What are the structural features of the Nelson class battleships?

After the end of World War I, Britain had planned to build N3 battleships, which died in the Washington Naval Treaty. According to the outcome of the final compromise of the treaty, Japan and the United States could retain the battleships with 400 mm guns that had not been completed under the treaty, and Britain would be able to build battleships with 400 mm guns within the tonnage specified in the treaty, without being bound by the treaty's 10-year prohibition on the construction of battleships. Under this agreement, the British Navy began construction of Nelson-class battleships in November 1922 within the tonnage specified in the treaty.

The Nelson-class battleships no longer adopted the bow type commonly used by British battleships in the past, and replaced them with flat-deck ships. According to the lessons learned from the Battle of Jutland, the level of armor protection was improved, and for the first time, the waterline armor belt was arranged obliquely, which was the thickest warship with the broadside waterline armor at that time, and the horizontal protective armor was strengthened, and indirect defense facilities such as watertight compartments were added.

Due to the 35,000-ton limit stipulated in the treaty, the Nelson class adopts three triple main gun turrets all in front of the bridge, and the power engine room and auxiliary gun turret are concentrated in the rear of the hull.

The three main gun turrets are clustered together, with the middle turrets mounted in a pyramidal pattern at a height above the front and rear turrets, and the bridge is positioned behind the amidships for the weight of the trim. The purpose of this design is to concentrate the limited armor weight in the key parts to the greatest extent, and the scope of the critical parts that need to be protected by heavy armor is reduced to the smallest area, which can achieve better protection effect.

However, such a design resulted in the limitation of the firing range of the main guns and the defect of dead spots in the rear of the ship. At the same time, at the expense of power performance to a certain extent, the top speed is lower than that of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. The design of the bridge is different from the low and narrow bridges of previous warships, and for the needs of long-distance artillery observation, it is designed as a tower-shaped bridge that integrates observation facilities with the bridge.

The Nelson class was equipped with a 400 mm caliber main gun, and for the first time, a turret-based high-level dual-purpose secondary gun was applied. Because the main gun has not undergone enough tests before entering service, the performance of the main gun and the triple main turret using "high muzzle velocity light shells" is not ideal, the power of the main gun is quite limited, the life of the gun barrel and the shooting accuracy are not as good as the original 375 mm caliber gun, and there are many problems with the reliability of the turret.

Nelson class, that must be the front of the full main gun, and the main armor belt is built-in!

<> "Innovations of Britain after World War I" Nelson"-class battleships.

In the 20s of the 20th century, after the First World War, Britain learned the experience and lessons learned in the Battle of Jutland, and built a flat-deck battleship, and this battleship was the British treaty-type "Nelson" class battleship. The design of this battleship was relatively rare at the time, as it was a flat-deck ship, which was very different from the general British bow ship.

Britain concluded that the protection function of the warship in the Jutland Navy was certain good, so in order to improve the protective function of the armor, the waterline armor belt was arranged obliquely to strengthen the protective effect of the battleship. The armor was designed to be 160 mm thick, the thickest armor of any British Fleet at the time, and the turret and turret were also the thickest armored, with a front height of 406 mm, a side thickness of 225 mm, and a top thickness of 178 mm.

The battleships of that period basically adopted the structural layout of agglomeration, so the turrets of the battleships were installed together, and the platoon of the three main gun turrets also allowed the whole battleship to share its weight and concentrate the firepower area in one point, which would also achieve a good protective effect for the battleship. The Nelson-class battleships were equipped with the relatively new 406 mm 45 times diameter naval guns at that time, and six single-barreled 120 mm high-level dual-purpose guns were set up, with a speed of 8 12 rounds per minute.

In addition, there were 8 single-barreled 40 mm ping-pong guns, which were used as machine guns to protect against air attacks, and these turrets had an elevation angle of 90 degrees, which was the first time that a British battleship used a triple reload infiltration gun.

Although this battleship has a good configuration in protection, it is in a weak position in terms of firepower precisely because it strengthens the battleship hull and does a good job of protection, and its weight increases, so its operating speed is only 32 knots, and the flexible type is not high during combat.

And this new type of artillery was also replaced by the later more intact **, and this "Nelson"-class battleship was slowly lost to the attention of British forces. In World War II, the "Nelson" class battleships were in service with the British fleet, and in the course of the battle, the "Nelson" class battleships were deficient in firepower and reaction power, but they had the value of being used as escort or fixed long-range bombardment.

This "Nelson" class battleship participated in many British wars, and although it did not achieve many great victories, it still has merit. On September 29, 1943, the moment of surrender of Italy was witnessed on the battleship "Nelson".

In August 1945, the "Nelson" class battleships participated in the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian archipelago in the confinement operation, and for most of the time, the "Nelson" class battleships became professional escort battleships, and two years later, in 1947, it was delisted, and then it was used as scrap metal ** other countries.

<> "The British Battleship Nelson.

The Nelson Battleship is a type of battleship built by Britain in the 20s of the 20th century, and it is a typical treaty-type battleship. The Nelson battleship had good armor protection, and such a design was derived from the different war experiences of the time. However, due to the limited technical conditions, in order to achieve a higher level of protection, the thickness of the Nelson battleship was increased, making it less maneuverable than the stove.

In fact, this battleship is more controversial, because many people think it is a bad battleship. Because it not only has poor maneuverability, but also the sail is very dead in the firing angle, which causes this battleship to have a large shooting dead angle, and the caliber on the turret is still small, so the effect on the ** is also not good.

Why was it designed and built to be the way it is? First of all, because Britain had just experienced the Battle of Jutland, they felt that the role of protection was still very important in naval warfare, so they began to focus on the protection of the Nelson battleships to be built next. However, it was precisely because of this emphasis on protection that a very thick layer of armor was installed on the battleship, which made it very inconvenient for the battleship to operate.

At the time of the construction of the Nelson battleship, Britain could not build a new capital warship because of the regulations of the Naval Disarmament Conference, but in order to successfully build a battleship, it had to be within the tonnage specified in the treaty.

This also forced the main guns of the Nelson battleship to be installed with a 16-inch caliber, which is not a very large type of battleship, so it cannot use powerful shells, so this is one of the reasons why many people think that the Nelson battleship is not good.

When fighting at sea with too much weight, the speed is definitely not high, and it can even be said that it is very slow among battleships, so in the process of fighting, too slow will always have an adverse effect on the entire battle situation. Moreover, the Nelson battleship did not use high-lethal shells, and the 16-inch caliber could only use high-speed light bullets, which was also a major weakness of the Nelson battleship.

However, the Nelson battleship built by Britain can only be designed in this way because of the provisions of the treaty, and if there are no treaty restrictions, the use of relatively good armed systems, coupled with strong protection, this Nelson battleship may also become a high-quality work of battleships. But from the point of view of its protection, in fact, the Nelson battleship still has a very first-class level of protection, and it can be produced in a multi-condition environment, which can be regarded as a more prominent battleship of that era.

Of course, it is better to be the avant-garde class, the avant-garde class has been in service for 46 years, more than ten years later than the Nelson class, and the three main turrets of the Nelson class are all deployed forward, which is too extreme in performance.

Astronomy class manpower, the four big ones are empty, Santa Fe Santa Fe.

In 1922, the Washington Naval Treaty was signed, and the displacement of the new battleship was limited to less than 35,560 metric tons. How can you maximize the performance of a battleship with limited tonnage? The designers of the British Navy came up with an extremist approach to the layout of the guns - all the main guns were front-loaded, since such an arrangement made it possible to significantly save the weight of the armor.

This means a lot for warships that are under the strict limits of the treaty.

Artillery fronts are actually nothing new. It first appeared on shallow water heavy gunboats. The shallow water heavy gunship (Moniter) first originated during the American Civil War, and is a shallow draft ship equipped with large-caliber heavy guns for land fire support.

In order to facilitate ground bombardment, his guns were generally concentrated on the foredeck.

In fact, there is also an advantage of the front of the artillery, which is that it can allow ** to fully exert its firepower when facing the enemy with the minimum bomb area. In 1922, the British Navy built the world's first battleship Nelson, with its guns forward. It was armed with three triple 16-inch (406 mm) turrets, all of which were concentrated on the foredeck.

In order to improve the turret visibility, a mountain arrangement was adopted with the No. 2 turret at the same level and the No. 2 turret raised to form the high turret. However, the observation ability of the No. 3 turret is still not satisfactory. When the Nelson class was built, it was nicknamed the world's largest shallow-water heavy gunboat due to its peculiar layout.

The biggest advantage of using all turret fronts is that it can greatly shorten the length of the main armor belt and save a lot of tonnage. In addition, it can maximize forward firepower, but it is very passive when dealing with tail-chasing enemies. The solution could only be to carefully design the shape of the superstructure so that the range of fire from the artillery backwards was as large as possible.

The front of all turrets is also conducive to the arrangement of special aviation facilities in the stern of the ship, eliminating the problem of mutual interference between the main gun and aviation facilities. The main problem with the front-mounted guns is that the turrets are densely arranged, and there is a possibility that a single shell will hit a chain reaction during the battle. In addition, all the turrets are concentrated in the front, which adds great difficulty to the overall design of the first place, and the resulting problems of center of gravity and stability have been plaguing the designers.

These problems constrained the promotion of the front-loading layout of the artillery, and the Nelson-class battleships were always regarded as alternative.

After the end of World War II, with the development of missile technology, artillery was gradually replaced in the first place. Today, most of the main guns are used more as an auxiliary, and the era of artillery as the protagonist of naval warfare is gone, and the impact of artillery layout on ** no longer plays a decisive role. Artillery front-mounted warships are also not very important.

The two Nelson-class battleships were completed and commissioned in 1927, and together with two Japanese Nagato-class battleships and three Colorado-class battleships of the United States, seven battleships with the most discreet large-caliber guns, were called the "Big Seven" by people in the naval circles of various countries.

After entering service, the Nelson class underwent several minor modifications, mainly to enhance anti-aircraft firepower. During the Second World War, due to the limitation of speed, it was difficult to coordinate with the new **, and most of the ships of this class performed the tasks of escorting and providing fire support for landing operations.

In 1941, the Rodney took part in the naval battle to encircle the German battleship Bismarck, and together with the battleship George V, destroyed the new German super battleship. On 29 September 1943, the Italian delegates aboard the Nelson signed the agreement of surrender.

In 1944, the Nelson and Rodney participated in the Normandy landings. In 1945, the Nelson sailed to the Indian Ocean to participate in combat operations against Japan, and the Nelson witnessed the surrender of Japanese troops in the Indonesian archipelago.

After the end of the war, two Nelson-class battleships were decommissioned and dismantled from 1946 to 1948.