Renown

HMS Renown (BC-1916 )

Original HMS Renown of 1916. That long thin strip of armour showing on the hull is only six inches thick. It is not until the 1920's that it is replaced with a 9" belt. It should have been replaced with an even thicker belt of 11-12 inches.

The two Renown class battlecruisers were originally part of the R type battleship class. With Admiral Fisher at the Admiralty he had two of the R type battleships redesigned to get 15" guns to sea in battlecruisers. The original design shows a ship with 3 twin 15" with a long lean hull for maximum speed. What always amazed me is that an enlarged Queen Elizabeth design was not preferred. Longer and leaner QE hull with the same 4 turret arrangement and boilers rooms and engine rooms for 110,000shp for 28-29 knots in place of the 75,000shp for 25 knots. Armour reduced from 13" side to 11" to allow for the enlarged area to cover. This should give a reduced sized Hood with the same armament but less speed by 2-3 knots. The amount of propulsion required to get that extra 2-3 knots is the difference in size between Hood and Renown in my ships (144,000shp for Hood for 31 knots on 42,000 tons standard). In the Fisherless RN the battlecruiser disappears and fast battleships of ever growing size replace them.

My New drawing of HMS Renown is based on the real Renown class hull. These six Admiral class ships replace not only the Renown class, but also the three Courageous class, and four Admiral (Hood) class. Four would be completed as fast battleships (rather than battlecruisers) and the last two uncompleted hulls converted to aircraft carriers (see Lord Kitchener).

Building a completely new class means that I can not get any supporting photos to show what the ship might look like. I also figure that if the Renown type proved ok in service, would they need to go to an enlarged Hood or just order more Renowns? If their were leftover hulls from the extra Renowns would they be better to convert to aircraft carriers than Agincourt/Van Diemen or Eagle which were less than 700 feet and much slower.

Displacement	32,500 tons std, 39,440 tons full load
Length	801.5 ft
Breadth	92 ft
Draught	31 ft
Machinery	4 shaft geared turbines, 120,000shp
Speed	30 knots
Range	6500 at 16 knots
Armour	11" side, 5.5" deck, 11" turrets
Armament	8 x 15" (4x2) 16 x 5.25" (8x2) 64 x 2pd (8x8) 16 x 40mm (16x1)
Aircraft	nil
Torpedoes	nil
Complement	1400
Notes	HMS Repulse 08/1916 HMS Renown 09/1916 HMS Hood 11/1918 HMS Howe 01/1919 HMS Kitchener (conv to CV) HMS Gambier (Conv to CV)

Above and Below: HMS Repulse showing triple LA 4" with single 4" AA outside B 15" turret

The old drawing is based on a reduced Admiral class hull.

Repulse and Renown proved to be excellent investments and well worth spending the money on to rebuild them during the 1930's. One of the early classes to be rebuilt these ships closely followed the King George Battleships in their layout with a 5.25" dual purpose armament replacing the mish-mash of single 4" AA and triple 4" low angle weapons. Enhanced AA weaponry with 40mm single mounts replacing the single and twin 20mm fitted to other ships. New propulsion of slightly more power to keep the speed at 30 knots on a slightly heavier tonnage was fitted. New deck armour cured one of the ships major concerns over plunging fire.

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