Dreadnought

HMS Dreadnought was a British battleship launched in 1906. Its uniform heavy-gun armament and steam-turbine propulsion established a new pattern for battleship design.

All-big-gun battleship: A battleship armed primarily with a uniform battery of heavy guns rather than mixed-caliber main weapons. Dreadnought embodied this design by replacing mixed main batteries with ten 12-inch guns.
John Fisher: A British admiral who served as First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910 and promoted naval modernization. Fisher championed the fast, heavily armed battleship design that became Dreadnought.
Dreadnought race: The naval arms competition, especially between Britain and Germany, to build modern battleships after 1906. Dreadnought’s design prompted rival powers to build ships of the same broad type.
HMS Dreadnought (1906): The Royal Navy battleship launched in 1906 that inaugurated the dreadnought era. This is the specific ship whose design and history define the concept.
Steam turbine: A rotary engine that converts high-pressure steam into mechanical power through spinning blades. Dreadnought used turbines to achieve higher speed than contemporary battleships with reciprocating engines.
Reginald Bacon: A British naval officer and engineer involved in designing HMS Dreadnought. Bacon directed the design work that translated Fisher’s requirements into a battleship.
Dreadnought (battleship type): A battleship designed around an all-big-gun main battery, following the pattern established by HMS Dreadnought. The ship gave its name to a generation of battleships built to its design pattern.
Battle of Jutland: The largest naval battle of the First World War, fought between British and German fleets in 1916. Dreadnought did not take part, having been assigned to coastal defense rather than the main fleet.
12-inch naval gun: A large naval artillery piece with a bore diameter of twelve inches. Ten such guns formed Dreadnought’s main battery.
William White: A British naval architect who served as Director of Naval Construction from 1885 to 1902. White’s earlier battleship designs show the mixed-caliber convention that Dreadnought displaced.

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