The English battleships Nelson and Rodney occupy a special place in military history. When creating them, for the first time in world practice, the designers sought to fit colossal combat capabilities into a limited displacement. In itself, any warship is a compromise between the attempts of its creators to provide specified characteristics within a certain displacement, determined primarily by operational-tactical expediency, and the level of technology and finances. "Nelson" and "Rodney", built under the terms of the Washington Conference of 1922, even during the design period were recognized as mediocre ships that did not meet the requirements for a full-fledged battleship of the early 20s. Many experts were very skeptical about them, especially in anticipation of the end of the “battleship vacation,” when the 5 countries participating in this conference were supposed to begin building a new generation of battleships. However, after the outbreak of World War II, both ships turned out to be the most powerful and combat-ready battleships of the English fleet and until the end of 1940 they bore the brunt of the fight against German raiders. Even after the ships of the King George V class entered service, they continued to remain in the waters of the Metropolis, which was the priority theater of military operations for the English fleet.