HMS Sovereign – HMS Royal Sovereign (pennant number 05) was a Revenge-class (also known as Royal…

HMS Sovereign – HMS Royal Sovereign (pennant number 05) was a Revenge-class (also known as Royal Sovereign and R-class) battleship of the Royal Navy displacing 28,000 metric tons (27,560 long tons; 30,860 short tons) and armed with eight 15-inch (381 mm) guns in four twin turrets. She was laid down in January 1914 and launched in April 1915; she was completed in May 1916, but was not ready for service in time to participate in the Battle of Jutland at the end of the month. She served with the Grand Fleet for the remainder of the war, but did not see action. In the early 1930s, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet and based in Malta.

Unlike the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, Royal Sovereign and her sisters were not modernised during the interwar period. Only minor alterations to her anti-aircraft battery were effected before the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. Assigned to the Home Fleet, she was tasked with convoy protection until May 1940, when she returned to the Mediterranean Fleet. She was present during the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, but her slow speed prevented her from engaging the Italian battleships. By March 1942, she was assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean, but after the Indian Ocean raid by Admiral Nagumo’s Kido Butai, she was withdrawn to eastern Africa to escort convoys. In January 1944, she returned to Britain, and in May the Royal Navy transferred the ship to the Soviet Navy, where she was renamed Arkhangelsk. She then escorted Arctic convoys into Kola until the end of the war. The Soviets returned the ship in 1949, after which she was broken up for scrap.

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