The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Great Britain Battleship Dreadnought

Laid down on October 21, 1905, launched on February 10, 1906 and commissioned on December 3, 1906, Dreadnought carried a main armament of ten 12 inch main guns mounted two per turret; one centerline forward, one centerline aft, one centerline amidships that could fire to both sides and one wing turret per side that could fire only fore and aft and to their own side. Dreadnought was the first capital ship built to the vision of the eccentric and forceful Lord "Jackie" Fisher (1841–1920), based on the lessons learned in the Russo-Japanese War and was the first "all-big-gun one-caliber battleship;" lending its name to all such ships to follow. The name was selected because of Fisher’s family motto: "Fear God and dreadnought," but the name was an old one with a proud tradition in the Royal Navy, dating back to a ship in 1543 and a race-built galleon that engaged the Spanish Armada in 1588. When built, the Dreadnought was unprecedented for its size and speed and was the first capital ship fitted with turbine engines (which used coal-fired boilers). For rough comparison purposes, the statistics for the Lord Nelson class, the last class British pre-dreadnought battleships, is shown above beside the statistics for the Dreadnought. Because of the secrecy imposed by the ship’s radical new design, Dreadnought was built within a record time of only 14 months. Her appearance set off an unprecedented arms race by all the major world powers and several minor powers. By the outbreak of World War One she was already over six years old and approaching obsolescence as improved "super dreadnoughts" appeared in greater and greater numbers. On February 18, 1915, she sank the German submarine U-29 by ramming it in the North Sea while serving with the Grand Fleet. Her aging engines were slowing her down and Dreadnought was withdrawn from the Grand Fleet to serve as the flagship for the 3rd Battle Squadron of pre-dreadnoughts in July 1916 and did not return to the Grand Fleet again until 1918. With the arrival of American battleships to augment the Grand Fleet, Dreadnought , already obsolete, was placed in reserve while the war continued. The once world-changing ship was deleted from the fleet on March 31, 1920 and sold for scrap in May 1921.

See other early battleships: Nassau, South Carolina, Courbet