Almirante Latorre-class battleship manufacturer Armstrong Whitworth
In the event, the efforts made by the United States came to little. The final decision came down to a choice between the American and British tenders, and with a loan from the Rothchilds, Chile awarded one battleship contract to the latter's Armstrong Whitworth on 25 July 1911. The design was drawn up by J.R. Perret, who had also designed Brazil's Rio de Janeiro. The United States still hoped that Chile would order American 14-inch/50 caliber guns for the battleship's main battery armament, but orders came only for coastal artillery. The second dreadnought was awarded to Armstrong in June 1912. Six Almirante Lynch-class destroyers were ordered in 1911 from J. Samuel White to accompany the new dreadnoughts. Before construction began, the Almirante Latorre design was enlarged to mount sixteen 6-inch (152 mm) rather than twenty-two 4.7-inch (119 mm) guns. This increased the displacement by 600 long tons (610 t), to 28,000 long tons (28,449 t), the draft by 6.5 inches (170 mm), to 33 feet (10 m), and made the ship a quarter-knot slower, to 22.75 knots.Officially ordered on 2 November 1911 and laid down less than a month later on 27 November, the first dreadnought became the largest ship that Armstrong had built. The second dreadnought was ordered on 29 July 1912 and laid down on 22 January 1913, delayed by Rio de Janeiro occupying the slipway in which it would be built. The New York Tribune (2 November 1913) and Proceedings (May and June 1914) reported that Greece had reached an accord to purchase the first battleship counterbalance the Ottoman Empire's acquisition of Rio de Janeiro from Brazil, but despite a developing sentiment within Chile to sell one or both of the dreadnoughts, no deal was made.Almirante Latorre was launched first, on 27 November 1913, in an elaborate ceremony that was attended by various dignitaries and presided over by Chile's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Agustín Edwards Mac Clure. The battleship was christened by the ambassador's wife, Olga Budge de Edwards, and weighed 10,700 long tons (10,900 t) at the time. After the First World War broke out in Europe, work on Almirante Latorre was halted in August 1914, and it was formally purchased on 9 September after the British Cabinet recommended it four days earlier. Almirante Latorre was not forcibly seized like the Ottoman Reşadiye and Sultân Osmân-ı Evvel (ex-Rio de Janeiro), two other ships being built for a foreign navy, because of Chile's "friendly neutral" status with the United Kingdom. The former Chilean ship was completed on 30 September 1915, and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 15 October. Work on the other ship, Almirante Cochrane, was halted after the outbreak of war. The British purchased it on 28 February 1918 to be converted to an aircraft carrier, as the partially completed ship was the only available large and fast hull capable of being modified into a full flush-deck carrier. Low priority and quarrels with shipyard workers slowed completion of the ship.
producer maker manufacturerer fabricator builder