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The Queen Elizabeth class battleships were five super-dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy, named in honour of Elizabeth I of England. They were majestic looking battleships that captured the imagination of much of the British public, symbols of the Royal Navy and Britannia's rule of the waves.

The Queen Elizabeths boasted an excellent combination of weaponry, armour and speed, indeed they were the first fast battleships. They completely dwarfed their German counterparts, such as the König and Bayern classes in almost every respect. They were the first battleships to be armed with the potent 15-inch guns, which indeed forced the Germans to alter the Bayern class armament from its original 12-inch guns to 15-inch.

This class was the brainchild of two men, Admiral Jackie Fisher, and Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. Churchill was paramount in getting the Queen Elizabeths off the drawing board and into the water; but he was also influenced in a number of decisions about the Queen Elizabeths by Lord Fisher, who had been persuaded to come out of retirement by Churchill.

They performed with distinction in World War I. At the battle of Jutland, four of the ships formed Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas's 5th Battle Squadron, and in the clash with the German scouting force under Admiral Franz von Hipper they "fired with extraordinary rapidity and accuracy" (according to Reinhard Scheer), sinking Lützow and severely damaging Seydlitz and a number of other German warships. Three of the Queen Elizabeths received a number of hits from German warships during the engagement, which reached into double figures, yet they all returned home, though Warspite had been heavily damaged, taking fifteen hits, coming close to foundering.

In World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough, the class also performed with distinction, though their age, and the increasing obsolescence of the battleshipThis article is about a battleship as a type of warship. See also Battleship (game). Dreadnought redirects here. See also Workers' Dreadnought. In naval history, battleships were the most heavily armed and armored warships afloat. In the mid- 20th century in the face of air power, was beginning to show. In November 19411941 is also the title of a Steven Spielberg movie made in 1979 see 1941 (film). Events January January 6 Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address. January 10 Lend-Lease is introduced into the United St, Barham was torpedoed and sunk in just five minutes, with the loss of over 800 of her crew.