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Propulsion was delivered by 18 Babcock & Wilcox marine boilers that fed two sets of Parsons steam turbines and drove her four shafts to give her a speed of 21.7 knots. She carried a standard ship’s complement of 823 officers and men – although at the time of her loss there were 845 men aboard.

Vanguard was initially based at Scapa Flow as part of the 1st Battle Squadron and when war broke out she began conducting North Sea sweeps and patrols from there before being attached, in April 1916, to the 4th Division of the 4th Battle Squadron just months before the Battle of Jutland.

During the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916, no German capital ship came within range of her big guns – but she fired 42 rounds at the crippled light cruiser Wiesbaden, claiming several hits. She also engaged German destroyer flotillas with her main and secondary batteries. Although enemy shells landed near her she was not struck during the battle.

On the morning of 9 July 1917, Vanguard had moved from her anchorage, just north of the island of Flotta, north across the vast expanse of Scapa Flow towards the north shore of the Flow as her crew practised ‘abandon ship’ training exercises. These were completed without incident, and after remaining at anchor to the north of Scapa Flow for the rest of the day, she weighed anchor at 1700 and headed back south across the Flow at 12 knots to her overnight anchorage, north of Flotta. On the way south, she practised deploying her minesweeping paravanes before anchoring off Flotta at 1830.