A Historical Possibility: Triple Turret Potentiality (Comment Response)

A proposed Orion-style battleship uses triple mounts, with a 14-inch game model standing in for 13.5-inch guns.

The King Jupiter design tests British triple turrets in a conventional arrangement as an alternative to the all-forward layout.

The central counterfactual is a Queen Elizabeth class with triple 15-inch turrets and a much heavier broadside.

No permission is likely, so the photograph's source must be traced and corroborated through accessible records.

It maximizes forward firepower, a preference tied here to long-running Royal Navy thinking and Dreadnought's design.

A detailed viewer comment compares British 13.5-inch shell weights with American 14-inch ammunition and considers the logistical effect on earlier ships.

It is plausible because a working prototype could test and demonstrate a sales design, but archival confirmation is still needed.

They affect beam, but separating machinery and magazines can simplify the protected internal layout and offset part of the penalty.

Historical beam figures and machinery output provide scale checks for the wider, faster triple-turret alternatives.

Boiler output appears less limiting than turret manufacture, and the same reform coalition could make semi-oil or oil firing plausible.

Their main benefit may be strategic rather than tactical, and extra speed alone would not necessarily change Jellicoe's torpedo response.

Family notes suggesting that a triple-turret possibility appeared in a 1907 constructors course provide a research lead, with their meaning still unconfirmed.

The alternative design tests how much speed is needed before a powerful dreadnought becomes a true fast battleship.

Queen Elizabeth would likely still adopt 15-inch guns, potentially twelve of them, with the experience then shaping the Revenge and later King George V designs.

A 28-knot Queen Elizabeth with twelve 15-inch guns would outclass contemporary battle lines and intensify pressure for larger American and British capital ships.

A 1907 American proposal for a 30,000-ton battleship with six triple turrets shows how far contemporary all-forward-firepower ideas could reach.

The detailed mechanism is uncertain, but destroyers tried the tactic in both world wars and most survived.

A Japanese connection is possible, and the 14-inch identification is more convincing than the handwritten 1909 date.

A Fuso-class example shows how the calibre-length convention makes a 14-inch gun substantially longer than a 12-inch weapon and complicates multi-turret hull arrangements.

Several navies were already pursuing triple mounts, but an early British move could produce an especially large broadside advantage over Germany.

Supplier records, material investigations, and possible speculative test mountings offer ways to trace undocumented British triple-turret work.

Yes. Blast interference and shell dispersion were real design concerns, and staggered firing was one way navies sought to reduce them.

Germany might follow, while Britain's greater industrial capacity and naval funding would support a faster change.

No. The design keeps it light because heavily armoured conning towers are considered a poor use of protection weight.

Yes. Barrow and its associated archives are a promising route, potentially through the museum or BAE Systems.

Not necessarily. The larger mounting could accept Royal Navy 13.5-inch guns and might even provide extra elevation margin.

Both conversions are plausible in principle, with the original larger mounting providing room for heavier twin guns.

The alternative all-forward battleships retain a turtleback scheme because all-or-nothing armour lies outside the period design options being tested.

A compact mount trades some independence for space and armour, and can still include auxiliary systems to preserve a degree of redundancy.

Possible Vickers, Armstrong, Russian, and Japanese design records offer routes for testing the historical basis of early triple mounts.