23 RODNEY AND NELSON (SEAFORTH PUBLISHING).pdf

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Copyright © Seaforth Publishing 2015
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Seaforth Publishing,
An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church Street, Barnsley,
S Yorkshire S70 2AS
www.seaforthpublishing.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP data record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-84832-219-6
PDF ISBN: 978-1-84832-372-8
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-84832-371-1
PRC ISBN: 978-1-84832-370-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system, without either prior permission in writing from the publisher or a
licence permitting restricted copying.
Typeset and designed by Stephen Dent
Printed by Printworks Global Ltd, London & Hong Kong
Title Page: A fine starboard profile of
Nelson
about 1934, flying the flag of Commander-in Chief,
Home Fleet.
Nelson
was the fleet flagship for virtually the whole of her inter-war career, from
1927 to 1939.
(National Maritime Museum N00920)
CONTENTS
Design
Career Highlights
Model Products
Modelmakers’ Showcase
Camouflage Schemes
Appearance
Plans
Selected References
Design
‘…Another squint through the binoculars…No. It couldn’t be true. I looked
again, straining hard. Surely I must be wrong. Someone muttered ‘Heaven
next stop’. I realised that my guess was right. There were only two ships in
the world that even remotely resembled the foremost of the two strangers –
the giant battleships
Nelson
or
Rodney!’
(ADC Ulrich Mohr,
German Raider
Atlantis,
18 May 1941)
As attested to by Ulrich Mohr as he stood transfixed in horror on the bridge
of the raider
Atlantis,
the British battleships
Rodney
and
Nelson
were, and
still are, the most instantly recognisable battleships in history. Britain’s only
dreadnoughts to carry 16in guns, possessors of a unique silhouette with three
main gun turrets all grouped forward and a massive control tower amidships,
the two sisters could never be mistaken for any other battleship. From a
viewpoint nearly a century later where we are used to the sleek and modern
looking battleships that came after them, they appear old-fashioned,
ponderous, perhaps even ugly, but that impression overlooks what they really
were. Brilliantly innovative in concept and design, unmatched by their
contemporaries, and superior to most battleships that came after them, HMS
Rodney
and HMS
Nelson
are among the most successful battleships ever
constructed.
Although victorious in the Great War, the Royal Navy in 1919 faced the
prospect of being outgunned by new ships building in the US and Japan. A
reluctant Admiralty turned its attention to building new battle-cruisers and
battleships that would be far in advance of anything even remotely proposed
by any rival navy in terms of main armament, armour, and speed. The
innovative team of battleship design chief E L Attwood and his deputy
Stanley Goodall came up with the novel idea to concentrate all the armament
forward. This allowed the ship’s vital areas of main armament, magazines,
machinery, and boilers to be grouped together, reducing the length of the
armoured citadel and providing the key to supplying adequate armour
protection.
The legendary 48,000-ton ‘G3’ battle-cruisers with nine 16in guns and the
equally legendary 48,000-ton ‘N3’ battleships with nine 18in guns were the
result. Both designs were far and away the best dreadnoughts of their time;

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