Iron Duke class

Hello everyone!

With Eswube blanketing us with one megapost full of airplanes after another, I thought I might blanket us in some battleships for a change

. It probably looks like more work than it actually was, because the individual differences between the four ships are quite minute, as far as I could find them anyway.

Iron Duke class battleships - HMS Iron Duke, HMS Marlborough, HMS Benbow and HMS Emperor of India.

Iron Duke was completed late in 1913 and the only one fitted with torpedo nets, which however were removed after trials. Her 152mm guns were found to be extremely wet, so she and the other ships of the class were fitted with hinged doors for them, which however were too flimsy and constantly washed away.
[ img ]

Marlborough - like Iron Duke - ran her trials without the rangefinder on the bridge; she could be told from the class ship by not even having the RF platform.
[ img ]

Benbow was identical to Marlborough as completed; there is no photographic evidence she ever was painted in charcoal. The picture shows her in Battleship Grey with her RF already in place and additional bulwarks added abreast the CT.
[ img ]

Emperor of India was commissioned last and the only one in her class without a stern walk. Otherwise she bore no distinguishing features (to my eye anyway).
[ img ]

Trials had established not only the uselessness of the hinged shutters in front of the 152mm guns, but also of the aft 152mm gun mount, which was so close to the water it was near permanently washed out. It was removed and the gun installed in a new, unarmoured casemate on the weatherdeck above the aft end of the battery. The shutters were removed from all 152mm positions, and internal modifications were made to get them dry; this problem was however never solved in a satisfying way. First service experiences resulted in cutting down the topgallant mast and repainting the whole class in battleship grey. Iron Duke briefly carried an experimental camouflage paintjob late in 1914 or early in 1915.
[ img ]

At Jutland, three of the class were present; Emperor Of India was under refit and missed out. Iron Duke had by that time replaced the RF on her CT with a full-fledged director and one of her searchlights on either side of the bridge with a secondary director, respectively.
[ img ]

Marlborough and Benbow had also received secondary directors, but two levels higher, and retained their full complement of searchlights. Marlborough was torpedoed amidships at Jutland, but sustained the damage very well and was quickly repaired.
[ img ]

After Jutland, more substantial modifications were implemented. Apart from additional armour protection, they received enlarged spotting tops with an additional position directly below the starfish, larger and re-arranged searchlights, modifications to their bridge structure and range scales on turrets B and X. All four looked very similar, the distinguishing features from Marlborough
[ img ]

being Iron Duke's slightly different bridge arrangement with the secondary directors placed lower,
[ img ]

Benbow's differently shaped boxy spotting top
[ img ]

and Emperor of India's still missing sternwalk.
[ img ]

By 1918, all four had received flying-off platforms on turrets B and Q and further improvements in the bridge layout; the aft superstructure also was slightly modified. High W/T spreaders were added on the aft superstructure on all except Emperor of India, which in turn was the only one to be fitted with a funnel cap (which seems to have made little difference because it was soon removed).
[ img ]

Iron Duke's bridge structure was still different from the others, the difference made more pronounced by moving the RF to a new heightened platform.
[ img ]

Benbow could still be identified by her uniquely shaped spotting top.
[ img ]

Marlborough was - at that time - unique by not having any unique features not shared by at least one other unit in the class.
[ img ]

After the war, further modifications were made to the bridge; all were now fitted as flagships. The fore topgallant was fitted again (although it was not quite as high as before the war) and a light mainmast was erected on the aft superstructure, with the rigging accordingly altered. The rangefinders on Marlborough, Benbow and Emperor of India were now also mounted on a raised platform,
[ img ]

which was however of a different shape as on Iron Duke.
[ img ]

The flying-off platforms were no longer operational in 1923 on all four; on Marlborough, the one on Turret B was removed altogether.
[ img ]

Emperor of India finally had a sternwalk fitted.
[ img ]

All four were assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet in the immediate postwar years and painted light grey; range scales and range clocks disappeared soon after the war.

All four returned to the Atlantic fleet in the late twenties and received the interwar dark blue-grey paintjob, but their time was by then running out. Benbow was struck in 1928, Marlborough and Emperor of India in 1931, respectively; only Iron Duke was retained as a TV. During her last years as a battleship, Iron Duke had the last twin searchlights on the bridge and the flying-off platform on Turret B removed and a raised platform with a RF installed on the aft superstructure.
[ img ]

Marlborough had been fitted with a unique piece of additional superstructure aft, including a different searchlight arrangement, plus an additional pair of HA guns abreast the CT, which none of the others had received. She also was the only one of the class which had both flying-off platforms removed.
[ img ]

Benbow and Emperor of India were little altered after 1923.
[ img ]

By late 1932, only Iron Duke was left, serving as a training vessel; in accordance with the LNT, her armour and two of her heavy turrets had been removed, as was the enclosed platform beneath her starfish. Her spotting top was altered and now resembled Benbow's. Two 120mm HA guns were fitted aft for training purposes.
[ img ]

In the late thirties, she was used as a testbed for the new 133mm DP turret, one of which was mounted on a newly erected superstructure aft instead of the 120mm guns. The aft RF was replaced with a HA director.
[ img ]

I don't know if she still carried the 133mm turret when she was severely damaged by German bombers in Scapa Flow late in 1939; she was beached and served for the rest of the war as a stationary AA battery, with unspecified AA armament added, subject to availability. She was scrapped immediately after the second world war.

Greetings
GD

Shipbucket

Who is online