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King George V class Battleship
HMS Audacious, a King George V class battleship
Class overview
Type:	Battleship
Name:	King George V class
Preceded by:	Orion-class
Succeeded by:	Iron Duke-class
Ships in class:	Four ordered and commissioned
General characteristics
Displacement:	23,400 tonnes
Length:	598 ft (182 m)
Beam:	89 ft (27 m)
Draught:	28 ft (8.5 m)
Propulsion and power:	18 boilers, 4 turbines, 4 shafts; 31,000 shp
Speed:	21 knots (39 km/h)
Protection:	Belt: 8 to 12 inches Decks: 1 to 4 inches Barbettes: 3 to 10 inches Turrets: 11 inch
Armament:	10 × 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns 16 × 4-inch (102 mm) guns 4 × 3-pounder guns 3 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes

This is the 1911 class; for the 1939 class see King George V class battleship (1939)

The King George V class battleships were a series of four Royal Navy battleships built just prior and serving in the First World War. The King George V class immediately followed the Orion class upon which they were based.

They were of slightly larger displacement than the Orions; the extra tonnage allowed for some small enhancements were incorporated into the design. The most obvious differences of appearance compared to the Orions were the repositioning of the main mast and fore-funnel and the conspicuously slab sided funnels themselves.

They used the same 13.5-inch Mark V gun, but firing a slightly heavier (1,400 lb as against 1,250 lb) shell. Their Secondary armament was re-arranged to improve fire distribution ahead, which had been indicated by tactical modelling to be the most dangerous area for torpedo boat attacks.

Armour was slightly redistributed and, it was thought, improved. Underwater protection was also improved, although these changes did not save the Audacious when she stumbled into a single German mine late in 1914.

There were slight revisions to the superstructure and masts. Their powerplant was intended to give a design speed of 1-knot (2 km/h) more than the Orions. This gave them slightly easier speed, but in practice they steamed mostly in the company of slower ships anyway.

Overall, they were a successful design, although received without particular enthusiasm by the public and press. They had been substantially promoted as a great advance over the Orions. In particular, it was expected that they would carry 6 inch guns for secondary armament. In fact it was the subsequent Iron Duke class battleships that first received 6 inch secondaries.

The ships remaining after the end of the First World War were all decommissioned in the 1920s to allow for the two Nelson class battleships under the Washington Naval Treaty. They carried the same armament as the Orion's.

• HMS King George V

Builder: HM Dockyard, Portsmouth

Laid down: 16 January 1911

Launched: 9 October 1911

Completed: November 1912

Operations: Battle of Jutland

Fate: Decommissioned in 1919 and scrapped in 1926

• HMS Centurion

Builder: HM Dockyard, Devonport

Laid down: 16 January 1911

Launched: 18 November 1911

Completed: May 1913

Operations: Battle of Jutland, Operation Neptune

Fate: converted to target ship 1927 Converted to decoy 1941/42. Sunk as a breakwater in June 1944

• HMS Audacious

Builder: Cammell Laird

Laid down: March 1911

Launched: 14 September 1912

Commissioned: August 1913

Operations:

Fate: Struck by mine off Northern Ireland, sank on 27 October 1914.

• HMS Ajax

Builder: Scott's at Greenock

Laid down: 27 February 1911

Launched: 21 March 1912

Commissioned: 31 October 1913

Operations: Battle of Jutland

Fate: Decommissioned in 1924 and sold for scrap on 9 November 1926

• List of battleship classes
• Lists of ship launches in: 1911, 1912
• List of ship commissionings in 1913
• Lists of shipwrecks in: 1914, 1944