Technical Description
HMS Montagu was laid down at Devonport Dockyard on 23 November 1899, and launched on 5 March 1901, when she was christened by Lady Charles Scott, wife of Lord Charles Scott, Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth. She began trials in February 1903.
Montagu and her five sisters of the Duncan class were ordered in response to large French and Russian building programmes, including an emphasis on fast battleships in the Russian programmes; Montagu and her sisters were designed as smaller, more lightly armoured, and faster versions of the preceding Formidable class. As it turned out, the Russian ships were not as heavily armed as initially feared, and the Montagu and the other Duncans proved to be quite superior in their balance of speed, firepower, and protection.
Montagu had an armour layout similar to that of the preceding London subclass of the Formidable class, with reduced thickness in the barbettes and belt.
Montagu and her sisters had machinery of 3,000 more indicated horsepower than the Formidables and Londons and were the first British battleships with 4-cylinder triple-expansion engines. They also had a modified hull form to improve speed. The Duncans had a reputation as good steamers, with a designed speed of 19 knots (35 km/h) and an operational speed of 18 knots (33 km/h), good steering at all speeds, and an easy roll. They were the fastest battleships in the Royal Navy when completed, and the fastest predreadnoughts ever built other than the Swiftsure-class HMS Swiftsure and HMS Triumph.
Montagu and her sister ships had the same armament as and a smaller displacement than the Formidables and Londons.
As a predreadnought, Montagu would have been outclassed by the dreadnought battleships that began to appear at the end of 1906, but she was lost that year, several months before HMS Dreadnought's commissioning ushered in the new battleship era.
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