page_title: List of dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy
section_title: King George V class
hierarchical_section_title: List of dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy / King George V class
caption_attribution_description: British battleship HMS AJAX at anchor in Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta, 1921
context_page_description: This is a list of dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom.
  In 1907, before the revolution in design brought about by HMS Dreadnought of 1906, the United Kingdom had 62 battleships in commission or building, a lead of 26 over France and 50 over the German Empire. The launch of Dreadnought in 1906 prompted an arms race with major strategic consequences, as countries built their own dreadnoughts. Possession of modern battleships was not only vital to naval power, but also represented a nation's standing in the world. Germany, France, the Russian Empire, Japan, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and the United States all began dreadnought programmes; second-rank powers including the Ottoman Empire, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American shipyards.
  The Royal Navy at the start of the First World War was the largest navy in the world due, in the most part, to The Naval Defence Act 1889 and the two-power standard which called for the navy to maintain a number of battleships at least equal to the combined strength of the next two largest navies.
context_section_description: The King George V-class battleships, HMS King George V, HMS Centurion, HMS Audacious, and HMS Ajax, were larger variants of the preceding Orion-class "super-dreadnought." The four sisters used the same primary and secondary armament of the Orions, ten 45-calibre Mk V 13.5-inch (340 mm) main guns and 16 50-calibre Mk VII 4-inch (102 mm) secondary guns, and 12-inch (305 mm)-thick belt armour, but were longer at 597 feet 9 inches (182 m) and displaced 25,420 long tons (25,830 t). In addition, although the King George V class again retained the two Parsons steam turbines and their four shafts, they were faster than previous British battleships with a top speed of 22.9 kn (42.4 km/h; 26.4 mph) and enjoyed much-needed corrections in the arrangement of its funnels that made the spotting tops much easier to use.
  All four of the King George V-class ships were assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron on commission, King George V becoming the Squadron's flagship by 18 February 1913, but Centurion began her career early, accidentally ramming and sinking an Italian steamer with all hands. From 17 to 20 July 1914 the sister ships participated in the July Crisis test mobilisation and were shortly thereafter ordered to join the Home Fleet, soon the Grand Fleet, at Scapa Flow. On 27 October 1914, Audacious struck a mine while conducting a training mission off the coast of Ireland and sank with only one death, an officer from HMS Liverpool. King George V also went out of service for a brief time beginning in November 1914 because of a condenser malfunction. The surviving sisters participated in a sortie that set out to engage Franz von Hipper's raiding force after its attack on three coastal British towns in December 1914, but did not see combat. At the Battle of Jutland nearly two years later, the sisters did see combat but none of them fired more than 19 shells, all without effect due to poor visibility. The sisters participated in the Royal Navy's subsequent war time actions and were present at the surrender of the German fleet at Rosyth on 21 November 1918. Into early 1919, the sisters remained with the 2nd Squadron, until King George V was moved to the 3rd Squadron and then became the flagship of the Reserve Fleet until 1920 when the 3rd Squadron was disbanded. She was refitted and reassigned to the 4th Squadron the same year, then in 1923 became a gunnery training vessel before finally being sold for scrap in December 1926. Ajax met the same fate, but was sold for scrap on 9 November 1926. The last of the King George V-class ships, Centurion was converted into a target ship, but was remilitarised in 1941 with light weapons and dummy main guns. On 9 June 1944, she was sunk as a block ship to defend a mulberry harbor established on Omaha Beach.
caption: HMS Ajax
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