HMS Dreadnought

The British launched the battleship Dreadnought on February 10th. It was the first of an entirely new class of warship. It began a race among all of the naval powers to build larger more powerful ships.

Naval ships though the end of the 19th century included a number of large guns and many more smaller guns. The prevailing wisdom was that naval battles would be determined at close range. The Russo Japanese War proved that wrong, with many battles determined at long range. Thus evolved the design of ships with almost all large long range guns. These new ships also included and another new design innovation a steam turbine engines that propelled the ships more efficiently. The British Navy laid down the first of these ships named the Dreadnought in October 1905. It was launched on February 10, 1906.

The ship was equipped with ten 12 inch guns. The British Dreadnought was the first in a class that began a naval race in the years before World War I. All the major power competed in building new similar ships. Despite all of the ships built, only one major battle of the Dreadnoughts was fought during World War I and that was the battle of Jutland. By the time of World War II the Aircraft Carrier and not the Dreadnought was the king of the sea.