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 aft of the forward funnel. This resulted in the fire control top at the mast head being heavily affected by smoke, heat and gasses from the funnel, which had also been a feature of the first Dreadnoughts.
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 design compromise had to be made; the bilge keels were reduced in size, and was recognised that the ships could be expected to roll heavily. If reports in the tabloids of the times were to be believed the class would capsize in any sea, but in reality the rolling whilst undesirable was not this severe and the class were fitted with bilge keels which were adequate for their design function if not perfect for it..
Another problem facing the designers was were to place the foremast: 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, specifically 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. To partially alleviate this the fore funnel was smaller in diameter than the aft funnel and only vented six boilers with the remaining twelve venting via the aft funnel.
Read more about this topic: HMS Monarch (1911)
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