HMS King Edward VII - Technical Characteristics

Technical Characteristics

HMS King Edward VII was laid down at Devonport Dockyard on 8 March 1902. She was launched by King Edward VII on 23 July 1903, and completed in February 1905.

Although King Edward VII and her seven sister ships of the King Edward VII-class were a direct descendant of the Majestic-class; they were also the first class to make a significant departure from the Majestic design, displacing about 1,000 long tons (1,000 t) more and mounting for the first time an intermediate battery of four 9.2 in (230 mm) guns in addition to the standard outfit of 6 in (150 mm) guns. The 9.2-incher was a quick-firing gun like the 6-incher, and its heavier shell made it a formidable weapon by the standards of the day when King Edward VII and her sisters were designed; it was adopted out of concerns that British battleships were undergunned for their displacement and were becoming outgunned by foreign battleships that had begun to mount 8 in (200 mm) intermediate batteries. The four 9.2-inchers were mounted in single turrets abreast the foremast and mainmast, and King Edward VII thus could bring two of them to bear on either broadside. Even then, King Edward VII and her sisters were criticised for not having, a uniform secondary battery of 9.2-inch guns, something considered but rejected because of the length of time it would have taken to design the ships with such a radical revision of the secondary armament layout. In the end, it proved impossible to distinguish 12-inch and 9.2-inch shell splashes from one another, making fire control impractical for ships mounting both calibres, although King Edward VII had fire-control platforms on her fore- and mainmasts rather than the fighting tops of earlier classes.

Like all British battleships since the Majestics, the King Edwards had four 12 in (300 mm) guns in two twin turrets (one forward and one aft), the first five King Edwards, including King Edward VII herself, mounted the Mark IX 12-inch gun. Mounting of the 6-inch guns in casemates was abandoned in the King Edwards, the 6-inch instead being placed in a central battery amidships protected by 7 in (18 cm) armoured walls. Otherwise, King Edward VII's armour was much as in the London-class battleships, although there were various differences in detail from the Londons.

King Edward VII and her sisters were the first British battleships with balanced rudders since the 1870s and were very maneuverable, with a tactical diameter of 340 yd (310 m) at 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h). However, they were difficult to keep on a straight course, and this characteristic led to them being nicknamed "the Wobbly Eight" during their 1914-1916 service in the Grand Fleet. They had a slightly faster roll than previous British battleship classes, but were good gun platforms, although very wet in bad weather.

Primarily powered by coal, King Edward VII had oil sprayers installed during her construction, as did all of her sisters except New Zealand, the first time this had been done in British battleships. These allowed steam pressure to be rapidly increased, improving King Edward VII's acceleration. The eight ships between them were given four different boiler installations for comparative purposes; King Edward VII is variously reported to have had 10 Babcock and Wilcox boilers and six cylindrical boilers or 10 Babcock and Wilcox boilers and three cylindrical boilers. She exceeded her designed speed on trials.

King Edward VII was a powerful ship when she was designed, and completely fulfilled the goals set for her at that time. However, she was unlucky in that the years of her design and construction were ones of revolutionary advancement in naval guns, fire control, armour, and propulsion. She joined the fleet in early 1905, but was made obsolete in less than two years by the commissioning of the revolutionary battleship Dreadnought at the end of 1906 and the large numbers of the new dreadnought battleships that commissioned in succeeding years. By 1914, King Edward VII and her sisters — like all pre-dreadnoughts — were so outclassed that they spent much of their 1914-1916 Grand Fleet service steaming at the heads of divisions of the far more valuable dreadnoughts, protecting the dreadnoughts from naval mines by being the first battleships to either sight or strike them.