The notion that a warship could go from being the world class to obsolete in a decade (perhaps less, given how quickly new ships outclassed Dreadnought) is almost entirely alien to modern sensibilities. Between 1905 and 1915, this essentially happened twice in a ten year period. HMS Queen Elizabeth was probably as far ahead of Dreadnought in terms of raw power as Dreadnought was ahead of the latest pre-dreadnoughts, although in the case of the former the innovation was more incremental (fast incremental) than disruptive. This degree of innovation was outmatched by everything except the fighter aircraft design industry during the twentieth century. Remarkably, however, many of the ships built just a decade after Dreadnought remained in service until the mid-1940s.
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Contemporary of… Danton
Inspired… SMS Ostfriesland
Served alongside… HMS Iron Duke
Turrets
In the pre-dreadnought era, naval architects faced few difficult choices with respect to arranging the main guns. Nearly every pre-dreadnought carried two twin turrets, one fore and one aft. Dreadnought, with five turrets, presented a much more complicated problem. Different potential turret arrangements each had their own benefits and drawbacks.
Wing turrets promised heavy end-on fire, but typically could only fire on one broadside. Some designs kept firing space open on either side, but this often caused blast damage and put strain on the hull. Wing turrets also created the need for more ammunition spaces, which increased weight and made the ship more vulnerable to explosion. Nevertheless, many early dreadnoughts and battlecruisers adopted wing turrets, especially in Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Dreadnought herself sported a pair of wing turrets, giving her six gun end on fire, but only an eight gun broadside.
Other navies decided on superfiring turrets, which positioned one turret above and slightly behind another. The first dreadnoughts to carry superfiring turrets were the US South Carolina class, which carried eight 12” guns on four turrets, two forward and two aft. This gave them the same broadside as Dreadnought, on a smaller displacement. Several navies resisted the move to superfiring turrets because they were concerned that blast from the lower guns would throw off the aiming of the upper, but experience demonstrated that these concerns were groundless.
Still other navies adopted triple turrets, which were more complex than twin, but promised a savings in weight and space. The first ship to carry triple turrets was Dante Alighieri, which carried four non-superfiring triple turrets along the centerline. The first seven Russian dreadnoughts adopted the same arrangement. The Austrian Tegethoff class combined superfiring with triple turrets, giving it a twelve gun broadside and six gun end on fire. Some navies preferred to stick with less complex, quicker firing twin turrets. Others, including the Royal Navy and the Marine Nationale, opted for quadruple turrets.
Over time, certain practices faded; wing turrets fell out of favor by the beginning of World War I. Center turrets (not on either end) were big during the super-dreadnought era, but eventually faded as well. Most fast battleships used a three turret arrangement, with two superfiring turrets fore and one aft, but even this practice varied.
HMS Invincible
Laid Down: 1906
Launched: 1907
Completed: March, 1909
Displacement: 17,250 tons
Main Armament: eight 12” guns, four twin turrets
Secondary Armament: sixteen 4” guns (single mounts)
Speed: 26 knots
Major Actions: Battle of the Falklands, Battle of Jutland
Treaty: Pre-Washington Naval Treaty
Fate: Sunk by German gunfire, May 31, 1916
Lord Fisher was not content with the invention of Dreadnought, the all big gun battleship which would render the fleets of the world obsolete. Indeed, even before the construction of Dreadnought Fisher had favored he development of a larger, faster warship. The mission of the Royal Navy was not limited to the destruction of the enemy battlefleet, and Fisher worried that smaller, less capable navies might attack British trade through the use of commerce raiding armored cruisers. These cruisers (examples of which existed in the French, Russian, German, American, and Japanese navies) could outpace even Dreadnought, making the defense of Britain’s trade lifeline difficult. Accordingly, before Dreadnought even left the slip, Fisher commissioned a design for a new kind of ship, the battlecruiser. HMS Invincible was the first of this kind.
Although roughly the same size as Dreadnought, Invincible sacrificed one turret and a lot of armor for six extra knots of speed. She carried one turret fore, one aft, and one on each wing. At her commissioning, Invincible could either outgun or outrun any ship in the world. She was almost literally invincible against armored cruisers, with huge advantages in speed and firepower. Facing battleships, she could use her speed to harass and withdraw. The Royal Navy would build eleven more battlecruisers, culminating in HMS Hood. The German Navy, feeling the need to match the British, built seven, while the Japanese eventually constructed four.
Invincible anchored at Spithead, 1909.
HMS Invincible began the war with the First Battlecruiser Squadron, based in Britain. Her first action was the Battle of Heligoland Bight, in which a group of British battlecruisers intercepted and destroyed a few patrolling German light cruisers. Developments in the Far East, however, drew HMS Invincible away. At the beginning of World War I, Germany controlled a naval base at Tsingtao. A crack German squadron including Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Germany’s best two armored cruisers, had been stationed in Tsingtao before the war. The German position in Asia was untenable, however, as British and Russian forces could easily occupy the German territory, and Japan clearly coveted Germany’s Pacific empire. Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee decided to take his squadron into the Pacific in an effort to do as much damage as possible before being caught. There was a small chance, if the German ships were lucky, that they might make it back to Germany. Spee’s squadron wreaked havoc in the Southeast Pacific for a couple of months before the British were finally available to collect the ships necessary to track it down. The first Royal Navy effort ended in disaster, however: The British cruisers became separated from a pre-dreadnought battleship, and were destroyed at the Battle of Coronel. This defeat outraged British public opinion, and the Admiralty decided to deal with Spee by sending HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible to the South Atlantic.
Admiral Graf von Spee’s squadron attacked Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, on the morning of December 8, 1914. The admiral had no idea that Inflexible and Invincible were in port. Had the Germans launched an immediate and all-out attack, they might have had a chance of seriously damaging or even crippling the British ships. On the other hand, Admiral Graf von Spee can hardly be blamed for retreating before an overwhelmingly superior force. The British Admiral, Frederick Sturdee, was unfazed by the initial German attack, and ordered the crew to take in breakfast while the battlecruisers raised steam. When Inflexible and Invincible were ready, they proceeded to leave Stanley, track down the German cruisers (they had an advantage of 3-4 knots) and destroy them at range. The ensuing battle was deeply unsporting, but Scharnhorst and Gneisenau did manage to score a number of hits on their poor-shooting hunters before sinking.
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