After the war, the Revenge class remained in service, surviving all of the naval arms limitation treaties but progressively becoming less and less capable as their machinery deteriorated. Two of the completed ships saw action at the Battle of Jutland. Only five of the ships would be completed as battleships once the First World War began two of the 1914 contracts were converted to battle cruisers before the ships had been laid down and the third was cancelled outright. Where the Queen Elizabeth class had been designed to form a “fast wing” of the battle fleet (though they did not meet their contract speed), the new battleships would revert to the fleet speed of 21 knots. The design represented a cheaper alternative to the Queen Elizabeth class built under the 1912 program, with the same main armament (eight 15-inch guns in four dual turrets) but on a smaller hull with much less expensive machinery. They would be spread over two fiscal years, with five funded under the 1913 program and three for 1914. Initial plans called for eight battleships, built as a single class both to save costs and to finally put the Royal Navy far ahead of the German High Seas Fleet in the so-called dreadnought race. Laid down during the last months before the outbreak of the Great War, the five battleships of the Revenge class (sometimes called the Royal Sovereign class, or the R class) would be the oldest British battleships to see action in the Second World War.

Revenge class heavy carrier