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The dreadnought (alternatively spelled dreadnaught) was the predominant type of
battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...
in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
's , had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as "dreadnoughts", and earlier battleships became known as
pre-dreadnoughts. Her design had two revolutionary features: an "all-big-gun" armament scheme, with an unprecedented number of heavy-calibre guns, and
steam turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...
propulsion. As dreadnoughts became a crucial symbol of national power, the arrival of these new warships renewed the
naval arms race A naval arms race is a situation in which two or more countries continuously construct warships that are consistently more powerful than warships built by the other country built in the previous years. These races often lead to high tension and near ...
between the
United Kingdom and Germany. Dreadnought races sprang up around the world, including
in South America, lasting up to the beginning of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Successive designs increased rapidly in size and made use of improvements in armament, armour and propulsion throughout the dreadnought era. Within five years, new battleships outclassed ''Dreadnought'' herself. These more powerful vessels were known as "
super-dreadnoughts". Most of the original dreadnoughts were scrapped after the end of World War I under the terms of the
Washington Naval Treaty, but many of the newer super-dreadnoughts continued serving throughout
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Dreadnought-building consumed vast resources in the early 20th century, but there was only one battle between large dreadnought fleets. At the
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland (german: Skagerrakschlacht, the Battle of the Skagerrak) was a naval battle fought between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy ...
in 1916, the British and German navies clashed with no decisive result. The term "dreadnought" gradually dropped from use after World War I, especially after the Washington Naval Treaty, as virtually all remaining battleships shared dreadnought characteristics; it can also be used to describe
battlecruiser
The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
s, the other type of ship resulting from the dreadnought revolution.
Origins
The distinctive all-big-gun armament of the dreadnought was developed in the first years of the 20th century as navies sought to increase the range and power of the armament of their battleships. The typical battleship of the 1890s, now known as the "
pre-dreadnought", had a main armament of four heavy guns of
calibre
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore match ...
, a secondary armament of six to eighteen
quick-firing gun
A quick-firing or rapid-firing gun is an artillery piece, typically a gun or howitzer, which has several characteristics which taken together mean the weapon can fire at a fast rate. Quick-firing was introduced worldwide in the 1880s and 1890s and ...
s of between calibre, and other smaller weapons. This was in keeping with the prevailing theory of naval combat that battles would initially be fought at some distance, but the ships would then approach to close range for the final blows (as they did in the
Battle of Manila Bay), when the shorter-range, faster-firing guns would prove most useful. Some designs had an intermediate battery of guns. Serious proposals for an all-big-gun armament were circulated in several countries by 1903.
All-big-gun designs commenced almost simultaneously in three navies. In 1904, the
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
authorized construction of , originally designed with twelve guns. Work began on her construction in May 1905. The
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
began the design of HMS ''Dreadnought'' in January 1905, and she was
laid down
Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship.
Keel laying is one o ...
in October of the same year. Finally, the US Navy gained authorization for , carrying eight 12-inch guns, in March 1905, with construction commencing in December 1906.
The move to all-big-gun designs was accomplished because a uniform, heavy-calibre armament offered advantages in both firepower and fire control, and the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
of 1904–1905 showed that future naval battles could, and likely would, be fought at long distances. The newest guns had longer range and fired heavier shells than a gun of calibre. Another possible advantage was fire control; at long ranges guns were aimed by observing the splashes caused by shells fired in salvoes, and it was difficult to interpret different splashes caused by different calibres of gun. There is still debate as to whether this feature was important.
Long-range gunnery
In naval battles of the 1890s the decisive weapon was the medium-calibre, typically , quick-firing gun firing at relatively short range; at
the Battle of the Yalu River in 1894, the victorious Japanese did not commence firing until the range had closed to , and most of the fighting occurred at . At these ranges, lighter guns had good accuracy, and their high rate of fire delivered high volumes of
ordnance
Ordnance may refer to:
Military and defense
*Materiel in military logistics, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment.
**The military branch responsible for supplying and developing these items, e.g., the Unite ...
on the target, known as the "hail of fire". Naval gunnery was too inaccurate to hit targets at a longer range.
By the early 20th century, British and American admirals expected future battleships would engage at longer distances. Newer models of
torpedo
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...
had longer ranges. For instance, in 1903, the US Navy ordered a design of torpedo effective to . Both British and American admirals concluded that they needed to engage the enemy at longer ranges. In 1900, Admiral Fisher, commanding the
Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet, ordered gunnery practice with 6-inch guns at . By 1904 the US
Naval War College was considering the effects on battleship tactics of torpedoes with a range of .
The range of light and medium-calibre guns was limited, and accuracy declined badly at longer range. At longer ranges the advantage of a high rate of fire decreased; accurate shooting depended on spotting the shell-splashes of the previous salvo, which limited the optimum rate of fire.
On 10 August 1904 the
Imperial Russian Navy
The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a ...
and the Imperial Japanese Navy had one of the longest-range gunnery duels to date—over during the
Battle of the Yellow Sea. The Russian battleships were equipped with Liuzhol
range finders with an effective range of , and the Japanese ships had
Barr & Stroud
Barr & Stroud Limited was a pioneering Glasgow optical engineering firm. They played a leading role in the development of modern optics, including rangefinders, for the Royal Navy and for other branches of British Armed Forces during the 20th ce ...
range finders that reached out to , but both sides still managed to hit each other with fire at . Naval architects and strategists around the world took notice.
All-big-gun mixed-calibre ships
![HMS Agamemnon (1908) profile drawing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/HMS_Agamemnon_%281908%29_profile_drawing.png)
An evolutionary step was to reduce the quick-firing secondary battery and substitute additional heavy guns, typically . Ships designed in this way have been described as 'all-big-gun mixed-calibre' or later 'semi-dreadnoughts'. Semi-dreadnought ships had many heavy secondary guns in wing turrets near the center of the ship, instead of the small guns mounted in
barbette
Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships.
In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protection ...
s of earlier pre-dreadnought ships.
Semi-dreadnought classes included the British and ; Russian ; Japanese , , and ; American and ; French ; Italian ; and Austro-Hungarian .
The design process for these ships often included discussion of an 'all-big-gun one-calibre' alternative. The June 1902 issue of ''Proceedings of the US Naval Institute'' contained comments by the US Navy's leading gunnery expert,
P. R. Alger, proposing a main battery of eight guns in twin turrets. In May 1902, the
Bureau of Construction and Repair The Bureau of Construction and Repair (BuC&R) was the part of the United States Navy which from 1862 to 1940 was responsible for supervising the design, construction, conversion, procurement, maintenance, and repair of ships and other craft for the ...
submitted a design for the battleship with twelve guns in twin turrets, two at the ends and four in the wings. Lt. Cdr. Homer C. Poundstone submitted a paper to President
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
in December 1902 arguing the case for larger battleships. In an appendix to his paper, Poundstone suggested a greater number of guns was preferable to a smaller number of . The Naval War College and Bureau of Construction and Repair developed these ideas in studies between 1903 and 1905. War-game studies begun in July 1903 "showed that a battleship armed with twelve guns hexagonally arranged would be equal to three or more of the conventional type."
The Royal Navy was thinking along similar lines. A design had been circulated in 1902–1903 for "a powerful 'all big-gun' armament of two calibres, viz. four and twelve guns." The Admiralty decided to build three more ''King Edward VII''s (with a mixture of 12-inch, 9.2-inch and 6-inch) in the 1903–1904 naval construction programme instead. The all-big-gun concept was revived for the 1904–1905 programme, the ''Lord Nelson'' class. Restrictions on length and
beam
Beam may refer to:
Streams of particles or energy
*Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy
**Laser beam
*Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles
**Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...
meant the midships 9.2-inch turrets became single instead of twin, thus giving an armament of four 12-inch, ten 9.2-inch and no 6-inch. The constructor for this design, J.H. Narbeth, submitted an alternative drawing showing an armament of twelve 12-inch guns, but the Admiralty was not prepared to accept this. Part of the rationale for the decision to retain mixed-calibre guns was the need to begin the building of the ships quickly because of the tense situation produced by the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
.
Switch to all-big-gun designs
The replacement of the guns with weapons of calibre improved the striking power of a battleship, particularly at longer ranges. Uniform heavy-gun armament offered many other advantages. One advantage was logistical simplicity. When the US was considering whether to have a mixed-calibre main armament for the , for example,
William Sims and Poundstone stressed the advantages of homogeneity in terms of ammunition supply and the transfer of crews from the disengaged guns to replace gunners wounded in action.
A uniform calibre of gun also helped streamline fire control. The designers of ''Dreadnought'' preferred an all-big-gun design because it would mean only one set of calculations about adjustments to the range of the guns. Some historians today hold that a uniform calibre was particularly important because the risk of confusion between shell-splashes of 12-inch and lighter guns made accurate ranging difficult. This viewpoint is controversial, as fire control in 1905 was not advanced enough to use the salvo-firing technique where this confusion might be important, and confusion of shell-splashes does not seem to have been a concern of those working on all-big-gun designs. Nevertheless, the likelihood of engagements at longer ranges was important in deciding that the heaviest possible guns should become standard, hence 12-inch rather than 10-inch.
The newer designs of 12-inch gun mounting had a considerably higher rate of fire, removing the advantage previously enjoyed by smaller calibres. In 1895, a 12-inch gun might have fired one round every four minutes; by 1902, two rounds per minute was usual. In October 1903, the Italian
naval architect This is the top category for all articles related to architecture and its practitioners.
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Architecture, Occupations ...
Vittorio Cuniberti
Vittorio Emilio Cuniberti (1854–1913) was an Italian military officer and naval engineer who envisioned the concept of the all big gun battleship, best exemplified by HMS ''Dreadnought''.
Life and career
Born in Turin, he joined the Genio Na ...
published a paper in ''
Jane's Fighting Ships'' entitled "An Ideal Battleship for the British Navy", which called for a 17,000-ton ship carrying a main armament of twelve 12-inch guns, protected by armour 12 inches thick, and having a speed of . Cuniberti's idea—which he had already proposed to his own navy, the ''
Regia Marina
The ''Regia Marina'' (; ) was the navy of the Kingdom of Italy (''Regno d'Italia'') from 1861 to 1946. In 1946, with the Italian constitutional referendum, 1946, birth of the Italian Republic (''Repubblica Italiana''), the ''Regia Marina'' ch ...
''—was to make use of the high rate of fire of new 12-inch guns to produce devastating rapid fire from heavy guns to replace the 'hail of fire' from lighter weapons. Something similar lay behind the Japanese move towards heavier guns; at
Tsushima, Japanese shells contained a higher than normal proportion of high explosive, and were fused to explode on contact, starting fires rather than piercing armour. The increased rate of fire laid the foundations for future advances in fire control.
Building the first dreadnoughts
![HMS Dreadnought (1911) profile drawing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/HMS_Dreadnought_%281911%29_profile_drawing.png)
In Japan, the two battleships of the 1903–1904 programme were the first in the world to be laid down as all-big-gun ships, with eight 12-inch guns. The armour of their design was considered too thin, demanding a substantial redesign. The financial pressures of the Russo-Japanese War and the short supply of 12-inch guns—which had to be imported from the United Kingdom—meant these ships were completed with a mixture of 12-inch and 10-inch armament. The 1903–1904 design retained
traditional triple-expansion steam engines, unlike ''Dreadnought''.
The dreadnought breakthrough occurred in the United Kingdom in October 1905. Fisher, now the
First Sea Lord, had long been an advocate of new technology in the Royal Navy and had recently been convinced of the idea of an all-big-gun battleship. Fisher is often credited as the creator of the dreadnought and the father of the United Kingdom's great dreadnought battleship fleet, an impression he himself did much to reinforce. It has been suggested Fisher's main focus was on the arguably even more revolutionary
battlecruiser
The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
and not the battleship.
Shortly after taking office, Fisher set up a Committee on Designs to consider future battleships and armoured cruisers. The committee's first task was to consider a new battleship. The specification for the new ship was a 12-inch main battery and anti-torpedo-boat guns but no intermediate calibres, and a speed of , which was two or three knots faster than existing battleships. The initial designs intended twelve 12-inch guns, though difficulties in positioning these guns led the chief constructor at one stage to propose a return to four 12-inch guns with sixteen or eighteen of 9.2-inch. After a full evaluation of reports of the action at Tsushima compiled by an official observer,
Captain Pakenham, the Committee settled on a main battery of ten 12-inch guns, along with twenty-two
12-pounders as secondary armament. The committee also gave ''Dreadnought''
steam turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...
propulsion, which was unprecedented in a large warship. The greater power and lighter weight of turbines meant the 21-knot design speed could be achieved in a smaller and less costly ship than if
reciprocating engine
A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common featu ...
s had been used. Construction took place quickly; the keel was laid on 2 October 1905, the ship was launched on 10 February 1906, and completed on 3 October 1906—an impressive demonstration of British industrial might.
The first US dreadnoughts were the two ''South Carolina''-class ships. Detailed plans for these were worked out in July–November 1905, and approved by the Board of Construction on 23 November 1905. Building was slow; specifications for bidders were issued on 21 March 1906, the contracts awarded on 21 July 1906 and the two ships were laid down in December 1906, after the completion of the ''Dreadnought''.
Design
The designers of dreadnoughts sought to provide as much protection, speed, and firepower as possible in a ship of a realistic size and cost. The hallmark of dreadnought battleships was an "all-big-gun" armament, but they also had heavy armour concentrated mainly in a thick belt at the waterline and in one or more armoured decks. Secondary armament, fire control, command equipment, and protection against torpedoes also had to be crammed into the hull.
The inevitable consequence of demands for ever greater speed, striking power, and endurance meant that
displacement
Displacement may refer to:
Physical sciences
Mathematics and Physics
*Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...
, and hence cost, of dreadnoughts tended to increase. The
Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 imposed a limit of 35,000 tons on the displacement of capital ships. In subsequent years
treaty battleship
A treaty battleship was a battleship built in the 1920s or 1930s under the terms of one of a number of international treaties governing warship construction. Many of these ships played an active role in the Second World War, but few survived long ...
s were commissioned to build up to this limit. Japan's decision to leave the Treaty in the 1930s, and the arrival of the Second World War, eventually made this limit irrelevant.
Armament
Dreadnoughts mounted a uniform
main battery of heavy-calibre guns; the number, size, and arrangement differed between designs. ''Dreadnought'' mounted ten 12-inch guns. 12-inch guns had been standard for most navies in the
pre-dreadnought era, and this continued in the first generation of dreadnought battleships. The
Imperial German Navy
The Imperial German Navy or the Imperial Navy () was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for coast defence. Wilhel ...
was an exception, continuing to use 11-inch guns in its first class of dreadnoughts, the .
Dreadnoughts also carried lighter weapons. Many early dreadnoughts carried a secondary armament of very light guns designed to fend off enemy
torpedo boats. The calibre and weight of secondary armament tended to increase, as the range of torpedoes and the staying power of the torpedo boats and
destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...
s expected to carry them also increased. From the end of World War I onwards, battleships had to be equipped with many light guns as anti-aircraft armament.
Dreadnoughts frequently carried
torpedo tube
A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes.
There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...
s themselves. In theory, a line of battleships so equipped could unleash a devastating volley of torpedoes on an enemy line steaming a parallel course. This was also a carry-over from the older tactical doctrine of continuously closing range with the enemy, and the idea that gunfire alone may be sufficient to cripple a battleship, but not sink it outright, so a
coup de grace would be made with torpedoes. In practice, torpedoes fired from battleships scored very few hits, and there was a risk that a stored torpedo would cause a dangerous explosion if hit by enemy fire. And in fact, the only documented instance of one battleship successfully torpedoing another came during the
action of 27 May 1941, where the British battleship claimed to have torpedoed the crippled at close range.
Position of main armament
The effectiveness of the guns depended in part on the layout of the turrets. ''Dreadnought'', and the British ships which immediately followed it, carried five turrets: one forward, one aft and one amidships on the centreline of the ship, and two in the 'wings' next to the
superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships.
Aboard ships and large boats
On water craft, the superstruct ...
. This allowed three turrets to fire ahead and four on the broadside. The ''Nassau'' and classes of German dreadnoughts adopted a 'hexagonal' layout, with one turret each fore and aft and four wing turrets; this meant more guns were mounted in total, but the same number could fire ahead or broadside as with ''Dreadnought''.
Dreadnought designs experimented with different layouts. The British
''Neptune''-class battleship staggered the wing turrets, so all ten guns could fire on the broadside, a feature also used by the German . This risked blast damage to parts of the ship over which the guns fired, and put great stress on the ship's frames.
If all turrets were on the centreline of the vessel, stresses on the ship's frames were relatively low. This layout meant the entire main battery could fire on the broadside, though fewer could fire end-on. It meant the hull would be longer, which posed some challenges for the designers; a longer ship needed to devote more weight to armour to get equivalent protection, and the magazines which served each turret interfered with the distribution of boilers and engines. For these reasons, , which carried a record fourteen 12-inch guns in seven centreline turrets, was not considered a success.
A
superfiring
Superfiring armament is a naval military building technique in which two (or more) turrets are located in a line, one behind the other, with the second turret located above ("super") the one in front so that the second turret can fire over the ...
layout was eventually adopted as standard. This involved raising one or two turrets so they could fire over a turret immediately forward or astern of them. The US Navy adopted this feature with their first dreadnoughts in 1906, but others were slower to do so. As with other layouts there were drawbacks. Initially, there were concerns about the impact of the blast of the raised guns on the lower turret. Raised turrets raised the centre of gravity of the ship, and might reduce the stability of the ship. Nevertheless, this layout made the best of the firepower available from a fixed number of guns, and was eventually adopted generally. The US Navy used superfiring on the ''South Carolina'' class, and the layout was adopted in the Royal Navy with the of 1910. By World War II, superfiring was entirely standard.
Initially, all dreadnoughts had two guns to a turret. One solution to the problem of turret layout was to put three or even four guns in each turret. Fewer turrets meant the ship could be shorter, or could devote more space to machinery. On the other hand, it meant that in the event of an enemy shell destroying one turret, a higher proportion of the main armament would be out of action. The risk of the blast waves from each gun barrel interfering with others in the same turret reduced the rate of fire from the guns somewhat. The first nation to adopt the triple turret was Italy, in the , soon followed by Russia with the , the Austro-Hungarian , and the US . British Royal Navy battleships did not adopt triple turrets until after the First World War, with the , and Japanese battleships not until the late-1930s . Several later designs used quadruple turrets, including the British and French .
Main armament power and calibre
![Animated gun turret](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Animated_gun_turret.gif)
Rather than try to fit more guns onto a ship, it was possible to increase the power of each gun. This could be done by increasing either the calibre of the weapon and hence the weight of shell, or by lengthening the barrel to increase
muzzle velocity
Muzzle velocity is the speed of a projectile (bullet, pellet, slug, ball/shots or shell) with respect to the muzzle at the moment it leaves the end of a gun's barrel (i.e. the muzzle). Firearm muzzle velocities range from approximately to i ...
. Either of these offered the chance to increase range and armour penetration.
Both methods offered advantages and disadvantages, though in general greater muzzle velocity meant increased barrel wear. As guns fire, their barrels wear out, losing accuracy and eventually requiring replacement. At times, this became problematic; the US Navy seriously considered stopping practice firing of heavy guns in 1910 because of the wear on the barrels. The disadvantages of guns of larger calibre are that guns and turrets must be heavier; and heavier shells, which are fired at lower velocities, require turret designs that allow a larger angle of elevation for the same range. Heavier shells have the advantage of being slowed less by air resistance, retaining more penetrating power at longer ranges.
Different navies approached the issue of calibre in different ways. The German navy, for instance, generally used a lighter calibre than the equivalent British ships, e.g. 12-inch calibre when the British standard was . Because German metallurgy was superior, the German 12-inch gun had better shell weight and muzzle velocity than the British 12-inch; and German ships could afford more armour for the same vessel weight because the German 12-inch guns were lighter than the 13.5-inch guns the British required for comparable effect.
Over time the calibre of guns tended to increase. In the Royal Navy, the ''Orion'' class, launched 1910, had ten 13.5-inch guns, all on the centreline; the ''Queen Elizabeth'' class, launched in 1913, had eight guns. In all navies, fewer guns of larger calibre came to be used. The smaller number of guns simplified their distribution, and centreline turrets became the norm.
A further step change was planned for battleships designed and laid down at the end of World War I. The Japanese s in 1917 carried guns, which was quickly matched by the US Navy's . Both the United Kingdom and Japan were planning battleships with armament, in the British case the . The Washington Naval Treaty concluded on 6 February 1922 and ratified later limited battleship guns to not more than calibre, and these heavier guns were not produced.
The only battleships to break the limit were the Japanese , begun in 1937 (after the treaty expired), which carried main guns. By the middle of World War II, the United Kingdom was making use of guns kept as spares for the to arm the last British battleship, .
Some World War II-era designs were drawn up proposing another move towards gigantic armament. The German
H-43 and H-44 designs proposed guns, and there is evidence Hitler wanted calibres as high as ; the Japanese '
Super ''Yamato''' design also called for 20-inch guns. None of these proposals went further than very preliminary design work.
Secondary armament
The first dreadnoughts tended to have a very light secondary armament intended to protect them from
torpedo boats. ''Dreadnought'' carried 12-pounder guns; each of her twenty-two 12-pounders could fire at least 15 rounds a minute at any torpedo boat making an attack. The ''South Carolina''s and other early American dreadnoughts were similarly equipped. At this stage, torpedo boats were expected to attack separately from any fleet actions. Therefore, there was no need to armour the secondary gun armament, or to protect the crews from the blast effects of the main guns. In this context, the light guns tended to be mounted in unarmoured positions high on the ship to minimize weight and maximize field of fire.
![QF12pdr18cwtGunsXTurretHMSDreadnought](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/QF12pdr18cwtGunsXTurretHMSDreadnought.jpg)
Within a few years, the principal threat was from the destroyer—larger, more heavily armed, and harder to destroy than the torpedo boat. Since the risk from destroyers was very serious, it was considered that one shell from a battleship's secondary armament should sink (rather than merely damage) any attacking destroyer. Destroyers, in contrast to torpedo boats, were expected to attack as part of a general fleet engagement, so it was necessary for the secondary armament to be protected against shell splinters from heavy guns, and the blast of the main armament. This philosophy of secondary armament was adopted by the German navy from the start; ''Nassau'', for instance, carried twelve and sixteen guns, and subsequent German dreadnought classes followed this lead. These heavier guns tended to be mounted in armoured barbettes or
casemates on the main deck. The Royal Navy increased its secondary armament from 12-pounder to first and then guns, which were standard at the start of World War I; the US standardized on 5-inch calibre for the war but planned 6-inch guns for the ships designed just afterwards.
The secondary battery served several other roles. It was hoped that a medium-calibre shell might be able to score a hit on an enemy dreadnought's sensitive fire control systems. It was also felt that the secondary armament could play an important role in driving off enemy cruisers from attacking a crippled battleship.
The secondary armament of dreadnoughts was, on the whole, unsatisfactory. A hit from a light gun could not be relied on to stop a destroyer. Heavier guns could not be relied on to hit a destroyer, as experience at the Battle of Jutland showed. The casemate mountings of heavier guns proved problematic; being low in the hull, they proved liable to flooding, and on several classes, some were removed and plated over. The only sure way to protect a dreadnought from destroyer or torpedo boat attack was to provide a destroyer squadron as an escort. After World War I the secondary armament tended to be mounted in turrets on the upper deck and around the superstructure. This allowed a wide field of fire and good protection without the negative points of casemates. Increasingly through the 1920s and 1930s, the secondary guns were seen as a major part of the anti-aircraft battery, with high-angle,
dual-purpose gun
A dual-purpose gun is a naval artillery mounting designed to engage both surface and air targets.
Description
Second World War-era capital ships had four classes of artillery: the heavy main battery, intended to engage opposing battleships and ...
s increasingly adopted.
Armour
![SMS-Bayern-protection-scheme-EN](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/SMS-Bayern-protection-scheme-EN.svg)
Much of the displacement of a dreadnought was taken up by the steel plating of the armour. Designers spent much time and effort to provide the best possible protection for their ships against the various weapons with which they would be faced. Only so much weight could be devoted to protection, without compromising speed, firepower or seakeeping.
Central citadel
The bulk of a dreadnought's armour was concentrated around the "armoured citadel". This was a box, with four armoured walls and an armoured roof, around the most important parts of the ship. The sides of the citadel were the "armoured belt" of the ship, which started on the hull just in front of the forward turret and ran to just behind the aft turret. The ends of the citadel were two armoured bulkheads, fore and aft, which stretched between the ends of the armour belt. The "roof" of the citadel was an armoured deck. Within the citadel were the boilers, engines, and the magazines for the main armament. A hit to any of these systems could cripple or destroy the ship. The "floor" of the box was the bottom of the ship's hull, and was unarmoured, although it was, in fact, a "triple bottom".
The earliest dreadnoughts were intended to take part in a pitched battle against other battleships at ranges of up to . In such an encounter, shells would fly on a relatively flat trajectory, and a shell would have to hit at or just about the waterline to damage the vitals of the ship. For this reason, the early dreadnoughts' armour was concentrated in a thick belt around the waterline; this was thick in ''Dreadnought''. Behind this belt were arranged the ship's coal bunkers, to further protect the engineering spaces. In an engagement of this sort, there was also a lesser threat of indirect damage to the vital parts of the ship. A shell which struck above the belt armour and exploded could send fragments flying in all directions. These fragments were dangerous but could be stopped by much thinner armour than what would be necessary to stop an unexploded armour-piercing shell. To protect the innards of the ship from fragments of shells which detonated on the superstructure, much thinner steel armour was applied to the decks of the ship.
The thickest protection was reserved for the central citadel in all battleships. Some navies extended a thinner armoured belt and armoured deck to cover the ends of the ship, or extended a thinner armoured belt up the outside of the hull. This "tapered" armour was used by the major European navies—the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. This arrangement gave some armour to a larger part of the ship; for the very first dreadnoughts, when high-explosive shellfire was still considered a significant threat, this was useful. It tended to result in the main belt being very short, only protecting a thin strip above the waterline; some navies found that when their dreadnoughts were heavily laden, the armoured belt was entirely submerged. The alternative was an
"all or nothing" protection scheme, developed by the US Navy. The armour belt was tall and thick, but no side protection at all was provided to the ends of the ship or the upper decks. The armoured deck was also thickened. The "all-or-nothing" system provided more effective protection against the very-long-range engagements of dreadnought fleets and was adopted outside the US Navy after World War I.
The design of the dreadnought changed to meet new challenges. For example, armour schemes were changed to reflect the greater risk of plunging shells from long-range gunfire, and the increasing threat from armour-piercing bombs dropped by aircraft. Later designs carried a greater thickness of steel on the armoured deck;
''Yamato'' carried a main belt, but a deck thick.
Underwater protection and subdivision
The final element of the protection scheme of the first dreadnoughts was the subdivision of the ship below the waterline into several watertight compartments. If the hull were holed—by shellfire,
mine
Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to:
Extraction or digging
* Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging
*Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine
Grammar
*Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun
...
, torpedo, or collision—then, in theory, only one area would flood and the ship could survive. To make this precaution even more effective, many dreadnoughts had no doors between different underwater sections, so that even a surprise hole below the waterline need not sink the ship. There were still several instances where flooding spread between underwater compartments.
The greatest evolution in dreadnought protection came with the development of the
anti-torpedo bulge and
torpedo belt, both attempts to protect against underwater damage by mines and torpedoes. The purpose of underwater protection was to absorb the force of a detonating mine or torpedo well away from the final watertight hull. This meant an inner bulkhead along the side of the hull, which was generally lightly armoured to capture splinters, separated from the outer hull by one or more compartments. The compartments in between were either left empty, or filled with coal, water or fuel oil.
Propulsion
![Battleship Paris](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Battleship_Paris.png)
Dreadnoughts were propelled by two to four screw
propeller
A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...
s. ''Dreadnought'' herself, and all British dreadnoughts, had screw shafts driven by steam turbines. The first generation of dreadnoughts built in other nations used the slower
triple-expansion steam engine
A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages.
A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure ''(HP)'' cylinder, then having given up he ...
which had been standard in pre-dreadnoughts.
Turbines offered more
power than reciprocating engines for the same volume of machinery. This, along with a guarantee on the new machinery from the inventor,
Charles Parsons, persuaded the Royal Navy to use turbines in ''Dreadnought''. It is often said that turbines had the additional benefits of being cleaner and more reliable than reciprocating engines. By 1905, new designs of reciprocating engine were available which were cleaner and more reliable than previous models.
Turbines also had disadvantages. At cruising speeds much slower than maximum speed, turbines were markedly less
fuel-efficient
Fuel efficiency is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the ratio of effort to result of a process that converts chemical potential energy contained in a carrier ( fuel) into kinetic energy or work. Overall fuel efficiency may vary per device, ...
than reciprocating engines. This was particularly important for navies which required a long range at cruising speeds—and hence for the US Navy, which was planning in the event of war to cruise across the Pacific and engage the Japanese in the Philippines.
The US Navy experimented with turbine engines from 1908 in the , but was not fully committed to turbines until the
''Pennsylvania'' class in 1916. In the preceding
''Nevada'' class, one ship, the
''USS Oklahoma'', received reciprocating engines, while the
''USS Nevada'' received geared turbines. The two
''New York''-class battleships of 1914 both received reciprocating engines, but all four ships of the
''USS Florida'' (1911) and
''USS Wyoming'' (1912) classes received turbines.
The disadvantages of the turbine were eventually overcome. The solution which eventually was generally adopted was the
geared turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...
, where gearing reduced the rotation rate of the propellers and hence increased efficiency. This solution required technical precision in the gears and hence was difficult to implement.
One alternative was the
turbo-electric
A turbo-electric transmission uses electric generators to convert the mechanical energy of a turbine (steam or gas) into electric energy, which then powers electric motors and converts back into mechanical energy that power the driveshafts.
Tu ...
drive where the steam turbine generated electrical power which then drove the propellers. This was particularly favoured by the US Navy, which used it for all dreadnoughts from late 1915–1922. The advantages of this method were its low cost, the opportunity for very close underwater compartmentalization, and good astern performance. The disadvantages were that the machinery was heavy and vulnerable to battle damage, particularly the effects of flooding on the electrics.
Turbines were never replaced in battleship design.
Diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...
s were eventually considered by some powers, as they offered very good endurance and an engineering space taking up less of the length of the ship. They were also heavier, however, took up a greater vertical space, offered less power, and were considered unreliable.
Fuel
The first generation of dreadnoughts used coal to fire the boilers which fed steam to the turbines. Coal had been in use since the very first steam warships. One advantage of coal was that it is quite inert (in lump form) and thus could be used as part of the ship's protection scheme. Coal also had many disadvantages. It was labor-intensive to pack coal into the ship's bunkers and then feed it into the boilers. The boilers became clogged with ash. Airborne coal dust and related vapors were highly explosive, possibly evidenced by the explosion of . Burning coal as fuel also produced thick black smoke which gave away the position of a fleet and interfered with visibility, signaling, and fire control. In addition, coal was very bulky and had comparatively low
thermal efficiency.
Oil-fired propulsion had many advantages for naval architects and officers at sea alike. It reduced smoke, making ships less visible. It could be fed into boilers automatically, rather than needing a complement of
stokers to do it by hand. Oil has roughly twice the
thermal content of coal. This meant that the boilers themselves could be smaller; and for the same volume of fuel, an oil-fired ship would have much greater range.
These benefits meant that, as early as 1901, Fisher was pressing the advantages of oil fuel. There were technical problems with oil-firing, connected with the different distribution of the weight of oil fuel compared to coal, and the problems of pumping viscous oil. The main problem with using oil for the battle fleet was that, with the exception of the United States, every major navy would have to import its oil. As a result, some navies adopted 'dual-firing' boilers which could use coal sprayed with oil; British ships so equipped, which included dreadnoughts, could even use oil alone at up to 60% power.
The US had large reserves of oil, and the US Navy was the first to wholeheartedly adopt oil-firing, deciding to do so in 1910 and ordering oil-fired boilers for the ''Nevada'' class, in 1911. The United Kingdom was not far behind, deciding in 1912 to use oil on its own in the ''Queen Elizabeth'' class; shorter British design and building times meant that ''Queen Elizabeth'' was commissioned before either of the ''Nevada''-class vessels. The United Kingdom planned to revert to mixed firing with the subsequent , at the cost of some speed—but Fisher, who returned to office in 1914, insisted that all the boilers should be oil-fired. Other major navies retained mixed coal-and-oil firing until the end of World War I.
Dreadnought building
Dreadnoughts developed as a move in an international battleship arms-race which had begun in the 1890s. The British Royal Navy had a big lead in the number of pre-dreadnought battleships, but a lead of only one dreadnought in 1906. This has led to criticism that the British, by launching HMS ''Dreadnought'', threw away a strategic advantage. Most of the United Kingdom's naval rivals had already contemplated or even built warships that featured a uniform battery of heavy guns. Both the Japanese Navy and the US Navy ordered "all-big-gun" ships in 1904–1905, with ''Satsuma'' and ''South Carolina'', respectively. Germany's Kaiser
Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Empir ...
had advocated a fast warship armed only with heavy guns since the 1890s. By securing a head start in dreadnought construction, the United Kingdom ensured its dominance of the seas continued.
The battleship race soon accelerated once more, placing a great burden on the finances of the governments which engaged in it. The first dreadnoughts were not much more expensive than the last pre-dreadnoughts, but the cost per ship continued to grow thereafter. Modern battleships were the crucial element of naval power in spite of their price. Each battleship signalled national power and prestige, in a manner similar to the nuclear weapons of today.
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
and
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
all began dreadnought programmes, and second-rank powers—including the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
,
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
,
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, and
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
—commissioned British, French, German, and American yards to build dreadnoughts for them.
Anglo-German arms race
![George V and Admiral Callaghan onboard HMS Iron Duke](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/George_V_and_Admiral_Callaghan_onboard_HMS_Iron_Duke.jpg)
The construction of ''Dreadnought'' coincided with increasing tension between the United Kingdom and Germany. Germany had begun building a large battlefleet in the 1890s, as part of a deliberate policy to challenge British naval supremacy. With the signing of the
Entente Cordiale in April 1904, it became increasingly clear the United Kingdom's principal naval enemy would be Germany, which was building up a large, modern fleet under the
"Tirpitz" laws. This rivalry gave rise to the two largest dreadnought fleets of the pre-1914 period.
The first German response to ''Dreadnought'' was the ''Nassau'' class, laid down in 1907, followed by the ''Helgoland'' class in 1909. Together with two
battlecruisers
The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
—a type for which the Germans had less admiration than Fisher, but which could be built under the authorization for armoured cruisers, rather than for capital ships—these classes gave Germany a total of ten modern capital ships built or building in 1909. The British ships were faster and more powerful than their German equivalents, but a 12:10 ratio fell far short of the 2:1 superiority the Royal Navy wanted to maintain.
In 1909, the British Parliament authorized an additional four capital ships, holding out hope Germany would be willing to negotiate a treaty limiting battleship numbers. If no such solution could be found, an additional four ships would be laid down in 1910. Even this compromise meant, when taken together with some social reforms, raising taxes enough to prompt a
constitutional crisis
In political science, a constitutional crisis is a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve. There are several variations to this d ...
in the United Kingdom in 1909–1910. In 1910, the British eight-ship construction plan went ahead, including four ''Orion''-class super-dreadnoughts, augmented by battlecruisers purchased by Australia and New Zealand. In the same period, Germany laid down only three ships, giving the United Kingdom a superiority of 22 ships to 13. The British resolve, as demonstrated by their construction programme, led the Germans to seek a negotiated end to the arms race. The Admiralty's new target of a 60% lead over Germany was near enough to Tirpitz's goal of cutting the British lead to 50%, but talks foundered on the question on whether to include British colonial battlecruisers in the count, as well as on non-naval matters like the German demands for recognition of ownership of
Alsace-Lorraine.
The dreadnought race stepped up in 1910 and 1911, with Germany laying down four capital ships each year and the United Kingdom five. Tension came to a head following the
German Naval Law of 1912. This proposed a fleet of 33 German battleships and battlecruisers, outnumbering the Royal Navy in home waters. To make matters worse for the United Kingdom, the
Imperial Austro-Hungarian Navy was building four dreadnoughts, while Italy had four and was building two more. Against such threats, the Royal Navy could no longer guarantee vital British interests. The United Kingdom was faced with a choice between building more battleships, withdrawing from the Mediterranean, or seeking an alliance with France. Further naval construction was unacceptably expensive at a time when
social welfare provision was making calls on the budget. Withdrawing from the Mediterranean would mean a huge loss of influence, weakening British diplomacy in the region and shaking the stability of the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
. The only acceptable option, and the one recommended by
First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
, was to break with the policies of the past and to make an arrangement with France. The French would assume responsibility for checking Italy and Austria-Hungary in the Mediterranean, while the British would protect the north coast of France. In spite of some opposition from British politicians, the Royal Navy organised itself on this basis in 1912.
In spite of these important strategic consequences, the 1912 Naval Law had little bearing on the battleship-force ratios. The United Kingdom responded by laying down ten new super-dreadnoughts in its 1912 and 1913 budgets—ships of the ''Queen Elizabeth'' and ''Revenge'' classes, which introduced a further step-change in armament, speed and protection—while Germany laid down only five, concentrating resources on its army.
United States
The American ''South Carolina''-class battleships were the first all-big-gun ships completed by one of the United Kingdom's rivals. The planning for the type had begun before ''Dreadnought'' was launched. There is some speculation that informal contacts with sympathetic Royal Navy officials influenced the US Navy design, but the American ship was very different.
The
US Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washingto ...
authorized the Navy to build two battleships, but of only 16,000 tons or lower displacement. As a result, the ''South Carolina'' class were built to much tighter limits than ''Dreadnought''. To make the best use of the weight available for armament, all eight 12-inch guns were mounted along the centreline, in superfiring pairs fore and aft. This arrangement gave a broadside equal to ''Dreadnought'', but with fewer guns; this was the most efficient distribution of weapons and proved a precursor of the standard practice of future generations of battleships. The principal economy of displacement compared to ''Dreadnought'' was in propulsion; ''South Carolina'' retained triple-expansion steam engines, and could manage only compared to for ''Dreadnought''. For this reason the later were described by some as the US Navy's first dreadnoughts; only a few years after their commissioning, the ''South Carolina'' class could not operate tactically with the newer dreadnoughts due to their low speed, and were forced to operate with the older pre-dreadnoughts.
The two 10-gun, 20,500-ton ships of the
''Delaware'' class were the first US battleships to match the speed of British dreadnoughts, but their secondary battery was "wet" (suffering from spray) and their bow was low in the water. An alternative 12-gun 24,000-ton design had many disadvantages as well; the extra two guns and a lower casemate had "hidden costs"—the two wing turrets planned would weaken the upper deck, be almost impossible to adequately protect against underwater attack, and force magazines to be located too close to the sides of the ship.
The US Navy continued to expand its battlefleet, laying down two ships in most subsequent years until 1920. The US continued to use reciprocating engines as an alternative to turbines until the
''Nevada'', laid down in 1912. In part, this reflected a cautious approach to battleship-building, and in part a preference for long endurance over high maximum speed owing to the US Navy's need to operate in the Pacific Ocean.
Japan
![Settsu](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Settsu.jpg)
With their victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the Japanese became concerned about the potential for conflict with the US. The theorist
Satō Tetsutarō
was a Japanese military theorist and an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Biography
Early career
Born in the Tsuruoka domain, Dewa Province (present day Tsuruoka city, Yamagata prefecture), Satō graduated from the 14th class of the Imp ...
developed the doctrine that Japan should have a battlefleet at least 70% the size of that of the US. This would enable the Japanese navy to win two decisive battles: the first early in a prospective war against the
US Pacific Fleet, and the second against the
US Atlantic Fleet
The United States Fleet Forces Command (USFF) is a service component command of the United States Navy that provides naval forces to a wide variety of U.S. forces. The naval resources may be allocated to Combatant Commanders such as United Stat ...
which would inevitably be dispatched as reinforcements.
Japan's first priorities were to refit the pre-dreadnoughts captured from Russia and to complete ''Satsuma'' and . The ''Satsuma''s were designed before ''Dreadnought'', but financial shortages resulting from the Russo-Japanese War delayed completion and resulted in their carrying a mixed armament, so they were known as "semi-dreadnoughts". These were followed by a modified ''Aki''-type: and of the
''Kawachi''-class. These two ships were laid down in 1909 and completed in 1912. They were armed with twelve 12-inch guns, but they were of two different models with differing barrel-lengths, meaning that they would have had difficulty controlling their fire at long ranges.
In other countries
![Provence-3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Provence-3.jpg)
Compared to the other major naval powers, France was slow to start building dreadnoughts, instead finishing the planned ''Danton'' class of pre-dreadnoughts, laying down five in 1907 and 1908. In September 1910 the first of the was laid down, making France the eleventh nation to enter the dreadnought race. In the Navy Estimates of 1911,
Paul Bénazet asserted that from 1896 to 1911, France dropped from being the world's second-largest naval power to fourth; he attributed this to problems in maintenance routines and neglect. The closer alliance with the United Kingdom made these reduced forces more than adequate for French needs.
The Italian
Regia Marina
The ''Regia Marina'' (; ) was the navy of the Kingdom of Italy (''Regno d'Italia'') from 1861 to 1946. In 1946, with the Italian constitutional referendum, 1946, birth of the Italian Republic (''Repubblica Italiana''), the ''Regia Marina'' ch ...
had received proposals for an all-big-gun battleship from Cuniberti well before ''Dreadnought'' was launched, but it took until 1909 for Italy to lay down one of its own. The construction of ''Dante Alighieri'' was prompted by rumours of Austro-Hungarian dreadnought-building. A further five dreadnoughts of the and class followed as Italy sought to maintain its lead over Austria-Hungary. These ships remained the core of Italian naval strength until World War II. The subsequent were suspended (and later cancelled) on the outbreak of World War I.
In January 1909 Austro-Hungarian admirals circulated a document calling for a fleet of four dreadnoughts. A
constitutional crisis
In political science, a constitutional crisis is a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve. There are several variations to this d ...
in 1909–1910 meant no construction could be approved. In spite of this, shipyards laid down two dreadnoughts on a speculative basis—due especially to the energetic manipulations of
Rudolf Montecuccoli
Rudolf Graf Montecuccoli degli Erri (22 February 1843-16 May 1922) was chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy from 1904 to 1913 and largely responsible for the modernization of the fleet before the First World War.
Overview
Montecuccoli was born i ...
, Chief of the
Austro-Hungarian Navy
The Austro-Hungarian Navy or Imperial and Royal War Navy (german: kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine, in short ''k.u.k. Kriegsmarine'', hu, Császári és Királyi Haditengerészet) was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Ships of the A ...
—later approved along with an additional two. The resulting ships, all ''Tegetthoff'' class, were to be accompanied by a further four ships of the , but these were cancelled on the
Austro-Hungarian entry into World War I On 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Within days, long-standing mobilization plans went into effect to initiate invasions or guard against them and Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental ...
.
In June 1909 the Imperial Russian Navy began construction of four ''Gangut'' dreadnoughts for the
Baltic Fleet
, image = Great emblem of the Baltic fleet.svg
, image_size = 150
, caption = Baltic Fleet Great ensign
, dates = 18 May 1703 – present
, country =
, allegiance = (1703–1721) (1721–1917) (1917–1922) (1922–1991)(1991–present)
...
, and in October 1911, three more dreadnoughts for the
Black Sea Fleet
Chernomorskiy flot
, image = Great emblem of the Black Sea fleet.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Great emblem of the Black Sea fleet
, dates = May 13, ...
were laid down. Of seven ships, only one was completed within four years of being laid down, and the ''Gangut'' ships were "obsolescent and outclassed" upon commissioning. Taking lessons from Tsushima, and influenced by Cuniberti, they ended up more closely resembling slower versions of Fisher's battlecruisers than ''Dreadnought'', and they proved badly flawed due to their smaller guns and thinner armour when compared with contemporary dreadnoughts.
![Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes firing a broadside](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Brazilian_battleship_Minas_Geraes_firing_a_broadside.jpg)
Spain commissioned three ships of the , with the first laid down in 1909. The three ships, the smallest dreadnoughts ever constructed, were built in Spain with British assistance; construction on the third ship, , took nine years from its laying down date to completion because of non-delivery of critical material, especially armament, from the United Kingdom.
Brazil was the third country to begin construction on a dreadnought. It ordered three dreadnoughts from the United Kingdom which would mount a heavier main battery than any other battleship afloat at the time (twelve
12-inch/45 calibre guns). Two were completed for Brazil: was laid down on by Armstrong (
Elswick) on 17 April 1907, and its
sister, , followed thirteen days later at Vickers (
Barrow
Barrow may refer to:
Places
England
* Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria
** Borough of Barrow-in-Furness, local authority encompassing the wider area
** Barrow and Furness (UK Parliament constituency)
* Barrow, Cheshire
* Barrow, Gloucestershire
* Barro ...
). Although many naval journals in Europe and the US speculated that Brazil was really acting as a proxy for one of the naval powers and would hand the ships over to them as soon as they were complete, both ships were commissioned into the
Brazilian Navy
)
, colors= Blue and white
, colors_label= Colors
, march= "Cisne Branco" ( en, "White Swan") (same name as training ship ''Cisne Branco''
, mascot=
, equipment= 1 multipurpose aircraft carrier7 submarines6 frigates2 corvettes4 amphibious warf ...
in 1910. The third ship, ''Rio de Janeiro'', was nearly complete when
rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...
prices collapsed and Brazil could not afford her. She was sold to
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
in 1913.
The Netherlands intended by 1912 to replace its fleet of pre-dreadnought
armoured ships with a modern fleet composed of dreadnoughts. After a Royal Commission
proposed the purchase of nine dreadnoughts in August 1913, there were extensive debates over the need for such ships and—if they were necessary—over the actual number needed. These lasted into August 1914, when a bill authorizing funding for four dreadnoughts was finalized, but the outbreak of World War I halted the ambitious plan.
The Ottoman Empire ordered two dreadnoughts from British yards, ''Reshadiye'' in 1911 and ''Fatih Sultan Mehmed'' in 1914. ''Reshadiye'' was completed, and in 1913, Turkey also acquired a nearly-completed dreadnought from Brazil, which became ''Sultan Osman I''. At the start of World War I, Britain seized the two completed ships for the Royal Navy. ''Reshadiye'' and ''Sultan Osman I'' became and ''Agincourt'' respectively. (''Fatih Sultan Mehmed'' was scrapped.) This greatly offended the Ottoman Empire. When two German warships, the battlecruiser and the cruiser , became trapped in Ottoman territory after the start of the war, Germany "gave" them to the Ottomans. (They remained German-crewed and under German orders.) The British seizure and the German gift proved important factors in the Ottoman Empire joining the
Central Powers
The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,german: Mittelmächte; hu, Központi hatalmak; tr, İttifak Devletleri / ; bg, Централни сили, translit=Tsentralni sili was one of the two main coalitions that fought in ...
in October 1914.
Greece had ordered a dreadnought from Germany, but work stopped on the outbreak of war. The main armament for the Greek ship had been ordered in the United States, and the guns consequently equipped a class of British
monitors
Monitor or monitor may refer to:
Places
* Monitor, Alberta
* Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States
* Monitor, Kentucky
* Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States
* Monitor, Washington
* Monitor, Logan County, West Vir ...
. In 1914 Greece purchased two pre-dreadnoughts from the United States Navy, renaming them and in
Royal Hellenic Navy
The Hellenic Navy (HN; el, Πολεμικό Ναυτικό, Polemikó Naftikó, War Navy, abbreviated ΠΝ) is the Navy, naval force of Greece, part of the Hellenic Armed Forces. The modern Greek navy historically hails from the naval forces of ...
service.
The
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
-dominated
House of Commons of Canada
The House of Commons of Canada (french: Chambre des communes du Canada) is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada.
The House of Common ...
passed a bill purchasing three British dreadnoughts for $35 million to use in the
Canadian Naval Service, but the measure was defeated in the
Liberal Party-dominated
Senate of Canada
The Senate of Canada (french: region=CA, Sénat du Canada) is the upper house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Crown and the House of Commons, they comprise the bicameral legislature of Canada.
The Senate is modelled after the B ...
. As a result, the country's navy was unprepared for
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
Super-dreadnoughts
![2nd Battle Squadron](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/2nd_Battle_Squadron.jpg)
Within five years of the commissioning of ''Dreadnought'', a new generation of more powerful "super-dreadnoughts" was being built. The British ''Orion'' class jumped an unprecedented 2,000 tons in displacement, introduced the heavier
13.5-inch (343 mm) gun, and placed all the main armament on the centreline (hence with some turrets
superfiring
Superfiring armament is a naval military building technique in which two (or more) turrets are located in a line, one behind the other, with the second turret located above ("super") the one in front so that the second turret can fire over the ...
over others). In the four years between ''Dreadnought'' and ''Orion'', displacement had increased by 25%, and weight of broadside (the weight of ammunition that can be fired on a single bearing in one salvo) had doubled.
British super-dreadnoughts were joined by those built by other nations. The US Navy , laid down in 1911, carried 14-inch (356 mm) guns in response to the British move and this calibre became standard. In Japan, two super-dreadnoughts were laid down in 1912, followed by the two ships in 1914, with both classes carrying twelve 14-inch (356 mm) guns. In 1917, the
''Nagato'' class was ordered, the first super-dreadnoughts to mount 16-inch guns, making them arguably the most powerful warships in the world. All were increasingly built from Japanese rather than from imported components. In France, the ''Courbet''s were followed by three super-dreadnoughts of the , carrying guns; another five s were canceled on the outbreak of World War I. The aforementioned Brazilian dreadnoughts sparked a small-scale
arms race in South America, as Argentina and Chile each ordered two super-dreadnoughts from the US and the United Kingdom, respectively. Argentina's and had a main armament equaling that of their Brazilian counterparts, but were much heavier and carried thicker armour. The British purchased both of Chile's battleships on the outbreak of the First World War. One, , was later repurchased by Chile.
![Argentine Rivadavia Class Battleship 1912](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Argentine_Rivadavia_Class_Battleship_1912.jpg)
Later British super-dreadnoughts, principally the ''Queen Elizabeth'' class, dispensed with the midships turret, freeing weight and volume for larger, oil-fired boilers. The new
15-inch (381 mm) gun gave greater firepower in spite of the loss of a turret, and there were a thicker armour belt and improved underwater protection. The class had a design speed, and they were considered the first
fast battleships.
The design weakness of super-dreadnoughts, which distinguished them from post-1918 vessels, was armour disposition. Their design emphasized the vertical armour protection needed in short-range battles, where shells would strike the sides of the ship, and assumed that an outer plate of armour would detonate any incoming shells so that crucial internal structures such as turret bases needed only light protection against splinters. This was in spite of the ability to engage the enemy at , ranges where the shells would descend at angles of up to thirty degrees ("plunging fire") and so could pierce the deck behind the outer plate and strike the internal structures directly. Post-war designs typically had 5 to 6 inches (130 to 150 mm) of deck armour laid across the top of single, much thicker vertical plates to defend against this. The concept of
zone of immunity The zone of immunity (or immunity zone) around a warship is an area from which both plunging fire and direct enemy fire is less effective.
The concept was a factor in battleship design and in tactics during engagements.
Background
Warships tradi ...
became a major part of the thinking behind battleship design. Lack of underwater protection was also a weakness of these pre-World War I designs, which originated before the use of torpedoes became widespread.
The United States Navy designed its '
Standard-type battleship
The Standard-type battleship was a series of twelve battleships across five classes ordered for the United States Navy between 1911 and 1916 and commissioned between 1916 and 1923. These were considered super-dreadnoughts, with the ships of the ...
s', beginning with the ''Nevada'' class, with long-range engagements and plunging fire in mind; the first of these was laid down in 1912, four years before the
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland (german: Skagerrakschlacht, the Battle of the Skagerrak) was a naval battle fought between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy ...
taught the dangers of long-range fire to European navies. Important features of the standard battleships were "all or nothing" armour and "raft" construction—based on a design philosophy which held that only those parts of the ship worth giving the thickest possible protection were worth armouring at all, and that the resulting armoured "raft" should contain enough reserve buoyancy to keep the entire ship afloat in the event the unarmoured bow and stern were thoroughly punctured and flooded. This design proved its worth in the 1942
Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, sometimes referred to as the Third and Fourth Battles of Savo Island, the Battle of the Solomons, the Battle of Friday the 13th, or, in Japanese sources, the , took place from 12 to 15 November 1942, and was t ...
, when an ill-timed turn by silhouetted her to Japanese guns. In spite of receiving 26 hits, her armoured raft remained untouched and she remained both afloat and operational at the end of action.
In action
![HMS Audacious crew take to lifeboats](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/HMS_Audacious_crew_take_to_lifeboats.jpg)
The First World War saw no decisive engagements between battlefleets to compare with Tsushima. The role of battleships was marginal to the land fighting in France and Russia; it was equally marginal to the German war on commerce (''
Handelskrieg
The U-boat Campaign from 1914 to 1918 was the World War I naval campaign fought by German U-boats against the trade routes of the Allies. It took place largely in the seas around the British Isles and in the Mediterranean.
The German Empire r ...
'') and the Allied
blockade.
By virtue of geography, the Royal Navy could keep the German
High Seas Fleet confined to the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...
with relative ease, but was unable to break the German superiority in the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
. Both sides were aware, because of the greater number of British dreadnoughts, that a full fleet engagement would likely result in a British victory. The German strategy was, therefore, to try to provoke an engagement on favourable terms: either inducing a part of the
Grand Fleet to enter battle alone, or to fight a pitched battle near the German coast, where friendly minefields, torpedo boats, and submarines could even the odds.
The first two years of war saw conflict in the North Sea limited to skirmishes by battlecruisers at the
Battle of Heligoland Bight and
Battle of Dogger Bank, and raids on the English coast. In May 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on favourable terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets on 31 May to 1 June in the indecisive Battle of Jutland.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 134-C2280, Szent István, Sinkendes Linienschiff](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Bundesarchiv_Bild_134-C2280%2C_Szent_Istv%C3%A1n%2C_Sinkendes_Linienschiff.jpg)
In the other naval theatres, there were no decisive pitched battles. In the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
, Russian and Turkish battleships skirmished, but nothing more. In the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
, action was largely limited to convoy raiding and the laying of defensive minefields. The
Adriatic
The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) ...
was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the
Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
dreadnought fleet was confined to the
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to t ...
by the British and French blockade but bombarded the Italians on several occasions, notably at
Ancona
Ancona (, also , ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic S ...
in 1915. And in the Mediterranean, the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault at
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...
.
The course of the war illustrated the vulnerability of battleships to cheaper weapons. In September 1914, the
U-boat
U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...
threat to
capital ship
The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they are generally the larger ships when compared to other warships in their respective fleet. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a naval fleet.
Strategic im ...
s was demonstrated by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the
sinking of three elderly British armoured cruisers by the German submarine in less than an hour. Mines continued to prove a threat when a month later the recently commissioned British super-dreadnought struck one and sank in 1914. By the end of October, British strategy and tactics in the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...
had changed to reduce the risk of U-boat attack. Jutland was the only major clash of dreadnought battleship fleets in history, and the German plan for the battle relied on U-boat attacks on the British fleet; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships, causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships led to growing concern in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships.
For the German part, the High Seas Fleet determined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines, and since submarines were more needed for commerce raiding, the fleet stayed in port for much of the remainder of the war. Other theatres showed the role of small craft in damaging or destroying dreadnoughts. The two Austrian dreadnoughts lost in November 1918 were casualties of Italian torpedo boats and
frogmen.
Battleship building from 1914 onwards
World War I
![Hamburg port NARA-68155073 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Hamburg_port_NARA-68155073_%28cropped%29.jpg)
The outbreak of World War I largely halted the dreadnought arms race as funds and technical resources were diverted to more pressing priorities. The foundries which produced battleship guns were dedicated instead to the production of land-based artillery, and shipyards were flooded with orders for small ships. The weaker naval powers engaged in the Great War—France, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia—suspended their battleship programmes entirely. The United Kingdom and Germany continued building battleships and battlecruisers but at a reduced pace.
In the United Kingdom, Fisher returned to his old post as First Sea Lord; he had been created 1st Baron Fisher in 1909, taking the motto ''Fear God and dread nought''. This, combined with a government moratorium on battleship building, meant a renewed focus on the battlecruiser. Fisher resigned in 1915 following arguments about the
Gallipoli Campaign with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
The final units of the ''Revenge'' and ''Queen Elizabeth'' classes were completed, though the last two battleships of the ''Revenge'' class were re-ordered as battlecruisers of the . Fisher followed these ships with the even more extreme ; very fast and heavily armed ships with minimal, armour, called 'large light cruisers' to get around a Cabinet ruling against new capital ships. Fisher's mania for speed culminated in his suggestion for , a mammoth, lightly armoured battlecruiser.
In Germany, two units of the pre-war were gradually completed, but the other two laid down were still unfinished by the end of the War. , also laid down before the start of the war, was completed in 1917. The , designed in 1914–1915, were begun but never finished.
Post-war
In spite of the lull in battleship building during the World War, the years 1919–1922 saw the threat of a renewed naval arms race between the United Kingdom, Japan, and the US. The Battle of Jutland exerted a huge influence over the designs produced in this period. The first ships which fit into this picture are the British , designed in 1916. Jutland finally persuaded the Admiralty that lightly armoured battlecruisers were too vulnerable, and therefore the final design of the Admirals incorporated much-increased armour, increasing displacement to 42,000 tons. The initiative in creating the new arms race lay with the Japanese and United States navies. The United States
Naval Appropriations Act of 1916 authorized the construction of 156 new ships, including ten battleships and six battlecruisers. For the first time, the United States Navy was threatening the British global lead. This programme was started slowly (in part because of a desire to learn lessons from Jutland), and never fulfilled entirely. The new American ships (the ''Colorado''-class battleships, ''South'' ''Dakota''-class battleships and
s), took a qualitative step beyond the British ''Queen Elizabeth'' class and ''Admiral'' classes by mounting 16-inch guns.
![USS California (BB-44) - NH 82114](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/USS_California_%28BB-44%29_-_NH_82114.jpg)
At the same time, the Imperial Japanese Navy was finally gaining authorization for its
'eight-eight battlefleet'. The ''Nagato'' class, authorized in 1916, carried eight 16-inch guns like their American counterparts. The next year's naval bill authorized two more battleships and two more battlecruisers. The battleships, which became the , were to carry ten 16-inch guns. The battlecruisers, the , also carried ten 16-inch guns and were designed to be capable of 30 knots, capable of beating both the British Admiral- and the US Navy's ''Lexington''-class battlecruisers.
Matters took a further turn for the worse in 1919 when
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
proposed a further expansion of the United States Navy, asking for funds for an additional ten battleships and six battlecruisers in addition to the completion of the 1916 programme (the not yet started). In response, the
Diet of Japan
The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a paralle ...
finally agreed to the completion of the 'eight-eight fleet', incorporating a further four battleships. These ships, the would displace 43,000 tons; the next design, the , would have carried guns. Many in the Japanese navy were still dissatisfied, calling for an 'eight-eight-eight' fleet with 24 modern battleships and battlecruisers.
The British, impoverished by World War I, faced the prospect of slipping behind the US and Japan. No ships had been begun since the Admiral class, and of those only had been completed. A June 1919 Admiralty plan outlined a post-war fleet with 33 battleships and eight battlecruisers, which could be built and sustained for £171 million a year (approximately £ today); only £84 million was available. The Admiralty then demanded, as an absolute minimum, a further eight battleships. These would have been the
G3 battlecruiser
The G3 battlecruisers were a class of battlecruisers planned by the Royal Navy after the end of World War I in response to naval expansion programmes by the United States and Japan. The four ships of this class would have been larger, faster ...
s, with 16-inch guns and high speed, and the N3-class battleships, with guns. Its navy severely limited by the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
, Germany did not participate in this three-way naval building competition. Most of
the German dreadnought fleet was scuttled at
Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern end in June 2009
Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay and ...
by its crews in 1919; the remainder were handed over as war prizes.
The major naval powers avoided the cripplingly expensive expansion programmes by negotiating the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922. The Treaty laid out a list of ships, including most of the older dreadnoughts and almost all the newer ships under construction, which were to be scrapped or otherwise put out of use. It furthermore declared a 'building holiday' during which no new battleships or battlecruisers were to be laid down, save for the British ''Nelson'' class. The ships which survived the treaty, including the most modern super-dreadnoughts of all three navies, formed the bulk of international capital ship strength through the
interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
and, with some modernisation, into
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The ships built under the terms of the Washington Treaty (and subsequently the London Treaties in 1930 and 1936) to replace outdated vessels were known as treaty battleships.
From this point on, the term 'dreadnought' became less widely used. Most pre-dreadnought battleships were scrapped or
hulked
A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Hulk may be used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, an abandoned wreck or shell, or to refer to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipment ...
after World War I, so the term 'dreadnought' became less necessary.
Notes
Footnotes
Citations
References
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External links
British and German Dreadnoughts
{{Warship types of the 19th & 20th centuries
Battleships
Ship types
20th-century military history
20th-century military equipment