either upgrading her main armament targeting or rudder to make them more responsive. After this, you can either upgrade fire control system or mobility to improve the accuracy and speed. The rest of the upgrades can be then chosen at your liking.
Armament
Primary armament
The main armament of the HMS Glorious is four 15 inch/42 BL Mark I cannons, the same massive gun featured on the HMS Hood and HMS Renown. The guns are housed in two twin turrets placed at the bow and stern each. Both turrets have very good coverage on either side, albeit suffering from a painfully slow traverse speed, especially while stock. This will significantly reduce the firepower of the Glorious while she was turning around, and leaves her vulnerable to flankers. Due to being a gun of this size, it also has a comparatively slow reload speed (compared to traditional cruisers) at 2 rpm (maxed), and as such precision is often needed to make the most use out of it.
She has two rounds available, 15 inch 4crh CPC, an SAPCBC shell, and 15 inch 4crh Mark XIIa APC, an APCBC shell. The SAPCBC shell, while having a smaller filler than the equivalent SAP shells on the SMS Bayern and the Japanese 356 mm, is still the strongest SAP shell in the game, solely due to its penetration. This allows the Glorious to smash any battleship designed before "all or nothing" armour schemes came into wide use, as while their main belts may be able to hold up, their weaker upper belts stand no chance, and several of these SAP shells finding their way around the realms of enemy ammunition magazines will have very entertaining results. Due to the high filler, even hits to the upper hull may cause a large enough explosion to detonate ammunition several decks below. Against cruisers and destroyers that the Glorious usually faces, these shells are nothing short of an overkill, as a few of these hits can easily cause huge flooding damage that can be nearly impossible to control, or a one-hit-kill if the shell were detonated within the vicinity of the ammunition storage.
The APCBC shell is fairly strong with ~20 kg of TNT effective filler and decent penetration statistics, making it quite handy for punching deep into the internals of an opposing capital ship and bypassing most, if not all armour that it comes across while in regular battle ranges. Though given that the Glorious would face cruisers or early dreadnoughts most of the time, you should prioritize on the SAP shell and only load as much APCBC as you would be realistically needed.
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm) | |||||
| 1,000 m | 2,500 m | 5,000 m | 7,500 m | 10,000 m | 15,000 m | ||
| 4crh CPC | SAPCBC | 487 | 462 | 427 | 399 | 377 | 345 |
| 4crh Mark XIIa APC | APCBC | 644 | 597 | 528 | 470 | 422 | 357 |
| Shell details | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity (m/s) |
Projectile mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (s) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg) |
Ricochet | |||||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||||
| 4crh CPC | SAPCBC | 752 | 871 | 0.035 | 26 | 58.6 | 48° | 63° | 71° | |||
| 4crh Mark XIIa APC | APCBC | 752 | 871 | 0.025 | 26 | 20.68 | 48° | 63° | 71° | |||
Secondary armament
To compensate for the main guns' relatively slow rate of fire, the Glorious features a staggering 18 х 4 inch (102 mm) BL Mark IX cannons, housed in six open triple turrets placed around the midship section. With up to 12 guns available while in full broadsides and decent rate of fire of 12 rpm (maxed), these guns are great at chipping away at the deck mounts of enemy ships, especially cruisers and smaller ships, though they are ineffective against capital ships.
The gun has two shell choices; the default HE with a rather small explosive mass of 721 g of TNT, though due to the sheer burst mass, they can deal quite a good amount of damage against cruisers and destroyers, especially since it can easily suppress the enemy ship while they are repairing their critical modules by repeatedly destroying their outer compartments over and over again. The other option, an SAP shell, is very weak, with a penetration of only 51 mm at 5 km range, this shell struggles to even penetrate light cruisers at long ranges, and is generally inferior in terms of average damage compared to the HE shell. However, the 51 mm penetration is still sufficient to penetrate the deck of most non-capital ships at close range (~5 km), and as such it is recommended to only reserve it for that occasion instead.
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm) | |||||
| 1,000 m | 2,500 m | 5,000 m | 7,500 m | 10,000 m | 15,000 m | ||
| 4 inch HE | HE | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 |
| 4 inch SAP | SAP | 90 | 72 | 51 | 37 | 28 | 24 |
| Shell details | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity (m/s) |
Projectile mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (s) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (g) |
Ricochet | |||||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||||
| 4 inch HE | HE | 805 | 14.06 | 0 | 0.1 | 721 | 79° | 80° | 81° | |||
| 4 inch SAP | SAP | 805 | 15.2 | 0.015 | 5 | 520 | 47° | 60° | 65° | |||
Anti-aircraft armament
Being a Great War-era ship, the Glorious's AA armaments are unsurprisingly poor. She only has two 76 mm flak cannons located on the second fire command tower as her anti-air armament. While this is certainly better than an old machine gun common with most Great War capital ships, it is still largely inadequate to defend her from enemy aircraft. As such, be sure to stick with your teammates who have better AA cover instead of relying on your own defense.
Additional armament
Other than the disproportionally large main guns, another novel features of the Glorious is the absurd amount of torpedoes at her disposal.
The Glorious is equipped with 40 х 533 mm Mk.IV torpedoes, launched from a pair of underwater fixed tubes at the bow, and six pairs of surface-level fixed launchers at the stern, with up to 7 torpedoes launched per salvo. The torpedoes themselves are of average quality, with 234 kg of TNT filler, a speed of 65 km/h, and a range of 7.3 km, this means it is generally dependable enough to cause significant damage to the enemy ship when hit, but often requires several hits for a guaranteed kill.
Due to the fixed nature of the launchers and the "quantity over quality" performance of the torpedoes, the Glorious's torpedoes are strictly an area denial weapon, as the ship would have to turn full broadside to launch them, exposing her hull to enemy fire in the process. Given the torpedoes' relatively short range, the "Torpedo mode" modification is recommended to extend the range up to 12.35 km at the cost of some top speed. In certain maps with several islets and covers, it is not recommended to carry them, as there will be rarely, if any, opportunity for you to use them.
Usage in battles
HMS Glorious is a classic "glass cannon", featuring extremely powerful 381 mm cannons, backed up by a suite of decent secondary armaments and torpedoes, and great mobility. However, it also has extremely thin armour, which can sometimes prove insufficient against even cruiser-calibre cannons.
Against other battleships and battlecruisers, the armour is wholly inadequate, and the ship really does become equivalent to a large light cruiser. Its mobility can be used to play around hard cover and attempt to dodge incoming shells; however, if caught in the open, Glorious is unlikely to survive for long.
On the other hand, if in a match against only cruisers, the unusual armaments can be used to great effect, quickly destroying any cruiser in a few good hits. When facing destroyers, consider switching to control of the 102 mm cannons - the greater volume of fire (up to 12 guns on a broadside) and sufficient stopping power of the guns will rapidly wreck any small ship. At closer range, the 4" SAP ammunition is significantly better for this than the stock HE, as its relatively low penetration is still sufficient to penetrate the deck of most cruisers and damaging their crew compartments.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Four 381 mm guns, enough to cripple any enemy it might have to face
- Numerous fast-firing 102 mm provides steady damage output at mid-to-close range
- Huge empty space at the bow and stern can absorb several hits from shells and torpedoes
- Quite fast and manoeuvrable, despite the size
- Equipped with 40 torpedoes for area denial barrages
Cons:
- Very large and distinctive hull shape, easily identified and hit by any enemies
- Poor armour protection, relies heavily on fuel tanks and empty space to absorb damage
- Terrible main turret traverse speed, inability to fire reactively
- Poor anti-air defence
- Fixed torpedo tubes restrict their usage to saturational barrages
History
The Courageous-class battlecruisers were formulated during WW1 by the ever-eccentric First Sea Lord, Jacky Fisher, as part of his 'Baltic Project', a planned attack on the German Baltic coastline. In 1915, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had forbidden new construction of any warships larger than light cruisers, yet Lord Fisher wanted new fast capital ships for the Baltic Project in order to support his proposed landings of troops on the beaches of Pomerania.
In order to get around the rule against new capital ships and also because of Lord Fisher's obsession with speed at the expense of all else, the Courageous class were presented as 'large light cruisers', with extremely light armour, extremely high speed and half the main armament of the new Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. Fortunately for Fisher, many of the politicians up top had little knowledge in naval matters and so they saw the high speed, low armour and just approved the design for construction. Unfortunately, however, the ships proved to be a little too lightly built and had a tendency to take structural damage in rough seas or at high speed or even when firing the main guns until they were structurally stiffened in response.
As Fisher's Baltic Project never took place, the ships spent the war patrolling the North Sea. HMS Glorious saw little action, other than the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight, during which she only suffered damage from a premature shell detonation and her own muzzle blasts. She was also present for the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet in 1918.
Following the end of WW1, the battlecruisers were converted into aircraft carriers due to their high speed, whilst the 381 mm turrets of Courageous and Glorious were put into storage. During WW2, these turrets would be reused in the construction of HMS Vanguard, the last battleship ever built.
During WW2, Glorious served in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and in the Norwegian Campaign, before being intercepted in the Norwegian Sea by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Due to a number of faults in leadership, the ship was flying no patrols and made no effort to change course or speed. Glorious was struck by Scharnhorst at a range of 24 km, the longest range capital ship hit in history (a title which Scharnhorst shares with HMS Warspite, which struck an Italian battleship at approximately the same range). Despite the heroic efforts of her two escorting destroyers, Ardent and Acasta, Glorious was sunk by the German battleships a little over two hours after first sighting them, although Scharnhorst was badly damaged by a torpedo from Acasta, requiring the ship to head to port for immediate repairs.
Media
- Skins
See also
Links to articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:
- reference to the series of the ship;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
External links
| Harland & Wolff | |
|---|---|
| Frigates | |
| Whitby-class | HMS Blackpool |
| Light Cruisers | |
| Town-class | HMS Belfast |
| Battlecruisers | |
| Courageous-class | HMS Glorious |
| Britain battlecruisers | |
|---|---|
| Invincible-class | HMS Invincible |
| HMS Queen Mary* | |
| Renown-class | HMS Renown · HMS Repulse |
| Courageous-class | HMS Glorious |
| Admiral-class | HMS Hood |
| * Unique ship | |
