HMS Dreadnought (1906)

Type

Battleship

Period

20th Century

Nation

Great Britain

Overview: HMS Dreadnought was a Royal Navy battleship whose radical 1906 design was so influential that it gave its name to an entire generation of warships worldwide; ships built before her became retroactively known as "pre-dreadnoughts." She was championed by Admiral Sir John "Jacky" Fisher and represented a complete break from prior battleship conventions. Specifications: Dreadnought carried five twin 12-inch (305mm) gun turrets as a uniform "all-big-gun" main battery, supplemented by 27 single 12-pounder guns and five 18-inch torpedo tubes, with belt armor of 4-11 inches. She was the first capital ship powered by steam turbines, which made her the fastest battleship in the world at completion, and her hull was built and launched from Portsmouth in a famously short construction period. Service History: She served as flagship of the Home Fleet and, notably, was the only battleship in history to ram and sink an enemy submarine, the German U-29, in March 1915. Despite her fame, her design was quickly superseded by newer, more heavily armed dreadnoughts, so she missed the Battle of Jutland and spent her later career in secondary roles before being paid off and sold for scrapping in the early 1920s. Notable Facts: Dreadnought's construction triggered an international naval arms race, with Germany, the United States, Japan, and other powers racing to build their own "dreadnoughts" in response. Her name is now a generic term for an entire type of battleship, making her one of the most historically significant single vessels for scale modelers studying the transition from pre-dreadnought to modern battleship design.