In regaurds to Nelsons all forward design the layout not only allowed to cut down the number of magazines but shortened the armored citadel's length which saved further weight. Rodney could take on any enemy BB save the Yamato's and be expected to dish out quite a bit of punishment and take a significant beating in the process but fare better than most other preveous designs.
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All in all you get a very inferior ship. IMO, Brits designs went down after the QE's and did not really get going again until Vanguard. By then of course the BB's were....
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IMO the KGV's were given a bad rap due to their teething problems related to their quad 14" turrets. This is nothing new for a BB, the Nelson class had their own teething problems with their triples but reguardless they were more powerfull then the Japanese Nagato's and U.S. Colorado's dispite having the lighter shells. The Nagato's were dreadfully armored when the nelsons came out and the Colorado's were slower.
The RN didn't have the same luxury of being able to refit/rebuild their ships as the U.S.
The Rodney did a good number on the Bismarck which dispite having her rudder damaged was still a potent threat. The biggest mistake the Brits did in reguards to penetrating Bismarcks armor was close the range which led to more hits to the upperworks above the main armor belt. Dispite this the progressive flooding was enough to doom her and the hits above the armor took out the guns and more importantly the senior crew. IIRC Rodney scored hits on her third salvo and her shells ravaged Bismarcks armored conning tower which was 340mm (roughly 13.2") thick cutting a deep gouge into the forward end.
The engagement with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen Vs. Hood and Prince of Wales was not as lop sided as everyone thinks a 2xBB vs 1xBB/1xCA engagement would be and the surprizing outcome could be partially chalked up to good old fasioned luck for the germans. Hood never should have been in the battle with her current armor scheme and Ironically took a hit in her most vulnerable spot.
Prince of wales clearly didn't have enough time to finnish her work-up cruise and still had builders aboard taking care of all the post build problems, this obviously led to her poor performance and dispite that fact she still got three nasty hits in on Bismarck. The Brits also did not use their cruisers to add to the shell volume being thrown at the Germans in the first engagement.
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British boiler designs were not as good as the Americans, so the speed is reduced since you are forced to use smaller and less powerful boilers.
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The U.S introduced high pressure steam concept, which raised North carolina's projected SHP output from 115,000 shp for 27 knots to 121,000 shp for her 28 knots. The downside is that this inovation was added late in the NC's design process so her turbines couldn't reap the full benifits of the power output.
The G-3's were far better than anything the rest of the world had to offer at the time, one shudders at the original Lexington class armor scheme in her BC guise despite their potent 16" guns, she made Hood look tough. The brits however should have stuck with their excellent 15"/42 gun rather than developing the new 16"/45 and 14'/45 guns. The KGV's would have been very potent with 3x3 15" guns.