Forward Class Scout Cruisers

Forward Class.  Originally to have been named Nore but the name was changed before construction was started.  They shared a common deficiency of poor endurance with the other designs in the group of Scouts which were designed at a time when it was envisaged that destroyer operations would be much closer to base than actually happened.

HMS Forward
Built Fairfield, laid down October 1903, completed September 1905.

HMS Foresight
Built Fairfield, laid down October 1903, completed August 1905.

Average cost £289,000.

Size:
Length 365 feet pp 379 feet overall, beam 39 feet 3 inches, draught 14 feet 3 inches, displacement 2,860 tons load.

Propulsion:
2 shaft TE engines, 16,500 ihp, 25 knots

Trials:
Foresight 15,800 ihp = 25.28 knots

Armour:
2in belt,1-0.5in decks

Armament:
10 x 12 pounder QF (10 x 1), 8 x 3 pounder QF (8 x 1), 2 x 18in TT

Comments:
One of four pairs of Scouts ordered to a general specification with the exact design left up to the individual builders.  Not long after completion the two additional 12 pounder guns were added and the 3 pounder guns were replaced with 6 x 6 pounders.  In 1911-12 they were reamed with 9 x 4 inch guns.  Crew 268.

World War 1 Service:
Forward
9th Destroyer flotilla Shetland Islands.
1914 7th Destroyer Flotilla Humber.
May 1915 Temporarily with the 6th Light Cruiser Squadron Humber.
1915 Mediterranean.
July 1916 Aegean.
1921 Sold for scrap.

Foresight
1914 8th Destroyer Flotilla Dover Patrol.
May 1915 Temporarily with the 6th Light Cruiser Squadron Humber.
1915 Mediterranean.
July 1916 Aegean.
1920 Sold for scrap.

HMS Forward pictured in the Mediterranean during the war although unusually she still has a funnel band.  The original design by the Fairfield yard was rejected as not structurally strong enough and too optimistic with coal consumption estimates and so a complete redesign was necessary.