Pre-dreadnought battleship Informations

Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late 1880s and 1905, before the launch of HMS Dreadnought. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, and protected by hardened steel armour, pre-dreadnought battleships carried a main battery of very heavy guns in barbettes (open or with armoured gunhouses) supported by one or more secondary batteries of lighter weapons. They were powered by coal-fuelled triple-expansion steam engines.

In contrast to the chaotic development of ironclad warships in preceding decades, the 1890s saw navies worldwide start to build battleships to a common design as dozens of ships essentially followed the design of the British Majestic class. The similarity in appearance of battleships in the 1890s was underlined by the increasing number of ships being built. New naval powers such as Germany, Japan, and the United States–and to a lesser extent Italy and Austria-Hungary–began to establish themselves with fleets of pre-dreadnoughts, while the navies of Britain, France, and Russia expanded to meet these new threats. The decisive clash of pre-dreadnought fleets was between the Imperial Russian Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905.

These battleships were abruptly made obsolete by the arrival of HMS Dreadnought in 1906. Dreadnought followed the trend in battleship design to heavier, longer-ranged guns by adopting an "all-big-gun" armament scheme of ten 12-inch guns. Her innovative steam turbine engines also made her faster. The existing pre-dreadnoughts were decisively outclassed, and new and more powerful battleships were from then on known as dreadnoughts while the ships that had been laid down before were designated pre-dreadnoughts.

The pre-dreadnought developed from the ironclad battleship. The first ironclads – the French Gloire and HMS Warrior – looked much like sailing frigates, with three tall masts and broadside batteries, when they were commissioned at the start of the 1860s. Only eight years later HMVS Cerberus, the first breastwork monitor, was launched. After a further three years followed HMS Devastation, a turreted ironclad which more resembled a pre-dreadnought than previous and contemporary turretless ironclads. Each ship lacked masts and carried four heavy guns in two turrets fore and aft. Devastation was the first ocean-worthy breastwork monitor, built to attack enemy coasts and harbours; because of her very low freeboard, she could not fight on the high seas as her decks would be swept by water and spray, interfering with the working of her guns. Navies worldwide continued to build masted, turretless battleships which had sufficient freeboard and were seaworthy enough to fight on the high seas.

The distinction between coast-assault battleship and cruising battleship became blurred with the Admiral class, ordered in 1880. These ships reflected developments in ironclad design, being protected by iron-and-steel compound armour rather than wrought iron. Equipped with breech-loading guns of between 12-inch and 16 ¼-inch (305 mm and 413 mm) calibre, the Admirals continued the trend of ironclad warships towards gigantic weapons. The guns were mounted in open barbettes to save weight. Some historians see these ships as a vital step towards pre-dreadnoughts; others view them as a confused and unsuccessful design.

The subsequent Royal Sovereign class of 1889 retained barbettes but were uniformly armed with 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns; they were also significantly larger (at 14,000 tons displacement) and faster (because of triple-expansion steam engines) than the Admirals. Just as importantly, the Royal Sovereigns had a higher freeboard, making them unequivocally capable of the high-seas battleship role.

The pre-dreadnought design reached maturity in 1895 with the Majestic class. These ships were built and armoured entirely of steel, and their guns were mounted in fully enclosed barbettes, inevitably referred to as turrets. They also adopted a 12-inch (305 mm) main gun, which, because of advances in casting and propellant, was lighter and more powerful than the previous guns of larger calibre. The Majestics provided the model for battleship building in the Royal Navy and many other navies for years to come.

Pre-dreadnoughts carried guns of several different calibres, for different roles in ship-to-ship combat. The main armament was four heavy guns, mounted in two centre-line turrets fore and aft. Very few pre-dreadnoughts deviated from this arrangement. These guns were slow-firing, and initially of limited accuracy; but they were the only guns heavy enough to penetrate the thick armour which protected the engines, magazines, and main guns of enemy battleships.

The most common calibre for the main armament was 12-inch (305 mm), although some ships used smaller guns because they could attain higher rates of fire; British battleships from the Majestic class onwards carried this calibre, as did French ships from the Charlemagne class (laid down in 1894). Japan, importing most of its guns from Britain, used 12-inch guns. The United States used both 12-inch (305 mm) and 13-inch (330 mm) guns for most of the 1890s until the Maine class (not to be confused with the earlier Maine of Spanish–American War notoriety), laid down in 1899, after which the 12-inch gun was universal. The Russians used both 12 and 10-inch (254 mm) as their main armament; the Petropavlovsk class, Retvizan, Tsesarevich, and Borodino class had 12-inch (305 mm) main batteries while the Peresvet class mounted 10-inch (254 mm) guns. The first German pre-dreadnought class used an 11-inch (279 mm) gun but decreased to a 9.4-inch (239 mm) gun for the two following classes and returned to 11-inch guns with the Braunschweig class.

While the calibre of the main battery remained quite constant, the performance of the guns improved as longer barrels were introduced. The introduction of slow-burning nitrocellulose and cordite propellant allowed the employment of a longer barrel, and therefore higher muzzle velocity—giving greater range and penetrating power for the same calibre of shell. Between the Majestic class and Dreadnought, the length of the British 12-inch gun increased from 35 calibres to 45 and muzzle velocity increased from 706 metres (2,317 ft) per second to 770 metres (2,525 ft) per second.

Pre-dreadnoughts also carried a secondary battery. This consisted of smaller guns, typically 6-inch (152 mm), though any calibre from 4 to 9.4 inches (100 to 240 mm) could be used. Virtually all secondary guns were "quick firing", employing a number of innovations to increase the rate of fire. The propellant was provided in a brass cartridge, and both the breech mechanism and the mounting were suitable for rapid aiming and reloading. The role of the secondary battery was to damage the less armoured parts of an enemy battleship; while unable to penetrate the main armour belt, it might score hits on lightly armoured areas like the bridge, or start fires. Equally important, the secondary armament was to be used against enemy cruisers, destroyers, and even torpedo boats. A medium-calibre gun could expect to penetrate the light armour of smaller ships, while the rate of fire of the secondary battery was important in scoring a hit against a small, manoeuvrable target. Secondary guns were mounted in a variety of ways; sometimes carried in turrets, they were just as often positioned in fixed armoured casemates in the side of the hull, or in unarmoured positions on upper decks.

Some of the pre-dreadnoughts carried an "intermediate" battery, typically of 8-inch (203 mm) to 10-inch calibre. The intermediate battery was a method of packing more heavy firepower into the same battleship, principally of use against battleships or at long ranges. The United States Navy pioneered the intermediate battery concept in the Indiana, Iowa, and Kearsarge classes, but not in the battleships laid down between 1897 and 1901. Shortly after the USN re-adopted the intermediate battery, the British, Italian, Russian, French, and Japanese navies laid down intermediate-battery ships. This later generation of intermediate-battery ships almost without exception finished building after Dreadnought, and hence were obsolete before completion.

During the ironclad age, the range of engagements increased; in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 battles were fought at around 1 mile (1.5 km), while in the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904, the Russian and Japanese fleets fought at ranges of 3.5 miles (5.5 km). The increase in engagement range was due in part to the longer range of torpedoes, and in part to improved gunnery and fire control. In consequence, shipbuilders tended towards heavier secondary armament, of the same calibre that the "intermediate" battery had been; the Royal Navys last pre-dreadnought class, the Lord Nelson class, carried ten 9.2-inch guns as secondary armament. Ships with a uniform, heavy secondary battery are often referred to as "semi-dreadnoughts".

The pre-dreadnoughts armament was completed by a tertiary battery of light, rapid-fire guns. These could be of any calibre from 3-inch (76 mm) down to machine guns. Their role was to give short-range protection against torpedo boats, or to rake the deck and superstructure of a battleship.

In addition to their gun armament, many pre-dreadnought battleships were armed with torpedoes, fired from fixed tubes located either above or below the waterline. By the pre-dreadnought era the torpedo was typically 18-inch (457 mm) in diameter and had an effective range of several thousand metres. However, it was virtually unknown for a battleship to score a hit with a torpedo.

Pre-dreadnought battleships carried a considerable weight of steel armour. Experience showed that rather than giving the ship uniform armour protection, it was best to concentrate armour over critical areas. The central section of the hull, which housed the boilers and engines, was protected by the main belt, which ran from just below the waterline to some distance above it. This "central citadel" was intended to protect the engines from even the most powerful shells. The main armament and the magazines were protected by projections of thick armour from the main belt. The beginning of the pre-dreadnought era was marked by a move from mounting the main armament in open barbettes to an all-enclosed, turret mounting.

The main belt armour would normally taper to a lesser thickness along the side of the hull towards bow and stern; it might also taper up from the central citadel towards the superstructure. The deck was typically lightly armoured with 2 to 4 inches of steel. This lighter armour was to prevent high-explosive shells from wrecking the superstructure of the ship.

The battleships of the late 1880s, for instance the Royal Sovereign class, were armoured with iron and steel compound armour. This was soon replaced with more effective case-hardened steel armour made using the Harvey process developed in the United States. First tested in 1891, Harvey armour was commonplace in ships laid down from 1893 to 1895. However, its reign was brief; in 1895, the German Kaiser Friedrich III pioneered the superior Krupp armour. Europe adopted Krupp plate within five years, and only the United States persisted in using Harvey steel into the 20th century. The improving quality of armour plate meant that new ships could have better protection from a thinner and lighter armour belt; 12 inches (305 mm) of compound armour provided the same protection as just 7.5 inches (190 mm) of Harvey or 5.75 inches (133 mm) of Krupp.

Almost all pre-dreadnoughts were powered by reciprocating steam engines. Most were capable of top speeds between 16 and 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h). The ironclads of the 1880s used compound engines, and by the end of the 1880s the even-more efficient triple expansion compound engine was in use. Some fleets, though not the British, adopted the quadruple-expansion steam engine.

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