However, when the war broke out, it became obvious that the two Lion-class warships wouldn’t be ready until 1943 at the earliest. The Royal Navy had originally sought to build two Lion-class battleships that were essentially improved and larger versions of the King George V-class.
It was an attempt to make all older ships essentially obsolete, but technology had reached a point where size wasn’t all that mattered.ĭevelopment of more powerful battleships began in earnest when the British military believed it would be outnumbered by the combined German and Japanese battleship fleets. The British reacted accordingly – as they had always done in such situations – and set out to build a larger and even more powerful warship. Yet, by the late 1930s, Britain’s Royal Navy had been surpassed by both the Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany as each had built even more powerful warships. It was a tradition that dated back to the HMS Victory, commissioned in 1778, and then with HMS Warrior (1860) and most notably with the development of HMS Dreadnought in 1906. Prior to the Second World War, the Royal Navy had been able to maintain its dominance over rival navies both in sheer numbers, but also in having the most advanced warships of the era.
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