Moreover, Dreadnought was the first battleship to employ turbine engines, a new propulsion system employing fewer moving parts, requiring less space in the hull and accounting for less weight.
Fisher eliminated the intermediate-caliber guns and saved only a few light quick-firing guns to repel close-in torpedo boat attacks. With one turret on the bow, one on each wing, and two astern, the gun arrangement allowed Dreadnought to fire eight heavy guns in each broadside-giving her the equivalent long-range fire of two pre-dreadnought battleships. An Admiralty design board, chaired by First Sea Lord Admiral Sir John Arbuthnot Fisher (1841–1920), decided to arm the new ship with ten twelve-inch guns arranged in five twin turrets. The first innovation was an all-biggun armament, a concept considered by British, Italian, and American naval architects for a number of years. HMS Dreadnought was a revolutionary design because it incorporated a number of innovations in a single hull. Pre-dreadnought battleships also were powered by reciprocating steam engines, whose operation at high speed (fifteen to eighteen knots)Ĭaused extreme stress to the machinery, requiring frequent overhauls and forcing commanders to limit speeds to fourteen knots or less in order to avoid breakdowns. Major drawbacks of this arrangement included the difficulties of spotting and adjusting fire for mixed batteries, and of maintaining sets of spare parts for different types of guns. The typical battleship of the 1890s, expecting to fight at relatively close ranges, mounted a mixed battery of four twelve-inch guns (in two turrets) and numerous intermediate-size guns.
The generation of battleships preceding the dreadnoughts were powerful warships but possessed two major disadvantages. This revolutionary battleship, displacing 17,900 tons, intensified the naval building race with imperial Germany and reset the standard by which all navies measured themselves. When the Royal Navy commissioned HMS Dreadnought in December 1906, Britain's fleet gained an immediate technological advantage over any potential adversary at sea.
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