Q&A ยท 1:07:39-1:09:13

The unfulfilled autoloading King George V battery

The King George V class never received the imagined autoloaders that could have paired sixteen 14-inch guns with a very high rate of fire and smaller crews.

Question

Did the King George V-class battleships receive autoloaders for their main guns?

Short answer

No, although an ambitious concept paired autoloading quadruple 14-inch turrets with sixteen guns and a very high rate of fire.

Notes

The completed King George V-class ships did not receive main-battery autoloaders. The more ambitious concept imagined four quadruple 14-inch turrets with rapid mechanized loading and fewer gun crews. Sixteen guns firing at the hoped-for rate would produce a broadside effect comparable in rough weight to twelve 16-inch guns. The practical difficulty of making the quadruple mounts reliable prevented that theoretical advantage from becoming the class's reality.