They were developments of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, with reductions in size and speed to offset increases in the armour protection whilst retaining the same main battery of eight 15-inch (381 mm) guns.

Completed in late 1917, Ramillies saw no combat during the war as both the British and the German fleets had adopted a more cautious strategy by this time owing to the increasing threat of naval mines and submarines.

Whilst serving in the Mediterranean and Black Seas in the early 1920s, the ship went to Turkey twice in response to crises arising from the Greco-Turkish War, including the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922.

The ship was updated for coastal bombardment duties in 1944, which she performed later that year during the Normandy landings in June and the invasion of southern France in August.

Still under construction, the ships were redesigned to employ oil-fired boilers that increased the power of the engines by 9,000 shaft horsepower (6,700 kW) over the original specification.

A pair of octuple mounts for 2-pounder (40 mm (1.6 in)) Mk VIII "pom-pom"s were added on platforms abreast the funnel and directors for them were fitted on the foremast.

A pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers 0.5 in (12.7 mm) AA machineguns were added abreast the conning tower and the mainmast was reconstructed as a tripod to support the weight of the second HACS.

A pair of four-barrel "pom-poms" were added in late 1941 atop 'B' and 'X' turrets as well as ten 20 mm Oerlikon cannon that replaced the quadruple .50-caliber mounts.

Ramillies and the rest of the Grand Fleet sortied on 24 April once they intercepted wireless signals from the damaged Moltke, but the Germans were too far ahead of the British, and no shots were fired.

Ramillies accidentally collided with the German steamship Eisenach in a gale in the Strait of Dover on 31 August; her bow was slightly damaged in the incident.

[23] On 5 October 1939 Ramillies was ordered to leave Alexandria to join the North Atlantic Escort Force based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

She was the first battleship to visit the country and Baillie-Grohman was presented with a Māori piupiu (a warrior's skirt made from rolled flax) by the head of the Ngāti Poneke.

[47] Admiral Graf Spee never entered the Indian Ocean, so Ramillies was transferred back to the Mediterranean Fleet in May 1940 as the probability of Italy joining the war on the German side began to rise.

[48] On 15 August, Ramillies bombarded the Italian port of Bardia and Fort Capuzzo outside Sollum with the battleships Malaya and Warspite and the heavy cruiser Kent.

[50] The ship was part of the force that covered a series of convoys to and from Malta and Greece in early November during which Ramillies was attacked by the Italian submarine Pier Capponi as she approached Grand Harbour with no result.

The lightly-armed German battleships, equipped with 11-inch (280 mm) guns, and under orders to avoid conflict with enemy capital ships, did not attack the convoy when they realised Ramillies was among the escort vessels.

[23][53][54] Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the ship on 16 August in Hvalfjörður, Iceland, whilst returning from a conference in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt where they had signed the Atlantic Charter.

Vice-Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's powerful Kido Butai, composed of six carriers and four fast battleships, was significantly stronger than Somerville's Eastern Fleet.

As a result, only the modernised Warspite could operate with the two fleet carriers; Ramillies, her three sisters, and Hermes were kept away from combat to escort convoys in the Indian Ocean.

[57][58] In late March, the code-breakers at the Far East Combined Bureau, a branch of Bletchley Park, informed Somerville that the Japanese were planning a raid into the Indian Ocean to attack Colombo and Trincomalee and destroy his fleet.

Following the first raid on 5 April, Somerville withdrew Ramillies and her three sisters to Mombasa, Kenya, where they could secure the shipping routes in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.

[59] Syfret returned to Ramillies in late April as a rear admiral, commander of the covering force for the invasion of Madagascar (Operation Ironclad).

The ship provided a landing party of 50 Royal Marines that were ferried by the destroyer Anthony at high speed past the coast defences of Diego Suarez on the northern end of Madagascar in the dark on 6 May.

[60][61] The following day the battleship engaged the coastal batteries on Oronjia Peninsula, but after enduring a few salvos of 15-inch shells, the French gunners decided to cease firing.

The explosion tore a large hole in the hull and caused extensive flooding, though damage control teams quickly contained it and prompt counter-flooding prevented her from listing badly.

She returned to service in June 1943, and in July, arrived in Kilindini in East Africa, where she rejoined the Eastern Fleet; by that time, she was the only battleship remaining on the station.

[63] After her refit in early 1944 to augment her anti-aircraft defences was completed, Ramillies was assigned to Bombardment Force D, supporting the invasion fleet during the Normandy landings in June.

[70][71] The battleships resumed shelling the coastal batteries for the rest of the day, suppressing the heavy German guns, which allowed cruisers and destroyers to move closer in to provide direct fire support to the advancing troops.

Over the course of the next week, the battleships—with Rodney alternating with her sister Nelson—continually bombarded German defences facing the British and Canadian invasion beaches at Sword, Gold, and Juno.

In December 1947, the worn-out battleship was placed on the disposal list and she was transferred to the British Iron & Steel Corporation on 2 February 1948 to be sold for scrap.