Triple-expansion engines, speed, and range

Lord Nelson's dimensions and machinery reflect competing design priorities. Her shorter hull, similar beam, and shallower draught suited a design intended for closer-range manoeuvre. Fifteen Babcock and Wilcox water-tube boilers fed two triple-expansion engines, producing 16,750 indicated horsepower, 18 knots, and a quoted range of 9,180 nautical miles at 10 knots. Dreadnought's 18 boilers and two turbine sets produced 23,000 shaft horsepower and 21 knots, enough to help dictate engagement range, but her radius of action was substantially shorter. The comparison explains why Lord Nelson could still have been valuable on distant stations had the all-big-gun experiment gone differently. A conspiracy theory that Admiral Fisher deliberately hamstrung the class is unnecessary to explain its performance because the ships' machinery figures already account for the difference.