Belfast

Construction

Harland and Wolff Shipyard; Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

Laid down: 10 December 1936

Launched: 17 March 1938

Commissioned: 3 August 1939

Specifications

10,550 tons displacement, standard

187m length

19.30m beam

6.5m draft

Machinery

4 boilers, 4 turbines

Performance

32.5 knots at 80,000 shaft horsepower

8,000nm at 14 knots

Armor

Main belt: 114mm

Decks: 51-77mm

Bulkheads: 63.5mm

Turrets: 102mm face, 51mm sides, 51mm roof

Armament

Main

Twelve (4x3) 152mm guns

Secondary

Twelve (6x2) 102mm guns

Anti-Aircraft

Sixteen (2x8) 40mm guns

Eight (2x4) 12.7mm guns

Torpedoes

Six (3x2) 533mm torpedo tubes

(Note: The above represents her World War II configuration, her configuration in-game is post-war without the torpedo launchers.)

Aircraft

Three Supermarine Walrus, one catapult

History

Design

HMS Belfast and her sister HMS Edinburgh were designed as modified Town class cruisers. The ships of this class were constructed in response to the Japanese Mogami class cruisers, which were armed with fifteen 152mm guns. British ship designers sought to match the Japanese cruisers’ number of guns, but due to length restrictions, were unable to properly fit five turrets onto the ships. Other plans called for Belfast to be mounted with quadruple turrets; however, these mountings proved to be unsatisfactory. Ultimately, Belfast was mounted with twelve 152mm guns arranged in two super-firing turret pairs.

Belfast, like the preceding cruisers, was designed to have armor capable of protecting the ship against 152mm caliber gunfire. The ship featured a smaller magazine and citadel space compared to previous cruisers. This shortened length allowed for more armor to be mounted around the machinery and weaponry spaces. Additionally, Belfast carried more powerful machinery than previous cruisers which allowed her to maintain the designed speed of 32knts. Due to having an increased fuel capacity, Belfast also had an extended range over her older sister ships.

Belfast was laid down at the Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 10 December 1936. She was launched on 17 March 1938 and spent the following year fitting out and beginning her sea trials.

Service

HMS Belfast entered service in August 1939, with further trials and testing scheduled when World War Two began one month later. Assigned to the 18th Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet alongside her sister ship, HMS Edinburgh, Belfast participated in interception and interdiction missions designed to destroy whatever elements of the German fleet could be found. These efforts proved mostly unsuccessful, gaining the confiscation of the liner Cap Norte as the only success.

In November 1939, Belfast was transferred to the 2nd Cruiser squadron, and that same month was nearly sunk after striking a German mine. The explosion damaged nearly all her machinery mountings, many hull plates below the waterline, and most importantly, bent the keel. Repairs would, of necessity, be long.

Belfast did not sail again for three years, leaving the dockyards in December 1942 with significant upgrades. Her armor plating was extended, new 20mm anti-aircraft mounts shipped, and a new radar suite installed. The latter two improvements comprised sufficient top-side weight that she was also bulged, providing a measure of torpedo protection to complement the added stability. Belfast returned to the Home Fleet and conducted escort duty for the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. It was on one such mission in December 1943 which saw Belfast as a participant in the Battle of the North Cape in which the German battleship Scharnhorst was sunk.

Belfast returned to England for a hurried refit, rejoining the fleet as the headquarters ship of the Eastern Fleet in April 1944 in time for the Normandy landings of Operation Overlord. During the landings, Belfast conducted naval gunfire support missions, remaining on station until July 1944, returning to dockyards in England in August for a more thorough refit in preparation for deployment to the Pacific Theater.

Belfast arrived in the Pacific just as Japan was concluding surrender negotiations. She remained as part of the Far Eastern forces of the Royal Navy until 1955, participating in the Korean War, where she conducted patrols and naval gunfire support missions. In 1955, Belfast was placed in the naval reserve while undergoing extensive refit. Reactivated after refit in 1959, she returned to Asian waters until 1962 when she left for home to serve her final year of active service as flagship of the Home Fleet. Belfast was finally retired from active service in 1963.

In July 1967, Imperial War Museum personnel dined aboard Belfast while investigating the possibility of preserving one of the 6-inch gun turrets from HMS Gambia, anchored nearby. During the meal, they conceived of the idea of preserving not just a turret, but an entire ship as a living museum. Belfast was the perfect candidate; she was in relatively good shape having only recently been retired. Their initial efforts failed to convince the British government of the value of the concept, however, and on 4 May 1971, HMS Belfast was scheduled for disposal.

Led by the efforts of one of Belfast’s final commanding officers — then a serving Member of Parliament — the ship was finally saved from the breakers in July by a private foundation and opened to the public as a museum on Trafalgar Day, 21 October 1971, berthed along the south bank of the Thames in central London. She officially became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978, and now hosts more than 250,000 visitors per year as one of the best preserved warships of the modern era.

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  HMS Belfast at her London berth, painted in Admiralty pattern Disruptive Camouflage.

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  One of Belfast’s Supermarine Walrus aircraft, photographed in an Icelandic fjord, 1942-1943.

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  Photograph of Belfast’s damaged hull, taken while the ship was drydocked for repairs.

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  Admiral Burnett in his cabin aboard HMS Belfast.

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  HMS Belfast’s 4-inch guns bombarding German positions in Normandy at night.

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  Belfast at anchor in Sydney Harbour, August 1945.

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  Belfast arriving at Kure, southern Japan, in May 1950.

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  March 1951: Belfast fires a salvo against enemy troop concentrations on the west coast of Korea.

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  After modernization; showing the enclosed bridge, lattice mast, and twin 40mm Bofors mountings.

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  Belfast at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1962.

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  Belfast’s permanent home on the Thames, seen here with Tower Bridge in the background.

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  HMS Portland, a Royal Navy frigate, is moored alongside HMS Belfast prior to deployment.

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  The view of the Belfast's turrets from the bridge.

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  HMS Belfast resting at night on the Thames River, with the Tower Bridge in the background.

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  A trip to the dentist can be dangerous in any location.

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  6-inch shells are laid out and ready to be loaded into elevators on the lowest level of B turret. Belfast fired some 2,000 rounds of such ammunition in support of the D-Day landings.

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  The breech of the central 6-inch gun inside Y turret.

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  The ship's bell of HMS Belfast, presented to the crew her by her namesake city of Belfast, Ireland in October 1948.

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  HMS Belfast is a museum ship maintained by the Imperial War Museum.