HMS Iron Duke

HMS Iron Duke

HMS Iron Duke

Britain

V Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
6.7	6.7	6.7

Class:

PREMIUM

Battleship

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Description

The HMS Iron Duke (18) is a member of the Iron Duke-class battleship family. She was the lead ship in her class and was named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Her keel was laid in January 1912 by Portsmouth Dockyard. The HMS Iron Duke was launched ten months later and commissioned into the Home Fleet as the fleet flagship in March 1914. During World War I, the HMS Iron Duke served as the Grand Fleet's flagship, including at the Battle of Jutland. Early in the main fleet action, she inflicted significant damage on the German battleship SMS König. She was relieved as fleet flagship in January 1917. Following the war, Iron Duke served as the Mediterranean Fleet's flagship in the Mediterranean. She took part in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in the Black Sea as well as the Greco-Turkish War. She also helped to evacuate refugees from Smyrna. She was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet in 1926 to serve as a training ship. She served in this capacity until the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, when she was moored as a harbour defense ship in Scapa Flow. She was badly damaged by German bombers in October and was run aground to avoid sinking. She continued to serve as an anti-aircraft platform throughout the war before being refloated and broken up for scrap in the late 1940s.

Introduced in Update "Kings of Battle", the HMS Iron Duke is one of the British Navy's very first battleships. The main armaments are distributed throughout the vessels in four turrets in a traditional layout. The HMS Iron Duke's armour protection is adequate, but it can be significantly improved by angling the armour to take advantage of her good main gun traverse arcs. Since the upper belt armour is thin, this is especially important when engaging other battleships. The HMS Iron Duke's greatest weakness is her lack of anti-aircraft armament. She has relatively thin deck armour, like almost all World War I ships, making her vulnerable to large bombs. For anti-aircraft protection, players should stick with other allies.

General info

Survivability and armour

Armourfront / side / back

Citadel152 / 305 / 25 mm

Main fire tower279 / 279 / 279 mm

Hull25 mm (steel)

Superstructure16 mm (steel)

Number of section11

Displacement31 400 t

Crew1 180 people

HMS Iron Duke, like other British battleships of this time period uses a distributed armour scheme. Her main main belt has a thickness of 12 inches, slightly angled to increase effectiveness. this falls off to 9 inches and then 8 inches on the hull, before finally ending with 6 inches on the secondary armour deck. The main belt will be resistant to most battleships of the rank, but the higher ranked ships like the SMS Bayern or IJN Fuso will be able to penetrate it at most ranges, and the lower armour above the main belt will be easily penetrated by all capital ships. Iron Duke has no dedicated torpedo protection, though it does have coal bunkers which can absorb some hits.

The turrets are fairly well armoured, though not to the extreme of something like the USS Nevada with her 18 inches of angled turret armour. HMS Iron Duke has 2 layers of turret armour, with the first coming in at 11 inches of armour, covering the front, rear and sides and a second 3-inch later contained within. This should be more than enough armor to stop most shells at anything but extremely close range. The top of the turrets also have multiple layers of armour, with both a 3-inch and 4-inch plate protecting from plunging fire. The turret barbette armour ranges from 9-10 inches, which unfortunately means that every battleship will easily be able to destroy the ammo elevators, though these won't explode when hit. The magazines are placed well below the waterline, and have multiple layers of deck armour to detonate plunging fire and shield the magazine from hits, with two 1-inch and a 1.25-inch plate providing ample protection.

Mobility

Speedforward / back

AB47 / 28 km/h

RB41 / 24 km/h

Write about the ship's mobility. Evaluate its power and manoeuvrability, rudder rerouting speed, stopping speed at full tilt, with its maximum forward and reverse speed.

Mobility Characteristics
Game Mode	Upgrade Status	Maximum Speed (km/h)		Turn Time (s)	Turn Radius (m)
		Forward	Reverse
AB	Stock	___	___
	Upgraded	47	28
RB/SB	Stock	___	___
	Upgraded	41	24

Modifications and economy

Repair cost

AB12 733

RB14 714

Crew training10 000

Experts1 280 000

Aces1 800

Research Aces1 550 000

Reward for battleAB / RB / SB

2 × 450 / 600 / 50 %

2 × 202 / 202 / 202 %

Modifications

Seakeeping	Unsinkability	Firepower
Dry-Docking Rudder Replacement Propeller Replacement Engine Maintenance	Damage Control Division Fire Division Shrapnel Protection Ventilation New Pumps Ammo Wetting	Anti-Air Armament Targeting 13.5 inch APC Mk.Ia 152mm_uk_navy_cpc_ammo_pack Auxiliary Armament Targeting 13.5 inch CPC Primary Armament Targeting 13.5 inch APC Mk.IIIa Improved Rangefinder

Armament

Primary armament

5 х Turret2 x 13.5 inch/45 Mark 5(H) cannon

Ammunition200 rounds

Vertical guidance-3° / 20°

Provide information about the characteristics of the primary armament. Evaluate their efficacy in battle based on their reload speed, ballistics and the capacity of their shells. Add a link to the main article about the weapon: {{main|Weapon name (calibre)}}. Broadly describe the ammunition available for the primary armament, and provide recommendations on how to use it and which ammunition to choose.

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		1,000 m	2,500 m	5,000 m	7,500 m	10,000 m	15,000 m
HE	HE	77	77	77	77	77	77
APC Mk.Ia	APCBC	554	510	447	395	352	294
CPBC	SAPCBC	300	276	242	214	190	159
APC Mk.IIIa	APCBC	591	545	478	422	376	314

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (s)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
HE	HE	759	635	0	0.1	88.11	79°	80°	81°
APC Mk.Ia	APCBC	759	635	0.025	20	22.22	48°	63°	71°
CPBC	SAPCBC	759	635	0.035	26	53.3	48°	63°	71°
APC Mk.IIIa	APCBC	759	639.6	0.025	20	14.1	48°	63°	71°

Secondary armament

12 х Turret6 inch/45 BL Mark VII cannon

Ammunition130 rounds

Some ships are fitted with weapons of various calibres. Secondary armaments are defined as weapons chosen with the control Select secondary weapon. Evaluate the secondary armaments and give advice on how to use them. Describe the ammunition available for the secondary armament. Provide recommendations on how to use them and which ammunition to choose. Remember that any anti-air armament, even heavy calibre weapons, belong in the next section. If there is no secondary armament, remove this section.

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		1,000 m	2,500 m	5,000 m	7,500 m	10,000 m	15,000 m
6 inch HE	HE	53	53	53	53	53	53
6 inch CPC	SAP	119	102	79	62	50	40

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (s)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
6 inch HE	HE	784	45.3	0	0.1	6.6	79°	80°	81°
6 inch CPC	SAP	784	45.3	0.035	7	3.4	47°	60°	65°

Anti-aircraft armament

2 х Turret4 in/45 QF Mark V cannon

Ammunition200 rounds

An important part of the ship's armament responsible for air defence. Anti-aircraft armament is defined by the weapon chosen with the control Select anti-aircraft weapons. Talk about the ship's anti-air cannons and machine guns, the number of guns and their positions, their effective range, and about their overall effectiveness – including against surface targets. If there are no anti-aircraft armaments, remove this section.

Additional armament

Setup 120 x 533 mm Mk.IV torpedo

Describe the available additional armaments of the ship: depth charges, mines, torpedoes. Talk about their positions, available ammunition and launch features such as dead zones of torpedoes. If there is no additional armament, remove this section.

Usage in battles

Describe the technique of using this ship, the characteristics of her use in a team and tips on strategy. Abstain from writing an entire guide – don't try to provide a single point of view, but give the reader food for thought. Talk about the most dangerous opponents for this vehicle and provide recommendations on fighting them. If necessary, note the specifics of playing with this vehicle in various modes (AB, RB, SB).

Pros and cons

Summarise and briefly evaluate the vehicle in terms of its characteristics and combat effectiveness. Mark its pros and cons in the bulleted list. Try not to use more than 6 points for each of the characteristics. Avoid using categorical definitions such as "bad", "good" and the like - use substitutions with softer forms such as "inadequate" and "effective".

Pros:

Cons:

History

Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the ship in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the ship and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Ship-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />. This section may also include the ship's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === In-game description ===, also if applicable).

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

Links to articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the series of the ship;
• links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.

External links

• [Devblog] Battleships HMS Iron Duke and IJN Yamashiro!

Portsmouth Royal Dockyard
Frigates
Leopard-class	HMS Leopard
Heavy Cruisers
County-class	HMS London
Battleships
Unique ships	HMS Dreadnought
Orion-class	HMS Orion
Iron Duke-class	HMS Iron Duke

Britain battleships
	HMS Dreadnought*
Colossus-class	HMS Colossus
Orion-class	HMS Orion
Iron Duke-class	HMS Iron Duke · HMS Marlborough
	* Unique ship

Britain premium ships
Motor torpedo boats	MTB-1(2) · MTB-422 · Fairmile D (5001) · HMS Gay Archer
Motor gun boats	MGB-75 · SGB Grey Goose
Gunboats	HMS Spey
Sub-chasers	LÉ Orla
Frigates	HMS Whitby
Destroyers	HMS Montgomery · HMS Valhalla · HMS Verdun · ORP Garland · HMS Jervis · HMCS Haida · HMS Mohawk · HMS Cadiz · HMS Diamond
Light cruisers	HMS Belfast
Battleships	HMS Iron Duke