Lion Class Battlecruiser - Design and Description

Design and Description

The acceleration of the German naval building programme in 1907–08 forced the Government to yield to public pressure and authorize more ships for the 1909–10 Construction Programme. Only a single battleship and a battlecruiser had been authorized in the 1908–09 Construction Programme, but three battleships and a battlecruiser were authorized in the 1909–10 Programme with another three battleships and a battlecruiser planned as "contingency" ships to placate the public and the Admiralty. Continuing pressure forced the Government to announce in July 1909 that the "contingency" ships would also be built. This pressure also allowed the Admiralty to gain approval to improve the size and power of its new ships so as to maintain qualitative superiority over the new German dreadnoughts then under construction.

The Lion-class battlecruisers were designed to be as superior to the new German battlecruisers of the Moltke class as the German ships were to the Invincible class. The increase in speed, armour and gun size forced a 70% increase in size over the Indefatigable class and made them the largest warships in the world. Their layout was adapted from the design of the first "super-dreadnought" (or 13.5-inch gunned) class, the Orion-class battleships of 1910. The ships were the first battlecruisers to be armed with the new model 13.5-inch gun (343 mm) by Vickers. The design of the Lions remedied some of the shortcomings of the preceding battlecruisers, which suffered from an inability for the en echelon amidships turrets to safely fire across deck, which limited them to a three turret broadside. This was done, however, because the greater size and weight of the new guns rendered beam turrets impracticable. As such, all four turrets in the Lions were arranged on the centreline, although 'Q' turret was located amidships and was unable to fire directly aft. The Director of Naval Construction, Sir Philip Watts suggested that a fifth turret, superfiring over the rear turret, could be added if the ship was lengthened by three frames, 12 feet (4 m) in total, and that this would add very little cost other than the £175,000 for the additional turret, but add 25% more firepower to the ship. This was not approved, however, possibly because of doubts about its feasibility.