Bellerophon class battleship - Definition and Overview

The Bellerophon class consisted of three ships built in 1906 and 1907 for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy.

Visually the only difference to the HMS Dreadnought was a second tripod mast. Due to the need of easy boat handling during peacetime, the position of the masts was far from ideal.

In design, the three Bellerophons (and the subsequent three St Vincent class ) were near-repeats of the Dreadnought, with detailed design flaws fixed. These included:

• foremast placed just ahead of the fore funnel

This instead of just behind, thus bringing the lookouts stationed on the observation platform out of the ships' own smoke plume. The Dreadnought's design was compromised for the surprisingly unwarlike reason of needing a pole to attach the boat crane to.

• 4-inch secondary armament

Studies performed while Dreadnought was building demonstrated that her 12-pdr (3-inch) guns were worthless.

• hull form improvements

These enabled a slightly larger ship to reach the same speeds with a repeat of the Dreadnought's plant.

• more complete underwater protection

Dreadnought had bulkheads ("screens") protecting just the magazines. Bellerophon had complete 1-inch to 2-inch bulkheads running longitudinally through the ship.

• a mainmast

This additional mast, sited ahead of the aft funnel but still somewhat in the smoke plume of the fore funnel, was not considered a success. These changes caused further compromises:

• thinner armor

The weight of the underwater protection was mostly taken out of the belt armor, which was reduced from 11-inch to 10-inch.

• reduce coal bunkerage

This reduced steaming endurance.

Also, the resulting ships continued the universal trend of greater displacement and cost.

Statistics

• Length: 522ft waterline, 526ft overall
• Beam: 82ft 6in
• Draught: 31ft 5in
• Displacement: 18,596t, 22,540t load
• Armament: 10 x 12in 45cal MK X (5 x 2), 16 x 4in (16 x 1), 4 x 3pdr (4 x 1), 3 x 18in TT
• Propulsion: 4 shaft Parsons turbines, 23,000shp = 21kts
• Trials:
  • Bellerophon: 25,061 shp = 21.25kts
  • Superb: 27,407shp = 21.56kts
  • Temeraire: 26,966shp = 21.55kts.
• Armour: 10-5in belt, 9-5in barbettes, 11in turret faces, 3-0.5in decks

Ships

• HMS Bellerophon
• HMS Superb
• HMS Temeraire

Source

• World War I Naval Combat - HMS Bellerophon (http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/battleship/hms-bellerophon.html)