The
Courageous class consisted of three
battlecruisers known as "large light cruisers" built for the
Royal Navy during the
First World War. The class was nominally designed to support the
Baltic Project, a plan by
Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher that was intended to land troops on the German Baltic Coast. Ships of this
class were fast but very lightly armoured, with only a few heavy guns. They were given a shallow
draught, in part to allow them to operate in the shallow waters of the Baltic but also reflecting experience gained earlier in the war. To maximize their speed, the
Courageous-class battlecruisers were the first
capital ships of the Royal Navy to use geared
steam turbines and
small-tube boilers.
The first two ships,
Courageous and
Glorious, were commissioned in 1917 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. They participated in the
Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and were present when the
High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later. Their
half-sister Furious was designed with a pair of 18-inch (457 mm) guns, the largest guns ever fitted on a ship of the Royal Navy, but was modified during construction to take a flying-off deck and
hangar in lieu of her forward
turret and
barbette. After some patrols in the North Sea, her rear turret was removed and another flight deck added. Her aircraft attacked the
Zeppelin sheds during the
Tondern raid in July 1918.
All three ships were
laid up after the war, but were rebuilt as
aircraft carriers during the 1920s.
Glorious and
Courageous were sunk early in the
Second World War and
Furious was sold for
scrap in 1948