Description
Most noticeable of the N3 design was the concentration of the main battery forward of the bridge and machinery spaces. A related feature of the design was the tower bridge structure behind the first two gun turrets. This provided a better and more stable foundation for fire-control equipment, greatly improved accommodation and protection from the weather.
The N3 battleships were significantly larger than their predecessors of the Revenge class. They had an overall length of 820 feet (249.9 m), a beam of 106 feet (32.3 m), and a draught of 33 feet (10.1 m) at deep load. They would have displaced about 48,500 long tons (49,300 t), nearly double the displacement of the older ships. They had a complete double bottom 7 feet (2.1 m) deep.
The ships would have had two geared steam turbine sets, each of which drove one propeller shaft, in two engine rooms forward of the boiler rooms. This allowed the funnel to be placed further aft and increased the ability of the rear turret to fire to the rear. The turbines would have been powered by small-tube boilers intended to produce a total of 56,000 shaft horsepower (42,000 kW). The ships' maximum speed would have been about 23 knots.
Housing the main armament in triple turrets was new to the Royal Navy though British companies had been involved in the production of triple gun turret designs for other navies. The choice of a high muzzle velocity with a relatively lighter shell was taken from the German practice; it ran counter to previous British guns such as the BL 15-inch Mark I gun of 42-calibre length which were lower-muzzle-velocity weapons firing heavy shells.
Read more about this topic: N3 Class Battleship
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