HMS Nelson (28)
 |
|
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom
|
|
| Ordered: | 1922 |
| Builder: | Armstrong-Whitworth |
| Laid down: | 28 December 1922 |
| Launched: | 3 September 1925 |
| Commissioned: | 15 August 1927 |
| Decommissioned: | February 1948 |
| In service: | 1927–1948 |
| Struck: | 1948 |
| Motto: |
|
| Fate: | Scrapped starting on 15 March 1949 |
| Badge: | A rearing lion facing back clasping a palm frond |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Nelson-class battleship |
| Displacement: |
|
| Length: | 710 ft (220 m) overall |
| Beam: | 106 ft (32 m) |
| Draught: | 33 ft (10 m) |
| Propulsion: |
|
| Speed: | 23.5 knots (43.5 km/h; 27.0 mph) (trials) |
| Range: | 7,000 nautical miles at 16 knots (13,000 km at 30 km/h) |
| Complement: | 1,361 |
| Armament: |
|
| Armour: |
|
| Aircraft carried: | 1, no catapult |
HMS Nelson (pennant number 28) was one of two Nelson-class battleships built for the Royal Navy between the two World Wars. She was named in honour of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson the victor at the Battle of Trafalgar. The Nelsons were unique in British battleship construction, being the only ships to carry a main armament of 16 in (410 mm) guns and the only ones to carry all the main armament forward of the superstructure. These were a result of the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty. Commissioned in 1927, Nelson served extensively in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian oceans during World War II. She was decommissioned soon after the end of the war and scrapped in 1949. She was nicknamed "Nels-ol" from the resemblance in her outline to RN oilers, whose names ended in "-ol".
HMS Nelson (as was her sister, Rodney) was essentially a cut-down version of the G3 battlecruiser cancelled under the constraints of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. The design was to carry a main armament of 16 in (410 mm) guns to match the firepower of the American Colorado and Japanese Nagato classes in a ship displacing no more than 35,000 tons. The main battery was mounted in three turrets, all placed forward, speed was reduced and maximum armour was limited to vital areas, to meet the tonnage limit.
The three turrets from forward to aft were "A", "B" and "X". The guns received individual nicknames being known as Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey, Sleepy, Bashful, Doc, Mickey and Minnie, sometime after the release of the film Snow White in 1937. The secondary armament was in turrets P1 to P3 on the port, S1 to S3 on the starboard. The six 4.7 in (119 mm) anti-aircraft mounts were named HA1 to HA6, the even numbers on the port side. The six pom-pom mounts were numbered from M1 (on top of B turret) to M7 at the extreme aft—there was no M2 position—the odd numbers 3 & 5 to the starboard with 4 & 6 to port to be consistent with the HA armament labels.
...
Wikipedia