Pre-dreadnought Battleship

Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, protected by case-hardened steel armour, and powered by coal-fired triple-expansion steam engines, pre-dreadnought battleships carried a main battery of very heavy guns in fully enclosed rotating turrets supported by one or more secondary batteries of lighter weapons.

In contrast to the multifarious development of ironclad warships in preceding decades, the 1890s saw navies worldwide start to build battleships to a common design as dozens of ships essentially followed the design of the Royal Navy's . The similarity in appearance of battleships in the 1890s was underlined by the increasing number of ships being built. New naval powers such as Germany, Japan, the United States, and to a lesser extent Italy and Austria-Hungary, began to establish themselves with fleets of pre-dreadnoughts. Meanwhile, the battleship fleets of the United Kingdom, France, and Russia expanded to meet these new threats. The last decisive clash of pre-dreadnought fleets was between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Russian Navy at the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905.

These battleships were abruptly made obsolete by the arrival of in 1906. ''Dreadnought'' followed the trend in battleship design to heavier, longer-ranged guns by adopting an "all-big-gun" armament scheme of ten 12-inch guns. Her innovative steam turbine engines also made her faster.Massie, ''Dreadnought'', pp. 474–475. The existing pre-dreadnoughts were decisively outclassed, and new and more powerful battleships were from then on known as dreadnoughts. At the same time, the ships that had been laid down before were designated pre-dreadnoughts.

Evolution

The pre-dreadnought developed from the ironclad battleship. The first ironclads—the French ''Gloire'' and —looked much like sailing frigates, with three tall masts and broadside batteries, when they were commissioned in the early 1860s. HMVS ''Cerberus'', the first breastwork monitor, was launched in 1868, followed in 1871 by , a turreted ironclad which more resembled a pre-dreadnought than the previous, and its contemporary, turretless ironclads. Both ships dispensed with masts and carried four heavy guns in two turrets fore and aft. ''Devastation'' was the first ocean-worthy breastwork monitor, built to attack enemy coasts and harbours; because of her very low freeboard, she could not fight on the high seas as her decks would be swept by water and spray, interfering with the working of her guns. Navies worldwide continued to build masted, turretless battleships which had sufficient freeboard and were seaworthy enough to fight on the high seas.

The distinction between coast-assault battleship and cruising battleship became blurred with the Admiral-class ironclads, ordered in 1880. These ships reflected developments in ironclad design, being protected by iron-and-steel compound armour rather than wrought iron. Equipped with breech-loading guns of between 12-inch and 16 ¼-inch (305 mm and 413 mm) calibre, the Admirals continued the trend of ironclad warships mounting gigantic weapons. The guns were mounted in open barbettes to save weight. Some historians see these ships as a vital step towards pre-dreadnoughts; others view them as a confused and unsuccessful design.

The subsequent of 1889 retained barbettes but were uniformly armed with guns; they were also significantly larger (at 14,000 tons displacement) and faster (because of triple-expansion steam engines) than the Admirals. Just as importantly, the ''Royal Sovereign''s had a higher freeboard, making them unequivocally capable of the high-seas battleship role.

The pre-dreadnought design reached maturity in 1895 with the . These ships were built and armoured entirely of steel, and their guns were now mounted in fully-enclosed rotating turrets. They also adopted main guns, which, because of advances in gun construction and the use of cordite propellant, were lighter and more powerful than the previous guns of larger calibre. The ''Majestic''s provided the model for battleship building in the Royal Navy and many other navies for years to come.

Armament

Main battery

Pre-dreadnoughts carried guns of several different calibres, for different roles in ship-to-ship combat. The main armament was a main battery of four heavy guns, mounted in two centre-line turrets fore and aft. Very few pre-dreadnoughts deviated from this arrangement. These guns were slow-firing, and initially of limited accuracy; but they were the only guns heavy enough to penetrate the thick armour which protected the engines, magazines, and main guns of enemy battleships.Sumrall, p. 14.

The most common calibre for the main armament was , although some ships used smaller guns because they could attain higher rates of fire; British battleships from the ''Majestic'' class onwards carried this calibre, as did French ships from the ''Charlemagne'' class, laid down in 1894. Japan, importing most of its guns from Britain, used 12-inch guns. The United States used both and guns for most of the 1890s until the , laid down in 1899 (and not to be confused with the earlier of Spanish–American War notoriety), after which the 12-inch gun was universal. The Russians used both 12 and as their main armament; the , , ''Tsesarevich'', and had main batteries while the mounted guns. The first German pre-dreadnought class used an gun but decreased to a gun for the two following classes and returned to 11-inch guns with the .

While the calibre of the main battery remained quite constant, the performance of the guns improved as longer barrels were introduced. The introduction of slow-burning nitrocellulose and cordite propellant allowed the employment of a longer barrel, and therefore higher muzzle velocity—giving greater range and penetrating power for the same calibre of shell. Between the ''Majestic'' class and ''Dreadnought'', the length of the British 12-inch gun increased from 35 calibres to 45 and muzzle velocity increased from per second to per second.

Secondary battery

Pre-dreadnoughts also carried a secondary battery. This consisted of smaller guns, typically , though any calibre from 4 to 9.4 inches (100 to 240 mm) could be used. Virtually all secondary guns were " quick firing", employing a number of innovations to increase the rate of fire. The propellant was provided in a brass cartridge, and both the breech mechanism and the mounting were suitable for rapid aiming and reloading. The role of the secondary battery was to damage the less armoured parts of an enemy battleship; while unable to penetrate the main armour belt, it might score hits on lightly armoured areas like the bridge, or start fires. Equally important, the secondary armament was to be used against enemy cruisers, destroyers, and even torpedo boats. A medium-calibre gun could expect to penetrate the light armour of smaller ships, while the rate of fire of the secondary battery was important in scoring a hit against a small, manoeuvrable target. Secondary guns were mounted in a variety of ways; sometimes carried in turrets, they were just as often positioned in fixed armoured casemates in the side of the hull, or in unarmoured positions on upper decks.

Intermediate battery

Some of the pre-dreadnoughts carried an "intermediate" battery, typically of 8-inch (203 mm) to 10-inch calibre. The intermediate battery was a method of packing more heavy firepower into the same battleship, principally of use against battleships or at long ranges. The United States Navy pioneered the intermediate battery concept in the , , and classes, but not in the battleships laid down between 1897 and 1901.Roberts, p. 122. Shortly after the USN re-adopted the intermediate battery, the British, Italian, Russian, French, and Japanese navies laid down intermediate-battery ships. This later generation of intermediate-battery ships almost without exception finished building after ''Dreadnought'', and hence were obsolete before completion.

Tertiary battery

The pre-dreadnought's armament was completed by a tertiary battery of light, rapid-fire guns. These could be of any calibre from 3-inch (76 mm) down to machine guns. Their role was to give short-range protection against torpedo boats, or to rake the deck and superstructure of a battleship.

Torpedoes

In addition to their gun armament, many pre-dreadnought battleships were armed with torpedoes, fired from fixed tubes located either above or below the waterline. By the pre-dreadnought era the torpedo was typically in diameter and had an effective range of several thousand metres. However, it was virtually unknown for a battleship to score a hit with a torpedo.

Range of combat

During the ironclad age, the range of engagements increased; in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 battles were fought at around 1 mile (1.5 km), while in the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904, the Russian and Japanese fleets fought at ranges of 3.5 miles (5.5 km). The increase in engagement range was due in part to the longer range of torpedoes, and in part to improved gunnery and fire control. In consequence, shipbuilders tended towards heavier secondary armament, of the same calibre that the "intermediate" battery had been; the Royal Navy's last pre-dreadnought class, the ''Lord Nelson'' class, carried ten 9.2-inch guns as secondary armament. Ships with a uniform, heavy secondary battery are often referred to as "semi-dreadnoughts".

Protection

Pre-dreadnought battleships carried a considerable weight of steel armour. Experience showed that rather than giving the ship uniform armour protection, it was best to concentrate armour over critical areas. The central section of the hull, which housed the boilers and engines, was protected by the main belt, which ran from just below the waterline to some distance above it. This "central citadel" was intended to protect the engines from even the most powerful shells. The main armament and the magazines were protected by projections of thick armour from the main belt. The beginning of the pre-dreadnought era was marked by a move from mounting the main armament in open barbettes to an all-enclosed, turret mounting.Roberts, p. 117.

The main belt armour would normally taper to a lesser thickness along the side of the hull towards bow and stern; it might also taper up from the central citadel towards the superstructure. The deck was typically lightly armoured with 2 to 4 inches of steel. This lighter armour was to prevent high-explosive shells from wrecking the superstructure of the ship.

The battleships of the late 1880s, for instance the , were armoured with iron and steel compound armour. This was soon replaced with more effective case-hardened steel armour made using the Harvey process developed in the United States. First tested in 1891, Harvey armour was commonplace in ships laid down from 1893 to 1895. However, its reign was brief; in 1895, the German ''Kaiser Friedrich III'' pioneered the superior Krupp armour. Europe adopted Krupp plate within five years, and only the United States persisted in using Harvey steel into the 20th century. The improving quality of armour plate meant that new ships could have better protection from a thinner and lighter armour belt; 12 inches (305 mm) of compound armour provided the same protection as just 7.5 inches (190 mm) of Harvey or 5.75 inches (133 mm) of Krupp.

Propulsion

Almost all pre-dreadnoughts were powered by reciprocating steam engines. Most were capable of top speeds between 16 and . The ironclads of the 1880s used compound engines, and by the end of the 1880s the even-more efficient triple expansion compound engine was in use. Some fleets, though not the British, adopted the quadruple-expansion steam engine.Roberts, p. 114.

The main improvement in engine performance during the pre-dreadnought period came from the adoption of increasingly higher pressure steam from the boiler. Scotch marine boilers were superseded by more compact water-tube boilers, allowing higher-pressure steam to be produced with less fuel consumption. Water-tube boilers were also safer, with less risk of explosion, and more flexible than fire-tube types. The Belleville-type water-tube boiler had been introduced in the French fleet as early as 1879, but it took until 1894 for the Royal Navy to adopt it for armoured cruisers and pre-dreadnoughts; other water-tube boilers followed in navies worldwide.

The engines drove either two or three screw propellers. France and Germany preferred the three-screw approach, which allowed the engines to be shorter and hence more easily protected; they were also more maneuverable and had better resistance to accidental damage. Triple screws were, however, generally larger and heavier than the twin-screw arrangements preferred by most other navies. The French also built the only class of turbine powered pre-dreadnought battleships, the of 1907.

Coal was the almost exclusive fuel for the pre-dreadnought period, though navies made the first experiments with oil propulsion in the late 1890s. An extra knot or two of speed could be gained by applying a 'forced draught' to the furnaces, where air was pumped into the furnaces, but this risked damage to the boilers.

Pre-dreadnought fleets and battles

The pre-dreadnought battleship in its heyday was the core of a very diverse navy. Many older ironclads were still in service. Battleships served alongside cruisers of many descriptions: modern armoured cruisers which were essentially cut-down battleships, lighter protected cruisers, and even older unarmoured cruisers, sloops and frigates whether built out of steel, iron or wood. The battleships were threatened by torpedo boats; it was during the pre-dreadnought era that the first destroyers were constructed to deal with the torpedo-boat threat, though at the same time the first effective submarines were being constructed.

The pre-dreadnought age saw the beginning of the end of the 19th century naval balance of power in which France and Russia vied for competition against the massive Royal Navy, and saw the start of the rise of the 'new naval powers' of Germany, Japan and the USA. The new ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy and to a lesser extent the U.S. Navy supported those powers' colonial expansion.

While pre-dreadnoughts were adopted worldwide, there were no clashes between pre-dreadnought battleships until the very end of their period of dominance. The First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–95 influenced pre-dreadnought development, but this had been a clash between Chinese battleships and a Japanese fleet consisting of mostly cruisers. The Spanish–American War of 1898 was also a mismatch, with the American pre-dreadnought fleet engaging Spanish shore batteries at San Juan and then a Spanish squadron of armoured cruisers and destroyers at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba. Not until the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 did pre-dreadnoughts engage on an equal footing. This happened in three battles: the Russian tactical victory during the Battle of Port Arthur on 8–9 February 1904, the indecisive Battle of the Yellow Sea on 10 August 1904, and the decisive Japanese victory at the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905. These battles upended prevailing theories of how naval battles would be fought, as the fleets began firing at one another at much greater distances than before; naval architects realized that plunging fire (explosive shells falling on their targets largely from above, instead of from a trajectory close to horizontal) was a much greater threat than had been thought.

Gunboat diplomacy was typically conducted by cruisers or smaller warships. A British squadron of three protected cruisers and two gunboats brought about the capitulation of Zanzibar in 1896; and while battleships participated in the combined fleet Western powers deployed during the Boxer Rebellion, the naval part of the action was performed by gunboats, destroyers and sloops.

Europe

European navies remained dominant in the pre-dreadnought era. The Royal Navy remained the world's largest fleet, though both Britain's traditional naval rivals and the new European powers increasingly asserted themselves against its supremacy.

In 1889, Britain formally adopted a 'two power standard' committing it to building enough battleships to exceed the two largest other navies combined; at the time, this meant France and Russia, who became formally allied in the early 1890s. The and were followed by a regular programme of construction at a much quicker pace than in previous years. The , , and classes appeared in rapid succession from 1897 to 1905. Counting two ships ordered by Chile but taken over by the British, the Royal Navy had 39 pre-dreadnought battleships ready or being built by 1904, starting the count from the ''Majestic''s. Over two dozen older battleships remained in service. The last British pre-dreadnoughts, the , appeared after ''Dreadnought'' herself.

France, Britain's traditional naval rival, had paused its battleship building during the 1880s because of the influence of the Jeune École doctrine, which favoured torpedo boats to battleships. After the Jeune École's influence faded, the first French battleship laid down was ''Brennus'', in 1889. ''Brennus'' and the ships which followed her were individual, as opposed to the large classes of British ships; they also carried an idiosyncratic arrangement of heavy guns, with ''Brennus'' carrying three guns and the ships which followed carrying two 12-inch and two 10.8-inch in single turrets. The , laid down 1894–1896, were the first to adopt the standard four gun heavy armament. The Jeune École retained a strong influence on French naval strategy, and by the end of the 19th century France had abandoned competition with Britain in battleship numbers. The French suffered the most from the dreadnought revolution, with four ships of the still building when ''Dreadnought'' launched, and a further six of the begun afterwards.

Germany's first pre-dreadnoughts, the , were laid down in 1890. By 1905, a further 19 battleships were built or under construction, thanks to the sharp increase in naval expenditure justified by the 1898 and 1900 Navy Laws. This increase was due to the determination of the navy chief