Battleship: Encyclopedia II - Battleship - The Dreadnought era

Battleship - The Dreadnought era

With advances in gun laying and aiming, engagement ranges had increased from 1000 yards or less to 6000 yards or more over the previous few years, in part as a consequence of the devastating, but short-ranged firepower of the recently invented torpedo. This had caused a move away from mixed calibre armament, as each calibre required a different aiming calibration, something which unnecessarily complicated gunnery techniques. At longer ranges, the higher maximum rate of fire of the smaller calibres was negated by the need to wait for shell splashes before firing the next salvo and the determination of those from the other calibres. This negated the advantage of small-calibre guns; heavier weapons were effectively as fast and packed a much greater punch.

Partially as a consequence of this new philosophy, and partially as a consequence of its powerful new turbine engine, Dreadnought dispensed completely with the smaller calibre secondary armament carried by her immediate predecessors, allowing her to carry more heavy calibre guns than any other battleship built up to that time. She carried ten 12-inch guns mounted in five turrets; three along the centreline and two on the wings, giving her twice the broadside of anything else afloat. The first large warship equipped with steam turbines, she could make 21 knots in a calm sea, allowing her to outrun existing battleships (with a typical speed of 18 kts). Her armour was strong enough that she could conceivably go head-to-head with any other ship afloat in a gun battle and win.

Although there were some problems with the ship — the design's wing turrets strained the hull when firing broadsides, and the top of the thickest armour belt lay below the waterline when the ship was fully loaded — Dreadnought was so revolutionary that battleships built before her were afterward known as "pre-Dreadnoughts", and those following as "Dreadnoughts". Vessels built within a few years that were bigger and mounted more powerful guns were referred to as "Super Dreadnoughts". In a stroke, Dreadnought had made all existing battleships obsolete; including those of the Royal Navy, which embarked on a programme of building ever-more-powerful Dreadnought designs.

National pride in the early 20th century was largely based on how many of these ships a navy had, and details were published in the newspapers for the public to avidly follow; the naval arms race which Dreadnought sparked, especially between Britain and the young German empire, was to create powerful shockwaves. Whereas Germany before the commissioning of Dreadnought had been behind the British Empire by more than twenty battleships of the highest class, they were now behind by only one.

Dreadnought was powered with steam turbines, which enabled her to sustain a higher maximum speed for longer, and with less maintenance than her triple-expansion engine powered predecessors. Being more compact, the turbines also allowed for a lower hull, which had the side-effect of reducing the amount of armour the ship had to carry. Although turbines had been used in destroyers for some years previously, Dreadnought was the first large warship to use them. As a consequence of the turbines, Dreadnought was actually slightly cheaper than the previous Lord Nelson class of pre-Dreadnoughts.

The American South Carolina class battleships were begun before Dreadnought, and had most of its features, except for the steam turbines; however, their final design was not completed before Dreadnought, and their construction took much longer.

Battleship - The super dreadnought

The arrival of super dreadnoughts is not as clearly identified with a single ship in the same way that the dreadnought era was initiated by HMS Dreadnought. However, it is commonly held to start with the British Orion class, and for the German navy with the Königs.

The Orions were just one step in a breathtakingly rapid evolution that Dreadnought had initiated. What made them "super" was the unprecedented jump in displacement of 2,000 tons over the previous class, the introduction of the 13.5 inch (343 mm) gun, and the distribution of all the main armament on the centreline of the keel. Thus, in the four years that separated the laying down of Dreadnought and Orion, displacement had increased by 25%, and weight of broadside had doubled.

Super dreadnoughts also incorporated, during construction, the latest technical gunnery advances. Thus they received director control, designed from the outset with larger observation positions with range finders and electrical repeaters aloft, mechanical calculators and predictors in protected positions below, and very advanced alignment and correction devices for the guns.

The design weakness of super dreadnoughts, which distinguished them from post-Great War designs, was armour disposition. Their design placed emphasis on vertical protection which was needed in short range battles. These ships were capable of engaging the enemy at 20,000 metres, but were vulnerable to the angle of fire that came at such ranges. Post-war designs typically had 5 to 6 inches of deck armour to defend against this dangerous, plunging fire. Lack of underwater protection was also a weakness of these pre-World War I designs.

The super dreadnought era was over by the end of World War I. Super dreadnoughts that served in World War II had all either received extensive modifications, or were a source of extreme anxiety because of their vulnerability to more modern battleships, or both.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Dreadnought era", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki