The Lion class were a pair of battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy before World War I. Nicknamed the "Splendid Cats", the ships were a significant improvement over their predecessors of the in speed, armament and armour. These improvements were in response to the German battlecruisers of the , which were in turn larger and more powerful than the first British battlecruisers of the .
served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers throughout World War I.Campbell, p. 29 She sank the German light cruiser during the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914 and participated in the battles of Dogger Bank in 1915 and Jutland the following year. She was so badly damaged at the Battle of Dogger Bank that she had to be towed back to port. During the Battle of Jutland, Lion suffered a serious cordite fire that could have destroyed the ship.
Her sister ship, , also played a role in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, and was then sent south to the Caribbean to intercept the German East Asia Squadron in case they used the Panama Canal. After the squadron was sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914, Princess Royal rejoined the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (BCS). During the Battle of Dogger Bank, she scored only a few hits, but one crippled the German armoured cruiser , which allowed the enemy vessel to be caught and sunk by the concentrated fire of the British battlecruisers. Shortly afterwards, Princess Royal became the flagship of the 1st BCS and participated in the Battle of Jutland. Both ships were present during the inconclusive Action of 19 August 1916.
The sisters spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea; they provided distant cover during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917. In 1920, they were put into reserve and were then sold for scrap a few years later in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922.
Design and description
The acceleration of the German naval building programme in 1907–1908 forced H. H. Asquith's Liberal Government to yield to public pressure and authorise more ships for the 1909–1910 Construction Programme. Only a single battleship and a battlecruiser had been authorised in 1908–1909, but three battleships and a battlecruiser were authorised in 1909–1910 with another three battleships and a battlecruiser planned as contingency ships to placate the public and the Admiralty. Continuing pressure forced the government to announce in July 1909 that the contingency ships would also be built. This pressure also allowed the Admiralty to gain approval to improve the size and power of its new ships so as to maintain qualitative superiority over the new German dreadnoughts then under construction.Roberts, pp. 31–32
The Lion-class battlecruisers were designed to be as superior to the new German battlecruisers of the Moltke class as the German ships were to the Invincible class. The increase in speed, armour and gun size forced a 40% increase in size over the Indefatigable class and made them the largest warships in the world.Burt, p. 180 Their layout was adapted from the design of the first "super-dreadnought" class, the s of 1910, with 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns. The ships were the first battlecruisers to be armed with the new 13.5-inch Mk V gun. The design of the Lions remedied some of the shortcomings of the preceding battlecruisers, which suffered from an inability of the en echelon amidships turrets to safely fire across the deck, limiting them to a three-turret broadside. This was done because the greater size and weight of the new guns rendered wing turrets impracticable. As such, all four turrets in the Lions were arranged on the centreline; 'Q' turret was located amidships and could only fire on the broadside.Burt, p. 176 The Director of Naval Construction, Sir Philip Watts, suggested that a fifth turret, superfiring over the rear turret, could be added if the ship was lengthened by three frames, in total, and that this would add very little cost other than the £175,000 for the additional turret but add 25% more firepower to the ship.Roberts, p. 33 This was not approved, possibly because of doubts about its feasibility.
General characteristics
The Lions were significantly larger than their predecessors of the . They had an overall length of , a beam of , and a draught of at deep load. They displaced at normal load and at deep load, over more than the earlier ships. They had a metacentric height of at deep load.Roberts, pp. 43–44
Propulsion The Lion-class ships were equipped with two sets of Parsons steam turbines, each of which drove two propeller shafts.Burt, p. 178 Their three-bladed propellers were in diameter on the inner shafts and those on the outer shafts were in diameter. The turbines, rated at , used steam provided by forty-two Yarrow boilers that operated at a pressure of . Lion did not reach her designed speed of during her sea trials despite exceeding , but Princess Royal achieved . The ships carried of coal and an additional of fuel oil that was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate.Roberts, pp. 70–76, 80 At full capacity, they could steam for at a speed of .Preston, p. 29
Armament The Lion-class ships mounted eight BL 13.5-inch Mark V guns in four twin hydraulically powered gun turrets, designated 'A', 'B', 'Q' and 'Y'. Unlike the two previous classes of battlecruiser in the Royal Navy, which had turrets fore, aft and on each side of the ship, the Lion-class ships had their main armament mounted in a single line from front to rear, with 'B' turret superfiring over 'A' turret, 'Q' turret mounted amidships, and 'Y' turret aft. The guns had elevation ranges from −3° to +20°; their gunsights were limited to +15° until super-elevating prisms were installed before the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 to allow full elevation. They fired projectiles at a muzzle velocity of ; at +20° elevation, they had a range of . Their rate of fire was two rounds per minute.Friedman, pp. 49–52 The ships carried a total of 880 rounds during wartime for 110 shells per gun.Roberts, p. 83
The secondary armament of the Lion class consisted of sixteen BL 4-inch Mark VII guns, most of which were mounted in casemates in single mounts. The guns had maximum elevations of +15°, which gave them a range of . They fired projectiles at muzzle velocities of .Friedman, pp. 97–98 They were provided with 150 rounds per gun.Campbell, p. 27 The ships were fitted with two submerged torpedo tubes, one on each broadside.
Fire control The main guns were controlled from the conning tower. Data from a Argo rangefinder located on top of the conning tower was input into a Mk I Dreyer Fire-Control Table located in the transmitting station (TS) below the conning tower where it was converted into range and deflection data for use by the guns. The target's data was also graphically recorded on a plotting table to assist the gunnery officer in predicting the movement of the target. 'B' and 'X' turrets were provided with nine-foot rangefinders and were fitted as secondary control positions.Roberts, pp. 91–92
Fire-control technology advanced quickly during the years immediately preceding World War I and the development of the director firing system was a major advance. This consisted of a fire-control director mounted high in the ship which electrically provided gun data to the turrets via a pointer on a dial, which the turret crewmen only had to follow. The director layer fired the guns simultaneously, which aided in spotting the shell splashes and minimised the effects of the roll on the dispersion of the shells.Roberts, pp. 92–93 Lion received her system in early 1915 while undergoing repairs after the Battle of Dogger BankBurt, p. 179 and Princess Royal got hers in early 1916. A second director was added to each ship in 1918.
Armour The armour protection given to the Lions was heavier than that of the Indefatigables; their waterline belt of Krupp Cemented Armour measured thick amidships in contrast to the belt of their predecessors. It thinned to 4 inches towards the ships' ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. They were also given an upper armour belt with a maximum thickness of 6 inches over the same length as the thickest part of the waterline armour and thinned to abreast the end turrets. The ends of the armoured citadel were closed off by 4-inch transverse bulkheads. Nickel-steel plating was used for the protective decks. The lower armoured deck was generally only thick except outside the citadel where it was . The upper armoured deck was situated at the top of the upper armour belt and was also only 1 inch thick. The forecastle deck armour ranged from .Roberts, pp. 102–103
The gun turrets had 9-inch fronts and sides and their roofs were thick. The barbettes were protected by 9 inches of armour above the deck, thinning to above the upper armour deck and below it. The sides of the conning tower were thick and it had a three-inch roof and communication tube. Nickel-steel torpedo bulkheads thick were fitted abreast the magazines and shell rooms. Their funnel uptakes were protected by nickel-steel splinter armour thick on the sides and 1 inch on the ends between the upper and forecastle decks. After the Battle of Jutland revealed their vulnerability to plunging shellfire, 1 inch of additional armour, weighing approximately , was added to the magazine crowns and turret roofs.Roberts, pp. 109, 112–113
Construction Only Lion was completed to the original design, which had the fore funnel placed between the forward superstructure and the tripod foremast. This meant that hot clinkers and flue gases from the boilers made the spotting top on the foremast completely unworkable when the ships were steaming at high speed, that the upper bridge could easily be rendered uninhabitable, depending on the wind, and that the signal flags and halyards were at risk of burning.Roberts, p. 34 Both ships were altered to correct this problem, Lion before being commissioned, and Princess Royal as she was fitting out, at a total cost of £68,170. The fore funnel was moved aft, the original fore and mainmasts exchanged position, and the foremast was now just a pole mast, not a tripod. The spotting tower at the rear of the conning tower was removed, the conning tower enlarged, the nine-foot Argo rangefinder was moved from the foremast spotting top to the roof of the conning tower, and all the funnels were raised to the same height.Roberts, p. 35 As part of these modifications, the two 4-inch guns mounted above the forward group of casemates were enclosed in casemates of their own to protect the gun crews from weather and enemy action.
Ships
+ Construction data Name Builder Laid down Launched Completed Cost (including armament)Parkes, pp. 531–536 HM Dockyard, Devonport 29 November 1909 6 August 1910 May 1912 £2,086,458 Vickers, Barrow 2 May 1910 29 April 1911 November 1912 £2,089,178
Modifications