High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! HMS Vanguard was a British fast battleship built during World War II and commissioned after the end of the war. She was the only ship of her class and was the biggest, fastest and last of the Royal Navy`s dreadnoughts, and the final battleship to be launched in the world. Work on the ship`s design commenced before the war because the Royal Navy anticipated being outnumbered by the combined German and Japanese battleships in the early 1940s. The British had enough guns and gun turrets in storage to equip one battleship that could be built relatively quickly. The Lion-class battleship design was modified to suit the different main armament to save time, but the work was started and stopped several times during the war. Her design was revised several times, even after construction had begun, to reflect war experience and these changes prevented her from being completed during the war.