HMS Ramillies was a Royal Sovereign-class pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy, named after the Battle of Ramillies. The ship was built by J. & G. Thompson at Clydebank, starting with her keel laying in August 1890. She was launched in March 1892 and commissioned into the Mediterranean Fleet as flagship the following October. She was armed with a main battery of four 13.5-inch guns and a secondary battery of ten 6-inch guns. The ship had a top speed of 16.5 knots.
Ramillies served as flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet up to 1899, and again from 1900 to 1902. After taking part in manoeuvres off the coast of Portugal, she returned to England for a refit in 1903. Upon completion, she was commissioned into the Reserve in 1905. She suffered damage while participating in combined manoeuvres the following year, and was recommissioned into the Special Service Division of the Home Fleet in 1907, becoming the Parent Ship of the 4th Division of the Home Fleet in 1910. She was relieved of that role a year later, before being reduced to material reserve at Devonport in August 1911, and stripped and laid up at Motherbank for disposal in July 1913. She was sold for scrap in October 1913 and towed to Italy to be broken up the following month.
Design
The Royal Sovereign-class battleships were based on Admiral-class barbette ships, but contained several alterations. The freeboard was raised, the barbettes' armour was extended and an upper belt and secondary armour were added. They could also obtain a higher speed, but were 4,000 tons larger. Ramillies was long overall and had a beam of 75 ft and a draft of 27 ft 6in. She displaced up to 15,580 tons at her full combat load. Her propulsion system consisted of two 3-cylinder triple expansion engines powered by eight coal-fired cylindrical boilers. With natural draught, her engines provided a top speed of 15.5 knots at 9,000 indicated horsepower; 16.5 knots at 11,000 indicated horsepower could be obtained with forced draught. She had a crew of 712 officers and ratings. When built, ships of the Royal Sovereign class rolled too heavily under certain conditions. Bilge keels were added to compensate for the problem, and the ships "proved to be excellent seaboats quite capable ... of maintaining high speeds in a seaway". The ships were well-constructed and probably the most substantial built for the Royal Navy, even if they "suffered ... from excessive weight and fittings." In the view of R. A. Burt, they were "highly successful; at that time, they were probably unequalled in all-round fighting efficiency."
Ramillies was armed with four breech-loading 13.5-inch guns on two barbettes with armour ranging from 11 to 17 inches in thickness. The ship also carried ten quick-fire (QF) 6-inch guns, four of which were mounted in casemates on the main deck, plus sixteen QF 6-pounder () guns of an unknown type and a dozen QF 3-pounder () Hotchkiss guns. She was also equipped with seven 18-inch torpedo tubes, two of which were submerged. Between 1899 and 1902, the 3-pounder guns were removed from the upper tops; the above-water torpedo tubes were removed in 1902–1905. The remaining 6-inch guns on the upper deck were mounted in 5-inch armoured casemates between 1902 and 1904. All of the armour was supplied by the builders, J. & G. Thompson, of Clydebank. The waterline belt was 252 ft long by 8 ft 8in deep, and its armour varied in thickness between 14 and 18 inches; the bulkheads were protected by 14 to 16 inches of armour. The middle deck covering the belt was 3 inches thick and the lower deck forward and aft of the belt was 2.5 inches thick, while the upper belt between the middle and main decks was coated in 3 to 4 inches of armour. The casemates for the 6-inch guns were protected by an equal thickness of armour and the conning tower was protected with 14 inch armour on the forward side, and 3 inches of armour on the aft. The ship's armoured deck was 2.5 to 3 inches thick.