King George V Class Battleships
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King George V Class Battleships - Roger Chesneau
SHIPCRAFT 2
King George V
CLASS BATTLESHIPS
Inhalt
Design
Karriere
Model Products
Modelmakers’ Showcase
Schemes
Appearance
Plans
Selected References
ShipCraft 2: King George V Class Battleships
Copyright © Chatham Publishing 2004
Plans and camouflage schemes
copyright © John Roberts 2004
This edition published in Great Britain 2011 by
Seaforth Publishing,
Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church Street, Barnsley,
S Yorkshire S70 2AS
www.seaforthpublishing.com
And in the United States of America by
Classic Warships Publishing, PO Box 57591.
Tucson, Arizona 85732
www.classicwarships.com
First published in 2004 by Chatham Publishing.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
available
ISBN: 978 1 84832 114 4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage
and retrieval system, without either prior permission
in writing from the publisher or a licence permitting
restricted copying.
Written, typeset and designed by Roger Chesneau
www.rogerchesneau.com
Plans and camouflage schemes by John Roberts
Printed and bound in China through Printworks
International Ltd
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers would like to record their gratitude to John Roberts, who very kindly loaned a large number of his historic photographs for publication in this book; to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, for permission to reproduce the two photographs on page 28; and to all the modelmakers and companies (mentioned in the text) who participated in this project by supplying information about, and photographs of, their work.
Design
THE five battleships of the King George V class were the most modern to serve the Royal Navy during the Second World War, and all rendered invaluable service in the promotion of the war effort. The first two ships, in particular, can be credited with influencing the course of the war: they were instrumental in the sinking of the battleship Bismarck , the strategic result of which was a fundamental shift in German naval policy involving the promotion of the U-boat arm at the expense of heavy surface ships. This is not, of course, to claim that they directly brought about the Allied victory; but by their action they fundamentally changed the policy of the Kriegsmarine , confirming the final burial of the ‘Z-Plan’ programme of German naval construction which had been killed off shortly after war broke out in favour of further U-boat building.
The design origins of the class lie in the Washington Treaty of 1922, which stipulated that future capital ships should displace no more than 35,000 tons and be armed with gun calibres no greater than 16in, and to which Britain, the United States, Japan, France and Italy were signatories— limitations which were carried through at the London Naval Conference of 1930, which also confirmed that no new battleships would be laid down until 1937 at the earliest. However, neither France nor Italy signed up, and the news that both countries were laying down new battleship construction with individual vessels built up to the Washington Treaty limits brought about a realisation in Britain that a response of comparable fighting strength was required.
King George V in 1941, showing her prominent external degaussing coil—the only ship of the class to have this feature. The censor has busied himself with this photograph: something has been deleted from the background, aft of the ship.
Warship design is an evolutionary process, and it never ceases, even though no hardware may be in immediate prospect, and during the late 1920s and early 1930s British naval architects prepared a number of studies and sketch designs. There was no desire to evolve the Nelson class battleships: this pair had been designed to sail at the standard battlefleet speed and shipped the heaviest guns and armour possible, and the new French capital ships—Dunkerque and Strasbourg—emphasised speed at the cost of firepower. A large number of studies were completed, four of which are shown in the table opposite; the last entry, ‘14P’, would become the final design for the King George Vs.
Prince of Wales in early 1941. Other than the absence of a degaussing cable, a feature distinguishing her from King George V was the provision of only three UP mountings, that on the quarterdeck being replaced by a 40mm Bofors gun—a considerably more useful weapon. The paintwork appears to be in the process of renewal: as with King George V, the original coating has taken something of a battering.
The final ship of the class, Howe, as completed, late summer 1942.
Armament
From these it can be seen that the Board of Admiralty leant in favour of strong armour protection at the cost of armament calibre and a small sacrifice in speed. The projectile for the 14in gun, at under 1,6001b, compared very unfavourably with that for the standard 15in (1,9201b) and 16in gun (2,0501b) which equipped the Royal Navy’s existing capital ships; thus a lin (6.5 per cent) decrease in calibre resulted in a 16 per cent, not a 6.5 per cent, reduction in shell weight. However,