Lion class battleship

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The Lion class of battleships were to be a development of the British King George V class battleships. They were intended to replace the World War One vintage Revenge class ships in service with the Royal Navy. The Revenge-classes had been built with economy in mind and as a consequence were slow, at 21 kt, and could not be effectively upgraded. As designed, the Lion class ships would have displaced 40,000 tons standard, and carried nine 16 inch guns in three triple mount turrets which was the same as the Nelson class battleships of 1925 (although both guns and turrets were new designs). The unusual choice of 14 inch gun and the mix of quadruple and twin turrets for the KGVs had been born of the need to get them built as soon as possible. The secondary armament would be the same as the KGVs, sixteen 5.25 inch guns.

The Second London Naval Treaty had in theory limited the building of major warships by the USA, France and the United Kingdom to 14 inch guns and 35,000 tons maximum, but an "escalation clause" allowed for increases to match other navies if they exceeded these limits, which had happened.

1 Construction
2 The ships
3 Specification
4 Reference

[edit] Construction

Four ships were planned, and the first two, Lion and Temeraire, were laid down in mid-1939. However, after the outbreak of the Second World War that year, the Lions became a questionable investment. After some consideration, construction work on the two ships was halted during October 1940 to allow the shipbuilding industry to concentrate on more important vessels such as escort craft. The two partially complete hulls were scrapped during 1942–43.

Serious thought was given to resuming construction of at least one Lion to a new design immediately following the Second World War. However these proposals all came to naught due to both the financial situation of postwar Britain and the realization that, if the ships were to be given adequate protection from air attacks, the amount of deck armour they would have to carry would be excessively heavy. In the event only a single battleship was completed after World War II, HMS Vanguard.

[edit] The ships

Four vessels were planned:

Lion

Vickers-Armstrong 4 July 1939

Temeraire

Cammell Laird 1 June 1939

Conqueror

John Brown & Company

Thunderer

Fairfield

See HMS Lion, HMS Temeraire, HMS Conqueror and HMS Thunderer for other ships of the same name.

[edit] Specification

Displacement
- Standard: 40,500 tons
- Full load: 46,300 tons
Length: 785 ft (239.3 m)
Beam: 104 ft (31.7 m)
Draught: 30 ft (9.1 m)
Propulsion
- Machinery: 8 boilers, Steam turbines, 4 shafts
- Power: 130,000 hp
- Speed: 30 knots
Armament:
- Main: 3 x triple 16 inch /L45 (406 mm)
- Secondary: 8 x dual 5.25 inch /L50 (133 mm)
- Anti-aircraft: 6 8-barrelled 2 pounder "pom-pom"s (40 mm)
Armour:
- Belt: 5.5-15 inch (14-381 mm)
- Barbettes: 12-15 inch (305-381 mm)
- Turrets: 15 inch (381 mm)