Bellerophon-class battleship
The Bellerophon class consisted of three battleships built in 1906 and 1907 for the Royal Navy. The three ships of the Bellerophon class (and the subsequent three of the St Vincent class) were near-repeats of HMS Dreadnought. The Bellerophon class was extremely visually similar to the previous Dreadnought class battleships, with the exception of a second tripod mast. The lead ship, HMS Bellerophon, was laid down on the same day of HMS Dreadnought's final completion, which was also built at Portsmouth Dockyard.
Design
The Bellerophon's continued the universal trend of greater displacement and cost. They did address some of the flaws of Dreadnought. Changes to the hull gave a more complete internal protection and allowed the larger ships to make the same speed with the same powerplant. While Dreadnought had bulkheads that protected only the magazines, the Bellerophon had complete bulkheads running longitudinally through the ship. The 12 pounder guns that had been added to Dreadnought for protection from torpedo boats were recognised as being insufficient and their secondary armament was made up of 4 inch guns. The foremast which on Dreadnought was behind the fore funnel so that it could be used for the boat crane was sited ahead of the funnel moving the lookouts stationed on the observation platform out of the smoke plume. A mainmast added ahead of the aft funnel was still affected by the plume of the fore funnel and was not considered a success. These changes did require some compromises in the design resulting in thinner armor, reducing the belt armor from 11 to 10 inches, and a reduced coal bunkerage, which limited the steaming endurance.
Ships
References
- Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906 - 1921, (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1982)