Nelson Class as Finished

Tzoli

The Nelson class battleships HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney was the most powerful and most unique looking battleships that served His Majesty's Royal Navy and were also the first capital ships to be built under the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and to fully incorporate the lessons of World War 1. The class' design heritage could be traced back to the 1920-21 capital ship studies which created the abortive N3 and G3 designs but more clearly the F2 and F3 battlecruiser studies of 1922 which I've posted earlier. DNC and Naval Architect Edward Lewis Attwood eventually created the final design to which the Nelsons were built (Design O3).
There were slight differences between the semi final O3 (Modified) and the final Nelson design. Visally the most notable difference is the lack of multiple Pom-Pom mounts which were mounted much later on the two ships due to the long development of the gun mount (Temporary 8 single older Pom-Poms were mounted instead) but there were also unseen differences like further reduced deck armour to cope with the ever increasing requirements of the Admiralty for new equipment and finalizing the in development ones which all increased tonnage. Some changes to the deck structures and placement of the aft secondary DCTs.
The class stirred up the stagnant waters of the world navies design boards by not only showing the possibility of creating a heavily armed and well armoured design on limited displacement, using novel features and new technologies (like inclined belt armour, Combined Gun Directors and Rangefinders and heavy AA guns) but by the unique layout of the ships main armament! The all forward triple 16" turrets allowed maximalizing the firepower on the smallest available area.
While these new aspects were vehemently researched in the world navies in the coming years for designing new warships, only parts of the new technologies were adopted for new capital ships and onyl the French went as far as to build all forward capital ships, the 2-2 Donkerque and Richelieu class warships altought with only 2 turrets forward rather then 3.

Nelson and Rodney saw extensive use in WW2 due to thier immense firepower but this also meant that the long overdue refits and upgrades were implemented only partly or not at all despite the large number of Projects the RN envisioned to modernize these two unique vessels.

The design had the following characteristics:
Dimensions: 201,2 (pp) x 214,4m (wl) x 216,4 (oa) 32.3 x 10,2 meters
Displacement: 33.313tons (standard), 41.250tons (full load)
Engines: 45.000shp Steam Turbines engines, 2 shafts
Speed: 43km/h (23knots)
Range: 10.200km (6.500nm)
Armour: 356mm Belt over Magazines, 330mm over Machinery inclined at 18°, 159mm Deck over Magazines, 95mm over Machinery, 108mm Slopes
Armaments:
3x3 16"/45 (406mm/45) BL Mark I Cannons,
6x2 6"/50 (152mm/50) BL Mk XXII Guns,
6x1 4,7"/40 (120mm/40) QF Mk VIII AA Guns
8x1 40mm/39 QF Mk II AA Guns
2x1 622mm Underwater torpedo tubes

#RoyalNAVY#warship#battleship#ネルソン級戦艦

2024-07-20 19:03:28 +0000