Lion-class battleship
 Right elevation and plan of the 1938 version of the Lion design
| |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lion-class battleship |
| Operators |  Royal Navy |
| Preceded by | King George V class |
| Succeeded by | HMS Vanguard |
| Planned | 6 |
| Completed | 0 |
| Cancelled | 6 |
| General characteristics (1938 design) | |
| Type | Fast battleship |
| Displacement |
|
| Length |
|
| Beam | 105 ft (32 m) |
| Draught | 33 ft 6 in (10.2 m) (deep load) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 4 shafts; 4 × steam turbine sets |
| Speed | 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) |
| Range | 14,000 nmi (26,000 km; 16,000 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement | 1,680 |
| Armament |
|
| Armour |
|
| General characteristics (1942 design) | |
| Displacement |
|
| Length |
|
| Beam | 108 ft (32.9 m) |
| Draught | 34 ft 3 in (10.4 m) (deep load) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 4 shafts; 4 × steam turbine sets |
| Speed | 28.25 knots (52.32 km/h; 32.51 mph) |
| Range | 16,500 nmi (30,600 km; 19,000 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement | 1,750 |
| Armament |
|
| Armour |
|
The Lion class was a
None of the other ships planned were laid down, although there was a proposal in 1941 to modify one of the suspended ships into a hybrid battleship-aircraft carrier with two 16-inch gun turrets and a flight deck. Preliminary work for a new design began in 1944 and continued for the next year or so until the RN realised that they were unaffordable in the post-war financial environment.
Design and description
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The design of the Lion-class battleships was influenced by the terms of several arms control treaties of the 1920s and 1930s. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 had banned new battleship construction, with certain specified exceptions, for a decade. The London Naval Treaty of 1930 extended the ban for five more years, which meant that almost all the First World War-era ships would be eligible for replacement by the Washington Treaty's rules when the London Treaty expired. The British government intended for the 1935 Second London Naval Disarmament Conference to prevent a naval arms race that Britain could ill afford, but the Japanese refusal to sign the resulting Second London Naval Treaty of 1936 thwarted that hope. The three signatories, Britain, France and the United States had agreed to limit the size and gun calibre for the battleships that would be built by the signatories. They were restricted to 35,000
The Board of Admiralty then began preliminary design work on a 35,000-long-ton ship armed with 16-inch guns and it was promising enough that the Director of Naval Construction (DNC) was ordered to further investigate such designs. To save design time, many of the features of the KGVs were incorporated in the new design, but the limited size of the ship was a real challenge for the designers. Maintaining the same speed, protection, and secondary armament as the older ships while using 16-inch guns proved impossible while remaining within the treaty limits. In an effort to remain within treaty limits, the overall weight of armour was slightly reduced and two twin 5.25-inch (133 mm) gun turrets as well as aircraft and their facilities were eliminated.[2]
The treaty-imposed design problems became irrelevant on 31 March 1938, when the signatories of the Treaty invoked the tonnage escalation clause because the Japanese refused to provide any information about their battleship construction programme and the signatories feared that their new ships could be outclassed by the new Japanese battleships. Due to limitations of docking facilities and costs, the Admiralty hoped to have the new limit at 40,000 long tons (40,642 t); the limit was eventually settled at 45,000 long tons (45,722 t) because the Americans would accept only that figure or none at all.[3] The Admiralty in any case decided to limit itself to 40,000 long tons and nine 16-inch guns on the grounds that larger vessels would be unable to dock at the major Royal Navy dockyards at Rosyth or Portsmouth.[4] A new design was prepared with more armour, more powerful machinery, the two twin 5.25-inch gun turrets restored, and four aircraft added. The Admiralty approved this design on 15 December and bids were solicited very shortly afterwards.[5]
1938 design
The 1938 version of the Lion class had a
In the interests of saving time, the four-shaft unit machinery design from the KGVs was duplicated with alternating boiler and engine rooms. The Lion-class ships would have had four sets of geared
The Lion-class ships' main armament consisted of nine newly designed 45-
Their armour scheme was virtually identical to that of the KGVs. The
Intended to resist the impact of a 1,000-pound (450 kg) armour-piercing bomb dropped from a height of 14,000 feet (4,300 m), the Lions' deck protection was identical to that of the KGV class. It consisted of 6-inch (152 mm) non-cemented armour over the magazines that reduced to 5 inches (127 mm) over the machinery spaces. The armour continued forward and aft of the citadel at the lower-deck level. Forward it tapered in steps from five inches down to 2.5 inches (64 mm) near the bow. Aft, it protected the steering gear and propeller shafts with 4.5–5 inches (114–127 mm) of armour. Unlike the Germans, French and Americans, the British no longer believed that heavy armour for the conning tower served any real purpose, given that the chance of hitting the conning tower was very small, and protected the forward conning tower with only 3–4.5 inches (76–114 mm) of armour.[7]
The underwater protection, also virtually identical to that of the KGVs, would have consisted of a 13.25 ft (4 m) wide
Naval historians William Garzke and Robert Dulin believe that the design of the Lion class would have corrected some of the deficiencies of the KGVs with the notable exceptions of the too-shallow torpedo protection system, caused by limits of the existing infrastructure, and the limited endurance, both of which were addressed in the revised 1942 design. Their 16-inch main battery, although not the most powerful in the world, were superior to the earlier guns used in the Nelson-class battleships, and they "would have been the most powerful and fastest battleships to have served in the Royal Navy."[16]
1942 design
Construction was suspended shortly after the war began and the Admiralty took advantage of the time to refine the design in light of war experience in late 1941. The beam was increased to 108 feet (32.9 m), the maximum width allowed by the
The overall length of the Lion class increased to 793 feet (241.7 m) and the displacement grew to 42,550 long tons (43,233 t) at standard load and 47,650 long tons (48,415 t) at deep load. No changes were made to the propulsion machinery, but the speed decreased to 28.25 knots (52.32 km/h; 32.51 mph) because of the greater displacement. The 4,800 long tons (4,877 t) of fuel increased their endurance to an estimated maximum of 16,500 nautical miles (30,600 km; 19,000 mi) at a speed of 10 knots. The freeboard forward was increased by nearly 9 feet (2.7 m),[18] and the radar suite was increased to match that of the battleship Vanguard, then under construction. Because the light cruiser Belfast lost all steam power when she struck a mine early in the war, two diesel generators were substituted for two turbo-generators. The extra beam was used to increase the depth of the torpedo protection system amidships from 13.25 ft to 15 feet (4.6 m). The ships' crew was estimated at 1,750 officers and ratings.[19]
1944 design
The RN's Plans Division set a requirement for a dozen battleships for the post-war navy and the DNC began another design in February 1944 that would incorporate wartime lessons, but they soon concluded that "the power of modern weapons had increased so much that ever-increasing armour and torpedo protection was required until it became incompatible with the limited offensive power of the ship."[20] The main armament was revised to an improved Mk IV version of the 16-inch gun in a new Mk III turret that fired a heavier shell at a marginally lower velocity, mounted in three triple turrets. They would also carry twelve twin QF 4.5-inch (114 mm) Mk V guns as their secondary armament and one twin and ten sextuple Bofors mounts plus fifty 20 mm Oerlikons for anti-aircraft protection. Calculations for a preliminary sketch design were completed in October and revealed a 26-knot (48 km/h; 30 mph), 50,400-long-ton (51,209 t) ship at standard load and 60,700 long tons (61,674 t) at deep load. More detailed studies were conducted in January 1945 and showed that the ship would actually displace 59,850 long tons (60,810 t) at standard load and 69,500 long tons (70,615 t) deep. This design was too large, so multiple variants were considered over the next several months, examining the effects of reducing side armour, underwater protection and the number of main and secondary gun turrets. The provisional staff requirements were issued in March and increased the speed to 29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph) and set the endurance equal to that of the original design, which was slightly modified in April as 'Design B'. This greatly hampered the ability of the designers to reduce the size of the design as only those variants with two main gun turrets were below 55,500 long tons (56,391 t) at standard displacement. The most radical variant, christened 'Design X', had an armour arrangement similar to the modernised battlecruiser Renown with a pair of 16-inch and eight 4.5-inch turrets and had only minimal underwater protection, relying on tight compartmentalisation and strengthened internal bulkheads to localise damage. This yielded a 36,800-long-ton (37,391 t) ship at standard load. [21]
That same month a committee headed by
Hybrid aircraft carrier
On 8 January 1941, Rear-Admiral
Construction
Six Lion-class ships were planned, two each in the 1938, 1939, and 1940 Naval Programmes.
Footnotes
- ^ Raven and Roberts, pp. 108, 158, 280, 315
- ^ Raven and Roberts, p. 315
- ^ Friedman, pp. 329–330
- ^ Brown, p. 37
- ^ Raven and Roberts, pp. 316–317
- ^ a b c Garzke and Dulin, p. 263
- ^ a b c d e f g Raven and Roberts, p. 318
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, p. 274
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, pp. 263, 273
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, pp. 278–279
- ^ a b Campbell, p. 24
- ^ Campbell, pp. 44, 46
- ^ Campbell, pp. 71–72, 74
- ^ Raven and Roberts, pp. 294, 297
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, p. 278
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, pp. 274–275
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, pp. 264–265
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, p. 276
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, pp. 272–273, 278–279
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, p. 266
- ^ Friedman, pp. 363–365, 433–434
- ^ Friedman, pp. 366–367, 433–434
- ^ Layman and McLaughlin, p. 66
- ^ Layman and McLaughlin, p. 67
- ^ Garzke and Dulin, p. 264
- ^ Raven and Roberts, p. 317
- ^ Friedman, p. 334
- ^ Johnston and Buxton, p. 47
- ^ Friedman, p. 336
Bibliography
- Brown, David K. (2006). Nelson to Vanguard: Warship Design and Development 1923–1945. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59114-602-5.
- Campbell, John (1985). Naval Weapons of World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-459-2.
- Friedman, Norman (2015). The British Battleship 1906–1946. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-225-7.
- Garzke, William H. Jr.; Dulin, Robert O. Jr. (1980). British, Soviet, French, and Dutch Battleships of World War II. London: Jane's. ISBN 978-0-7106-0078-3.
- Johnston, Ian; Buxton, Ian (2013). The Battleship Builders: Constructing and Arming British Capital Ships. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-84832-093-2.
- Layman, R. D.; McLaughlin, Stephen (1991). The Hybrid Warship: The Amalgamation of Big Guns and Aircraft. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-374-9.
- Raven, Alan; Roberts, John (1976). British Battleships of World War Two: The Development and Technical History of the Royal Navy's Battleship and Battlecruisers from 1911 to 1946. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-817-0.