Design and Description
Compared to the Colossus class battleships the Orion class design came across as sleeker and more refined then earlier ships, outwardly similar to the following King George the 5th class the two could be told apart by the Orion's fore mast being placed behind the forward funnel, this resulted in the fire control top at the mast head being heavily affected by smoke, heat and gases from the funnel.
One other feature of the ships was dictated by the size of the dry-docks available at the time, the size of the ships was the maximum that could fit into these drydocks and something had to give, the bilge keels were omitted, initially the ships rolled heavily and if reports in the tabloids of the times had to be believed the class would capsize in any sea. In truth the rolling whilst undesirable was not this severe and the class were fitted with bilge keels but the size and design was a compromise between effect and dock size.
Another problem facing the designers was where to place the mast. Place it in front of the funnel and the spotting top would be clear of smoke and heat with a head wind but another problem then appeared, where to put the derrick needed to hoist the boats. The Orion class would seem to have bowed to the seamanship problem and placed the mast aft of the fore funnel to allow the fitting of a large derrick for hoisting the ships boats, this did cause problems with smoke and heat in the spotting top. Partially to alleviate this the fore funnel was smaller in diameter than the aft funnel and only vented six boilers and the remaining twelve vented via the aft funnel.
Read more about this topic: HMS Thunderer (1911)
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