HMS Tiger (BC-1941)

Back to Commonwealth Ships List

The Tiger and Lion came about by similar circumstances to the Vanguard. While updating and rebuilding the Southern African, Chilean, and Brazilian 13.5" battleships and battlecruisers, the British yards involved ended up with 10 13.5" twin turrets. As a lot of the Germanic States battle-raider ships were armed with 12" the Royal Navy decided a pair of new fast battleships (battlecruisers) armed with the loose 13.5" turrets would make fine hunters for the German ships. With the cancellation of the 3rd pair of King George V class the funds from that were made available to build these ships in place of one while Vanguard took the place of the other.

The design for the ships was an updated version of Renown with 8x13.5" in 4 twin turrets for each ship. The remaining two turrets being fitted into monitors. The hull was shorter and slightly narrower, due as much to the improvements in propulsion systems which allowed the same power in a smaller package. The minor armaments showed the realisation of the times that aircraft were being perceived more and more as the major threat rather than other capital ships. This is showed by the duties these two ships performed as fast escorts to the large aircraft carriers. For this task their dual-purpose and light AA armament was exemplary.

Original builders model of Tiger before final changes to armament placement and layout were made.

Back to Commonwealth Ships List