with oil so after the first few hrs of an engagement they should be faster than many older BCs even if they haven't loaded with bad quality coal...
What about the bulbous bow to reduce drag?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulbous_bow
A
bulbous bow is a protruding bulb at the
bow (or front) of a ship just below the
waterline. The bulb modifies the way the water flows around the
hull, reducing
drag and thus increasing speed, range,
fuel efficiency, and stability. Large ships with bulbous bows generally have twelve to fifteen percent better fuel efficiency than similar vessels without them.
[1] A bulbous bow also increases the buoyancy of the forward part and hence reduces the pitching of the ship to a small degree.
Bulbous bows have been found to be most effective when used on vessels that meet the following conditions:
- the waterline length is longer than about 15 metres (49.2 ft)
- the vessel will operate most of the time at or near its maximum speed [2]
Thus, large vessels that cross large bodies of water near their best speed will benefit from a bulbous bow. This would include naval vessels, cargo ships, passenger ships, tankers and supertankers. All of these ships tend to be large and usually operate within a small range of speeds close to their top speed.
Models in the Discovery museum, Newcastle upon Tyne, England of several warships built in Newcastle during the last decade of the 19th century (notably in the yards of
William Armstrong) show bulbous bows. An illustration of the cruiser
USS Albany (launched 1899) which appears in the biography of Armstrong by Henrietta Heald (2010) appears to show a bulbous bow. It may be of relevance that Armstrong was a hydraulics engineer. The bow design did not initially enjoy wide acceptance, although it was used in the
Lexington-class battlecruiser to great success after the two ships of that class which survived the
Washington Naval Treaty were converted to
aircraft carriers.
[4] This lack of acceptance changed in the 1920s, with Germany's launching of
Bremen and
Europa. They were referred to as Germany's North Atlantic greyhounds, two large commercial
ocean liners that competed for the trans-Atlantic passenger trade. Both ships won the coveted
Blue Riband,
Bremen in 1929 with a crossing speed of 27.9 knots (51.7 km/h; 32.1 mph), and
Europa surpassing her in 1930 with a crossing speed of 27.91 knots.
[5]
The design began to be incorporated elsewhere, as seen in the U.S. built
SS Malolo,
SS President Hoover and
SS President Coolidge passenger liners launched in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Still the idea was largely viewed as experimental by many ship builders and owners.
In 1935 the French superliner
Normandie coupled a bulbous forefoot with massive size and a redesigned hull shape. She was able to achieve speeds in excess of 30 knots (56 km/h).
Normandie was famous for many things, including her clean entry into the water and markedly reduced bow wave.
Normandie's great rival, the British liner
Queen Mary, achieved equivalent speeds using traditional stem and hull design. However, a crucial difference was that
Normandie achieved these speeds with approximately thirty percent less engine power than
Queen Mary and a corresponding reduction in fuel use.