HMS King George V (1911) - Design and Construction

Design and Construction

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.

King George V was laid down at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard on 16 January 1911, and launched on 9 October 1911. The ship reached a maximum speed of 22.13 knots (40.98 km/h; 25.47 mph) on trials, before completing in November 1912.

King George V, like Centurion was completed with a simple pole foremast, but when a director was fitted to the foremast to improve aiming of the ship's main armament, King George V's foremast was fitted with stiffening flanges to help take the extra weight of the director, eventually being fitted with a tripod mast in 1918. Two 4 inch anti-aircraft guns were mounted on the ship's quarterdeck in 1915, while four 4-in guns mounted in casemates low down in the bow of the ship, which were unusable in a heavy sea, were removed.