HMS Dreadnought
HMS Dreadnought was a British battleship early in the 20th Century. The first warship to mount a single main battery of large caliber guns and the first to be powered by turbine engines, Dreadnought was so revolutionary that she rendered current navies obsolete, sparked an arms race between Great Britain and Germany, caused other nations to invest heavily in all big-gun capitol ships, and gave her very name to the first generation of battleships which followed.
| HMS Dreadnought | |
|---|---|
| |
| Career | |
| Flag |  
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| Owner | Royal Navy, United Kingdom |
| Shipyard | His Majesty's Dockyard Portsmouth, England |
| Type | Battleship |
| Authorized | 1905 |
| Keel laid | 2 October 1905 |
| Launched | 10 February 1906 |
| Commissioned | 2 December 1906 |
| Status | Sold for scrapping, 9 May 1921 |
| Characteristics | |
| Displacement | 18,420 tons |
| Length | 527 feet |
| Beam | 82 feet |
| Draft | 26 feet |
| Speed | 21 knots |
| Armament | Ten 12-inch main guns twenty-seven 5-inch guns five 18-inch torpedo tubes |
| Crew | 770 officers and men |
History
The beginnings of what would become HMS Dreadnought can be traced partially to the chief constructor of the Italian Navy, Vittorio Cuniberti. He was responsible for the design and construction of a number of warships, including the Vittorio Emmanuelle class of four light battleships bearing two 12-inch guns and twelve 8-inch guns each. Although rejected from building a new, more heavily-armed and armored design, Cuniberti received permission to write an article for Janes Fighting Ships; published in the 1903 edition, the premise for a 17,000 ton warship bearing twelve 12-inch guns affected naval planners and tacticians around the world. Independently, however, American and Japanese designers came to similar conclusions: in the spring of 1904 the United States Navy presented to Congress a request for two 16,000-ton battleships bearing eight 12-inch guns, and the following year Japan laid down the keels for a pair of battleships weighing in at 20,000 tons, with four 12-inch and twelve 10-inch guns each.
Following closely Cunniberti's article in Janes, and the actions of both the Americans and Japanese, British Admiral and First Sea Lord John Fisher had plans of his own in mind. In late December, 1904 Fisher created a committee on designs to work on drafting a plan for a new battleship built to his specifications, which was to have a single caliber of big guns, and have the speed to dictate its own choosing of a place of battle.
Dreadnought was completed in only 427 days (and about 20% more expensive compared to previous ships), is considered the first modern battleship to be powered by steam turbines and its equipment with a single, heavy, main artillery of uniform caliber. The launch took place on 10 February 1906 at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, and she was commissioned on December 3, 1906. Although she passed her sea trials as expected, Dreadnought had one major flaw: her main mast - specifically the access within the mast to her fighting top - was directly behind her forward funnel. This arrangement difficulty getting up to the fighting top due to the excessive heat, as well as obscuring visibility for the crew within.
Dreadnought was flagship of the British Home Fleet from 1907 to 1909, and from 1907 to 1911 the flagship of the First Division. She belonged to the Grand Fleet in 1914, but was removed from it in 1916 because of its technical obsolescence (despite a 1911 retrofitting) and became the flagship of a squadron of older ships. Their only combat during the First World War consisted of the sinking of the German submarine U-29, and only by ramming. In February 1919, the ship was assigned to the reserve fleet, and one year later decommissioned. In May 1920 it was then sold for £44,000 pounds to Thos W Ward, a scrapping company in Scotland, and broken up in 1923.