Talk:Dreadnought

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Contents

[edit] Unsupported statement

The entry says "The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by British and French blockading fleets." This is a rather unsupported statement. It was the Italian Navy to blockade the Adriatic, mostly with mines, in its narrowest point, the Channel of Otranto. --213.140.21.227 17:50, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fork from battleship

After discussion at Talk:Battleship I have forked out the material on Dreadnoughts as the basis for a new article. The Land 17:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blown out of the article

I deleted this

"Japan ordered four Kongo-class battlecruisers in 1911. While Japan adopted an "eight-eight" Navy target—eight battleships and eight battlecruisers—it took until 1921 to reach the target, by which time the Washington Naval Treaty had negated it.[1]"

as not really on point. (I'm not entirely convinced any reference to battlecruisers belongs in an article about Dreadnought.) Anybody who feels really strongly, put it back (but carefully; it's split up now). And you might note this was a 1916 program, which is 1 reason it took until 1921; as it was, it implied a prewar beginning. IIRC, the U.S. commenced the New Yorks, or something, in reply. Also, W&W notes delays in building the Ganguts meant they were all obsolete before they completed. Trekphiler 17:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dread lock

Anybody know why "dreadnought" came to be generic, while (say) Langley didn't? Trekphiler 22:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's my educated guess. British battleship designs were often described, in their early stages, with reference to a previous successful design - hence Inflexible started off as 'new Fury. So the first drawings for the next battleship would likely have said 'new Dreadnought at the top. I think it would be a short step from that to "we must have three Dreadnoughts", aided and abbetted by the obsession with naval matters and Fisher's eye for PR.
Of course, Monitor followed the same pattern. Perhaps the common element is the massive attention generated by these two naval innovations, while Langley was of less interest... The Land 17:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good. My hunch is nobody really understood carriers had made (or shortly would make) BBs obsolete, either. You suppose "carrier" being descriptive made it less likely? Trekphiler 22:24 & 22:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


The explanation was that Fisher wanted to get the government to spend more on ships. Fisher was an expert spin-doctor. Insisting that dreadnoughts made the older battleships count for less was part of how he achieved his aims. It was much easier to get his message across by using the term dreadnought than a more generic term. See: Lambert, Nicholas A. Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution, pub University of South Carolina, 1999, ISBN-1-57003-277-7 --Toddy1 (talk) 23:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The name probably derives from the fact that HMS Dreadnought was the first all-big-gun battleship, and attracted huge notice. Therefore, her name was used as a generic term for this type of ship, which rendered all predecessors ("pre-Dreadnoughts") instantly obsolete. --Vvmodel (talk) 19:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)--Vvmodel (talk) 19:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ocean eclipse

I'm inclined to add a ref @the Washington Treaty that it (inadvertently) led to a boom in CV building, contrib to end of BB era. Comment? Trekphiler (talk) 01:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Washington encouraged the building of CVs, notably through reconstruction of existing hulls made redundant by the treaty. Also, in the absence of Washington, there might have been a new generation of super-battleships, a concept which, in the event, was only pursued by Japan. So the treaty was pivotal in the development of the dreadnought battleship. --Vvmodel (talk) 19:54, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Main Picture

Surely the main picture for the article should be one of HMS Dreadnought, the ship that gave its name to this type of ship —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.253.49 (talk) 21:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily. HMS Dreadnought has its own page, with plenty of images. Having a modern picture here is a nice deviation from all the period black-and-white images. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the first comment, I thought the same thing when I first looked at the article. I don't think that it 'is a nice deviation' is a good enough reason. 82.18.132.162 (talk) 19:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary. This article isn't just - or even mainly - about HMS Dreadnought (1906). Colour images are much more interesting than black and white ones. The Land (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand, there is no picture of the eponymous warship at all which seems wrong to me. Perhaps a better view of the Texas could be found, something more form the side since the one included is a big bulk of grey paint. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Both points taken. I like Image:USS_Texas01a.jpg better for Texas - it's a slightly different angle, showing more of the ship, and it also seems to have better exposure. Yes, we should add a good picture of HMS Dreadnought as well. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Do we need a bit more in the caption for Texas just to clarify that she has been modernized along the way. Eg loss of cage masts and barbette armament. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GraemeLeggett (talk • contribs) 14:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
One wonders if those who object to the choice of a US BB lead picture are from the UK and those defending a picture of Texas are from US. As for pointing out that Texas has been modernized (losing cage masts, etc.), the more salient point may be that she is a Super Dreadnought with 14" vs. 12" guns (which is probably far more important than having lost her cage masts, which were a problematic design feature in any case). jmdeur 13:47, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Nope: while Graeme is English, so am I; and Stefan is German. The Land (talk) 21:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Move to Dreadnought battleship?

Should we move this page to the more descriptive title Dreadnought battleship (which currently is a link to Battleship(?!?))? It would avoid confusion with the ship, it's more descriptive, and it's in line with Ironclad warship and Pre-dreadnought battleship (which, to be open, I moved from Pre-dreadnought after this discussion a while back). I know that I'm always a bit confused when I see this page. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Go for it, it makes sense and there is precedent from Pre-dreadnought battleship. -MBK004 22:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Noooo! People refer far more often to 'dreadnought' than 'dreadnought battleship', which is not at all the case with 'pre-dreadnought'. The redirect at Dreadnought battleship is left over from before this article was forked off, I'll just fix it. The Land (talk) 22:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Are you certain? My impression is that most people just say "battleship" if they refer to a "dreadnought battleship". Maybe my impression is tainted by German, where everything before Dreadnought is often called a Linenschiff. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
In English it varies after WWI. From 1906-1920ish the common term was 'dreadnought', as dreadnought battleship' was redundant (there being no non-battleship dreadnoughts); after that at some point people simply referred to 'battleship' and 'dreadnought' started to take on a more and more antique feel. What's the German for dreadnought then? The Land (talk) 22:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
The normal distinction is Schlachtschiff (battleship - Dreadnought and on) vs. Linienschiff (ship of the line - everything from c. 1700 to Dreadnought). But terminology is not very established for the time from 1850-1906 or so - I can very well imagine a German popular writer refer to HMS Warrior as a Schlachtschiff, when a better term would be gepanzerte Fregatte. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:58, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
"Dreadnought battleship" strikes me redundant, & how many people will search it that way? They'll either search "dreadnought" & use a dab link, or "battleship" ditto (or not; is there a link to "dreadnought" from "battleship"?). And it seems to me "dreadnought" is a bit elastic anyhow; post-WW1 ships have been broadly described as dreadnoughts, tho technically not... Trekphiler (talk) 18:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC) Post Scriptum: "gepanzerte Fregatte"=armoured cruiser? (Nein sprechen zie panzerschiffe.) 18:16, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Gepanzerte Fregatte translates as "armoured frigatte". Panzerschiff is normally restricted to the Deutschland class ships (although "Panzerkreuzer" is common for them as well). In general, Kreuzer = "Cruiser". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Danke schön. Curt Jurgens 11:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Oppose move - the dreadnought concept was also applied to armoured cruisers. If this article is to have value it should encompass the dreadnought concept. Otherwise it merely deals with one part of the battleship's history.--Toddy1 16:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that somewhat. It is inevitable that we will talk about the development of the battlecruiser in this article because of the close connection between the too. However, many people use 'dreadnought' strictly to mean 'dreadnought battleship' and other people use 'dreadnought' to mean battleships and battlecruisers together. My feeling is that since there is a potentially thorough article at battlecruiser we should focus on the stricter use of the term here. It would be repetitiou to go into too much depth in this article about the evolution of battlecrusier design. This is particularly the case given that the distinction between battleship and battlecruiser largely vanished again in the 1920s onwards. The Land 20:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fisher and 1900

There was until recently something in the article which mentioned the discussions Fisher had with W H Gard ar Malta in 1900, saying that Fisher had essentially conceived the all-big-gun battleship at this stage. User:Toddy1, who generally knows what he's talking about, removed it as being untrue. Now what exactly happened in Malta in 1900? Massie states that in his memoirs Fisher conceived a fast, all-big-gun battleship (the Untakeable) at Malta in 1900. Massie is not the world's most reliable source. I do however have a paper by Charles Fairbanks which says that in the most recent biography of Fisher, Mackay's Fisher of Kilverstone, Mackay proves that Fisher had a 'revolutionary type of battleship' in mind at this stage. Fairbanks goes on to argue that Fisher's revolutionary idea was more the ancestor of the battlecruiser than Dreadnought. So how do we deal with this in the article? What did Fisher invent in 1900? Did he later claim that in 1900 he had essentially invented the dreadnought? How do we deal with the difficulties of condensing all of the reams that have been written about this sort of thing into a few paragraphs? The Land 21:02, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


JA Fisher's ideas

"In his Memories Fisher states that the idea of the Dreadnought came to him in 1900 when C.-in-C. Mediterranean Fleet and that it was developed in association with Mr. W.H. Gard, the Chief Constructor at Malta." (Page 468, Parkes, British Battleships)

However this is disingenuous of Fisher, since the type of future battleship Fisher envisaged in 1900 was very different from the Dreadnought-type.

"In his comments to the Admiralty in June 1901 on the fast battleship question, Fisher called for a simpler mixed calibre system that would consist of a 'uniform armament of 7 1/2 inch guns' in association with a battery of 10-inch guns, and in his memoirs he claims to have discussed the uniform calibre armament issue with William Henry Gard, the Chief Constructor of the Malta Dockyard, as early as in 1900." (Page 50, Sumida, Jon Tetsuro, In Defence of Naval Supremacy, Finance Technology and British Naval Policy 1889-1914, pub Unwin Hyman, 1989, ISBN 0-04-445104-0)

It should be stressed that during his time as C-in-C Mediterranean Fleet, J.A. Fisher was very keen on speed and long range gunnery, and became a convert to the idea that Britain needed lots of armoured cruisers. Fisher had not favoured armoured cruisers when he was Controller from 1892 to 1897. However, in the 1905-06 programme, when the Royal Navy decided to build the Dreadnought-type in place of other types of battleships, they laid down three dreadnought armoured cruisers, and only one dreadnought battleship.--Toddy1 22:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm familiar with Sumida's line of argument (though I don't have his book!) - any idea what Marder made of it? Anyway, I have re-written the 'origins' section with hopefully a more historiographical approach to it. In an ideal world we would have more detail on what the Americans and Japanese (and Cuniberti) were thinking as they designed their first dreadnoughts. regards, The Land 22:57, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Cuniberti's ideas are easily available - they were published in Janes.
  • US Battleships, by Norman Friedman explains in detail US thinking.
  • Japanese ideas are more of a problem. However, good descriptions of their ships should be obtainable from the relevant editions of Brasseys.

--Toddy1 23:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

You posted:

"In 1900-2, the first suggestions were being made to replace the pre-dreadnought with an all-big-gun ship. The British Admiral Jackie Fisher stated in his memoirs that while at Malta in 1900 he had discussions about an all-big-gun battleship, nicknamed the Untakeable.[2]. However, historian Jon Tetsuro Sumida and others have argued that Fisher's idea was less the precursor of the dreadnought battleship but of the battlecruiser.[3]."

You have misunderstood.

  • Fisher in 1900-1901 was suggesting a battleship with an armament consisting of 10-inch guns and 7.5-inch guns. This compares with for instance, the Formidables which had four 12-inch, twelve 6-inch, sixteen 12-pdrs, six 3-pdrs, and two Maxim guns.
  • At the same time, Fisher was also advocating building lots of armoured cruisers.
  • By 1905, Fisher's ideas about battleships had changed. He now advocated battleships with lots of 12-inch guns, and 12-pdrs, and nothing in between.
  • In 1905, Fisher favoured applying the dreadnought-style armament to armoured cruisers, which were called dreadnought armoured cruisers. (The term battlecruisers was invented five or six years later.)

--Toddy1 23:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

In the section on HMS Dreadnought in Marder's From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, I found no mention of Fisher thinking up the Dreadnought idea in 1900.--Toddy1 23:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

And there was I about to rewrite it again but you got in first. Thanks a lot for that. I think what we're losing sight of a bit as we revise is the why the move to all-big-gun-armament. Regards, The Land 20:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I've had another edit of what you added (only for clarity and style, I wasn't intending to alter the meaning). Thanks to your work we now have a remarkably detailed description of how intermediate-calibre and all-big-gun ideas developed. What we don't realyl ahve is a narrative about how these relate to the decision to build an all-big-gun ship. The Land (talk) 21:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Hail of Fire

I wrote:

The pre-dreadnought battleships combined heavy-calibre potentially ship-killing guns, with a secondary and tertiary armament that could generate a hail of fire destroying the less protected parts of enemy ships. At the Battle of the Yalu River (1894) and the Battle of Santiago de Cuba (1898], this hail of fire destroyed most the the vessels of the defeated side.

You have suggested the following wording instead:

At the Battle of the Yalu River (1894) and the Battle of Santiago de Cuba (1898], the decisive weapons were the quick-firing guns of 6-inch or 8-inch calibre, which crippled the enemy ships at relatively short ranges with a hail of fire.

Problems with your wording:

  • The term quick-firer (QF) has a precise meaning.
  • At the Yalu:
    • There were no 8-inch QF present, though the Chinese had a number of 8.2-inch BL (with the usual defective Chinese ammunition)
    • Only three Japanese ships had 6-inch QF: Fuso, Yoshino and Akitsusu.
    • There were a lot of ships (mostly Japanese) with 4.7-inch QF. Unlike 6-inch QF, 4.7-inch QF were true quick-firers with one-piece ammunition.
    • There were a lot of 6-pdr and 3-pdr QF. The hail of fire from these cannot be ignored.
    • The 15cm and 6-inch BL cannot be ignored, though their rate of fire was an order of magnitude lower than the 6-inch and 4-7-inch QF.
  • At Santiago:
    • The QF guns used by US armoured ships were 5-inch QF, 4-inch QF, and 6-pdr QF
    • US armoured ships also had slower firing 8-inch BL and 6-inch BL.
    • The QF guns used by Spanish armoured ships were 6-inch QF, 5.5-inch QF, 4.7-inch QF, 12-pdr QF, and 3-pdr QF.
    • The vast number of hits on Spanish ships by small QF guns is most impressive. (I have copies of reports on these - but it is a lot of work to sort them out.)

(Sources for guns present, Brassey's Naval Annual 1895, and 1899 and Conways.)

The advantage of my wording is that it is 100% true. Your wording is false. I have made the correction.--Toddy1 (talk) 23:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Is it fair to say that the conclusion people drew from these actions was that the volume of fire from medium-calibre guns was the crucial factor, and therefore that quick-firers would be the crucial weapons on new ships? The Land (talk) 10:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] End Date

There needs to be an approximate end-date on the designs to be covered by this article.

  • I don't think that this should be the late 1940s.
  • From the point of view of the ordinary reader, a sensible end-point might be the designs undertaken before experience from World War I was available. Though even this is debatable, since the armament concept for the Queen Elizabeths was more like the designs of Sir William White than that of the Admiralty-designed 1-2inch dreadnoughts.
  • Another possible cut-off point would be the adoption by the US of the all-or-nothing armour concept.

--Toddy1 (talk) 23:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd go for the Washington Naval Treaty: there's a continuous line of development from 1905 to 1922, then the treaty interrupts it, and there is a holocaust of dreadnought-scrapping (and pre-dreadnought scrapping). There is a separate article on fast battleships, which this article should refer to and we should also have one on the treaty battleship. The Land (talk) 12:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
A further thought on this. The technical discussion of battleships stretches quite logically from Dreadnought to Iowa, Yamato, and Vanguard. It will take quite a lot to do justice to the technical aspects of battleship building; to avoid duplication between this article and others (e.g. treaty battleship, fast battleship I suggest we use this article to discuss at some length the issues about armour thickness and disposition, turret positioning and selection of armament calibre since all of these issues were fully-established by the end of World War I. We can then note solutions to some of these problems attempted from 1922-45 in this article, and in other relevant articles provide a summary and a link to a section here. Then we can restrict the coverage of operations, tactics etc in this battleships in World War IIarticle to the period 1905-1921. (Of course there are other ways of doing it, but I think this one makes the most sense). The Land (talk) 12:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm inclined to disagree. This page isn't "battleship", & the broader discussion belongs there, not here, with links there & out from there to treaty, fast, battlecruiser, dreadnought, pre-dreadnought, ironclad BB (pre-pre-dreadnought?), & arguably cruiser, protected cruiser, &c. Trekphiler (talk) 21:34, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I take your point; my plan is to sort out this article and battleships in World War II (both forked from battleship) and then to return to the main battleship article. The challenge of talking about design tradeoffs is that the solutions changed quite radically over time with technology. However, both the technology and the tactical imperatives for battleships from 1905-45 are very similar and even more similar if you consider 1916-1945. The Land (talk) 15:09, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
If you're after something like a historical perspective, Dreadnought in a lineage, I've no problem with that. I'd say go easy here & link it to a more extensive discussion on Battleship; more than a few passing references to contemporaries & comparable spex & you're over the limit to this subject, IMO. I would add a mention of BBs being replaced, or Dreadnought being more/less obsolete soon (she was too slow for TF escort, wasn't she?), due to the appearance of CVs. As for the added detail, if you've got it, & can find the place for it, I say put it in; I, for 1, want to see it all. (I'll take the brand of paint on her decks, if you've got it! But I'm a bit nutz... =D) Trekphiler (talk) 23:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that battleship has to summarize several whole epochs of technology: if you only count the revolutions, there's the introduction of the screw propellor, the introduction of armour plate, development of heavy armament, steel armour, all-big-gun/turbine dreadnoughts. This means that battleship can't have a more detailed coverage of dreadnought engineering than dreadnought does; fundamentally all later battleships faced the same technology as the later dreadnoughts did. Regarding aircraft - I think the place to go into detail about the response in battleship design to first the threat and then dominance of aircraft is in (say) battleships in World War II. The Land (talk) 15:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

<--Noted. I don't mean to exclude it all, just that it should be judicious. I'd disagree with putting it in battleships in World War II; by then, the changes have already happened. What about a link out from battleship, or from here, to an "interwar developments" or "other influences" page? Or maybe a "battleship technology" page? Trekphiler (talk) 23:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Armour Concept

I don't understand why you pruned down what I wrote about the armouring concept for pre-dreadnoughts, with respect of armour protecting the guns.--Toddy1 (talk) 06:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Essentially because it's about pre-dreadnoughts, not dreadnoughts. The statement about gun armour, in particular, was a first approximation. The Land (talk) 10:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

On that, "Protection against torpedoes, secondary armament, fire control, and command equipment also had to be crammed into the hull." reminds me (I wish I could recall where I saw it...) this drives the length/beam of the ship: the longer the belt, the more armor needed, so designers try to shorten it, meaning the beam goes up, meaning horsepower has to go up... This was a big problem with Yamato, which hit the limits of Japan's ability to build more powerful turbines. Mention it? (I'll look & see if I can find the source...) Trekphiler (talk) 07:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure we'll mention it. Friedman's Battleship Design and Development goes into this sort of thing. You've got the logic slightly the wrong way around. A longer ship has lower frictional resistance, so a shorter ship is slower - all other things equal. (Though the weight saved will reduce the displacement, and hence the wave-generating resistance, which gives some compensation). So the shorter ship needs more horsepower, which in turn means a broader beam assuming you can't eliminate a turret to find space for the engines. The broader beam, irritatingly, has two effects on wave-making resistance: one increasing it and one decreasing it... The Land (talk) 10:40, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Just mentioning a random thought... Didn't know about the "conflicted" effect of broader beam. I always thought it had to do with fineness: higher L/B =faster. Compare Yamato & Iowa; on same hp, Iowa will be faster, no? Or not so simple? Trekphiler (talk) 17:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Not so simple! Frictional resistance (dominates at low speeds) is related to V/L - hence longer ship/finer lines = faster ship for the same power. Wave-making resistance (dominates at higher speeds) is related to a whole bunch of coefficients. I recommend Friedman's book on the subject if you can get it! The Land (talk) 18:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
"Not so simple!" That figures... =D I'll look for Friedman. (Not a lot of hard math, I hope? I'm not planning to make a careeer of it...) Trekphiler (talk) 14:52 & 14:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC) (BTW, I was curious about Friedman just for the history; now, I've got another reason. And another book I can't find time to read... :( PS, for a way off-topic, he's also done a really good one on subs. And I seem to recall one on the development of US CVs, too. The man is a powerhouse.)

[edit] Triple & quad turrets - implications for armour

A point which should be made about triple and quad turrets was its importance in terms of armour. Essentially, design moved towards the "all-or-nothing" principal - instead of spreading armour in a fairly piecemeal way as previously, "all or nothing" meant that a ship would have armour concentrated to defend a citadel, containing essential weaponry, magazines, machinery and controls. Little or no armour was required outside the citadel.

in this context, a key virtue of the triple or quad turret was that this arrangement compressed the citadel, enabling better armour protection to be provided. This can be seen if one compares earlier designs with the more modern layout of Richelieu, with the main armament compressed into two adjacent turrets. These were spaced well apart in the belief that this would reduce vulnerability to a single hit. --Vvmodel (talk) 20:17, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

That is a fair point. The economy of weight from the concentration of guns and the possible economy of protected length certainly made triple and quad turrets attractive. I wouldn't say it necessarily meant an 'all-or-nothing' scheme - there are examples of triple-turreted ships without all-or-nothing armour - but it certainly helped achieve one. The Land (talk) 20:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Origins - again

I have started a sandbox version at User:The Land/Dreadnought. This is principally to try to work the narrative of why the move to all-big-gun ships into the description of how and when such ships emerged. The Land (talk) 13:36, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Why? I wrote out an account with proper citations explaining it.--Toddy1 (talk) 13:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

What I'm trying to do is make the prose flow a bit better and highlight the rationale for the change. The factual information is all great, but it doesn't clearly answer the question of why people moved to an all-big-gun design. Your (very detailed and generally admirable) citations are almost all preserved, they just don't display in the sandbox version because I didn't tell it to list the refs. Regards, The Land (talk) 14:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I've 'finished' the origins section at User:The Land/Dreadnought to my satisfaction: any objections to moving it into the main article? Then I can get to work on the rest of the article... The Land (talk) 17:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Seeing that there haven't been any objections but there have been improvements by other people to the sandbox version I have copied it into the article. The Land (talk) 09:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Might I suggest you have a look at my draft User:Harlsbottom/HMS Dreadnought (1906) for the origins of the all-big-gun ship in the Royal Navy - there are some things missing here which I haven't the time to go through alas which would give the British side more context I think.

Also, in the "All-big-gun mixed-calibre ships", there's a reference to a June issue of the USNI Proceedings, which hasn't got a year next to it. Can someone clarify, as I;d be interested in hunting the article down. Cheers, --Harlsbottom (talk) 18:46, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we need to take some care that this article and the one on HMS Dreadnought don't replicate the same content; perhaps when the HMS Dreadnought article improves that should be the main place for the discussion of British developments and the others should mainly be covered here? The Land (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. One of these days I will try and get the HMS Dreadnought article up to scratch (your comments would be appreciated by the way). I have to say by the way, I think you (or whoever wrote it) may be putting too much emphasis on this idea that "However, it is now seriously suggested Fisher's main interest was in developing the battlecruiser and not the battleship." The school of thought behind this, Sumida, Fairbanks and Lambert have basically flogged a dead horse - regardless of what Fisher may have thought (and it still isn't clear) it's what he did that mattered. And the record shows that as soon as he became First Sea Lord in 1904 he presented an all-big-gun proposal to the British Cabinet.
Running concurrent to that, there's the issue of the Satsumas. Breyer, as extensive as it is (and it is the source cited for the section) made some errors, not unexpected as there isn't a lot on the Satsuma class. The design with eight 8-inch guns was scrapped before the end of 1903, and the next plan for the class was actually a copy of the Cuniberti idea - twelve 12-inch guns. However, both designs were found unworkable and as the Russo-Japanese war continued the IJN simply couldn't afford two such vessels. The supply of 12-inch guns wasn't a factor at all. So saying that the Satsuma was the precursor of the all-big-gun ship is really like me saying that the all-big-gun version of the Invincible from 1881 was the same - it was a proposal thought to be impractical and therefore never adopted.
Cutting a very long story short, I think it would be better to find something other than Breyer to cite on the Japanese ships. --Harlsbottom (talk) 18:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC) P.S. You may ask why I don't just go on an edit-spree myself. I'm rather loath to editing other people's project pages, a) because there's a bit of pride involved and b) I can not be bothered being dragged into pointless arguments. My experience suggests you're the sort who writes proper researched-stuff, so I'd probably be alright, but still, I let someone else take the heat :).
Thanks for all that! Re Sumida et al: I'm not really qualified to make a judgement about who's right, but we have to at least cover the fact that there's a controversy. re Satsuma: Breyer actually talks more about finance and design flaws as the reasons Satsuma wasn't completed all-big-gun than the other sources I have to hand (Evans and Peattie Kaigun and Jentshura et al Warships of the IJN. It surely is significant, though, that the IJN laid her down as an all-big-gun design. I will take another look at the text. The Land (talk) 18:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
The thing is though, I have yet to see something incontrovertible that says the IJN did lay down Satsuma as an all-big-gun ship. They of course planned to, which is certainly reflected in the record, but other than that I'm unconvinced, and from what I can ascertain so are many others. --Harlsbottom (talk) 19:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm in an interesting position. I'm satisfied that the Satsuma was not laid down as an all-big-gun ship, despite what Breyer and what others say. A number of people qualified to know whom I've been in touch with say the same. However, the best materiel I can come up with atm to prove so is Cassier's Magazine, a period engineering magazine referring to an announcement made in January, 1905 that the ship to be laid down would be of 19,000 tons, have four 12-inch guns and ten 10-inch guns. A New York Times article from November, 1905 makes the same assertion. This is what horrifies me about Breyer. The only thing I truly trust him for is armamament changes and his line drawings. The uncited nature of his other statements is damning. The fact that he highlights the statement "When laid down in the spring of 1905 – before Tsushima – they were the first 'all-big-gun battleships' in the world" is unforgiveable. He has Aki laid down a year before it actually was. As to the issue of the availability of guns (which Breyer cites as a reason for non completion as all-big-gun ships) I have it on good authority that Satsuma completed with all Japanese-made 12-inch guns (41st Year Type). --Harlsbottom (talk) 18:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. Evans and Peattie say Satsuma 'could have been' built with twelve 12-inch, but are quite vague. Do you have access to Anthony Preston Battleships (probably not particularly close to the facts itself but might highlight some sources) or indeed Hayashi Katsunari's Nihon gunji gijutsu shi? Those are Evans and Peattie's sources for the statement. The Japanese one (A History of Japanese military technology) sounds particularly fruitful. Re the contemporaneous articles you mention: there are umpteen reasons why a journal or newspaper in 1905 might have printed inaccurate details (misinformation, misttranslation, misunderstanding); which is why for the purposes of the article we need to stick to reliable secondary sources. I'm sure there is a more detailed secondary soruce out there! The Land (talk) 19:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I really hate to say this, as I have a lot of respect for Anthony Preston, Rest in Peace, but he was hardly the best author in the world. And his Bison Books volumes are not the work of academic rigorousness. I have his similar books on Cruisers and Destroyers and I would never cite them. If memory serves his referencing was hardly spectacular. I will hunt down the other work specified. As you say it does sound fruitful.
The periodical concerned was published in 1909, and was specifically debating the specifics of the Satsuma class from 1905, as it emerged that they completed heavier than was intended, which caused some commotion at the time. --Harlsbottom (talk) 00:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I had a look at Kaigun today. Evans and Peattie are really vague, aren't they. The fact that the phrase "remained pre-dreadnoughts" is used suggests that they were laid down as such - that would be the grammatical way to interpret it anyway.
The information on these two ships out there is ludicrous - I'm having trouble just establishing what year Aki was even laid down, as there are numerous references to either 1905 or 1906. Unbelievable. --Harlsbottom (talk) 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Magazine capacity

Can anybody provide something on the typical magazine capacity? It would be interesting to be able to compare this with modern VLS. --MarkMLl (talk) 23:05, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Typically on the order of 100 rounds per gun. The Land (talk) 23:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Just a footnote

I notice they're including a lot of redundant text to back up the article claim. Is this really necessary? That it's footnoted should be enough; anybody who doesn't believe it can go look at the source, no? My inclination is to delete. Trekphiler (talk) 20:53, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer they stayed, for the minute at least. They were originally included in the text by Toddy1 when he and I were doing some very detailed work on those parts of the article. I moved them to footnotes to avoid breaking up the flow of the article. I agree that when the article is finished they should be redundant, but let's leave them in for now. The Land (talk) 08:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm a bit torn between it being useless & risking screwing up the fn altogether... (Guilty 8[). Trekphiler (talk) 20:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Doctrinaire

I know this is true, but I can't source it, & it's created some controversy here: carriers as fleet scouts being less valuable/more expendable than BBs, per Mahanian doctrine. If somebody's got a good source, can you put it in the fn on the article page? (If it hasn't been removed again...) Thanx. Trekphiler (talk) 20:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

"More recent investigation suggests firecontrol in 1905 was not advanced enough to use the salvo-firing technique where this confusion might be important;[28] confusion of shell-splashes does not seem to have been a concern of those working on all-big gun designs.[29]"

I can't answer for Friedman, but Fairbanks is certainly barking up the wrong tree and I think it's wrong to call a few lines in a 1991 paper "recent investigation". Fairbanks' problem is he read into Sumida's somewhat arbitrary distinction between "spotting" and "bracketing", the former supposedly being a calculated adjustment to the range of the guns and the latter being what Fairbanks was being so dismissive of. ("correction…will never in itself make the next salvo land on target.") Any fire-control system or framework by definition relies on spotting, or observing the fall of shot - it is after all the part the "control" relies on. I am forced to conclude re-reading his article that he has no adequate comprehension of either pre-Dreadnought gunnery or post-Dreadnought.

Considering the RN adopted spotting rules in 1901, based on a set of Royal Artillery ones, and was also well-equipped with 4½ foot base range-finders for ranging out to well over 5,000 yards, I really am staggered by Fairbank's ignorance on this matter.

Another point which interests me is this; Friedman wrote "In view of later accounts of the origins of the Dreadnought, it is interesting that the possibility of gunnery confusion due to two calibres as close 10 and 12 inches was never raised." I have a quote from the Jellicoe Papers;

"Lord Fisher's action in initiating the Dreadnought class…was based upon the extreme difficulty of obtaining accurate fire control and consequently accurate shooting in a ship armed with a mixed armament of 12-in. and 9.2-in. or 12-in. and 10-in. guns. This difficulty entirely disappeared when the heavy gun armament comprised guns of one calibre alone." (I, 12) The lack of any fire-control calculation device other than possibly the Dumaresq pre-1906 means that the only other main source of control is spotting, which kind of rains on Fairbank's statement on assertion that Marder was mixing up practices.

My own conclusion is, and it will be interesting to see what Friedman has written in Naval Firepower, that one doesn't see much on the differentiation between different calibre splashes due to the fact that just as we find it blatantly obvious today, any gunnery officer back then would have found the same and lumped it under "problems of control". Just some rambling musings... Harlsbottom (talk) 08:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] First Triples

Hi all, I've spotted a small error in the article. The first dreadnought with triple turrets was the Dante Aligheri, not the Gangut. I'll correct the article shortly. Getztashida (talk) 11:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)