Lord Nelson Class Battleship (1906)

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Fire Control Systems

The general system of wiring between the TSes is illustrated in Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914.[1]

Rangefinders

Evershed Bearing Indicators

Installed by late 1914, these ship appear to have had but a single transmitter with all-around training, addressing the fore and aft turrets as receiving stations.[2]

Gunnery Control

The ship's guns were organized in 3 groups:[3]

  1. Two 12-in turrets
  2. Starboard 9.2-in turrets
  3. Port 9.2-in turrets

Local Control in Turrets

There was no provision in these ships for local turret control wherein the receivers in the turret could be driven by transmitters in the officer's position at the back of the turret.[4]

Directors

These ships never received directors for main or secondary batteries.[5]

Torpedo Control

Transmitting Stations

These ships had fore and aft TSes.[6]

A C.O.S. allowed control options of

  1. Fore
  2. After
  3. Separate

Each control group had Barr and Stroud Mark II transmitters with a pair of receivers, one wired directly to the transmitter as a tell-tale, and the other fed off the wires going to the distant guns (i.e., the aft guns for the fore TS and vice-versa) as a repeat. "These repeat receivers are necessary to keep the idle transmitters in step; when changing back from separate control they are required to enable both halves of the group to be set alike before being paralleled on to one transmitter."[7]

Dreyer Table

These ships never received Dreyer tables.[8]

Fire Control Instruments

By late 1909, these ships were equipped with Barr and Stroud Mark II equipment for range, orders and deflection.[9]

The Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909 lists the Barr and Stroud Mark II equipment on this class as:[10]

  • Combined Range, Order, Deflection: 8 transmitters, 32 receivers
  • Group Switches: 4
  • Rate: 4 transmitters, 12 receivers

Additionally, this class had the following Graham fire control equipment:[11]

  • Turret fire gongs: 22 with 8 keys (pushes in lamp box; 16 keys in Lord Nelson)
  • Fire Gongs: none
  • Captain's Cease Fire Bells: 14 with 1 key

This was the first battleship class in the Royal Navy to have Target Visible and Gun Ready signals, with indications of which turret could see the target and which guns were ready being visible in the TSes and control positions.[12]

See Also

Footnotes

  1. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914, p. 50 & Plates 50 and 54(I).
  2. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914, pp. 39-40.
  3. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914, p. 8.
  4. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914, p. 50.
  5. Director Firing Handbook, 1917, pp. 142-3.
  6. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914, p. 50 & Plates 50 and 54(I).
  7. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914, pp. 50-1.
  8. Handbook of Capt. F.C. Dreyer's Fire Control Tables, p. 3.
  9. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909, p. 56.
  10. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909, p. 58.
  11. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909, p. 58.
  12. Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914, p. 11.

Bibliography

Admiralty, Gunnery Branch (1910). Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1909. Copy No. 173 is Ja 345a at Admiralty Library, Portsmouth, United Kingdom. Admiralty, Gunnery Branch (1914). Handbook for Fire Control Instruments, 1914. G. 01627/14. C.B. 1030. Copy 1235 at The National Archives. ADM 186/191. Template:BibUKDirectorFiringHandbook1917 Template:BibUKDreyerTableHandbook1918 Template:Lord Nelson Class (1906)