Say hello to HMS Lion! While Vanguard was Britain’s last true battleship, Lion was planned to be their ultimate final design. While she was never fully built, she was laid down, so we’re happy to welcome her to War Thunder!
HMS Lion: A Battleship for Britain at Rank VII
At a glance:
Nine 406 mm cannons!
Effective protection
Powerful AP rounds
Decent speed for a battleship
Today we’re covering HMS Lion, a design that was set to become Britain’s most powerful battleship. She’s a real monster, so let’s take a look at what makes her special!
HMS Lion is a fairly classic battleship in terms of playstyle, her cannons are powerful and she’s well protected, so as usual engaging at long range is ideal. The main element to keep in mind is that you should be aiming to slightly angle your armor towards your target. A slight angle can meaningfully improve your survivability, but be careful not to overangle — angling too heavily means your enemy can potentially bypass your belt armor entirely and punch through to your magazine. As with most Battleships, Lion’s guns traverse very slowly, so avoid sailing into the middle of combat, and try to position yourself so that the majority of enemies will remain in front of your guns at all times.
Lion is protected from the air by six octuple 40 mm mounts along with sixteen 133 mm dual-purpose guns. While these guns will have very limited use against armored ships, they come with HE shells with a proximity fuse, which are great at bringing down aircraft.
HMS Lion was planned to be equipped with the improved 16 Inch/45 BL Mk II cannon, which is set to become the most powerful naval cannon in the British tree! This cannon is essentially an improvement of the 16 Inch/45 BL Mk I cannon found on HMS Rodney and Nelson. Its performance is improved across the board, combining high penetration with over 25kg of explosive mass, rivaling Yamato in regards to explosive filler! These cannons will be able to batter top battleships at most ranges, causing a heap of damage if they penetrate into critical areas.
Developer Comment: HMS Lion will be joining War Thunder in the 1938 planned fit as overall it’s the best version for the game. Later designs called for lengthening the hull and modifying the bow, improving air defense capabilities, and revising the mine protection system. These changes would have resulted in a significant increase in displacement, necessitating a reduction in armor and a decrease in speed. Because of this, the earlier 1938 fit is essentially the most effective version for War Thunder so she’ll be arriving in this form, we hope you like her!
HMS Lion was born from the collapse of the interwar naval treaty. When Japan refused to sign the Second London Naval Treaty on March 25th 1936, the caliber limit on new battleships was raised to 16 inches, and a further escalation clause raised the permitted tonnage to 45,000. As a result, the British Admiralty set to design a new class of battleship capped at 40,000 tons, the maximum displacement British dockyards were able to accommodate. Lion was formally ordered on February 28th 1939 and was laid down several months later on July 4th, only eight weeks before Britain entered World War 2.
The war immediately staggered her construction, and work was suspended on October 3rd 1939. This suspension was briefly lifted sometime after, but was paused again in May 1940. By this point only 218 tons of steel had been assembled. In November 1940, the Admiralty ordered Lion's steel to be transferred to HMS Vanguard, the stopgap battleship designed around spare 15-inch turrets from decommissioned battlecruisers.
From this point Lion was kept alive on the drawing board, several design revisions were proposed to incorporate wartime lessons. These later designs outlined a widened beam, deeper torpedo protection, increased range and the removal of Lion’s aircraft. Further design revisions continued into the latter years of the war, proposing thicker armor, heavier anti-air, and additional torpedo protection, but each of these designs pushed the displacement far beyond what was feasible for British shipyards. In Autumn 1945 the order for the Lion class was formally canceled, and development of Lion’s 16 inch guns was aborted in 1949, marking the end of British big-gun development for good. In every meaningful sense, Lion was the last battleship Britain ever truly planned to build.
That’s it for this blog on HMS Lion! Set to be a beastly battleship, she’ll be a worthy addition to your Naval lineups. Until the next dev blog, see you around!
Please note that vehicle specifications may be subject to revision and change before being added to the game.