HMS King George V (1911)

History
King George V 1917
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS King George V
Ordered:	1910
Builder:	Portsmouth Dockyard
Laid down:	16 January 1911
Launched:	9 October 1911
Commissioned:	1912
Decommissioned:	1924
Fate:	Scrapped in December 1926
General characteristics
Class and type:	King George V-class battleship
Displacement:	23,000 long tons (23,370 t) load 25,700 long tons (26,100 t) deep load
Length:	597 ft 6 in (182.1 m) oa
Beam:	89 ft (27.1 m)
Draught:	28 ft 8 in (8.74 m)
Propulsion:	4 shafts Parsons steam turbines 18 Babcock & Wilcox boilers 31,000 shp (23,000 kW)
Speed:	21 kn (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Range:	6,730 nmi (12,460 km; 7,740 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:	782
Armament:	10 × BL 13.5-inch (342.9 mm) Mk V guns (5×2) 16 × BL 4-inch (101.6 mm) Mk VII guns 4 × 3-pounder (47 mm) guns 5 × machine guns 3 × 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour:	Belt: 8–12 in (203–305 mm) Deck: 1–4 in (25–102 mm) Bulkheads: 4–10 in (102–254 mm) Barbettes: 3–10 in (76–254 mm) Turret Faces: 11 in (279 mm)

The first HMS King George V was a King George V class of 1911 dreadnought, with a displacement of 23,400 tonnes and an armament of ten 13.5 inch guns in twin gun turrets and a secondary armament of sixteen 4 inch guns and had a crew complement of 870, though this increased substantially by 1916 to 1,110, and had a length of 597 feet.

She took part in the Battle of Jutland, being the lead ship of the 1st Division of the 2nd Battle Squadron. Her sister-ships were HMS Centurion, HMS Audacious and HMS Ajax. HMS Audacious was sunk by a mine off the northern coast of Ireland; the rest survived World War I and were all decommissioned by 1924. King George V herself was decommissioned in 1919, used as a training ship between 1923–26 and scrapped in 1926.

The 1910 construction programme for the Royal Navy included four super-dreadnought battleships as a follow-on to the four Orion-class battleships that had been ordered the previous year. The new ships were originally to be of the same design as the Orions, but trials of the battlecruiser HMS Lion had shown that the location of the foremast between the two funnels, as standard in British battleships and battlecruisers, resulted in the fire-control platforms on the foremast being affected by smoke, and the foremast was moved before the fore funnel. The King George V class were ended up slightly larger than the Orions, allowing a little more deck armour to be carried.

While the layout of the main armament of ten 13.5 in (343 mm) guns in five twin turrets on the ship's centreline, (with two turrets forward, two aft and one amidships) the guns were modified to fire a heavier shell (1,400 lb (640 kg) rather than 1,250 lb (570 kg)) giving improved ballistics. Secondary gun armament consisted of the same sixteen 4 in (102 mm) guns in casemates as carried in the Orions, although their arrangement was changed, with more guns concentrated forward. Four 3-pounder (47 mm) guns and five machine guns completed the ship's gun armament, while the torpedo armament, with two submerged tubes on the broadside and one at the ship's stern, was the same as the Orions.

...
Wikipedia