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    Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships
    Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships
    Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships
    Ebook157 pages48 minutes

    Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships

    By Les Brown

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    About this ebook

    The ShipCraft series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sister-ships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites.This volume covers the five ships of the highly successful Queen Elizabeth class, a design of fast battleship that set the benchmark for the last generation of dreadnoughts. Although they fought with distinction in WW1, all were thought valuable enough to be modernised between the wars - indeed, three were massively reconstructed, providing the modelmaker with a challenging variety of possible subjects.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJun 3, 2013
    ISBN9781783830268
    Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships
    Author

    Les Brown

    LES BROWN is a leading light in the Small Warships Group of the IPMS and the editor of their newsletter. He is the author of a number of titles in the ShipCraft series, including two on British destroyers, and, with John Lambert, he produced two larger works, one on ‘Flower’ class corvettes and another on Allied torpedo boats. He also wrote the volume on Black Swan Class Sloops in Seaforth’s ‘Original Builders’ Plans’ series.

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      Book preview

      Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships - Les Brown

      Design

      The Queen Elizabeth class of five ships was the first class of ‘fast’ battleships for the Royal Navy, their immediate predecessors being the Iron Duke class. The most obvious visual difference was the omission of the ‘Q’ turret amidships, which had limited arcs of fire. However, the broadside was not reduced at all as the calibre of the guns was increased from 13.5in to 15in, eight of these firing a total shell-weight of 15,360lbs compared with 14,000lbs from ten 13.5in. To follow the very successful 13.5in gun, the Admiralty had initiated the design of a 15in gun but took the risk of ordering the ships to carry it before the gun had been proven.

      These were the last battleships designed under Sir Philip Watts, the then Director of Naval Construction (DNC), and were originally built with two funnels, a distinctive feature which disappeared during the various alterations carried out during the long lifetimes of these ships. The first four were constructed under the 1912-13 estimates, whilst the Malaya was a gift from the Federal Malay States. A sixth ship, to be named Agincourt, was included in the 1914-15 estimates but was later cancelled following a rather optimistic review carried out at the beginning of World War I; this concluded that the war would last only six months and that any ships which could not be completed within that time should be cancelled.

      As originally designed, the class featured an overall length of 639ft 9in (or 644ft 3in including stern walk) with a waterline length of 634ft 6ins and a length between perpendiculars of exactly 600ft. There was actually quite a discrepancy between these nominal figures and the final dimensions of the different ships of the class. The beam was 90ft 6ins and the mean draught at normal load 28ft 9ins. The normal design displacement was 27,500 tons but this increased throughout the lives of the ships, growing to in excess of 29,000 tons, particularly after additions to their protection following the Battle of Jutland. Deep displacement at this time was in excess of 33,000 tons.

      A major step forward in propulsion was taken in the sole use of oil fuel rather than coal or a combination of the two. This allowed the great increase in horsepower required to propel the vessels at the design speed of 25 knots. The four shafts had high pressure turbines, both ahead and astern, connected to the wing shafts and low pressure turbines, again both ahead and astern, connected to the centre shafts. Cruising turbines were also connected to the wing shafts of Queen Elizabeth, Warspite and Malaya. Each of the two funnels served twelve boilers which were located in four rooms. The boilers provided steam at a working pressure of 175lbs at the turbines; boiler working pressure was 235lbs. Barham and Valiant had Yarrow boilers driving Brown-Curtis turbines whilst the other three were fitted with boilers from Babcock and Wilcox driving Parsons turbines. Total design horsepower was 56,500shp for just 23 knots (with overload to 75,000 = 25 knots) and on trials all ships achieved between 71,000 and 76,500shp, enabling them to reach 24 knots despite increases in displacement. This figure was increased to in excess of 80,000shp during reconstruction, enabling the ships to maintain their high speed. One great advantage of the use of fuel oil was the lack of smoke when operating, particularly at high speeds. There was capacity for 3400 tons of fuel but this was usually limited to 2800 tons, just 650 tons being included at normal displacement. At 10 knots, the ships had a range of 4500 nm.

      The after twin 15in Mk I of Queen Elizabeth on completion in 1915. This new, significantly more powerful gun was one of the starting points – along with 25-knot speed – for the QE design.

      TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

      The two aft gun turrets (‘X’ and ‘Y’) on Barham. The mounting allowed 20-degree elevation for a maximum range of 23,400yds, while a new swash-plate training mechanism brought the guns on target with greater steadiness.

      The class had a great metacentric height, greater than preceding classes, which resulted in stable ships but bilge keels were fitted to reduce the speed of roll. A certain amount of additional stiffening was fitted forward behind the side plates and below the forecastle deck when problems were experienced with the earlier vessels in heavy weather.

      Protection was provided by a main waterline belt of 13in thickness stretching between the barbettes, reducing to 8in and 6in along the main deck. The barbettes were protected by armour of 7in to 10in above deck and 4in to 6in at the middle deck. Bulkheads were of 6in or 4in in thickness and the conning tower was protected by a thickness of 11in. The main armament turrets were also protected by a thickness of 11in (sides), increasing to 13in on the face but reducing to 4½in to 5in for the crown. The 6in secondary armament in casemates was protected by 6in armour. The forecastle deck was 1in thick, as was the main deck amidships, increasing to 1½in fore and aft.

      A Vickers-Armstrong drawing of

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