HMS King George V. 1979

A speculative (fictional) plan drawing of HMS King George V, if she had survived into the late 1970s.

Laid down in 1937 and launched in 1939 HMS King George V was one of five 'King George V class', battleships belonging to the Royal Navy. This class was designed to conform to the international London Naval Treaty which limited the size of battleships to 35,000 tons and their armaments to 14 inch guns.

HMS Prince of Wales was sunk near Singapore in 1941, but the other four ships in the class, HMS King George V, HMS Duke of York, HMS Howe and HMS Anson all survived the war. At some point in the early 1950s there was military interest in converting the remaining ships into missile cruisers (likely connected to the Royal Navy's UB.109T cruise missile project which was was cancelled in 1953)
Sadly however this came to nothing, and these ships were all scrapped in 1957-58.

My design is of a survivor, refitted in the late 1970s and ready for a quiet cruise to the South Atlantic, circa 1982.

She retains eight of her 14 inch guns, whilst her B turret has been replaced with six Exocet anti-ship missile launchers. Her anti-aircraft armament consists of sixteen fully automatic 3 inch guns in eight turrets, four quadruple Seacat missile launchers and four 20 mm Oerlikon autoguns on single mounts. I have also completely revamped her communications and radar package and made changes to her upper works.

Much of the modern elements of this ship are enlarged from drawings from Shipbucket (a great resource for amateur ship designers) [link]

King George V ship and class info.
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