Design
The four ships of the King George V class of the 1910 building programme were to have been repeats of the Orion class. However, the battle-cruiser HMS Lion, completed in May 1912 with her foremast ahead of the fore funnel, showed that this was a far better arrangement than that in the Orions, where it was the other way round. This modification produced a new and much improved class of battleship, a rare case where a battle-cruiser design influenced that of a battleship. Although the Orion and King George V classes were very similar, the position of the mast easily distinguishes the two types.
The first two ships of the class, King George V and Centurion, were initially fitted with pole type foremasts, but the advent of director firing required a more substantial mast, so they were refitted with heavier tripod masts. Audacious and Ajax were fitted with tripod masts from the outset.
Read more about this topic: HMS Audacious (1912)
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ’s sake not black—
nor white either—and not polished!
Let it be weathered—like a farm wagon—”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
—Miguel De Cervantes (1547–1616)