King George V class battleship (1939)

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The King George V class battleships were the second to last class of battleships completed by the Royal Navy.

The Washington treaty limiting post World War I battleship construction had been extended by the First London Naval Treaty but the treaty was due to expire in 1936. With increased tension between the various major naval nations, it was expected by planners that the treaty might not be renewed and the KGV class were designed with this in mind.

Armour

Apart from Japanese super battleships Yamato and Musashi the class had probably the heaviest armour of warships of the period. The main belt was 391 mm thick amidships, 127-178 mm forward and astern. The lower belt was 3 inches (76 mm) thick. Deck protection was 178 mm. The main gun turrets were protected by 406 mm to the front and 280-305 mm on the sides. The conning tower and citadel was at its maximum 318 mm. Overall the armour weight was estimated as high as 14,000 t. There were weak spots under the waterline. On examination of the Prince of Wales after its encounter with the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen three damaging hits were discovered; one of the Prinz Eugen's shells had penetrated the torpedo protection inner bulkhead, very close to the fourteen-inch magazine.

Armament

The King George V and the four other ships of the class as built carried 10 14-inch (356 mm) guns, in two four-gun turrets fore and aft and a single two-gun turret behind and above the fore turret.

While some argued that this gave the battleships an inferior broadside to the eight 15-inch (381 mm) guns of the German battleship Bismarck and her sister-ship the Tirpitz, the designers of this class pointed out that the ten guns of the 14-inch (356 mm) class had advantages over the eight 15-inch (381 mm) of the Bismarck type. They pointed out that at normal battle ranges the 14-inch (356 mm) gun could penetrate any practical naval armor, could shoot repeated rounds faster, and in the bad weather of the North Atlantic the extra range of bigger guns was not needed. The 10 guns of the British ship could fire larger salvos increasing hit probability.

The original design called for nine 15-inch guns in three turrets, 2 forward and 1 aft. While this was within the capabilities of the British, they felt compelled to adhere to the Second London Naval Treaty signed in 1936 even though other signatory nations were violating the limits, especially with regards to gun calibre. As a result, the design was changed to twelve 14 inch guns in three turrets and this configuration had a heavier broadside than the nine 15-inch guns. In the end the second forward turret was changed to a smaller two gun turret for better armour protection, reducing the broadside weight to below that of the nine gun arrangement.

In service, the quad gun arrangement of two of the turrets proved to be more of an operational curse than a larger salvo blessing. Placing four 14 inch (356 mm) guns into a single turret made it cramped, mechanically complex and difficult to service, leading to low reliability which plagued the class through out its career.

Service

The King George V class was built in an era where the aircraft carrier supplanted the battleship but nonetheless King George V, Prince of Wales, and Duke of York all saw the battleship-to-battleship action that they were designed for. The KGV and the Prince of Wales both fought the German battleship Bismarck in late May 1941, while the Duke of York dueled the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst in the battle of North Cape, contributing to the latter's sinking in December 1943.

Four of the five King George V-class ships survived World War II; Prince of Wales was sunk near Singapore by air attack in December 1941. The remaining ships never suffered any serious wartime damage, except for King George V which accidentally collided with and sunk HMS Punjabi in May 1942. All of them, including the King George V, were scrapped in 1957.

The planned successors to the KGV class were the Lion class battleships of some 40,000 tonnes with nine 16-inch (406 mm) guns.

King George V-class battleship
King George V | Prince of Wales | Duke of York | Anson | Howe

List of battleships of the Royal Navy

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