The Birth of the Dreadnought
(See page 1097, August, 1939, Proceedings)
Dr. Ing. Wladimir V. Mendl, M.I.N.A. —Without any doubt the birth of the Dreadnought is due to the initiative of Lord Fisher.
However the Dreadnought is by no means “merely” an invention, as for instance that of gunpowder or wireless telegraphy. Notwithstanding the indisputable merits of its initiator, Lord Fisher, it is the result of a long and slow development. Here are the historical facts.
Already in 1845 a commission of captains in the United States Navy had been appointed to decide about the simplification of naval ordnance. The outcome of their discussions was a proposal to limit the ordnance of the entire fleet to only two calibers, viz., the 32-pounder and the 8-in. gun.
It would seem that this proposal is the first affirmation of one of the principles of the Dreadnought which has been applied by all countries to the successors of this notable vessel. The commission’s proposal is a noteworthy forerunner of the development of 60 years later, but it brought about no results whatsoever, the time for them not yet having come.
Between 1845 and 1906 a few battleships were built which came very near to the idea of the Dreadnought, the eighth of her name. Among these were the four vessels of the German Brandenburg class, armed with six 11-in. guns in three double turrets, eight 4.1-in. guns, and eight 3.5in. guns.
However, although these vessels have to be considered in a certain measure as forerunners of the capital ship of our days, they lacked one of the essential features of this latter: simplicity in design.
Moreover the unification of calibers could not be pushed as far as in the Dreadnought, and her successors, partly because of displacement and partly by prejudice and aversion on the side of most prominent persons, among whom was Admiral Mahan.
Meanwhile, in 1881 the battleship Inflexible, of a new and powerful type, had been commissioned in the Royal Navy and was ordered to the Mediterranean under the command of Captain John Fisher. It happened that among the staff on board was Mr. Philip Watts as representative of Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, Director of Naval Construction. It would seem that this cruise was particularly prolific from a constructional point of view. Anyhow, when Mr. Watts left the Inflexible in 1882 he brought home to London the design for a battleship armed with four pairs of 16-in. guns in double turrets.
The vessel was to have a displacement of 16,000 tons, a noteworthy advance over the 11,400 tons of the Inflexible herself, not very far from the displacement of the Dreadnought 24 years later and in any case remarkably close to the latter in relation to the number of heavy guns carried.
In 1902 Sir Philip Watts had become Director of Naval Construction. As a result of discussions in connection with the vessels to be laid down in 1903-04 it had been decided to arm them only with heavy guns. This may be a consequence of Sir Philip’s cruise in 1881-82 under the command of Captain Fisher.
Ultimately the new vessels were armed with four 12-in. guns and twelve 9.2-in. guns, all of them paired in double turrets. Probably this diversity of armament was adopted with a view to reduce the displacement, the watchword being to design the smallest and cheapest vessel possible, not to mention the limitations imposed on the principal dimensions by the dry docks available.
Still it is worth mentioning that the armament of these vessels, the Lord Nelson class, were the outcome of very detailed investigations ordered by Admiral Sir William H. May, Controller of the Navy. These investigations showed clearly that in battle the efficiency of the secondary armament would be very much inferior to that of the heavy guns.
At the same time the Construction Department of the Admiralty had prepared a sketch for a vessel armed with heavy guns of single caliber. But the evolution of ideas having not yet progressed far enough, the Admiralty was not inclined to approve such a radical departure.
The laying down of the Lord Nelson class was delayed until the next year, and precisely because of the necessity to limit the displacement the secondary armament was finally cut down to ten 9.2-in. guns.
The single caliber battleship, although rejected by the Admiralty, had a fervent supporter in the person of Admiral Sir John Fisher.
When Captain Fisher came back to England from his command at Malta, where he had had the opportunity to talk with a large number of officers, he brought with him the design of a battleship armed with twelve 12-in. guns in 6 double turrets, in two groups of 3 tiers each, forward and aft. Her speed was to be 21 knots.
Subsequently Sir John Fisher held the appointment of Admiral Superintendent at Portsmouth, where he became intimately associated with shipbuilding and improved the rate of ship construction. Naturally he had plenty of opportunities to discuss with fellow officers, constructors, even with engineers outside of the service, and it seems probable that during this time his design was further perfected.
One of the great qualities of Lord Fisher was the faculty he had to assimilate the ideas of others. As he himself was not a constructor it is fair to presume that the design in question, which was to become the father of an entirely new type of vessels, had many anonymous collaborators, whose names will probably never be known. Notwithstanding this fact, the idea in itself was due to Lord Fisher, whose other great quality was the ability to make his fellow workers identify themselves as completely as possible with his own ideas.
In October, 1904, Lord Fisher became First Sea Lord of the Admiralty and set immediately to work, favored by the fact that the Director of Naval Construction was this same Sir Philip Watts with whom he had worked out in 1881-82 the first design of a single caliber vessel.
Meanwhile Colonel Vittorio Cuniberti, Chief Constructor of the Italian Navy, had published an article in the well-known British naval annual Jane’s Fighting Ships for 1903 and pleaded the cause of the single caliber vessel, that is to say the one with the greatest possible number of guns of the largest possible caliber, the only one able to inflict decisive damage on the enemy.
We are told that this article did not produce any material effect upon the judgment of the Admiralty. On the other hand, the writings of the then Captain Sims, U. S. Navy, made such a profound impression upon Admiral Lord Fisher, that he asked insistently for the single caliber vessel.
Very soon after coming to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord, Admiral Lord Fisher was appointed chairman of a commission of naval officers and engineers to decide upon certain questions in connection with the design of vessels to be laid down. It would seem as if the parentship of this commission falls to the share of Lord Fisher himself his intention being to unarm the strong financial opposition expected.
One may presume that the construction of the Dreadnought had been decided upon even before the first meeting of the commission. Its members were carefully chosen among persons favorably inclined to the project and the authority of whom was to justify before the great public a break in policy of such importance.
In consequence the design laid before the commission by Lord Fisher was one of its principal subjects of discussion and met with much sympathy. However, it was found that the required displacement was much larger than had been supposed in the first instance and therefore the cost of building would have exceeded considerably the sum at the disposal of the Admiralty. Besides this, the commission was by no means satisfied that it would be wise to cramp three turrets one behind the other. Not only the barbette of the aftermost turret in each group would be rather high, but it ought to be stated frankly that the idea was much too audacious to find acceptance without any intermediary step. It is noteworthy that up to 1939 the three superimposed turrets have not been applied to any construction and that only recently there are rumors in this direction.
The commission found that in having groups of only two turrets each, both forward and aft, one could arrive at a very satisfactory solution, necessitating of course much less displacement. However even this reduced displacement was too large for the sum available and the commission ended with the statement that this arrangement would be ideal for future constructions.
Thus they were confronted with a very frequent situation, that of having to adjust proposals according to the sum destined for new construction. They found a solution to the problem by perfecting the design of the Dreadnought such as she ultimately was built.
From the foregoing it will be clear that the conception of the Dreadnought floated in the air everywhere, Lord Fisher being the one who had courage enough to make the necessary break in tradition.
The Intermediate Warship
(See pages 1147, August, and 1631, November, 1939, Proceedings)
George F. Dale.—The interesting comments of Captain R. K. Turner in the November Proceedings upon Mr. Fletcher Pratt’s article, “The Intermediate Warship,” which appeared in August, have prompted me to offer the following comments upon another point on which I believe Mr. Pratt went astray, and to which I have devoted some thought. I submit these following ideas for your consideration.
Mr. Pratt states, on page 1150, “In a mere military sense, the four ships of the Achilles class or the five Minotaurs would probably have done quite as well at the Falklands as the vessels actually sent there. The conclusion that the battle cruisers were sent at least partly for their publicity value seems almost inescapable.”
It is difficult to believe that the British Admiralty would have detached two very valuable ships at a time when the German Fleet was daily expected to make a sortie in force, over Jellicoe’s strong protests, for reasons as weak as “publicity value.” It must be remembered that Lord Fisher had conceived and designed the battle cruisers for the very purpose for which they were detached: running down and annihilating enemy armored cruisers. The disaster of Coronel had already shown the folly of expecting anything but an overwhelming force to deal with von Spee’s squadron.
I do not believe that the statement that British armored cruisers would have done as well will bear close scrutiny. Let us assume that the Minotaurs (of which there were only three, not five) were sent, as they were the newer and more heavily armed of the classes suggested by Mr. Pratt. These 3 ships mounted between them some twelve 9.2’s and thirty 7.5’s, as opposed to the sixteen 8.2-inch and twelve 5.9-inch guns of the two German heavy cruisers. This is no great disparity when it is recalled that 12- and 11-inch-gunned German ships stood up to the 15- and 13.5- inch weapons of the British at Jutland, and that the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were among the crack gunnery ships of the German Navy. German gunnery was shown to be vastly superior to the British variety at Jutland, greatly offsetting pre-ponderance of gun power.
In protection there is little to choose between the ships, all having the 6- inch belt standard among predreadnought cruisers. It is probable, however, that the internal subdivision of the German ships was far superior to that of the British; the amount of punishment the German cruisers actually took before sinking shows they were well compartmented, while the loss of Defence at Jutland shows that these ships also had the fatal British weakness in magazine protection.
In speed both sides would, on paper, have been exactly equal, all being designed for 23 knots. It is probable that the German ships would have been somewhat slower, owing to foul bottoms, but the edge in speed would have been very small. Thus we see that, instead of the clean-cut action which actually occurred, the best the British could have hoped for had they employed the Minotaurs would have been a long stem chase in which they could expect to receive fully as much damage as they inflicted. It is quite possible, even probable, that one or both of von Spee’s ships would have eluded her pursuers and gotten away to continue her depredations, although in a somewhat damaged condition.
There is one other point which must not be overlooked. As von Spee approached Port Stanley, he headed close in, and did not turn to flee until the tripod masts of the battle cruisers were made out and he realized the full significance of their presence. Had only Minotaurs been there, it is quite probable that a bold and aggressive fighter such as von Spee would have engaged the British cruisers as they emerged one by one from the harbor after hastily raising steam, putting them in a very awkward position. The case would have been very similar to the manner in which the German light cruisers straggled out to sea at Helgoland Bight, to be finished off piecemeal, and by the time the whole British squadron was out it might easily have been badly crippled—so badly as to render a decisive action impossible.
It was essential to British peace of mind in the outer seas that the German cruisers be run down and utterly smashed as quickly as possible. This was the job that the Invincibles, with their 12-inch guns, and 3- to 5-knot margin of speed, were designed to do, and they did it magnificently. No lesser ships could have done nearly as well.
The entire Coronel-Falklands campaign has assumed new interest with the news that the German pocket battleships Deutschland and Admiral Scheer have been or still are at sea, seeking to repeat von Spee’s successes, and if possible avoid his end. These ships are intermediate warships par excellence, their chief weakness being the thin 4-inch side armor. It will indeed be interesting to see whether the Allies will detach some of their 5 battle cruisers in an attempt to repeat the coup of 25 years ago, or whether they will try to check the raiders with 8-inch treaty cruisers. With their large margin of speed the “tin-clads” might get within effective range before they were smashed, when the great volume of fire from the lighter guns might overwhelm the heavier ships—and they might not. It will be interesting to watch the modern strategy, especially in the light of the lessons of the older campaign.