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HMS ''Thunderer'' was the third ''Orion''-class battleship built for the Royal Navy and was the last vessel to be constructed by Thames Iron Works. She was the last and largest warship ever built on the River Thames, and after her completion her builders declared bankruptcy. By a margin of £1000, she was the most expensive battleship of the 1909 construction programme built. The Admiralty had called for six new 'super-Dreadnoughts' in 1909 to counter the German naval expansion; the Treasury economists would offer only four, but politics intervened in a year of two general elections, and when the cry went up, "We want eight, and we won't wait!", the ''Orion''s were built as part of an unusual compromise of four ships in 1910 and four more in 1911. ''Thunderer'' and her sisters were huge ships of 22,000 tons, with ten 13.5 inch guns in super-firing turrets, all mounted on the centreline. Her machinery consisted of new steam turbines, and her electrics were provided by four 200 KW generators, installed in separate compartments, and capable of isolation if damaged, an important innovation. Her design was dominated by wireless equipment: the Royal Navy led the world in the adoption of the Marconi system, and Admiral Fisher was adamant that the new ships should have "No masts or fighting tops: only a pole for wireless. The necessity for masts and yards for signalling does not exist." So only a single tripod was fitted to carry a tall WT pole; eliminating the after mast, and slinging the aerials down to a short stump aft saved 50 tons of top-weight. ''Thunderer'' was fitted with the Dreyer fire-control table designed by Frederic Charles Dreyer, which was effectively the world's first automatic computer and ten years ahead of any other navy's developments. She was also the first of her class to carry Captain Percy Scott's new director firing system, which made her top-shooting ship in the 1912 trials, when she delivered over six times the hits of ''Orion'' into her sister's target in just 3 minutes and 30 seconds. == Design and description == Compared to the ''Colossus''-class battleships, the ''Orion''-class 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, this resulted in the fire control top at the mast head being heavily affected by smoke, heat and gases from the funnel. One other feature of the ships was dictated by the size of the drydocks available at the time, the size of the ships was the maximum that could fit into these drydocks and something had to give, the bilge keels were omitted, initially the ships rolled heavily and if reports in the tabloids of the times had to be believed the class would capsize in any sea. In truth the rolling whilst undesirable was not this severe and the class were fitted with bilge keels but the size and design was a compromise between effect 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 ships boats, this did cause problems with smoke and heat in the spotting top. Partially to alleviate this the fore funnel was smaller in diameter than the aft funnel and only vented six boilers and the remaining twelve vented via the aft funnel. 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 Thunderer (1911)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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