King George V class Battleship - HMS Ajax

From SN Guides

Revision as of 13:49, 5 November 2007

Name class

The name

Class information

The four ships of the King George V class of the 1910 building program were to have been repeat Orion class , but the battle-cruiser Lion had been completed in May 1912 with her foremast ahead of the fore funnel, this proved to be a far better arrangement than that in the Orion’s were it was behind the funnel so the Orion plan was modified and the mast placed ahead of the fore funnel producing a new and much improved class of battleship, this must be a rare case where a battle-cruiser influenced the design of a battleship. The first two ships of the class, KGV and the Centurion were initially fitted with pole type foremasts but the advent of director firing needed a more substantial mast and they were refitted with heavier tripod masts although this refit in KGV herself did not occur until 1918, the Audacious and Ajax were fitted with tripod masts from the outset. Although the Orion and KGV classes were very similar the position of the mast easily distinguishes the two types. It was widely known that the 4” secondary guns of these ships, (and all preceding Dreadnought types) were far too light to deal with the newer and larger torpedo boats and destroyers that were appearing on the scene but the change to 6” guns would have added 2,000 tons to weight and increased the cost substantially so the Liberal Government of the day vetoed this improvement on the grounds of trying to keep the naval budget down.

Building data

Basic Details

Machinery

The machinery arrangement for the King George V class was very similar to that of the earlier Orion class with quadruple propellers being driven by Parsons direct drive steam turbines. The machinery spaces were split into three with the inboard shafts leading to the centre engine room and the outer shafts the port and starboard wing engine rooms. The two inboard shafts were driven by the high pressure ahead and astern turbines with the ahead turbines having an extra stage for cruising, this was separated from the main turbine by a bypass valve. The outer shafts were driven by the ahead and astern low pressure turbines, for cruising the out board turbines would be shut down , the ship relying on the inboard shafts alone. The boilers of greater power remained in three groups of six with eighteen Babcock and Wilcox boilers in total, although coal fired oil spraying equipment was fitted for quickly raising steam. The normal power for Ajax was 31,000 SHP giving 21 knots accurate dat for her trials has not been located as yet but she is reputed to have achieved just over 21 knots being the slowest of the four ships.

Bunker capacity was up to 3,180 tons of coal and 800 tons of oil, this gave a range of 6,370 miles at 10 knots.

Finding details of the machinery layout of these old ships is quite daunting, I obtained details of the layout from studying a minute plan with a magnifying glass, the deatails are as accurate as I can get them for the moment SW 21 oct 2007

Armament

Main battery Secondary battery

Torpedo armament

Armour Protection

Service History

Bibliography

Bibliography: IWM,

1. Jutland – John Campbell,
2. Jutland - Geoffrey Bennett,
3. Conway’s 1906-21

King George V Class Battleships

|- | King George V class battleship - HMS King George V | King George V class Battleship - HMS Ajax | King George V Class Battleship – HMS Centurion | King George V Class Battleship - HMS Audacious

|}