Two Centuries of Dreadnought
By DAVID F. WINKLER
On Oct. 21, 1805, a British fleet, commanded by Vice Adm. Horatio
Nelson, engaged a combined Franco-Spanish armada west of a Spanish
coastal bay named Trafalgar. On paper, the French and the Spanish had
an edge. Although the number of hulls both sides possessed was even
at 33, the combined Franco-Spanish force had approximately 30,000 men — some
13,000 more than the Brits — and was armed with 2,568 guns versus
the 2,148 guns carried by Nelson’s ships.
However, superior leadership, tactics and training brought Britain
a great victory that day. In an unconventional maneuver, Nelson broke
his fleet into two columns and drove at the Franco-Spanish line. Embarked
in HMS Victory, he led the left column while Vice Adm. Cuthbert Collingwood
in HMS Royal Sovereign guided the right column toward the enemy’s
walls of wood.
The eighth ship in Collingwood’s column was a second-rate ship
of the line — HMS Dreadnought. Built at the Portsmouth Royal
Dockyard and placed into service in 1801, the three-decker, 98-gun
vessel had been Collingwood’s flagship just prior to the battle.
With the battle heading into its third hour, Dreadnought’s broadsides
savaged the French Indominatable (74 guns) and then splintered the
Spanish San Juan Nepomuceno (74 guns). The latter ship surrendered
after 35 minutes, with 300 casualties, including its captain. Dreadnought
then badly damaged the Spanish Principe de Asturias (112 guns), causing
another 150 casualties. In contrast, Dreadnought came away with only
seven dead and 26 wounded.
Yet despite Dreadnought’s remarkable showing that day, it would
be another ship christened with that name that would achieve far greater
fame. On Oct. 2, 1905, the keel was laid at the same Portsmouth yard
for what proved to be a revolutionary ship — the battleship Dreadnought.
It was so advanced that all previous capital ships were rendered obsolete.
First, its armament consisted of 10 12-inch guns. Previous battleship
designs called for a mixture of gun calibers. Armed with various-sized
rifles, battleships at the turn of the century could lethally engage
at 3,000 to 4,000 yards.
The designers of Dreadnought took cues from the battle of Tsushima,
fought on May 27, 1905. With the opposing Russian and Japanese fleets
at 7,000 yards, a Royal Navy observer on Adm. Togo’s Japanese
flagship reported that “when 12-inch guns are fired, shots from
10-inch guns pass unnoticed, while, for all the respect they instill,
8-inch or 6-inch might just as well be pea shooters.”
With its all-big-gun armament, Dreadnought would be able to effectively
engage several contemporary battlewagons at ranges up to 10,000 yards.
Besides being able to pummel lower-caliber gunned ships from a greater
distance, Dreadnought’s uniform armament eased ammunition stocking
and replenishment challenges and lightened the need for multiple spare
parts.
To negate Dreadnought’s advantage, an opponent would want to
close on it to bring lesser-caliber guns into action. Speed would be
needed on Dreadnought’s part to prevent this from happening.
Again the British designers of Dreadnought had learned lessons from
Tsushima, where the Japanese flotilla’s superior speed enabled
Togo to perform the “cross the T” maneuver to bring the
majority of his guns in line to fire on the advancing Russian column.
Because the reciprocating engines of the day could muster only 18
or 19 knots for only short periods, Dreadnought’s designers had
decided to gamble with a new propulsion technology — the steam
turbine. With the new steam turbine destroyers Viper and Cobra capable
of 36 knots, the British understood the promise of this new engine
type and decided to take the risk — which paid off when Dreadnought
was able to break 20 knots.
Other features included compartmentalization to improve survivability
and the elimination of the ram bow prevalent at the time. (Ironically,
during World War I, Dreadnought became the only battleship to sink
a submarine when it rammed U-29.)
What really astounded other naval powers, though, was the speed of
its construction. With steel plating and other structural material
prepositioned, the Royal Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth nearly completed
the hull by the end of the year. On Feb. 9, 1906, Dreadnought was christened
by King Edward. Nearly a year after the keel laying, on Oct. 1, 1906,
Dreadnought went to sea for the first time. Two months later, it was
accepted into the fleet. The 12-month construction period for a major
capital ship has never been matched.
Source: Robert K. Massie, Dreadnaught: Britain, Germany, and the Coming
of the Great War (Random House, New York, 1991).
Dr. David F. Winkler is a historian with the Naval Historical Foundation.
