HMS Achilles (1905)

HMS Achilles was a Warrior-class armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy by Armstrong Whitworth at Elswick in the first decade of the twentieth century. She was laid down on 22 February 1904, launched on 17 June 1905 and completed in April 1907 at a cost of about 1.19 million pounds. She displaced 13,550 long tons, was 505 feet long and made 23.3 knots from four-cylinder triple-expansion engines fed by Yarrow and cylindrical boilers. Her main armament was six 9.2-inch guns, four of them in corner turrets about the funnels, with four 7.5-inch guns amidships, and her turreted layout made her a steady gun platform. She served with the 5th and 2nd Cruiser Squadrons and the Grand Fleet, but she missed Jutland while refitting. On 16 March 1917 she and an armed boarding steamer met the disguised German raider Leopard north of the Shetlands, and Leopard was sunk with all hands. She became a stoker training ship at Chatham in 1918 and was sold for scrap on 9 May 1921.