N3 class battleship
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | N3 |
| Preceded by: | Revenge class |
| Succeeded by: | Nelson class |
| Completed: | 4 planned, none built |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Battleship |
| Displacement: | 48,000 tons |
| Length: | 815 ft (248 m) |
| Beam: | 106 ft (32 m) |
| Draught: | 33 ft (10 m) |
| Propulsion: | two shafts 56,000 shp |
| Speed: | 23.5 knots |
| Armament: | Main: 9 × 18 in (457 mm) /L45 in three turrets Secondary: 16 × 6 in guns in 8 twin turrets Anti-aircraft: 6 × HA 4.7 in guns 4 × ten-barrel 2 pdr "pom-pom" mounts 2 × 24.5-inch underwater torpedo tubes |
| Armour: | Belt: 15 in Barbettes: 15 in Deck: 8 in |
| Aircraft carried: | 2 for spotting and reconnaissance |
The N3 class was a battleship class designed for the Royal Navy after World War I. They were to a similar design but heavier armed than the G3 battlecruiser planned at the same time. They were never ordered due to signing of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1921, which placed restrictive limits on the size and armament of battleships and the total tonnage of capital ships permitted in each signatory's fleet.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Background
In the aftermath of World War I the Royal Navy was faced with the task of trying to maintain a superiority over the other major nations, Japan and the USA, who had the intention and the ability to create equivalent or better navies. The Great War had taken its toll of the Imperial economy and although the Royal Navy's battle fleet was the largest in the world in terms of numbers, many of the ships were worn out or had become obsolete in the face of newer, more advanced designs and heavier main armament: of the Royal Navy's 48 capital ships available or building at the start of 1919[2] only thirteen carried 15-inch guns and none incorporated all the lessons learned in combat during the war. The drawdown in strength that followed the Armistice and the new vessels being built in Japan and the United States ensured that this situation would only get worse, so it was decided to build new ships to advanced designs which would be capable to matching the new foreign ships.
[edit] Design
A series of design studies for both battleships and battlecruisers resulted, culminating in two closely-related proposals which were ultimately accepted for construction by the Admiralty: battlecruiser design G3 and battleship design N3, the numeral referring to the main armament being mounted in triple turrets, a first for British capital ship designs. Due to their simultaneous origin, both designs had many common features including armament layout (the main guns being disposed to the front of the ship and the secondaries in turrets on either side of the superstructure), armour disposition, stern shape, and superstructure layout). However while the G3 was expected to achieve 32 knots with an armament of 16 inch guns, the N3 class would carry a heavier armament (18 inch guns (45.7 cm)) and protection on the same displacement, but at the expense of a much slower maximum speed.
The four G3s were given greater priority than the four N3s for a combination of reasons. One was that the Royal Navy's battlecruiser strength had a higher percentage of obsolete ships than its battleships (only three carried 15 inch guns and could steam close to 30 knots). The early 1920s was a time when Britain's finances were in a perilous state owing to the huge financial cost of the Great War, and there was a great deal of opposition to new expenditure on armaments, and there was some doubt whether all eight of the proposed new capital ships could be completed.[3] These factors ensured that the N3 were unordered at the time of the Washington Treaty.
Although the N3 ships were never officially named, it has been suggested that if they had been built they would have been named after the four patron saints of the countries of the United Kingdom: St. Andrew (Scotland), St. David (Wales), St. George (England), and St. Patrick (Ireland).[4]
[edit] Notes
- ^ No ship larger than 35,000 tons and no gun bigger than 16-inch
- ^ This total includes all the dreadnoughts which survived the war, plus the incomplete Hood and her three soon-to-be cancelled sister ships, the Australian battlecruiser HMAS Australia, the two Lord Nelson class pre-dreadnoughts, and the two Courageous class "large light cruisers", although the last-mentioned ships were of dubious combat value.
- ^ Parkes, Oscar. British Battleships. London: Seeley Service, 1966, p. 651.
- ^ Breyer, Siegfried. Battleships and Battle Cruisers 1905-1970. New York: Doubleday, 1973, p. 174. Breyer himself wrote that these names were "very doubtful".
[edit] References
- Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906–1921. Conway Maritime Press, 1985.
- Siegfried Breyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905–1970. Doubleday and Company, 1973. Originally published in German as Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905–1970. J.F. Lehmanns, Verlag, 1970.
- Oscar Parkes, British Battleships. Seeley Service & Co., 1966.
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