War Thunder Reveals HMS Lion: Britain's Rank VII Battleship

War Thunder has revealed HMS Lion, a battleship design that was set to become Britain's most powerful ever built. Announced through the game's official devblog under the tagline "One Last Roar," Lion arrives at Rank VII of the British naval tree — notably, she was laid down but never completed in real life, making this one of War Thunder's paper-design additions rather than a ship that saw active service.

At a Glance

• Nine 406 mm cannons
• Effective protection
• Powerful AP rounds
• Decent speed for a battleship

Using It in Battle

HMS Lion plays like a fairly classic battleship: powerful guns, solid armor, and a clear preference for long-range engagements. Gaijin's own guidance is to angle armor slightly toward the target rather than sailing in flat-on — a moderate angle meaningfully improves survivability, but overdoing it risks letting enemy shells skip past the belt armor entirely and punch straight through to the magazine. Like most battleships, Lion's guns traverse slowly, so the developers recommend staying out of the middle of a brawl and positioning so most enemies stay in front of the guns rather than needing a full turret swing to respond.

Anti-air coverage comes from six octuple 40 mm mounts and sixteen 133 mm dual-purpose guns. The 133 mm guns won't do much against armored targets, but they fire proximity-fused HE shells that are genuinely effective at knocking down aircraft.

Feature Spotlight: The 406 mm BL Mk II Cannon

Lion's main armament is the improved 16 Inch/45 BL Mk II — set to be the strongest naval cannon in the British tree once she arrives. It's built as an upgrade over the 16 Inch/45 BL Mk I already in the game on HMS Rodney and Nelson, with across-the-board performance gains. The standout figure is explosive filler: over 25 kg per shell, putting it in the same range as Yamato's famously heavy-hitting rounds. At most engagement ranges, these guns should be able to batter other top-tier battleships and do serious damage on any shell that finds a critical area.

Developer Comment: Why the 1938 Fit

Gaijin is bringing Lion into the game in her 1938 planned configuration specifically because it's the strongest version for how the game plays. Later design revisions called for a lengthened hull, a modified bow, better air defense, and an improved mine protection system — but all of that would have added enough displacement to force cuts to armor and speed elsewhere. The 1938 fit avoids that trade-off entirely, which is why Gaijin picked it as Lion's in-game form.

As with any devblog reveal, treat the stats and loadout above as a strong preview rather than a locked spec sheet — Gaijin explicitly notes vehicle specifications may still change before Lion is actually added to the game.

The Real HMS Lion

Lion's design traces back to the collapse of the interwar naval treaty system. When Japan refused to sign the Second London Naval Treaty in March 1936, the caliber cap on new battleships rose to 16 inches, and an escalation clause pushed the permitted tonnage up to 45,000 tons. In response, the British Admiralty designed a new class capped at 40,000 tons — the maximum British dockyards could actually handle. Lion was ordered in February 1939 and laid down that July, just eight weeks before Britain entered the Second World War.

Construction stalled almost immediately. Work was suspended in October 1939, briefly resumed, then paused again in May 1940 with only 218 tons of steel assembled. By November 1940, the Admiralty redirected Lion's steel toward HMS Vanguard, the stopgap battleship built around spare 15-inch turrets from decommissioned battlecruisers. From there, Lion lived on only as a series of paper redesigns incorporating wartime lessons — a wider beam, deeper torpedo protection, and eventually thicker armor and heavier anti-air — but each revision pushed displacement further past what British shipyards could realistically build. The Lion class was formally cancelled in autumn 1945, and development of her 16-inch guns was abandoned in 1949, closing the book on British big-gun battleship development for good. In every practical sense, Lion was the last battleship Britain ever seriously planned to build.

Fast-Tracking the Research

Alongside the reveal, Gaijin is offering an HMS Nelson Pack to help speed up Lion's eventual research grind. It includes:

• HMS Nelson (Great Britain, Rank VI)
• 30 days of Premium account
• 3,000 Golden Eagles

For more on recent War Thunder naval and ground devblog reveals, GameMarket.gg's M7 coverage breaks down a recent American vehicle reveal, and the Heavy Cavalry update recap covers the broader patch cycle these reveals are building toward.

Want to be ready for HMS Lion when she lands? Browse verified War Thunder accounts with the British naval tree already researched, book War Thunder hourly services to push RP toward Rank VII faster, or check War Thunder boosting to skip the research grind entirely.

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