The dreadnought was the predominant type of 20th-century battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

'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-dreadnought

Pre-dreadnought

Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...

s. Her design had two revolutionary features: an "all-big-gun" armament scheme and steam turbine

Steam turbine

A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884....

 propulsion. The arrival of the dreadnoughts renewed the naval arms race, principally between the United Kingdom

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

 and Germany

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 but reflected worldwide, as the new class of warships became a crucial symbol of national power.

The concept of an all-big-gun ship had been in development for several years before Dreadnoughts construction. The Imperial Japanese Navy

Imperial Japanese Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...

 had begun work on an all-big-gun battleship in 1904, but finished the ship as a pre-dreadnought; the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 was also building all-big-gun battleships. Technical development continued rapidly through the dreadnought era. Successive designs increased rapidly in size and made use of improvements in armament, armor, and propulsion. Within ten years, new battleships outclassed Dreadnought herself. These more powerful vessels were known as "super-dreadnoughts". Most of the dreadnoughts were scrapped after the end of World War I under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty

Washington Naval Treaty

The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was an attempt to cap and limit, and "prevent 'further' costly escalation" of the naval arms race that had begun after World War I between various International powers, each of which had significant naval fleets. The treaty was...

, but many of the newer super-dreadnoughts continued serving through World War II.

While dreadnought-building consumed vast resources in the early 20th century, there was only one battle between large dreadnought fleets. At the Battle of Jutland

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

, 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

Washington Naval Treaty

The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was an attempt to cap and limit, and "prevent 'further' costly escalation" of the naval arms race that had begun after World War I between various International powers, each of which had significant naval fleets. The treaty was...

, as all remaining battleships shared dreadnought characteristics; it can also be used to describe battlecruiser

Battlecruiser

Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...

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 firepower and range of their battleships. The majority of pre-dreadnought

Pre-dreadnought

Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...

 battleships had a main armament of four heavy guns of 12-inch (305 mm) caliber

Caliber

In guns including firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the diameter of the projectile used in it....

, a secondary armament of six to eighteen quick-firing

Quick-firing gun

A quick-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...

 guns of 4.7 inches (119.4 mm) to 7.5 inches (190.5 mm) caliber, and other smaller weapons. Some designs had an intermediate battery of 8 inches (203.2 mm) guns. By 1903, serious proposals for an all-big-gun armament were circulated in several countries.

All-big-gun designs commenced almost simultaneously in three navies. The Imperial Japanese Navy

Imperial Japanese Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...

 authorized the construction of , designed with twelve 12 inches (304.8 mm) guns in 1904; she was laid down in May 1905. The Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 began the design of HMS Dreadnought in January 1905; she was laid down in October. The U.S. Navy gained authorization for , carrying eight 12-inch guns in March; she was laid down in December 1906.

The move to all-big-gun designs was accomplished because a uniform, heavy-caliber armament offered advantages in both firepower and fire control. The newest 12-inch (305 mm) guns had more long-range firepower than a gun of 10 inches (254 mm) or 9.2 inches (233.7 mm) caliber. Most historians also cite advantages in fire control; at long ranges guns were aimed by observing the splashes caused by shells fired in salvos, and it was difficult to interpret different splashes caused by different calibers of gun. There is still debate as to whether this point was important.

Long-range gunnery

In naval battles of the 1890s the decisive weapon was the medium-caliber, typically 6 inches (152.4 mm), quick-firing gun firing at relatively short range; naval gunnery was too inaccurate to hit targets at a longer range.At very close ranges, a projectile fired from a gun follows a flat trajectory, and the guns can be aimed by pointing them at the enemy. On warships, this issue is complicated by the natural rolling of the ship. At greater ranges, the gunner has a more difficult problem as the gun needs to be elevated in order for the projectile to follow a proper ballistic trajectory

Trajectory of a projectile

In physics, the ballistic trajectory of a projectile is the path that a thrown or launched projectile will take under the action of gravity, neglecting all other forces, such as friction from air resistance, without propulsion....

 to hit its target. This therefore needs accurate estimation (prediction) of the range to the target, which was one of the main problems of fire control. Friedman, Battleship Design and Development, p.99 At these ranges lighter guns had good accuracy, and their high rate of fire delivered high volumes of ordnance on the target. At the Battle of the Yalu River in 1894, the victorious Japanese did not open fire until the range had closed to 3900 metres (4,265.1 yd), but most of the fighting occurred at 2000 metres (2,187.2 yd).

By the early 20th century British and American admirals expected that future battleships would engage at longer distances, as the range of the torpedo

Torpedo

The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

 increased. In 1903, the U.S. Navy ordered a design of torpedo effective to 4000 yards (3,657.6 m).Friedman, U.S. Battleships, p.53 Both British and American admirals concluded they needed to engage the enemy at longer ranges. In 1900, Admiral Sir John "Jackie" Fisher, commanding the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet, ordered gunnery practice with 6-inch guns at 6000 yards (5,486.4 m). By 1904, the U.S. Naval War College

Naval War College

The Naval War College is an education and research institution of the United States Navy that specializes in developing ideas for naval warfare and passing them along to officers of the Navy. The college is located on the grounds of Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island...

 was considering the effects on battleship tactics of torpedoes with a range of 7000 yards (6,400.8 m) to 8000 yards (7,315.2 m).

The range of light and medium-caliber guns was limited, and accuracy declined badly at longer range.Lighter projectiles have a lower ratio of mass to frontal surface area, and so their velocity is reduced more quickly by air resistance. If all things are equal, higher velocity means higher accuracy. At longer ranges the advantage of a high rate of fire also decreased; accurate shooting depended on spotting the shell-splashes of the previous salvo, which limited the optimum rate of fire.

In the early years of the 20th century the effective range of heavy guns increased. This had been established during gunnery exercises by 1904, and confirmed in combat during the action at Tsushima

Battle of Tsushima

The Battle of Tsushima , commonly known as the “Sea of Japan Naval Battle” in Japan and the “Battle of Tsushima Strait”, was the major naval battle fought between Russia and Japan during the Russo-Japanese War...

 in 1905."By 1904, the gunnery of the largest weapons had improved to the point where decisive hits could be made at the greatest ranges. This conclusion was confirmed by battle experience in the Russo-Japanese War, but serious planning for all-big-gun ships came considerably earlier in the major navies, based on peacetime gunnery experiments." Friedman, U.S. Battleships, p.52

All-big-gun mixed-caliber ships

One approach to making more powerful battleships was to reduce the secondary battery, and substitute additional heavy guns: typically 9.2 inches (233.7 mm) or 10 inches (254 mm). These ships, described as 'all-big-gun mixed-caliber' or later 'semi-dreadnought', included the British King Edward VII

King Edward VII class battleship

The King Edward VII class was a class of pre-dreadnought battleships launched by the Royal Navy between 1903 and 1905.-Armament:By 1901, the 29 British battleships of the Majestic, Canopus, Formidable, London, Queen, and Duncan classes then in service or under construction, all following the same...

 and Lord Nelson

Lord Nelson class battleship

The Lord Nelson class was a two-ship class of pre-dreadnought battleships built by the Royal Navy between 1905 and 1908. Although they were the last British pre-dreadnoughts, both were completed and commissioned after HMS Dreadnought had entered service. and were serving in the Channel Fleet when...

 classes, the French Danton

Danton class battleship

The Danton class was a class of French battleships built between 1907–1911, which served in World War I. The six ships in the class were all pre-dreadnought battleships, the last of their kind produced in the French Navy.-Design and production:...

 class, and the Japanese battleship Satsuma. The design process for these ships often included discussion of an 'all-big-gun one-caliber' alternative.

The June 1902 issue of Proceedings of the US Naval Institute contained comments by the U.S. Navy's leading gunnery expert Prof. P.R Alger proposing a main battery of eight 12 inches (304.8 mm) guns in twin turrets.Friedman, U.S. Battleships, p. 51 In May 1902, the Bureau of Construction and Repair

Bureau of Construction and Repair

The Bureau of Construction and Repair 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 Navy...

 submitted a design for the battleship with twelve 10-inch guns in twin turrets, two at the ends and four in the wings. Lt. Cdr. H. C. Poundstone submitted a paper to President Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

 in December 1902 arguing the case for larger battleships. In an appendix to his paper, Poundstone suggested a greater number of 11 inches (279.4 mm) and 9 inches (228.6 mm) guns was preferable to a smaller number of 12-inch and 9-inch. The Naval War College

Naval War College

The Naval War College is an education and research institution of the United States Navy that specializes in developing ideas for naval warfare and passing them along to officers of the Navy. The college is located on the grounds of Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island...

 and Bureau of Construction and Repair developed these ideas in studies between 1903 and 1905. Wargame studies begun in July 1903 "showed that a battleship armed with twelve 11-inch or 12-inch guns hexagonally arranged would be equal to three or more of the conventional type."

In the Royal Navy, the same trend occurred. A design had also been circulated in 1902–03 for "a powerful 'all big-gun' armament of two calibres, viz. four 12-inch and twelve 9.2-inch guns." However, the Admiralty decided to build three more King Edward

King Edward VII class battleship

The King Edward VII class was a class of pre-dreadnought battleships launched by the Royal Navy between 1903 and 1905.-Armament:By 1901, the 29 British battleships of the Majestic, Canopus, Formidable, London, Queen, and Duncan classes then in service or under construction, all following the same...

s (with a mixture of 12-inch, 9.2-inch and 6 inches (152.4 mm)) in the 1903–04 naval construction program instead. The concept was revived for the 1904–05 program, the Lord Nelson

Lord Nelson class battleship

The Lord Nelson class was a two-ship class of pre-dreadnought battleships built by the Royal Navy between 1905 and 1908. Although they were the last British pre-dreadnoughts, both were completed and commissioned after HMS Dreadnought had entered service. and were serving in the Channel Fleet when...

 class. Restrictions on length and beam

Beam (nautical)

The beam of a ship is its width at the widest point. Generally speaking, the wider the beam of a ship , the more initial stability it has, at expense of reserve stability in the event of a capsize, where more energy is required to right the vessel from its inverted position...

 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-caliber guns was the need to begin the building of the ships quickly because of the tense situation produced by the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

.

Switch to all-big-gun designs

The replacement of the 6 inches (152.4 mm) or 8 inches (203.2 mm) guns with weapons of 9.2 inches (233.7 mm) or 10 inches (254 mm) caliber improved the striking power of a battleship, particularly at longer ranges. However, uniform heavy-gun armament offered many other advantages. One advantage was logistical simplicity. When the U.S. was considering whether to have a mixed-caliber main armament for the South Carolina class, for example, William Sims

William Sims

William Sowden Sims was an admiral in the United States Navy who sought during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to modernize the Navy. During World War I he commanded all United States naval forces operating in Europe...

 and Homer Poundstone stressed the advantages of homogeneity in terms of ammunition supply and the transfer of crews from the disengaged guns to replace wounded gunners.

A uniform caliber of gun meant streamlined 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."Additional advantage is gained by having a uniform armament. A mixed armament necessitates separate control for each type; owing to a variety of causes the range passed to 12-inch guns is not the range that will suit the 9.2-inch or 6-inch guns, although the distance of the target is the same." First Addendum to the Report of the Committee on Designs, quoted in Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, p.322 Some historians today hold that a uniform caliber was particularly important because the risk of confusion between shell-splashes of 12 inches (304.8 mm) and lighter guns made accurate ranging difficult. However, this viewpoint is controversial; 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.In the United Kingdom: "Fisher does not seem to have expressed interest in... the ability to hit an adversary at long range by spotting salvoes. It is also very difficult to understand just when this method was first officially understood"; Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, p. 322. And in America: "The possibility of gunnery confusion due to two calibers as close as 10 inches (254 mm) and 12 inches (304.8 mm) was never raised. For example, Sims

William Sims

William Sowden Sims was an admiral in the United States Navy who sought during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to modernize the Navy. During World War I he commanded all United States naval forces operating in Europe...

 and Poundstone stressed the advantages of homogeneity in terms of ammunition supply and the transfer of crews from the disengaged guns to replace wounded gunners. Friedman, US Battleships, p. 55 Nevertheless, the likelihood of engagements at longer ranges was important in deciding that the heaviest possible guns should become standard, hence 12 inches (304.8 mm) rather than 10 inches (254 mm)."In October W.L. Rogers of the Naval War College wrote a long and detailed memorandum on this question, pointing out that as ranges became longer the difference in accuracy between even 10-inch and 12-inch guns became enormous" Friedman, US Battleships, p.55; "The advantage at long range lies with the ship which carries the greatest number of guns of the largest type", Report of the Committee on Designs, quoted in Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, p.322

Furthermore, the newer designs of 12-inch gun mounting had a considerably higher rate of fire, removing the advantage previously enjoyed by smaller calibers. In 1895, a 12-inch gun might fire one round every four minutes; by 1902, two rounds per minute was usual. In October 1903, naval architect Vittorio Cuniberti

Vittorio Cuniberti

Vittorio Emanuele Cuniberti was an Italian military officer who envisioned the concept of the all big gun battleship, best exemplified by HMS Dreadnought.-Cuniberti's article:...

 published a paper in Jane's Fighting Ships

Jane's Fighting Ships

Jane's Fighting Ships is an annual reference book of information on all the world's warships arranged by nation, including information on ship's names, dimensions, armaments, silhouettes and photographs, etc...

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 armor 12 inches thick, and having a speed of 24 knots (28 mph/44 km/h). Cuniberti's idea—which he had already proposed to his own navy, the Regia Marina

Regia Marina

The Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...

—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

Battle of Tsushima

The Battle of Tsushima , commonly known as the “Sea of Japan Naval Battle” in Japan and the “Battle of Tsushima Strait”, was the major naval battle fought between Russia and Japan during the Russo-Japanese War...

, Japanese shells contained a higher than normal proportion of high explosive, and were fused to explode on contact, starting fires rather than piercing armor. The increased rate of fire laid the foundations for future advances in fire control.

Building the first dreadnoughts

In Japan, the two battleships of the 1903–04 Programme were the first in the world to be laid down as all-big-gun ships, with eight 12 inches (304.8 mm) guns. However, 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 inches (254 mm) armament. The 1903–04 design also retained traditional triple-expansion steam engines, unlike Dreadnought.

The dreadnought breakthrough occurred in the United Kingdom in October 1905. The new First Sea Lord

First Sea Lord

The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...

, John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher 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 first firmly proposed the all-big-gun idea in a paper in 1904, where he called for battleships with sixteen 10-inch guns; by November 1904 he was convinced of the need for 12-inch guns. A 1902 letter, where he suggested powerful ships 'with equal fire all round', might have meant an all-big-gun design. Mackay, R. Fisher of Kilverstone, p.312 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. However, it has been suggested Fisher's main interest was in developing the battlecruiser

Battlecruiser

Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...

 and not the battleship.

Shortly after taking office, Fisher set up a Committee on Designs to consider future battleships and armored 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 calibers, and a speed of 21 kn (41.2 km/h) 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 inches (233.7 mm). After a full evaluation of reports of the action at Tsushima

Battle of Tsushima

The Battle of Tsushima , commonly known as the “Sea of Japan Naval Battle” in Japan and the “Battle of Tsushima Strait”, was the major naval battle fought between Russia and Japan during the Russo-Japanese War...

 compiled by an official observer, Captain William Christopher Pakenham

William Christopher Pakenham

Admiral Sir William Christopher Pakenham, KCB, KCMG, KCVO was a British observer with the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Russo-Japanese War, during World War I he commanded the 2nd Battle Cruiser Squadron during the Battle of Jutland, and from December 1916 was Commander-in-Chief of the Battle...

, the Committee settled on a main battery of ten 12-inch guns, along with twenty-two 12 pounder

QF 12 pounder 18 cwt naval gun

The QF 12 pounder 18 cwt gun was a 3 inch high-velocity naval gun used to equip larger British warships such as battleships for defence against torpedo boats...

s as her secondary armament. The Committee also took the adventurous step of giving Dreadnought steam turbine

Steam turbine

A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884....

 propulsion. This was unprecedented in a large warship. The greater efficiency of the turbines meant the 21-knot (24 mph/39 km/h) design speed could be achieved in a smaller and cheaper ship than if reciprocating engine

Reciprocating engine

A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of all types...

s had been used. Construction took place at a remarkable rate; her keel was laid on 2 October 1905, she was launched on 10 February 1906, and she was completed on 3 October 1906—an impressive demonstration of British industrial might.

The first US dreadnoughts were the two ships. Detailed plans for these were worked out in July–November 1905, and approved by the Board of Construction on 23 November 1905. However, 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 armor concentrated mainly in a thick belt at the waterline and in one or more armored decks. In addition, secondary armament, fire control, command equipment, 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 (ship)

A ship's displacement is its weight at any given time, generally expressed in metric tons or long tons. The term is often used to mean the ship's weight when it is loaded to its maximum capacity. A number of synonymous terms exist for this maximum weight, such as loaded displacement, full load...

, and hence cost, of dreadnoughts tended to increase. The Washington Naval Treaty

Washington Naval Treaty

The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was an attempt to cap and limit, and "prevent 'further' costly escalation" of the naval arms race that had begun after World War I between various International powers, each of which had significant naval fleets. The treaty was...

 of 1922 imposed a limit of 35,000 tons on the displacement of capital ships. In subsequent years a number of treaty battleship

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...

s were commissioned designed 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

Main battery

Generally used only in the terms of naval warfare, the main battery is the primary weapon around which a ship was designed. "Battery" is in itself a common term in the military science of artillery. For example, the United States Navy battleship USS Washington had a main battery of nine guns...

 of heavy-caliber guns; the number, size, and arrangement differed between designs. Dreadnought herself mounted ten 12 inches (304.8 mm) 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 was an exception, continuing to use 280 millimetres (11 in) guns in its first class of dreadnoughts, the Nassau-class

Nassau class battleship

The Nassau class were a group of four German dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Navy. They were the German response to the introduction of the "all big gun" British . The class was composed of , , , and . All four ships were laid down in mid-1907, and completed between May and September...

.

Dreadnoughts also carried lighter weapons. Many early dreadnoughts carried a secondary armament of very light guns designed to fend off enemy torpedo boat

Motor Torpedo Boat

Motor Torpedo Boat was the name given to fast torpedo boats by the Royal Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy.The capitalised term is generally used for the Royal Navy boats and abbreviated to "MTB"...

s. However, the caliber and weight of secondary armament tended to increase, as the range of torpedoes and the staying power of the destroyer

Destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

s expected to carry them also increased. From the end of World War I onwards, battleships had also to be equipped with anti-aircraft armament, typically a large number of light guns.

Dreadnoughts also very frequently carried torpedo tube

Torpedo tube

A torpedo tube is a 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 installed aboard surface vessels...

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. In practice, torpedoes fired from battleships scored very few hits, while there was a risk that a stored torpedo would cause a dangerous explosion if hit by enemy fire.

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 her, carried five turrets: one forward and two aft on the centerline of the ship, and two in the 'wings' next to the superstructure

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...

. This allowed three turrets to fire ahead and four on the broadside. The Nassau and Helgoland

Helgoland class battleship

The Helgoland class was the second class of German dreadnought battleships. Constructed from 1908 to 1912, the class comprised four ships: , the lead ship; ; ; and . The design was a significant improvement over the previous ships; they had a larger main battery— main guns instead of the weapons...

 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 staggered the wing turrets, so all ten guns could fire on the broadside, a feature also used by the German Kaiser class. This, however, risked blast damage to parts of the ship over which the guns fired, and put great stress on the ship's frame.

If all turrets were on the centerline of the vessel, then the stresses on the ship's frame were relatively low. This layout also meant that the entire main battery could fire on the broadside, though fewer could fire end-on. It also meant the hull would be longer, which posed some challenges for the designers; a longer ship needed to devote more weight to armor 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 centerline turrets, was not considered a success.

A superfiring

Superfire

The idea of superfire is to locate two turrets in a row, one behind the other, but with the second turret located above the one in front so that the second turret could fire over the first...

 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 U.S. 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 also raised the center 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 U.S. Navy used superfiring on the South Carolina class

South Carolina class battleship

The United States Navy's South Carolina class consisted of two battleships: and , both of which were launched in 1908. These were among the first warships built with armament organized on the "all-big gun" and the first American battleships of the type...

, and the layout was adopted in the Royal Navy with the Orion class

Orion class battleship

The Orion class battleships were four super-dreadnoughts — the first ships of that type — of the Royal Navy. The lead ship, , was launched in 1910. They were the first Royal Navy dreadnoughts to have all their main guns in the centreline, although the U.S. South Carolina class had this advanced...

 of 1910. By World War II, superfiring was entirely standard.

Initially, all dreadnoughts had two guns to a turret. However, 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 also reduced the rate of fire from the guns somewhat. The first nation to adopt the triple turret was Italy, in the Dante Alighieri

Italian battleship Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was the first dreadnought battleship built for the Regia Marina . Named after the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri, she was the first ship built with triple gun turrets for the main armament...

, soon followed by Russia with the , the Austro-Hungarian , and the U.S. . British Royal Navy battleships did not adopt triple turrets until after the First World War, with the . Several later designs used quadruple turrets, including the British King George V class

King George V class battleship (1939)

The King George V-class battleships were the most modern British battleships used during World War II. Five ships of this class were built and commissioned: King George V , Prince of Wales , Duke of York , Howe , and Anson .The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 limiting all of the number,...

 and French .

Main armament power and caliber

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 caliber

Caliber

In guns including firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the diameter of the projectile used in it....

 of the weapon and hence the weight of shell, or by lengthening the barrel to increase muzzle velocity

Muzzle velocity

Muzzle velocity is the speed a projectile has at the moment it leaves the muzzle of the gun. Muzzle velocities range from approximately to in black powder muskets , to more than in modern rifles with high-performance cartridges such as the .220 Swift and .204 Ruger, all the way to for tank guns...

. Either of these offered the chance to increase range and armor 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 U.S. Navy seriously considered stopping practice firing of heavy guns in 1910 because of the wear on the barrels. The disadvantages of heavier guns were twofold: first, the guns and turrets required weighed much more; and second, heavier and slower shells needed to be fired at a higher angle for the same range, which affected the design of turrets. However, the big advantage of increasing caliber was that heavier shells are also affected less by air resistance, and so retain greater penetrating power at long range.

Different navies approached the decision of caliber in different ways. The German navy, for instance, generally used a lighter caliber than the equivalent British ships, e.g. 12 inches (304.8 mm) caliber when the British standard was 13.5 inches (342.9 mm). However, because German metallurgy was superior, the German 12-inch gun was superior to the British 12-inch in terms of shell weight and muzzle velocity; and because the German guns were lighter than the British 13.5-inch, German ships could afford more armor.

On the whole, however, the caliber of guns tended to increase. In the Royal Navy, the Orion

Orion class battleship

The Orion class battleships were four super-dreadnoughts — the first ships of that type — of the Royal Navy. The lead ship, , was launched in 1910. They were the first Royal Navy dreadnoughts to have all their main guns in the centreline, although the U.S. South Carolina class had this advanced...

 class, launched 1910, used ten 13.5-inch guns, all on the centerline; the Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth class battleship

The Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were a class of five super-dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy. The lead ship was named after Elizabeth I of England...

 class, launched 1913, used eight 15 inches (381 mm) guns. In all navies, the caliber of guns increased and the number of guns tended to decrease to compensate. The fewer guns needed meant distributing them became less of an issue, and centerline turrets became entirely the norm.

A further step change was planned for battleships designed and laid down at the end of World War I. The Japanese Nagato class

Japanese battleship Nagato

Nagato was a battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy; the lead ship of her class. She was the first battleship in the world to mount 16 inch guns, her armour protection and speed made her one of the most powerful capital ships at the time of her commissioning.She was the flagship of Admiral...

 in 1917 carried 16 inches (406.4 mm) guns, which was quickly matched by the U.S. Navy's Colorado class

Colorado class battleship

The Colorado class battleships was a group of four battleships built by the United States Navy after World War I. However, only three of the ships were completed: , , and . The fourth, , was over 75% completed when she was canceled under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922...

. Both the United Kingdom and Japan were planning battleships with 18 inches (457.2 mm) armament, in the British case the N3 class

N3 class battleship

The N3 class was a dreadnought battleship class designed for the Royal Navy after World War I, incorporating all the lessons learned from that conflict. They were very similar in design to the s, but had larger guns and thicker armour...

. However, the Washington Naval Treaty meant these plans with their mammoth guns never got off the drawing board.

The Washington Naval Treaty

Washington Naval Treaty

The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was an attempt to cap and limit, and "prevent 'further' costly escalation" of the naval arms race that had begun after World War I between various International powers, each of which had significant naval fleets. The treaty was...

 limited battleship guns at 16 inches (406.4 mm) caliber. Later treaties preserved this limit, though reductions of the limit to 11, 12, or 14 inches were proposed. The only battleships to break the limit were the Japanese Yamato

Yamato class battleship

The were battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy constructed and operated during World War II. Displacing at full load, the vessels were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed. The class carried the largest naval artillery ever fitted to a warship, nine naval...

 class, begun in 1937 (after the treaty expired), which carried 460 mm (18.1 in) main guns. By the middle of World War II, the United Kingdom was making use of 15-inch guns kept as spares for the Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth class battleship

The Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were a class of five super-dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy. The lead ship was named after Elizabeth I of England...

 class to arm the last British battleship, .

A number of World War II-era designs were drawn up proposing another move towards gigantic armament. The German H-43 and H-44 designs proposed 508 millimetres (20 in) guns, and there is evidence Hitler wanted calibers as high as 609 millimetres (24 in); the Japanese 'Super Yamato' design also called for 508 mm 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 boat

Torpedo boat

A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval vessel designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and later designs launched self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. They were created to counter battleships and other large, slow and...

s. Dreadnought herself 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 Carolinas 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 armor 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 unarmored positions high on the ship to minimize weight and maximize field of fire.

Within a few years, the principal threat was from the destroyer

Destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

—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 150-mm (5.9 in) and sixteen 88-mm (3.45 in) guns, and subsequent German dreadnought classes followed her lead. These heavier guns tended to be mounted in armored barbette

Barbette

A barbette is a protective circular armour feature around a cannon or heavy artillery gun. The name comes from the French phrase en barbette referring to the practice of firing a field gun over a parapet rather than through an opening . The former gives better angles of fire but less protection...

s or casemates on the main deck. The Royal Navy increased its secondary armament from 12-pounder to first 4 inches (101.6 mm) and then 6 inches (152.4 mm) guns, which were standard at the start of World War I; the U.S. standardized on 5 inches (127 mm) caliber for the War but planned 6-inch guns for the ships designed just afterwards.

The secondary battery also served several other roles. It was hoped that a medium-caliber shell might be able to score a hit on an enemy dreadnought's sensitive fire control systems. Also, it was 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 also 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 escort it with its own destroyer squadron. 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 guns increasingly adopted.

Armor

Much of the displacement of a dreadnought was taken up by the steel plating of its armor. Designers spent much time and effort to provide the best possible protection for their ships against the various weapons they would be faced with. However, only so much weight could ever be devoted to protection, without compromising speed, firepower or seakeeping.

Central citadel

The bulk of a dreadnought's armor was concentrated around the "armored citadel". This was a box, with four armored walls and an armored roof, around the most important parts of the ship. The sides of the citadel were the "armored 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 armored bulkheads, fore and aft, which stretched between the ends of the armor belt. The "roof" of the citadel was an armored 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 unarmored.

The earliest dreadnoughts were intended to take part in a pitched battle against other battleships at ranges of up to 10000 yard. 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' armor was concentrated in a thick belt around the waterline; this was 11 inches (279.4 mm) 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 armor and exploded could send fragments flying in all directions. These fragments were dangerous, but could be stopped by much thinner armor than what would be necessary to stop an unexploded armor-piercing shell. To protect the innards of the ship from fragments of shells which detonated on the superstructure, much thinner steel armor was applied to the decks of the ship.

While the thickest protection was reserved for the central citadel in all battleships, some navies also extended a thinner armored belt and armored deck to cover the ends of the ship, or extended a thinner armored belt up the outside of the hull. This "tapered" armor was used by the major European navies—the United Kingdom, Germany and France. This arrangement gave some armor 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. However, 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 armored belt was entirely submerged. The alternative was an "all or nothing" protection scheme, developed by the U.S. Navy. The armor belt was tall and thick, but no side protection at all was provided to the ends of the ship or the upper decks. The armored 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 U.S. Navy after World War I.

During the evolution of the dreadnought, armor schemes changed to reflect the greater risk of plunging shells from long-range gunfire, and the increasing threat from armor-piercing bombs dropped by aircraft. Later designs carried a greater thickness of steel on the armored deck; Yamato carried a 16 inches (406.4 mm) main belt, but a deck 9 inches (228.6 mm) 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 was holed—by shellfire, mine

Naval mine

A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...

, 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 hatches between different underwater sections, so that even a surprise hole below the waterline need not sink the ship. However, there were still a number of instances where flooding spread between underwater compartments.

The greatest evolution in dreadnought protection came with the development of the Anti-torpedo bulge

Anti-torpedo bulge

The anti-torpedo bulge is a form of passive defence against naval torpedoes that featured in warship construction in the period between the First and Second World Wars.-Theory and form:...

 and torpedo belt

Torpedo belt

The torpedo belt was part of the armouring scheme in some warships of between the 1920s and 1940s. It consisted of a series of lightly armoured compartments, extending laterally along a narrow belt that intersected the ship's waterline...

, 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 armored 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

Dreadnoughts were propelled by two to four screw propellers. Dreadnought herself, and all British dreadnoughts, had screw shafts driven by steam turbine

Steam turbine

A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884....

s. However, the first generation of dreadnoughts built in other nations used the slower triple-expansion steam engine

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

 which had been standard in pre-dreadnoughts.

Turbines offered more power

Power (physics)

In physics, power is the rate at which energy is transferred, used, or transformed. For example, the rate at which a light bulb transforms electrical energy into heat and light is measured in watts—the more wattage, the more power, or equivalently the more electrical energy is used per unit...

 than reciprocating engines for the same volume of machinery. This, along with a guarantee on the new machinery from the inventor, Charles Parsons

Charles Algernon Parsons

Sir Charles Algernon Parsons OM KCB FRS was an Anglo-Irish engineer, best known for his invention of the steam turbine. He worked as an engineer on dynamo and turbine design, and power generation, with great influence on the naval and electrical engineering fields...

, 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. However, by 1905, new designs of reciprocating engine were available which were cleaner and more reliable than previous models.

Turbines were not without disadvantages. At cruising speeds much slower than maximum speed, turbines were markedly less fuel-efficient

Fuel efficiency

Fuel efficiency is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the efficiency 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, which in turn may vary per application, and this spectrum of variance is...

 than reciprocating engines. This was particularly important for navies which required a long range at cruising speeds—and hence for the U.S. 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 Oklahoma, received reciprocating engines, while the Nevada received geared turbines. The two New York class ships of 1914 both received reciprocating engines, but all four ships of the Florida (1911) and Wyoming (1912) classes received turbines.

The disadvantages of the turbine were eventually overcome. The solution which eventually was generally adopted was the geared turbine, where gearing reduced the rotation rate of the propellers and hence increased efficiency. However, this solution required technical precision in the gears and hence was difficult to implement.

One alternative was the turbo-electric

Turbo-electric

A turbo-electric transmission uses electric generators to convert the mechanical energy of a turbine into electric energy and electric motors to convert it back into mechanical energy to power the driveshafts....

 drive where the steam turbine generated electrical power which then drove the propellers. This was particularly favored by the U.S. 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 machinery was heavy and vulnerable to battle damage, particularly the effects of flooding on the electrics.Friedman, U.S. Battleships, p.126–8. Friedman notes, for instance, the total loss of power in the turbo-electric drive of converted battlecruiser after just one torpedo hit in World War II.

Turbines were never replaced in battleship design. Diesel engine

Diesel engine

A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...

s were eventually considered by a number of powers, as they offered very good endurance and an engineering space taking up less of the length of the ship. However, they were also heavier, took up a greater vertical space, offered less power, and were considered unreliable.

Fuel

The first generation of dreadnoughts used coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 to fire the boilers which fed steam to the turbines. Coal had been in use since the very first steam warships, but 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. Coal 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

Thermal efficiency

In thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency is a dimensionless performance measure of a device that uses thermal energy, such as an internal combustion engine, a boiler, a furnace, or a refrigerator for example.-Overview:...

. Coal was, however, quite inert and could be used as part of the ship's protection scheme.

Oil

Oil

An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....

-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

Thermal energy

Thermal energy is the part of the total internal energy of a thermodynamic system or sample of matter that results in the system's temperature....

 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. However, the main problem with using oil for the battle fleet was that, with the exception of the USA, every major navy would have to import its oil. This meant that a number of 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 was a major oil producer, and the U.S. Navy was the first to wholeheartedly adopt oil-firing, deciding to do so in 1910 and ordering oil-fired boilers for the Nevada class

Nevada class battleship

The Nevada class battleships were the United States Navy's first battleship design equipped with triple gun turrets , as well as introducing the so-called "all or nothing" armor scheme, in which protection of vital areas was optimized against heavy caliber guns, leaving other parts...

, in 1911. The United Kingdom was not far behind, deciding in 1912 to use oil on its own in the Queen Elizabeth class

Queen Elizabeth class battleship

The Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were a class of five super-dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy. The lead ship was named after Elizabeth I of England...

; shorter British design and building times meant that Queen Elizabeth was commissioned before either of the Nevada class. The United Kingdom planned to revert to mixed firing with the subsequent Revenge class

Revenge class battleship

The Revenge class battleships were five battleships of the Royal Navy, ordered as World War I loomed on the horizon, and launched in 1914–1916...

, at the cost of some speed—but Fisher, returned to office in 1914, insisted that all of 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 were 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. This has led to criticism that the British, by launching HMS Dreadnought, threw away a strategic advantage. However, most of the United Kingdom's naval rivals were themselves contemplating or even building warships that featured a uniform battery of heavy guns. Both the Japanese Navy and the US Navy ordered "all-big-gun" ships in 1904–05, with the and ships, respectively. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II 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 that 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. cost £1,783,000, compared to the £1,540,000 for each of the Lord Nelson

Lord Nelson class battleship

The Lord Nelson class was a two-ship class of pre-dreadnought battleships built by the Royal Navy between 1905 and 1908. Although they were the last British pre-dreadnoughts, both were completed and commissioned after HMS Dreadnought had entered service. and were serving in the Channel Fleet when...

 class. Eight years later the Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth class battleship

The Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were a class of five super-dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy. The lead ship was named after Elizabeth I of England...

 class cost £2,300,000. Comparable figures today are ; ; . Original figures from Breyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers of the World, p.52, 141; comparisons from Measuring Worth UK CPI Modern battleships were the crucial element of naval power in spite of their price. Each battleship was a signal of national power and prestige, in a manner similar to the nuclear weapons of today. Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Japan and Austria all began dreadnought programs, and second-rank powers including the Ottoman Empire, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American yards.

Anglo-German arms race

The building of Dreadnought coincided with increasing tension between the United Kingdom and Germany. Germany had begun to build a large battlefleet in the 1890s, as part of a deliberate policy to challenge British naval supremacy. With the conclusion of the Entente Cordiale

Entente Cordiale

The Entente Cordiale was a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial expansion addressed by the agreement, the signing of the Entente Cordiale marked the end of almost a millennium of intermittent...

 between the United Kingdom and France in April 1904, it became increasingly clear that 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-war period.

The first German response to Dreadnought came with the Nassau class

Nassau class battleship

The Nassau class were a group of four German dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Navy. They were the German response to the introduction of the "all big gun" British . The class was composed of , , , and . All four ships were laid down in mid-1907, and completed between May and September...

, laid down in 1907. This was followed by the Helgoland class

Helgoland class battleship

The Helgoland class was the second class of German dreadnought battleships. Constructed from 1908 to 1912, the class comprised four ships: , the lead ship; ; ; and . The design was a significant improvement over the previous ships; they had a larger main battery— main guns instead of the weapons...

 in 1909. Together with two battlecruisers—a type for which the Germans had less admiration than Fisher, but which could be built under authorisation for armored cruisers, rather than capital ships—these classes gave Germany a total of ten modern capital ships built or building in 1909. While the British ships were somewhat faster and more powerful than their German equivalents, a 12:10 ratio fell far short of the 2:1 ratio that 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 about battleship numbers. If no such solution could be found, an additional four ships would be laid down in 1910. Even this compromise solution meant (when taken together with some social reforms) raising taxes enough to prompt a constitutional crisis

People's Budget

The 1909 People's Budget was a product of then British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, introducing many unprecedented taxes on the wealthy and radical social welfare programmes to Britain's political life...

 in the United Kingdom in 1909–10. In 1910, the British eight-ship construction plan went ahead, including four -class super-dreadnoughts, and augmented by battlecruisers purchased by Australia and New Zealand. In the same period of time, Germany laid down only three ships, giving the United Kingdom a superiority of 22 ships to 13. The British resolve demonstrated by their construction program led the Germans to seek a negotiated end to the arms race. While 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%, talks foundered on the question on whether British Commonwealth battlecruisers should be included in the count, as well as non-naval matters like the German demands for recognition of her ownership of Alsace-Lorraine

Alsace-Lorraine

The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...

.

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

Fleet Acts

The Naval Laws were five separate laws passed by the German Empire, in 1898, 1900, 1906, 1908, and 1912. These acts, championed by Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Secretary of State for the Navy, Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, committed Germany to building up a navy capable of competing with the Royal...

. 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

Austro-Hungarian Navy

The Austro-Hungarian Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Its official name in German was Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine , abbreviated as k.u.k. Kriegsmarine....

 was building four dreadnoughts, while the Italians had four and were building two more. Against such threats, the Royal Navy could no longer guarantee vital British interests. The United Kingdom was faced with a choice of 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 Mediterranean and shaking the stability of the British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

. The only acceptable option, and the one recommended by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

, was to break with the policies of the past and 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 her 1912 and 1913 budgets—ships of the Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth class battleship

The Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were a class of five super-dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy. The lead ship was named after Elizabeth I of England...

 and Revenge

Revenge class battleship

The Revenge class battleships were five battleships of the Royal Navy, ordered as World War I loomed on the horizon, and launched in 1914–1916...

 classes, which introduced a further step change in armament, speed and protection—while Germany laid down only five, focusing resources on the Army.

United States

The American s 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. While there is some speculation the U.S Navy design was influenced by informal contacts with sympathetic Royal Navy officials, the American ship was very different.

The U.S. Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 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 best use of the weight available for armament, all eight 12 inches (304.8 mm) guns were mounted along the centerline, 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 was 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 18.5 kn (36.3 km/h) compared to 22.5 kn (44.1 km/h) for Dreadnought. It was for this reason that the later would be described by some as the U.S. 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 ships of the Delaware class were the first U.S. battleships to match the speed of British dreadnoughts. The decision to use a 10-gun 20,500 ton ship over a 12-gun 24,000 ton in this class was criticized, because the secondary battery was 'wet' (suffering from spray) and the bow was low in the water. The alternative 12-gun 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 be adequately protected against underwater attack, and force magazines to be located too close to the sides of the ship.

The U.S. Navy continued to expand its battlefleet, laying down two ships in most subsequent years until 1920. The U.S. continued to use reciprocating engine

Reciprocating engine

A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of all types...

s as an alternative to turbines until the , 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.

Japan

With their victory in the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

 of 1904–05, the Japanese became concerned about the potential for conflict with the USA. The theorist Satō Tetsutarō

Sato Tetsutaro

-Notes:...

 developed the doctrine that Japan should have a battlefleet at least 70% the size of that of the U.S. This would enable the Japanese navy to win two decisive battles, the first early in a war against the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and the second against the U.S. Atlantic Fleet which would inevitably be dispatched as reinforcements.

Japan's first priorities were to refit the pre-dreadnoughts she had captured from Russia and to complete Satsuma

Japanese battleship Satsuma

|-External links:**...

and Aki

Japanese battleship Aki

|-External links:*...

. The Satsumas were designed before Dreadnought, but financial shortages resulting from the Russo-Japanese War delayed her completion and resulted in her carrying a mixed armament, so she was known as a 'semi-dreadnought'. These were followed by a modified Aki-type: and . These two ships were laid down in 1909 and completed in 1912. They were armed with twelve 12 inches (304.8 mm) 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

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. It was not until September 1910 that 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 over the period of 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. However, the closer alliance with the United Kingdom made these reduced forces more than adequate for French needs.

The Italian navy 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 her own. The construction of Dante Alighieri

Italian battleship Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was the first dreadnought battleship built for the Regia Marina . Named after the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri, she was the first ship built with triple gun turrets for the main armament...

 was prompted by rumours of Austro-Hungarian dreadnought building. A further five dreadnoughts of the Cavour

Conte di Cavour class battleship

The Conte di Cavour class was a battleship class of the Regia Marina in World War I and World War II.-Design:This class was the second group of dreadnoughts in the Regia Marina. The ships were designed by Admiral Edoardo Masdea....

 class and Andrea Doria

Andrea Doria class battleship

The Andrea Doria class was a class of dreadnought battleships of the Regia Marina . Only two were built, in the La Spezia and Castellammare shipyards, in Italy, between 1912 and 1915....

 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 Caracciolo class were cancelled on the outbreak of World War I.

In January 1909, Austro-Hungarian admirals circulated a document calling for a fleet of four dreadnoughts. However, a constitutional crisis

Constitutional crisis

A constitutional crisis is a situation that the legal system's constitution or other basic principles of operation appear unable to resolve; it often results in a breakdown in the orderly operation of government...

 in 1909–10 meant no construction could be approved. In spite of this, two dreadnoughts were laid down by shipyards on a speculative basis, and later approved along with an additional two. The resulting ships, all Tegetthoff

Tegetthoff class battleship

The Tegetthoff-class was the sole class of dreadnought battleship built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Four ships were built, SMS Viribus Unitis, SMS Tegetthoff, SMS Prinz Eugen and SMS Szent Istvan...

 class, were to be accompanied by a further four ships, but these were cancelled on the outbreak of World War I.

In June 1909, the Imperial Russian Navy

Imperial Russian Navy

The Imperial Russian Navy refers to the Tsarist fleets prior to the February Revolution.-First Romanovs:Under Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, construction of the first three-masted ship, actually built within Russia, was completed in 1636. It was built in Balakhna by Danish shipbuilders from Holstein...

 began construction of four dreadnoughts for the Baltic Fleet

Baltic Fleet

The Twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet - is the Russian Navy's presence in the Baltic Sea. In previous historical periods, it has been part of the navy of Imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union. The Fleet gained the 'Twice Red Banner' appellation during the Soviet period, indicating two awards of...

, and in October 1911, three more class dreadnoughts for the Black Sea 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 armor when compared with contemporary dreadnoughts.

Spain commissioned three ships of the , with the first being laid down in 1909. The three ships were the smallest dreadnoughts ever built. While built in Spain, the construction was reliant on British assistance; for example, construction on the third ship, , took nine years from her 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. Although three pre-dreadnoughts had been ordered from the United Kingdom, construction was halted in favor of a much improved design—new plans called for a dreadnought mounting a heavier main battery

Main battery

Generally used only in the terms of naval warfare, the main battery is the primary weapon around which a ship was designed. "Battery" is in itself a common term in the military science of artillery. For example, the United States Navy battleship USS Washington had a main battery of nine guns...

 than any other battleship afloat at the time (twelve 12 in (30.5 cm)/45 caliber guns

EOC 12 inch /45 naval gun

The EOC 12 inch 45 calibre gun were various similar 12-inch wire-wound naval guns designed and manufactured by Elswick Ordnance Company to equip ships that the parent company Armstrong Whitworth built and/or armed for several countries before World War I....

). was laid down on by Armstrong (Elswick

Elswick, Tyne and Wear

Elswick is a ward of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, in the western part of the city, bordering the river Tyne. One of the earliest references to the coal mining industry of the north east occurs in 1330, when it was recorded that the Prior of Tynemouth let a colliery, called Heygrove, at...

) on 17 April 1907, and her sister

Sister ship

A sister ship is a ship of the same class as, or of virtually identical design to, another ship. Such vessels share a near-identical hull and superstructure layout, similar displacement, and roughly comparable features and equipment...

, , followed thirteen days later at Vickers (Barrow

Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...

). Although many naval journals in Europe and the US speculated that the ships were 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

Brazilian Navy

The Brazilian Navy is a branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces responsible for conducting naval operations. It is the largest navy in Latin America...

 in 1910; the US commissioned the first South Carolina, , on 4 January, just one day before Minas Geraes.

The Netherlands intended by 1912 to replace its fleet of pre-dreadnought armored ships

Coastal defence ship

Coastal defence ships were warships built for the purpose of coastal defence, mostly during the period from 1860 to 1920. They were small, often cruiser-sized warships that sacrificed speed and range for armour and armament...

 with a modern fleet composed of dreadnoughts. After a Royal Commission proposed the purchase of nine dreadnoughts

Dutch 1913 battleship proposal

A Dutch proposal to build new battleships was originally tendered in 1912, after years of concern over the expansion of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the withdrawal of allied British warships from the China Station...

 in August 1913, there were extensive debates over the need for such ships and, if they were necessary, 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.

Turkey ordered two dreadnoughts from British yards, which were seized by the British on the outbreak of World War I, in order to reinforce the Royal Navy and prevent the ships falling into enemy hands. The ships Reshadiye and Sultan Osman I became and respectively. The seizure of the ships was followed by Germany's gift to Turkey of two warships, the battlecruiser and the cruiser . This became an important factor in the decision of the Ottoman Empire to join the Central Powers

Central Powers

The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...

.

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 (warship)

A monitor was a class of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns. They were used by some navies from the 1860s until the end of World War II, and saw their final use by the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.The monitors...

. Greece in 1914 purchased two pre-dreadnoughts from the United States Navy, renaming them Kilkis

Greek Battleship Kilkis

Kilkis was a 13,000 ton Mississippi-class battleship originally built by the US Navy in 1904–1908. The Greek Navy purchased the ship in 1914, along with her sister , renamed Limnos. Kilkis was named for the Battle of Kilkis-Lahanas, a crucial engagement of the Second Balkan War...

 and Limnos

Greek Battleship Limnos

Limnos, sometimes spelled Lemnos , was a 13,000 ton Mississippi-class Greek battleship named for a crucial naval battle of the First Balkan War.-History of the ship:...

 in Royal Hellenic Navy service.

Super-dreadnoughts

Within five years of the commissioning of Dreadnought, a new generation of more powerful "super-dreadnoughts" were being built. The arrival of the super-dreadnought is commonly believed to have started with the British . What made them 'super' was the unprecedented 2,000-ton jump in displacement, the introduction of the heavier 13.5-inch

BL 13.5 inch /45 naval gun

The BL 13.5 inch Mk V gun was a British heavy naval gun, introduced in 1912 as the main armament for the new super-dreadnought battleships of the Orion class. The calibre was 13.5 inches and the barrels were 45 calibres long i.e. 607.5 inches...

 (343 mm) gun, and the placement of all the main armament on the centerline. In the four years between Dreadnought and Orion, displacement had increased by 25%, and weight of broadside had doubled.

British super-dreadnoughts were joined by other nations as well. The U.S. Navy New York class

New York class battleship

The New York class battleship was the fifth series of two super-dreadnought battleships of the United States Navy which served during World War I and World War II. The class represented the first use of the 14" naval gun by the U.S. Navy...

, laid down in 1911, carried 14-inch (356 mm) guns in response to the British move and this caliber became standard. In Japan, two super-dreadnoughts were laid down in 1912, followed by the two s in 1914, with both classes carrying twelve 14-inch (356 mm) guns. In 1917, the was ordered, the first dreadnoughts to mount 16 inches (406 mm) guns, making them arguably the most powerful warships in the world. All were increasingly built from Japanese rather than imported components. In France, the Courbets were followed by three super-dreadnoughts of the , carrying 340 mm (13.4 in) 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 armor. Both of Chile's battleships were purchased by the British on the outbreak of the First World War. One, , was later repurchased by Chile.

Later British super-dreadnoughts, principally the , dispensed with one turret, so weight and volume were freed up for larger, oil-fired boilers. The new 15-inch

BL 15 inch /42 naval gun

The BL 15 inch Mark I succeeded the gun. It was the first British 15 inch gun design and the most widely used and longest lasting of any British designs, and arguably the most efficient heavy gun ever developed by the Royal Navy...

 (381-mm) gun gave greater firepower in spite of the loss of a turret, and there was a thicker armor belt and improved underwater protection. The class had a 25-knot (46-km/h) design speed, and they were considered the first fast battleship

Fast battleship

Historically, a fast battleship was a battleship which emphasized speed without - in concept - undo compromise of either armor or armament. The term is especially appropriate when applied to a design which was not only faster than the preceding battleship class, but faster than subsequent classes...

s.

The design weakness of super-dreadnoughts, which distinguished them from post-World War I designs, was armor disposition. Their design emphasized the protection needed in short-range battles, where shells would be approaching the sides of the ship. These ships concentrated on the armour on the vertical faces of the sides of the ships to maximize defence against these attacks. This was in spite of the fact that these ships could engage the enemy at 20000 yard, ranges where the shells would be falling almost vertically on the decks of the ships ('plunging fire'). Post-war designs typically had 5 to 6 inches (130 to 150 mm) of deck armor to defend against this. The concept of zone of immunity

Zone of immunity

The zone of immunity 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....

 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 were developed only as the threat of the torpedo became real.

The United States Navy's 'Standard type battleship

Standard type battleship

The Standard-type battleship was a production line of twelve battleships across five classes ordered for the United States Navy between 1911 and 1916 and commissioned between 1916 and 1923...

s', beginning with the , were designed 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

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

 taught the dangers of long-range fire to European navies. Important features of the standard battleships were 'all or nothing' armor and 'raft' construction, a philosophy under which only the parts of the ship worth giving the thickest possible protection were worth armoring at all, and enough reserve buoyancy should be contained within the resulting armored "raft" to keep afloat the entire ship in the event the unarmored bow and stern were thoroughly riddled and flooded. This design was proven in battle at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal

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, as the , took place from 12–15 November 1942, and was the decisive engagement in a series of naval battles...

, when an ill-timed turn by silhouetted her to Japanese guns. In spite of receiving 26 heavy hits, her armored raft remained untouched and she remained both afloat and operational at the end of action.

In action

The First World War was almost an anticlimax for the great dreadnought fleets. There was no decisive clash of modern battlefleets to compare with Tsushima

Battle of Tsushima

The Battle of Tsushima , commonly known as the “Sea of Japan Naval Battle” in Japan and the “Battle of Tsushima Strait”, was the major naval battle fought between Russia and Japan during the Russo-Japanese War...

. The role of battleships was marginal to the great land struggle in France and Russia; it was equally marginal to the First Battle of the Atlantic.

By virtue of geography, the Royal Navy could keep the German High Seas Fleet

High Seas Fleet

The High Seas Fleet was the battle fleet of the German Empire and saw action during World War I. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet was renamed as the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect of the fleet; he envisioned a force powerful enough to...

 bottled up in the North Sea with relative ease, but was on the other side unable to break the German superiority in the Baltic Sea. Both sides were aware, because of the greater number of British dreadnoughts, that a full fleet engagement would most 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 minefield

Naval mine

A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...

s, 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

Battle of Dogger Bank (1915)

The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle fought near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea on 24 January 1915, during the First World War, between squadrons of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet....

, and raids on the English coast. In the summer of 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on favourable terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets at Jutland

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

; it was indecisive.

In the other naval theatres, there were no decisive pitched battles. In the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

, Russian and Turkish battleships skirmished, but nothing more. In the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

, action was largely limited to convoy raiding and the laying of defensive minefields. The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by British and French blockading fleets. And in the Mediterranean, the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault at Gallipoli

Battle of Gallipoli

The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...

.

The course of the war also illustrated the vulnerability of battleships to cheaper weapons. In September 1914, the U-boat threat to capital ship

Capital ship

The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they generally possess the heaviest firepower and armor and are traditionally much larger than other naval vessels...

s was demonstrated by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three elderly British armored cruisers by the German submarine U-9

Unterseeboot 9 (1910)

SM U-9 was a German Type U 9 U-boat. She was one of 329 submarines serving in the Imperial German Navy , and engaged in commerce war during World War I. Her construction was ordered on 15 July 1908 and her keel was laid down by Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig...

 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. By the end of October, British strategy and tactics in the North Sea had changed to reduce the risk of U-boat attack. While Jutland was the only major clash of battleship fleets in history, 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 and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing paranoia 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 also showed the role of small craft in damaging or destroying dreadnoughts. The two Austrian dreadnoughts lost in 1918 were the casualties of torpedo boats and of frogmen.

Battleship building from 1914 onwards

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 programs entirely. The United Kingdom and Germany continued building battleships and battlecruisers but at a reduced pace.

In the United Kingdom, the government's moratorium on battleship building and the return of Fisher to the Admiralty in 1914 meant a renewed focus on the battlecruiser. The final units of the Revenge and Queen Elizabeth classes were completed, though the last two battleships of the Revenge class

Revenge class battleship

The Revenge class battleships were five battleships of the Royal Navy, ordered as World War I loomed on the horizon, and launched in 1914–1916...

 were redesigned as battlecruisers of the Renown class

Renown class battlecruiser

The Renown class consisted of a pair of battlecruisers built during the First World War for the Royal Navy. They were originally laid down as improved versions of the s. Their construction was suspended on the outbreak of war on the grounds they would not be ready in a timely manner...

. Fisher followed these ships with the even more extreme Courageous class

Glorious class aircraft carrier

The Courageous class, sometimes called the Glorious class, was the first multi-ship class of aircraft carriers to serve with the Royal Navy. The three ships were originally laid down as "large light cruisers" to be used in the Baltic Project during the First World War...

; very fast and heavily armed ships with minimal, 3 inches (76.2 mm) armor, 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 armored battlecruiser.

In Germany, two units of the pre-war Bayern class

Bayern class battleship

The Bayern class was a class of four super-dreadnought battleships built by the German Kaiserliche Marine . The class comprised , , Sachsen, and Württemberg. Construction started on the ships shortly before World War I; Baden was laid down in 1913, Bayern and Sachsen followed in 1914, and...

 were gradually completed, but the other two laid down were still unfinished by the end of the War. Hindenburg

SMS Hindenburg

SMS Hindenburg"SMS" stands for "Seiner Majestät Schiff", or "His Majesty's Ship" in German. was a battlecruiser of the German Kaiserliche Marine and the third ship of the . She was named in honor of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, the victor of the Battle of Tannenberg and the Battle of the...

, also laid down before the start of the war, was completed in 1917. The Mackensen class

Mackensen class battlecruiser

The Mackensen class was the last class of battlecruisers to be built by Germany in World War I. The class was to have comprised four ships: Mackensen, the name ship, Graf Spee, Prinz Eitel Friedrich, and Fürst Bismarck. None of the vessels were completed, as shipbuilding priorities were redirected...

 battlecruisers, designed in 1914–15, were begun but never finished.

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 USA. The Battle of Jutland

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

 exerted a huge influence over the designs produced in this period. The first ships which fit into this picture are the British Admiral class

Admiral class battlecruiser

The Admiral-class battlecruisers were a class of four British Royal Navy battlecruisers designed near the end of World War I. Their design began as a improved version of the s, but it was recast as a battlecruiser after Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet, pointed out that there was...

 battlecruisers, designed in 1916. Jutland finally persuaded the Admiralty that lightly armored battlecruisers were too vulnerable, and therefore the final design of the Admirals incorporated much increased armor, increasing displacement to 42,000 tons. However, the initiative in creating the new arms race lay with the Japanese and United States navies. The United States Naval Appropriations Act of 1916

Naval Act of 1916

The Naval Act of 1916 was also called the "Big Navy Act." An overlooked landmark piece of legislation, President Woodrow Wilson determined amidst the repeated incidents with Germany to build “incomparably, the greatest Navy in the world” over a ten year period with the intent of making the U.S....

 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 program was started slowly (in part because of a desire to learn lessons from Jutland), and never fulfilled entirely. However, the new American ships (the Colorado class

Colorado class battleship

The Colorado class battleships was a group of four battleships built by the United States Navy after World War I. However, only three of the ships were completed: , , and . The fourth, , was over 75% completed when she was canceled under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922...

 battleship and Lexington class

Lexington class battlecruiser

The Lexington-class battlecruisers were the only class of battlecruiser to ever be ordered by the United States Navy.The Lexington class were the only class of U.S. Navy ships to be officially referred to as battlecruisers. The World War II-era , officially classified as "large cruisers", but some...

 battlecruiser), took a qualitative step beyond the British Queen Elizabeth class and Admiral class by mounting 16 inches (406.4 mm) guns.

At the same time, the Imperial Japanese Navy

Imperial Japanese Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...

 was finally gaining authorization for its 'eight-eight battlefleet'

Eight-eight fleet

The was a Japanese naval strategy formulated for the development of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the first quarter of the 20th century, which laid down that the Japanese navy should include eight first-class battleships and eight armoured cruisers or battlecruisers.-History and development:The...

. The Nagato class

Nagato class battleship

The were two battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The name Nagato comes from the Nagato province. They were the first battleships to be built entirely in Japan...

, 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 Kaga class, were to carry ten 16-inch guns. The battlecruisers, the Amagi class

Amagi class battlecruiser

The was a series of four battlecruisers planned for the Imperial Japanese Navy as part of the so-called Eight-eight fleet. The ships were to be named Amagi, , Atago, and Takao; the first three were named for mountains , while the fourth was named for the town of Takao, Formosa...

, also carried ten 16-inch guns and were designed to be capable of 30 knots, capable of beating both the British Admiral and the U.S. Navy's Lexington class battlecruisers.

Matters took a further turn for the worse in 1919 when Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

 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 program (the South Dakota class

South Dakota class battleship (1920)

The first South Dakota class was a class of six battleships, laid down in 1920 but never completed. These battleships would have been the last dreadnoughts to be commissioned, if the Washington Naval Treaty not caused their cancellation one-third of the way through their construction, they would...

 not yet started). In response, the Diet of Japan

Diet of Japan

The is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councillors. Both houses of the Diet are directly elected under a parallel voting system. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally...

 finally agreed to the completion of the 'eight-eight fleet', incorporating a further four battleships. These ships, the Kii class

Kii class battleship

The Kii class was a planned battleship design of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Designed by Yuzuru Hiraga, the class was to have been armed with ten guns and would bring Japan closer to its goal of an "Eight-eight fleet"...

 would displace 43,000 tons; the next design, the Number 13 class

Number 13 class battleship

The Number 13-class was a planned fast battleship design of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The class consisted of four ships and would have been built in the late 1920s. The ships never received any names, being known only as Number 13, Number 14, Number 15, and Number 16...

, would have carried 18 inches (457.2 mm) 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 U.S. 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' battlecruisers

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 programs by the United States and Japan. The four ships of this class would have been larger, faster and more heavily-armed than any existing battleship...

, with 16-inch guns and high speed, and the 'N3' battleships, with 18 inches (457.2 mm) guns. Germany did not participate in this three-way naval building competition. Most of the German dreadnought fleet was scuttled at Scapa Flow

Scapa Flow

right|thumb|Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern endScapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. It is about...

 by its crews in 1919; the remainder were handed over as war prizes.The Nassau and Heligoland classes were war prizes. The Kaiser and König classes, and first two of the Bayern class were scuttled (though Baden was prevented from sinking by the British who refloated her and used her as a target ship and for experiments). Battleships under construction were scrapped instead of being completed.

Instead of the cripplingly expensive expansion program, the major naval powers concluded 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. 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 1920s and 1930s and, with some modernisation, into World War II. The ships built under the terms of the Treaty to replace outdated vessels were known as treaty battleship

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...

s.

From this point on, 'dreadnought' became less widely used. Most pre-dreadnought battleships were scrapped or hulked

Hulk (ship)

A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Although sometimes used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, the term most often refers to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipment removed, retaining only its flotational qualities...

after World War I,This process was well under way before the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. Sixteen pre-dreadnoughts served during World War II in such roles as hulks, accommodation ships, and training vessels; two of the German training vessels Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein undertook naval gunfire support in the Baltic. so the term 'dreadnought' became less necessary. Nevertheless, the battleships of World War II were sometimes referred to as dreadnoughts.

External links

• British and German Dreadnoughts

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