Bellerophon class battleship

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Class overview
Name: Bellerophon
Preceded by: HMS Dreadnought
Succeeded by: St. Vincent class
Completed: 3
General characteristics
Class and type: Battleship
Displacement: 18,800 tons load
22,102 tons deep load
Length: 526 ft (160 m) overall
Beam: 82.5 ft (25.1 m)
Draught: 27.25 ft (8.3 m)
Propulsion: Parsons turbines
four shafts
18 Babcock & Wilcox or Yarrow boilers
23,000 ihp
Speed:

Bellerophon: 21.25 knots (39 km/h) at 25,061 ihp (18,688 kW)
Superb: 21.56 knots (40 km/h) at 27,407 ihp (20,437 kW)

Temeraire: 21.55 knots (40 km/h) at 26,966 ihp (20,109 kW)
Range: 5,720 nmi (10,590 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Complement: 733
Armament: 10 × 12-inch (305 mm)/45 cal Mk X (5 × 2)
16 × 4-inch (102 mm)/50 cal QF
4 × 3-pdr
3 × 18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour: 5–10 in (130–250 mm) belt
5–9 in (130–230 mm) barbettes
8–11 in (200–280 mm) conning tower
11 in (280 mm) turret
½–4 in (15–100 mm) deck


The Bellerophon class consisted of three battleships built in 1906 and 1907 for the Royal Navy. The three ships of the Bellerophon class (and the subsequent three of the St Vincent class) were near carbon copies of HMS Dreadnought. The Bellerophon class was almost indistinguishable from the previous Dreadnought class battleships, with the exception of a second tripod mast. The lead ship, HMS Bellerophon, was laid down on the same day of HMS Dreadnought's final completion, which was also built at Portsmouth Dockyard.

Contents

[edit] Design

The Bellerophon's continued the universal trend of greater displacement and cost. They did address some of the flaws of Dreadnought. Changes to the hull gave a more complete internal protection and allowed the larger ships to make the same speed with the same powerplant. While Dreadnought had bulkheads that protected only the magazines, the Bellerophon had complete bulkheads running longitudinally through the ship. The 12-pounder guns that had been added to Dreadnought for protection from torpedo boats were recognised as being insufficient and their secondary armament was made up of 4-inch (102 mm) guns. The foremast which on Dreadnought was behind the fore funnel so that it could be used for the boat crane was sited ahead of the funnel moving the lookouts stationed on the observation platform out of the smoke plume. A mainmast added ahead of the aft funnel was still affected by the plume of the fore funnel and was not considered a success. These changes did require some compromises in the design resulting in thinner armor, reducing the belt armor from 11 to 10 inches (250 mm), and a reduced coal bunkerage, which limited the steaming endurance.

[edit] Ships

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] References

  • Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906 - 1921, (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1982)

[edit] External links