Within the third quarter of the 20th century the last of the great armour clad dreadnought battleships of Britain’s navy were taken out of commission and sold out of the service to be broken up in ship breakers yards. Where Britain as well as many of her European neighbours were concerned, a significant number of these ships had seen action in two World Wars, where their huge and sophisticated guns were used to fire massive projectiles over distances as much as twenty miles. The march of progress had however hastened the end of these fortresses of steel, for their great size, made battleships vulnerable to attack from carrier based aircraft, and from submarines that utilised the technologies of stealth, and which would develop into underwater missile launching platforms with a fire power that would have appeared impossible in the battleship era.
The developments that caused the battleships demise during the 20th century make fascinating study. Arguably however the rapid changes that were instrumental in creating the earlier battleship types of the 19th century, the so called pre-dreadnoughts, are even more interesting to study. These ships were developed during a period of political “sabre rattling” when Great Britain along with other European powers sought naval dominance and initiated great arms races in response to what often were merely perceived threats from each other. Accelerating technical, economic, and social changes were rapidly taking place during this period, and the pre-dreadnoughts were the end result of new and exciting ideas and practices in 19th century naval architecture that were developed and in the fifty years or so before the all big gun, steam turbine driven monoliths that historians termed dreadnought made all the worlds navies obsolete.
That period saw the end of wood as a material for ship construction and the onset of iron and then steel hulls. A gradually increasing understanding of metallurgy, and improvements in foundry methods allowed effective alloy steel armour to be manufactured, and ordnance was improved to an unimaginable extent, with smooth bore gun installations giving way to huge barbette turret mounted weapons that were operated through complex hydraulic and electrical control systems. Sails as a motive power were finally dispensed with, and steam power was used, first in simple then in much more complex forms of engine to drive screw propellers. Boiler installations for steam generation were also improved, allowing higher pressures and greater steam efficiency to be achieved, so that ships could be driven through the seas at much greater speeds. All this created an immensely powerful capital ship the likes of which had never been seen before, and which ensured that the British Navy of the day remained the most powerful of all the world’s great nations.
Read more about the turning point in the design of naval warships with Warren Berry's Pre-Dreadnought Revolution: Developing the Bulwarks of Sea Power.