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HMS ''Conqueror'' was an ''Orion''-class battleship of the Royal Navy. She served in the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet in World War I, and fought at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916, suffering no damage. As a result of the Washington Naval Convention she was decommissioned in 1921 and sold for scrap. Following the ''Colossus''-class, Britain's next class of battleship was the ''Orion'' class, which was the first class of British ship to dispense with the wing turret arrangement. Beaten to a world's first by the American ''South Carolina'' class (commissioned in 1910), these were the first battleships in the Royal Navy to feature an all big-gun armament on the centre-line and were a major step forward, and were thus described as 'Super-Dreadnoughts'. With the possibility of war looming, the cost savings achieved with the dreadnought types were dispensed with resulting in a far better and larger ship. The ''Orion'' class also saw the introduction of the new 13.5-inch gun. To achieve greater striking power for the later variants of the dreadnought the barrels of the 12-inch guns had been lengthened to increase the muzzle velocity and hence the range and impact power; however this was an unsatisfactory gun, with poor accuracy and wear levels. With the 13.5-inch gun a return to lower muzzle velocities was achieved, and striking power was increased by means of a heavier shell thereby resulting in an altogether superior weapon. == Design and description == Compared to the other ''Orion''-class battleships, the ''Conqueror'' design came across as sleeker and more refined than earlier ships. Outwardly similar to the following ''King George V'' class, the two could be told apart by the ''Orion''s foremast being placed behind the forward funnel. Unfortunately this resulted in the same problems experienced by ''Dreadnought'' herself, in that the fire control top at the mast head was affected by smoke, heat and gases from the funnel. One other feature of the ships was dictated by the size of the dry-docks available at the time; the size of the ships was the maximum that could fit into these dry-docks and something had to give. The bilge keels were omitted, and initially the ships rolled heavily and, if reports in the tabloids of the times are to be believed, the class would capsize in any sea. In truth the rolling, whilst undesirable, was not this severe and the class were later fitted with bilge keels, but the size and design was nonetheless a compromise between effectiveness and dock size. Another problem facing the designers was where to place the mast; place it in front of the funnel and the spotting top would be clear of smoke and heat with a head wind, but another problem then appeared: where to put the derrick needed to hoist the boats? The ''Orion'' class would seem to have bowed to the seamanship problem and placed the mast aft of the fore funnel to allow the fitting of a large derrick for hoisting the ship's boats. However this did cause problems with smoke and heat in the spotting top. To partially alleviate this the fore funnel was smaller in diameter than the aft funnel and only vented six boilers with the remaining twelve vented via the aft funnel. Conqueror was 580 ft 9 in (177.08 metres) long overall. She had a maximum beam of 88 ft 6 in (26.8 metres) and had a draft of 27 ft 6 in (8.4 metres). She had a displacement of 22,000 tons at normal load and 25,870 tons at full load. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「HMS Conqueror (1911)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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