Armstrong Designs No. 811 & No. 812
Submitted November 18, 1915

In mid 1915, thought was being given to the next generation of battlecruisers. Jackie Fisher resigned as First Sea Lord in May 1915, and with him went the design trend towards very lightly built, weakly protected, but exceptionally fast big-gun ships. While Renown and Repulse were a return to the first generation type battlecruiser, and Courageous, Glorious, and Furious were an evolutionary sidebar, the proposals for the next class of battlecruisers would be more like those for the Lion and Tiger classes.

Armstrong drew up four battlecruiser designs toward the end of 1915, the first of which reflected current thinking, and the realities of the current conflict. Wartime experience had shown the need for more freeboard, so the low-slung lines of the Renown class were not repeated, and the deck height above the water was similar to Lion. The speed of the new designs was only slightly faster then the Lion and Tiger classes, abandoning the 30+ knot speed of the following ships in favor of increased armor. Small tube boilers were included in the designs, as were 6-inch guns in armored turrets, something which would not appear until the Nelson Class.

This design looks very much like an evolutionary step from the second generation battlecruisers, the Lion and Tiger classes. Protection was to be similar to them alsi, with a return to the 9-inch main belt. Nor would protection be limited to just the waterline, as citadel and upper belt armor would return in a classic incremental armor scheme; there would be no unbroken lines of portholes along a thinly-plated hull, as in Renown.

Like most incremental armor designs, the protection scheme was rather complex. The main belt would be 9 inches between the inner edges of A and X barbettes, 6 inches across the barbettes and about out to the ends of the gun barrels, and then 4 inches until the steering gear aft and halfway up the forecastle forward. Upper deck belt armor would stretch between the front of B turret to past the back of Y turret. The barbettes were to be 10 inches on the sides, tapering to 6 inches at the front and backs, while slimming to 4 and then 3 inches as they dropped down below decks. The turrets would be the standard mounts used on other 15-inch ships, with the same protection, while the secondary guns would have 6 inch barbettes. The conning tower would have a 12-inch face.

Horizontal armor was also complex. The lower deck would be 2 inches forward, and 2.5 inches aft. The deck turned down in the classic 'turtle deck,' with the protective slope varying from 1 inch in non-vital areas to 2.5 inches abreast the magazines. The main deck was 1 inch, the upper deck 2 inches, and the forecastle deck 2 inches.

Underwater protection involved a double hull bottom continued up to the main belt, and backed with two bulkheads of .75 inches, thickened around the magazines.

Overall, this looks like a fairly balanced design, with a good blend of proven firepower, more speed than a Queen Elizabeth Class battleship, and better protection than any previous battlecruiser. Though on par with Kongo, the level of protection was still insufficient to allow the design to engage enemy capital ships, especially considering that the Germans had not only gone from the 11 to the 12 inch main weapon, but were already building the 14-inch gunned Mackensens.

An alternate design, Design 812, was also drawn up. This design would have looked very much like Design 811, but would have been rather different. Protection was more on par with Fisher's Follies, with the main belt being only 6 inches thick. The main battery was reduced to 14-inch guns, and the secondary battery was reduced by 4 guns. Speed also decreased, and about the only thing that this unbalanced design had going for it was that it would have been far less expensive to build, being 5,000 tons smaller.

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