King George V class battleship (1911)

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King George V class Battleship
HMS King George V
Class Overview
Type:	Battleship
Name:	King George V
Number of ships:	Four ordered and commissioned
Preceded by:	Orion-class
Succeeded by:	Iron Duke-class
General characteristics
Displacement:	23,400 tonnes
Length:	598 ft
Beam:	89 ft
Draught:	28 ft
Propulsion:	18 boilers, 4 turbines, 4 shafts; 31,000 shp
Speed:	21 knots
Protection:	Belt: 8 to 12 inches Decks: 1 to 4 inches Barbettes: 3 to 10 inches Turrets: 11 inch
Complement:	900
Armament:	10 × 13.5 inch guns 16 × 4 in (102 mm) guns 4 × 3 pound guns 3 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes

This is the 1911 class; for the 1939 class see King George V class battleship (1939)

The King George V class battleships were a series of four Royal Navy battleships built just prior and serving in the First World War. The King George V class immediately followed the Orion class upon which they were based.

1 Design
2 Service
3 Ships
4 See also

[edit] Design

They were of slightly larger displacement than the Orions; the extra tonnage allowed for some small enhancements were incorporated into the design. They were visually very difficult to distinguish from the Orions.

They used the same 13.5 inch Mark V gun, but firing a slightly heavier (1,400 lb as against 1,250 lb) shell. Their Secondary armament was re-arranged to improve fire distribution ahead, which had been indicated by tactical modelling to be the most dangerous area for torpedo boat attacks.

Armour was slightly redistributed and, it was thought, improved. Underwater protection was also improved, although these changes did not save the Audacious when she stumbled into a single German mine late in 1914.

There were slight revisions to the superstructure and masts. Their powerplant was intended to give a design speed of 1 knot more than the Orions. This gave them slightly easier speed, but in practice they steamed mostly in the company of slower ships anyway.

Overall, they were a successful design, although received without particular enthusiasm by the public and press. They had been substantially promoted as a great advance over the Orions. In particular, it was expected that they would carry 6 inch guns for secondary armament. In fact it was the subsequent Iron Duke class battleships that first received 6 inch secondaries.

[edit] Service

The ships remaining after the end of the First World War were all decommissioned in the 1920s to allow for the two Nelson class battleships under the Washington Naval Treaty.