what country held this ship....i need to know

S

specture(jrotc cadet)

Active member
what country built and commissioned the "Dreadnaught"
or was it called dreadnought? i cant spell it right..........
its a ship i heard of that was used during world war one.....but i cant figure out where it originated
 
Bit of a race between the Brits and the US for the first dreadnought. Prior to 1900, most ship battles were a relatively close quarter affair but a battle between the Russians & Japanes in 1905 proved the value of long distance guns. The battleships up to that time generally had only four batteries but the dreadnought design had 10 12'' guns. It was basically just a bigger, faster and meaner battleship.

I think the first Dreadnought was the British HMS Invincible built in 1905(?) but others may know more.

By the start of the war, the battlecruiser was in production which was faster again and had 8 x 15" guns. The first of those was either the HMS Queen Elizabeth or the HMS Warspite.

Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US all built various versions of the dreadnought.
 
England built the first dreadnaught naming it after a line of a famous strong and stoic sounding poem that ended something like "...and dread not."
 
The Dreadnought was the first Capital Ship to be fitted with steam turbines rather than reciprocating engine. The steam turbine gave the ship far more power and far less vibration. It was the first of the Modern Battleships
 
It was also the first all "big gun" battleship. Before her, ships were a mixture of various calibers.
 
The first Dreadnaught was HMS Dreadnaught. It was the maiden ship that inspired the "Dreadnaught" class.

There is a book DREADNAUGHT! by Robert K Massie that was a NYTimes best seller a few years back. Its Excellent Read for anyone whose interested in the Dreadnaught story.
 
Charge 7

Have you read any of Massie's other books? I read The Romanovs in college its not military history but its highly recommended if you get the urge for Russian History. He wrote another on Peter the Great, which I never read but hear is equally good.

He's probably the best social historian of our time.
 
Yes, I have read Peter The Great as well. It's as great or near as great as Dreadnaught in my opinion. I probably empathised with Dreadnaught more though because it entails a frame of reference which I am already familiar with. As Winston Churchill said,
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.
Click to expand...
 
The Dreadnought was built by Britain and it was revolutionary in another sense. It was the first battleship to mount all its main guns in rotating turrets rather than below deck casements, thus allowing all of her main guns to bear on a target in virtually any direction. In addition, she was the first battleship to have the same calibre of main armament. (10x12 inch guns if I don't have a memory cramp) Before that, the casement mounted guns could only be brought to bear on one quarter of the compass. (i.e. A battery could only fire on targets bearing 0 to 90 degrees, C battery from 90 to 180. etc.) It was impossible for all the guns to engage one target, and because of this, it was relatively easy to predict which way a ship would turn to unmask the next set of guns. Some preceding warships did have turrets, but usually they only had 2 or 4 main guns. The dreadnought had no such weakness, she could fire in one direction and manouvre in any other, and in addition, the casement batteries were a major weakness in terms of armour thickness and water entry in heavy seas. The Dreadnought did not need them.

Dean.
 
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