![]() Germany, Britain's chief rival at sea by this time, began its own dreadnought program in 1909, and the competition led to further increases in ship size, caliber and number of heavy guns, and speed. British yards, vastly superior in efficiency and capacity to most others in the world, would be able to build dreadnoughts at an unmatched rate. In essence, Fisher stole the lead on all other navies. On 2 December, Dreadnought completed her acceptance trials and was commissioned to full complement on 11 December 1906.Īlthough contemporaries and historians alike have criticized Fisher for making all non-dreadnought designs obsolete, and hence negating Britain's already considerable battleship superiority, it was only a matter of time before other naval powers fielded such a design. By September 1906 her first captain, Reginald Bacon, began a systematic set of machinery, engine, steering, and armament trials. Due to the prefabrication of many subsystems and an increased pace of construction by the already efficient dockyard staff, HMS Dreadnought was launched on 10 February 1906. Fast battleships would also be able to stay out of range of a new threat to their command of the sea-torpedoes launched from swift torpedo boats and submarines.Ĭonstruction began on 2 October 1905 at Portsmouth Dockyard and was extraordinarily brief. Fast battleships could maintain a range short enough for their own heavy twelve-inch guns to be effective but long enough to neutralize the shorter-range intermediate armament of the enemy. Superior speed was seen as enabling battleships to close with a retreating enemy and control the range of an engagement. The new turbines would give Dreadnought a design speed of almost twenty-one knots, a sustainable three-knot advantage over most potential enemies. Moreover, Dreadnought was the first battleship to employ turbine engines, a new propulsion system employing fewer moving parts, requiring less space in the hull and accounting for less weight. Fisher eliminated the intermediate-caliber guns and saved only a few light quick-firing guns to repel close-in torpedo boat attacks. With one turret on the bow, one on each wing, and two astern, the gun arrangement allowed Dreadnought to fire eight heavy guns in each broadside-giving her the equivalent long-range fire of two pre-dreadnought battleships. An Admiralty design board, chaired by First Sea Lord Admiral Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher (1841–1920), decided to arm the new ship with ten twelve-inch guns arranged in five twin turrets. The first innovation was an all-biggun armament, a concept considered by British, Italian, and American naval architects for a number of years. HMS Dreadnought was a revolutionary design because it incorporated a number of innovations in a single hull. Pre-dreadnought battleships also were powered by reciprocating steam engines, whose operation at high speed (fifteen to eighteen knots)Ĭaused extreme stress to the machinery, requiring frequent overhauls and forcing commanders to limit speeds to fourteen knots or less in order to avoid breakdowns. ![]() Major drawbacks of this arrangement included the difficulties of spotting and adjusting fire for mixed batteries, and of maintaining sets of spare parts for different types of guns. The typical battleship of the 1890s, expecting to fight at relatively close ranges, mounted a mixed battery of four twelve-inch guns (in two turrets) and numerous intermediate-size guns. The generation of battleships preceding the dreadnoughts were powerful warships but possessed two major disadvantages. This revolutionary battleship, displacing 17,900 tons, intensified the naval building race with imperial Germany and reset the standard by which all navies measured themselves. When the Royal Navy commissioned HMS Dreadnought in December 1906, Britain's fleet gained an immediate technological advantage over any potential adversary at sea. ![]()
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