Above, HMS Benbow, last and most formidable of the Admiral class, in a handsome rendering shown courtesy of Digital Navy.com, highly recommended for a visit by anyone interested in the ships of this era. Enlarge rendering The derivation of the hull shape and deck layout from Devastation is quite obvious.
Collingwood served as the model for a class of five battleships, the Admiral class: Howe, Rodney, Anson, Camperdown, and Benbow (shown above). The last of the class, the 10,600-ton Benbow, mounted a single monster 111-ton 16.25"/30 gun in each barbette, anteing up in the Monster Gun competition popular among naval powers in the 1870s and 1880s -- principally a contest between Britain and Italy, but with participation by France and Russia as well. The Benbow's main guns, manufactured at the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, did not perform as well as the 13.5" weapons in the other Admirals: they were slow loading, prone to muzzle droop after a few firings, and as originally installed, their rifling was insufficiently deep to impart the desired degree of spin to shells departing the barrels. In fact, these 111-ton weapons were simply too big and clumsy for the ships they were fitted on.
But more to the point, the technology of gun manufacture had not yet caught up to producing effective breech-loaders in such huge sizes. This did not prevent the Royal Navy from laying down the Victoria class with two 16.25" weapons each, housed in a single turret; but the very weight of such weapons was problematic in the smallish ships authorized by a tight-fisted parliament in the 1880s. Inside of 35 years Armstrongs would be turning out 15" battleship guns for the Grand Fleet, among the best and most powerful naval weapons ever engineered. In the interim, with advances in metallurgy and manufacturing technique, British battleships fell back to 13.5"/30 guns in twin barbettes for the Royal Sovereigns of the early 1890s, then to greatly improved Mark VII 12"/40 guns in the Majestic class and its successors, from 1895, through the early dreadnoughts (c. 1906 - 1911). The savings in weight, horsepower to rotate the guns (a hydraulic system in the Admirals), and time to load between rounds -- not to mention the advantages of standardization -- proved persuasive arguments to adopt the 12" gun, which became the regulation big gun throughout the pre-dreadnought era (c. 1895-1907). In turn, the experience gained designing, manufacturing, using, and improving 12" ordnance led to the technical solutions needed to tackle larger weapons when the time came, in 1908-1913.
All five of the Admiral class vessels were held up by delays in completing their guns. They were considered quite successful once they hit the waves. And whatever the technical deficiencies of those burly 16.25-inchers, they certainly LOOKED impressive. And in the relatively placid afternoon of the Pax Britannica, when immaculate paintwork and brilliantly polished brass counted for more than accurate marksmanship, looking formidable was at least half the game.
Specifications for the Benbow:
Dimensions: 331'4" x 68' x 26'4" Displacement: 9,500 tons std; 10,600 tons deep laden. Armament: (2) 111-ton 16.25"/30 Mk I en barbette (2x1), (6) 6"/46 Mk X , (12) 2¼" 6-pdr, and (10) 47 mm guns; (4) 14" torpedo tubes; (1) second class TB. Armor: Compound type. Belt 18"/8"; barbettes 11½"/10", conning tower 12"/10", bulkheads 16"/7", battery screens 6", CT 12"/2", deck 3"/2". Propulsion: Coal-fired cylindrical boilers; (2) inverted compound engines developing 9,500 hp, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 15.6 kts. normal; 16.9 kts. f.d. Tactical radius: 5,000 nm @ 10 kts. Crew: 498 - 536.
Metric Specifications:
Dimensions: 101m x 21m x 8.03m Displacement: 9,500 tons std; 10,600 tons deep laden. Armament: (4) 111-ton 412 mm/30 Mk I en barbette (2x1), (6) 152 mm/46 Mk X, (12) 57 mm 6-pdr, and (10) 47 mm guns; (4) 355 mm torpedo tubes; (1) second class TB. Armor: Compound type. Belt 457/203 mm; barbettes 292/254 mm, conning tower 305/254 mm, bulkheads 406/178 mm, battery screens 152 mm, CT 305/51 mm, deck 76/50 mm. Propulsion: Coal-fired cylindrical boilers; (2) inverted compound engines developing 11,500 kW, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 28.7 km/hr normal; 31.1 km/hr f.d. Crew: 498 - 536.
Ammunition diagram for the 111-ton British 16.25" gun carried by the Benbow and the Victoria class battleships. Captions read (clockwise starting at top left): Common shell; Shrapnel shell; Time fuse for shell; Armor piercing steel shell; Time fuse for shell; Fuse of common shell.
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