Читать книгу The British Battleship - Norman Friedman - Страница 12
ОглавлениеADMIRAL FISHER AND A NEW BATTLESHIP
ADMIRAL Sir John Fisher was so closely associated with the advent of both the Dreadnought and the associated Invincible class battle-cruisers that they are often seen as the full content of the naval revolution he ignited as First Sea Lord, but they were actually integral parts of a much larger shift in British naval policy and strategy. However, for other navies these ships were the revolution. At a stroke they made all previous capital ships and armoured cruisers obsolescent, compelling navies either to invest heavily or to lose any pretensions to major power status. That had important implications for the developing Imperial German Navy, which thus gained an opportunity to match effective British battleship strength even though it could not come anywhere near the total number of British battleships.
This new reality made HMS Dreadnought extremely controversial. In effect large numbers of ships which were still entirely serviceable were suddenly reduced to obsolescence. The enormous numerical advantage enjoyed by the Royal Navy seemed to have collapsed, future British naval supremacy depending on how rapidly the country could build dreadnoughts. In the United States, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, the most respected naval strategist in the world, argued for the earlier type of battleship.
The new capital ships had two distinguishing features. One was the all-big-gun main battery, the heaviest guns replacing the heavy intermediate guns of semi-dreadnoughts like the King Edward VIIs and the Lord Nelsons. When other navies built all-big-gun ships, they were described as dreadnoughts. The second vital feature of the new British ships, which may have been even more significant in Fisher’s mind, was turbine power. It gave them the ability to cruise indefinitely at high speed. The previous reciprocating engines tended to break down if forced to sustain high power. Sustained steaming at high speed was vital to realise Fisher’s vision of wide-area intelligence-supported reactive deployment. Other navies, which had not adopted Fisher’s revolutionary strategic ideas, presumably put a much lower value on strategic mobility.
The account of the Lord Nelson design in the previous chapter shows that the possibility of an all-big-gun ship was being taken seriously in the Royal Navy as early as October 1902 and that it was reviewed by the Sea Lords in February 1904. It was the natural extension of the semi-dreadnought idea, which was that hand-loaded fast-firing guns were not enough to smash through the lightweight armour introduced during the previous decade. Once single-man hand-loading had been abandoned, there was a premium on faster power-loading of more powerful weapons. That began with 7.5in guns (a shell held by two men) and soon led to faster-firing 9.2in guns and then 12in guns.
By 1900, when the King Edward VII design was being developed, Admiral Fisher, who had approved the 9.2in gun as Controller, was commanding the Mediterranean Fleet. In his previous role as Commander North America Station, Fisher’s flagship had been the fast second-class battleship Renown. In exercises he found that she could mop up cruisers; in a seaway, the rated speeds of the cruisers could not be attained, but the larger battleship retained more of her own speed. Fisher also became impressed with the performance of the 10in guns aboard HMS Renown. He apparently became convinced that 10in guns could fire rapidly enough that they could effectively replace a ship’s secondary battery, yet could fire a heavy enough shell to function as a main battery. Fisher’s experience seems to have pushed him towards the idea that the battleship and the large armoured cruiser were becoming a single type of ship – a view which seems to have been shared by several leading navies. The attempt to build an all-10in gun ship in 1903 was quashed because the Board of Admiralty doubted that 10in shells could penetrate the thickest armour of the latest French battleships. Fisher seems not to have taken this objection seriously, since he advocated all-10in battleships in the initial version of his Naval Necessities manifesto.
Dreadnought after target practice before King Edward VII, 5 August 1907, with the targets hauled in amidships. By this time the upper deck 12pdrs were gone and she had a pair of such guns atop each turret. She also had her foremast searchlight and her two 9ft rangefinders. In 1909 she was fitted with a cylindrical range indicator atop her foretop; it was later relocated to the fore side of the foretop, before being removed in 1912.
A new kind of battleship: HMS Dreadnought in Portsmouth Harbour, probably soon after having been completed. Note the 24in searchlights in her bridge wings and aft and the officers on the compass platform atop her charthouse. Her anti-torpedo battery was limited to 12pdrs, presumably because it was no longer considered likely that an attacking torpedo boat would come within 3pdr range. Initially she had four on her forecastle (not visible here) and one (rather than two) atop ‘A’ turret, but that did not last long. The 12pdrs on deck were sometimes said to be on ‘disappearing’ mounts: in fact they were dismountable, stowed in chocks on deck in daytime when the 12in guns might be fired. The derricks on the mainmast are for coaling (a third was added in 1915–16). Another is visible near the after funnel.
For a time Fisher rejected the idea that battleships and armoured cruisers would merge, but by 1902, he was shifting towards the view that merger was inevitable: fast battleships would supersede both slow battleships and fast armoured cruisers.1 That he seems to have realised that he could not immediately sell this vision to the Admiralty is evident in his call for separate types in Naval Necessities and also in the construction of both Dreadnought and Invincible.
Sustained speed came first. In December 1900 Fisher wrote to the First Lord that success in war required ‘the concentration of an overwhelming force upon a given spot in the shortest possible time and as the attacking power has the privilege of selection, the advantage is generally on that side’. Given code-breaking, Fisher could predict where his enemies would be, hence could employ a fast fleet to concentrate there.2 Elsewhere Fisher likened higher speed to the weather gauge of sailing-ship battle: the factor that enabled a fleet either to force action on its enemy or to withdraw if necessary.
In a 28 January 1901 letter, Fisher laid out the revolutionary principles he thought should be the basis of future warships: ‘oil fuel, turbine propulsion, equal gunfire all round [perhaps implying a battery of uniform calibre], greater speed than any existing vessels of their class, no masts, no funnels, etc’.3 Oil fuel and turbines added up to sustained rather than the usual burst speed (unlike coal-fired boilers, oil-fired ones did not have to be shut down periodically to clean grates of ash). Adoption of oil fuel impacted Fisher’s slightly later concern with chronic shortages of personnel. Coal-fired boilers required large numbers of stokers; the more powerful the ship, the more stokers. Adopting oil fuel would more than halve that number. In March 1902, as prospective Second Sea Lord (responsible for personnel), Fisher wrote to the Earl of Selborne (First Lord) recommending a shift to all-oil fired ships.4 At a stroke, the shift would settle half the navy’s manning problems. Manning was later a key element in Fisher’s reforms as First Sea Lord. For the moment, Fisher was content to argue for mixed coal and oil fuel.
Eliminating masts and funnels would have made it difficult for gunners on board an opposing ship to estimate the speed and course of Fisher’s ship – or, for that matter, to see anything of her when she was hull-down over the horizon. Fisher later wrote that during manoeuvres he had often been able to identify cruisers by their funnel configuration, even when they were hull-down.
By the time he left the Mediterranean Fisher was also determined to increase effective gun range to stay out of torpedo range – he and other officers considered hits by torpedoes launched by battleships potentially devastating. Thus in July 1902 he wrote Lord Selborne that the Royal Navy needed increased muzzle velocities for sufficient accuracy at 4000 yds or at least 3300 yds, because ships needed a sufficient range margin over torpedoes, which might reach out to 3000 yds in a stern chase (as had been proven over and over in the Mediterranean). ‘Don’t get inside 4000 yds of the enemy (even though we are suffering from want of accuracy . . .) because, as sure as you do, the torpedo will get in’. Fisher had already conducted experiments designed to increase hitting at longer ranges such as 4000 yds. Fast torpedo craft were another danger to any battle fleet. In August 1904 Fisher wrote that they had ‘outdated the battle fleet altogether and that there was no function that first class armoured cruisers cannot fulfil’. This statement did not appear in the version of Naval Necessities published in November as his manifesto as First Sea Lord.5
When he opened the deliberations of the Committee on Designs (which reviewed the Dreadnought and Invincible designs) in January 1905, Fisher argued that concentrating more of the most powerful guns in single ships would shorten the line of battle, the line-ahead formation he had developed when C-in-C Mediterranean. That would make the line itself more manoeuvrable and it would also concentrate British fire. The line-of-fire formation in turn made broadside fire much more important than end-on fire. Simplicity of fire control also figured in Fisher’s argument.
Fisher could cite both theory and recent experience. In theory, gun effectiveness depended on three factors: the probability of hitting, damage per hit and the rate of fire. The heavier the gun, the flatter its trajectory at a given range. A uniform battery made for better spotting, i.e., for better fire control. Damage per hit depended on the energy remaining to the shell and to the weight of its burster. All of these factors favoured heavier guns. Rate of fire favoured a lighter gun, but at long range guns had to wait to fire while the results of previous shots were spotted (so that aim could be corrected). Fire would therefore be slow and deliberate until the range had been found and kept, when all the guns could fire together. By that time a large number of the heaviest guns would have done far more damage.
Fisher’s protégé and advisor Captain Reginald Bacon seems to have made the argument that for effective spotting the main battery should be of a single calibre. The point of the designs was to increase battle range to 6000 yds or more to keep ships out of torpedo range of enemy battleships. The work on increased gun range begun under Fisher in the Mediterranean was done with the single-calibre secondary batteries of the battleships (the 12in main guns were not involved), so that by 1905 Royal Navy experience with spotting was in effect experience with single-calibre batteries.
Fisher cited the 10 August 1904 battle of the Yellow Sea between the Russian and Japanese fleets. To the British observer Captain Pakenham, even though the Russian 10in guns outranged Russian 12in, ‘the fire effect of every gun is so much less than that of the next larger one, that when 12in guns were firing, shots from 10in guns pass unnoticed, while, for all the respect they instil, 8in or 6in guns might just as well be peashooters and the 12pdr simply does not count’. It appeared that the battle had been decided entirely by the heavy guns. The Japanese flagship Mikasa took a 12in hit at about 13,000m range, which made a 3ft hole in her 7in armour. Had the sea not been so calm, it would have had serious consequences. A prominent (unnamed) Japanese official said that if he had to order new ships of the Nisshin type (armoured cruisers), he would endeavour to insist on 12in/50 guns. Fisher claimed that the Admiralty had secret information to the effect that both the Russians and the Japanese had decided that their future battleships should have uniform batteries of 12in guns and a speed of 20 knots.6
After serving as Second Sea Lord, Fisher was made C-in-C Portsmouth in 1903. He was told that he would soon become First Sea Lord, so he spent some of his time at Portsmouth thinking through his plans for new types of ships. It seems likely that he was in contact with DNC Watts. A copy of Narbeth’s September 1903 memo on alternative batteries of sixteen 10in and twelve 12in guns is Folio 1 in the Cover for the revolutionary British battleship Dreadnought. Certainly the idea of eliminating all but the heaviest guns was in the air in 1903–4 among other navies.7
Dreadnought is shown at the time of her sea trials, with two water tanks aft (abreast her mainmast) to measure the loss of feed water during trials. Note the single 12pdrs (rather than pairs of such guns) atop her centreline turrets. The large object just forward of her after funnel is her after conning tower. In 1907 two 9ft Barr & Stroud rangefinders were installed, one on the compass platform and one atop the after conning tower. (Photograph by Cribb of Southsea, bought by the US Office of Naval Intelligence)
Newly completed in January 1907, Dreadnought shows Watts’ solution to the conning-tower view problem: he placed the steering position and charthouse that captains wanted above it, leaving vision from the conning tower clear. A ship would be conned from the compass platform above the charthouse.
Fisher became First Sea Lord on October 1904, having formally accepted the office the previous June. He definitely wanted new types of ships and in August First Lord Selborne assured him that he could be President of a committee to devise them.8 This became the Committee on Designs formed late in the year. As First Sea Lord, Fisher relied on seven more junior officers, who he described as ‘brains’, including Jellicoe and Bacon.9 Both Jellicoe and Bacon later became DNOs and Jellicoe was wartime C-in-C Grand Fleet. Bacon seems to have been responsible for Fisher’s conversion from 10in to 12in guns, as he pointed out late in 1904 that the new 12in guns could fire as rapidly as the 10in.10
Fisher’s first naval programme, for 1905–6, was largely defined by the First Lord’s interpretation of the Two-Power Standard: a 10 per cent edge in battleships (which had apparently been attained), a 2:1 ratio in armoured cruisers (which is why the Royal Navy was in such financial trouble; in 1904 the Royal Navy was clearly below this standard).11 A special committee convened to examine the state of the fleet and its future disposition concluded that the Royal Navy could afford to reduce its battleship programme but must accelerate cruiser construction – once an appropriate type had been developed. It therefore recommended that the three projected Lord Nelsons of the 1905–6 programme be reduced to one ship, the experimental type which became HMS Dreadnought, but that the programme should include no fewer than five armoured cruisers (the planned 1904–5 Minotaur was deferred pending development of a new design).12 First Lord Selbourne questioned some of the assumptions in the report concerning Russian ships then bottled up at Port Arthur. As the scale of the Russian disaster became apparent, the 1905–6 programme was pared down to the single battleship and three rather than five armoured cruisers, which became the Invincible class.
Fisher almost immediately asked Watts to design a fast battleship with uniform armament. Watts’ instructions to his deputy J H Narbeth do not survive, but Narbeth’s 22 November 1904 answer does. There were two main alternatives, each protected like a Lord Nelson, each capable of either 20 or 21 knots. Alternative A would be armed with eight 12in in pairs. Narbeth estimated that it would require 16,000 tons and 19,000 IHP for 20 knots (about 435ft × 83ft × 27ft) or 16,500 tons and 22,000 IHP for 21 knots (about 440ft × 63ft × 27ft). The list of alternatives shows A as an eight-gun ship on Lord Nelson plan, implying two twin turrets at the ends and single 12in at the corners of the superstructure. She would displace 16,500 tons (16,000 tons with turbines) and would cost £1,360,000. DNC had previously (10 November) produced a Legend for the 20-knot version: 450ft × 79ft 6in × 27ft, 17,500 tons. The considerably greater length compared to a Lord Nelson was an important factor in higher speed, as was much greater power (in the initial Legend, 25,000 IHP vs 16,750 IHP). Continuous sea speed, the measure of strategic mobility, was to be 18.5 knots rather than 16.5 knots.
Alternative B had twelve 12in guns. Narbeth estimated that the 20-knot version would displace 18,000 tons (475ft × 83ft × 27ft, 19,000 IHP); the 21-knot version would displace 18,800 tons (495ft × 83ft × 27ft, 22,000 IHP). This was apparently Narbeth’s hexagonal turret arrangement ship proposed in 1903. It would cost £1,700,000.
Narbeth wrote that ‘a little squeezing’ and some innovations would be required. The main engines could be run harder to produce 10 per cent more power on the same weight and space (as had been achieved in the Armstrong-designed Swiftsure and Triumph and in the Admiralty-designed armoured cruiser Monmouth and considerably exceeded in the Italian Benedetto Brin); bridge and conning tower could move aft to bring the fore barbette closer to the boilers and the funnel arrangement improved; existing freeboards could be retained despite the greater length of the ship (i.e., accepting greater wetness); and a better hull form could be adopted.
Four days later Narbeth produced formal Legends for fast battleships, all armed with eight 12in, of three alternative speeds: 21 knots (A), 20 knots (B) and 19 knots (C).13 Some existing ships were rated at 19 knots. The basic designs used reciprocating engines. Substituting turbines would save considerable weight: for example, the engineering weight of A could be reduced from 2150 tons to 1700 tons. Protection could be a conventional citadel extending up to the upper deck; or citadel extending only up to the main deck, with 12in redoubts above. Watts followed up on 14 December with a Legend for a 21-knot battleship, armed with twelve 12in guns (Design D). Estimated displacement was 18,000 tons (500ft × 83ft × 27ft). D seems to have been a development of Narbeth’s earlier hexagonal turret twelve-gun design. Watts clearly favoured this arrangement as a convenient way to accommodate the ship’s vitals and also to provide space for essentials such as ships’ boats.
Docking considerations had doomed Watts’ previous large battleship – and this one was considerably larger. Throughout the Empire, seven docks could take the ship; another twelve suitable ones were building. The ship could not dock at Chatham, Devonport, Portsmouth, Birkenhead, Glasgow or at Sydney. The new First Sea Lord was more interested in superiority than in convenience. The next day Narbeth suggested a 500ft battleship armed with eight 12in guns. With 30,000 IHP such a ship would make 22.5–23 knots.
Dreadnought as completed had dismountable 12pdrs on her weather decks, four forward of ‘A’ turret and four on the quarterdeck. This bow view shows two guns on the forecastle deck forward. Such positions were acceptable because the guns would be used only at night, when the main armament was not firing. These guns rarely figure in photographs of the ship. In all, Dreadnought had twenty-seven such guns, more than in the Lord Nelsons and more widely spread than in previous ships. Two 12pdrs from forward and one from aft were soon moved to the turret tops (making ten in all); besides the five left on the weather decks, twelve guns were in embrasures in the superstructure – four forward, four abreast the forefunnel, four abreast the after funnel (ten were at forecastle deck level and two on the CT platform). Three weather-deck 12pdrs were removed in late 1907. In a 7 May–7 June 1915 refit the two guns atop ‘A’ turret were removed and two 12pdr guns and two 6pdr and high-angle guns mounted on the quarterdeck (for a total of four 12pdrs there). During a 20 April–25 May 1916 refit at Rosyth the aftermost pair of 12pdrs on the shelter deck were removed. Late in 1916 the two 6pdr high-angle guns were replaced by 3in guns. The two inner quarterdeck 12pdrs were converted into high-angle guns during a 23 July–19 August 1917 Portsmouth refit. Elimination of the two after flying-deck guns, the dismountable guns and the two guns atop ‘A’ turret reduced the anti-torpedo battery to eighteen 12pdrs in 1917.
Dreadnought is shown in June 1915, with early-war modifications. She has a main-battery director on her foretop. (John Roberts)
On 14 December Narbeth summarised the 21-knot designs, all with turbine power (23,000 IHP in each case).14 Continuous steaming power was 16,000 IHP, nearly the full power of a Lord Nelson. That gave a continuous sea speed of 19.5 knots (19.25 knots for the larger twelve-gun ship, which was 500ft rather than 460ft long). These figures went to DNC on 21 December.
None of these designs apparently satisfied Fisher. He consulted Admiral Sir A K Wilson, the highly-regarded tactician who commanded the Channel Fleet. Wilson pointed out that every tactical exercise became a broadside-to-broadside engagement: what counted was the number of guns which could fire on the broadside. All turrets should be on the centreline. In what Narbeth called the Castle Plan, the new design had six turrets in two three-turret groups fore and aft. Each group consisted of three superfiring turrets, as in the much later Dido and Atlanta class cruisers. This design required considerably more space. A Legend for this HMS Untakeable, the name Fisher privately used for his super-battleship, was dated 21 December 1904. She was much longer (555ft × 84ft × 26ft 6in, 20,700 tons) and higher-powered (27,000 SHP for 21kts), mounting twelve 12in guns and sixteen 4in (all the earlier designs had 12pdr anti-torpedo guns). Armour would have been thinner, with 10in rather than 12in at the waterline (9in upper belt) and 10in rather than 12in turret sides. This design was designated C, in a series in which A was the eight-gun ship and B Narbeth’s rather smaller twelve-gun ship.
Design D was Narbeth’s hexagonal-battery ship on roughly a Lord Nelson hull, with reciprocating machinery. It was dated 14 December 1904. For a time it seemed that this design would be chosen, so early in January Narbeth produced a variety of alternative versions.15
Design E (designated G for the Committee on Designs, see below) was yet another twelve-gun ship, arranged on what Narbeth called the Triangle Plan. Guns were mounted in and atop two triangular redoubts pointing towards amidships. A single turret was at the apex of each triangle, superfiring over two pairs of guns firing from each of the two other points of the triangle. This required a ship about as large as C. The main advantage of this configuration over Narbeth’s hexagonal ship was much greater end-on fire against a target crossing the ship’s bow, as all three pairs of 12in guns at either end of the ship could keep firing under those circumstances. This design was never fully examined by the Committee on Designs because broadside fire was far more important than end-on fire. Design F was a cut-down version of the twelve-gun ship, with the highest forward turret and the quarterdeck omitted. That dramatically reduced topweight, so dimensions were reduced to 530ft × 82ft × 26ft (19,000 tons). Compared to the twelve-gun ‘castle’ ship, F cost £1,700,000 rather than £1,940,000. G was the least expensive all-big-gun ship, essentially half of C, with only one ‘castle’, aft. This dramatic reduction cut her to 14,000 tons (425ft × 77ft × 25ft, £1,200,000), but since G cost more than half as much as a full ‘castle ship’, her cost per gun was the highest of the lot. This was the only one of Narbeth’s designs never shown to the Committee on Designs. The lowest cost per gun was D, the Lord Nelson derivative with reciprocating engines (£1,700,000; £142,000 per gun).
On 22 December 1904 Fisher invited a blue-ribbon panel to form a Committee on Designs, nominally to review the types of warships the Admiralty was then proposing.16 He was well aware that his new types of capital ships and destroyers would excite intense criticism and the committee was a way of solving that problem. Fisher deliberately mixed officers who would handle the projected ships with civilian technical experts who could evaluate design issues such as configuration.
Fisher was clearly already determined to buy a ship with an all-big-gun battery and turbine power – turbines might, incidentally, be its most controversial feature. The Committee was asked to consider five types of ships, of which the battleship and the armoured cruiser figure in this book. The only features given were speed (21 knots for the battleship, 25 knots for the cruiser), an all-big-gun 12in battery (nothing between 12in and anti-torpedo guns) and the general standard of armour (‘adequate’ for the battleship, on the scale of the Minotaur for the cruiser). The battleship in particular had to be able to dock at Portsmouth, Devonport, Malta and Gibraltar ‘but the design will not be condemned for the sole reason that the ship cannot be docked at Chatham or pass through the lock there’.
Fisher personally opened proceedings on 3 January 1905. His reported remarks were much those he later used to justify the new type of battleship. He stated that the two governing factors in a battleship were guns and speed. All armament had to be above the upper deck (i.e., not on the ships’ sides) so that it could be fought in any weather and also so as not to interfere with net defence against torpedoes. Existing battleships had central magazines connected to turrets or other guns by horizontal passages. Fisher would reduce vulnerability to underwater attack by providing each turret with its own magazine, at a safe distance from the side of the ship (hence from any mine explosion). Bulkhead penetrations would be eliminated to improve watertight integrity, particularly against the mines which were proving so effective in the Russo-Japanese War. Since Russia and Japan had chosen 20 knots as their future standard, the Royal Navy must choose 21 knots – not as a paper speed, but as an actual speed (it might be necessary to design for 21.5 knots to be sure of making 21 knots).
The Committee was given Designs D, E and F. D was Narbeth’s hexagonal-battery ship. E was Wilson’s vertical-echelon ship (C above) with its quarterdeck omitted. F was a modified version of E with one fewer turret forward. All had Lord Nelson protection. Considerations of blast simplified the choice. Although blast had been only a limited problem in earlier battleships, whose 6in batteries were protected from 12in blast by decks and bulkheads, it now seemed that the blast from one turret could disable gunners in the sighting hood of a neighbouring one. Based on experience in several battleships, the Committee concluded that the sighting hood of a turret should be at least 63ft from the gun muzzles of the next. The naval members decided that, taking into account the length of the 12in gun and the diameter of the turret, turrets should be about 70ft apart (centre to centre). They also argued against superfiring: a lower turret would be untenable in a chase due to blast from the upper turrets. Lower turrets would be tenable only when firing within 20–30° of the beam. Wilson’s ship would offer nothing in ahead or astern fire and the concentration of turrets at each end of the ship, protected by a single redoubt, offered a very large target, the middle turret of the three being an excellent point of aim. Because Design G suffered from the same problems as the other two, it was never shown to the full Committee.
That left Narbeth’s hexagonal Design D. It carried as many guns as Wilson’s ship on 2000 tons less. A modified D1 design had the foremost turret moved up onto a forecastle, to keep it dry. A further modified D2 had the broadside turrets moved further apart, with a large boiler compartment between them. Committee members were provided with a cardboard section of the blast zone, so that they could work out the arcs of fire of the turrets on wooden models of the D designs. It was soon apparent that the close midships turrets of D1 would have very limited arcs of fire. Substituting a single centreline turret for the two after broadside turrets of the D2 design would give better performance. Blast from the two remaining broadside turrets would pass clear of the two centreline turrets aft.
Blast from the two wing turrets would make it impossible to fire the forward centreline turret in a chase. On the available length, it was impossible to move the wing turrets far enough aft for their blast to clear the centreline turret forward. DNC was asked for a further design H, with the five turrets (a centreline turret replacing the two after broadside turrets and the foremost turret on a forecastle). There was no question of replacing the remaining two wing turrets with another centreline turret, because that would have taken up too much centreline space.
Watts preferred D1 because it gave the smallest possible ship with a convenient arrangement of main engines and boilers and the simplest boat stowage. H would require about the same total length of engines, boilers and magazines, but weights were moved more towards the ends of the ship, deck space would be more broken up and boat accommodation more difficult. The Committee briefly favoured D2, but it died because the wide separation of the wing turrets was impractical from a weight balance point of view. The naval members of the Committee, however, unanimously preferred H: efficient gunfire trumped any other consideration. From a fighting point of view, the only sacrifice (compared to D2) was astern fire of one rather than two turrets.
Both Watts and E-in-C urged adoption of turbines, both because of their simplicity and because they would save about 1000 tons. Naval members of the committee wanted fuller information before they agreed. Charles Parsons, who had pioneered steam turbine propulsion, was invited to attend the 17 January meeting of the committee. The main issue was manoeuvrability. Parsons convinced the Committee that he could provide enough reversing power by installing reversing stages on every shaft. The Committee also favoured a suggestion by Froude (of the model basin) that for better manoeuvrability the new battleship should have a fifth propeller shaft, in line with her rudder. This question explains why HMS Dreadnought introduced twin rudders, each in the flow of a propeller, into Royal Navy practice. This practice continued up to the Queen Elizabeth class. Ultimately it was abandoned because it cost speed (the rudders added resistance) and vibration (the rudders vibrated in the flow of the propellers). The issue was revived during the Second World War both because several ships suffered hits aft and because US ships with twin rudders were noticeably more manoeuvrable than their British counterparts (albeit also more subject to vibration).
The Fire Control Committee argued for control positions both above and below the forefunnel. Existing pole masts were not rigid enough nor survivable enough to carry the large control tops envisaged. The Committee therefore leaned towards the tubular masts used by the French. DNC was to prepare a design. The ship had to carry and service her own boats, so the question was whether the mast carrying the fire-control position should be used. The alternative was to provide separate cranes, one on either side of the ship. All possible positions would interfere with the view from the after conning tower. No single crane amidships would suffice, given the beam of the ship. The solution was to use the foremast to carry the cranes. That in turn required that the vertical leg of the foremast be stepped abaft the funnel, an unfortunate choice which caused considerable smoke interference with the fire-control top which crowned the mast.
In February 1905 DNC and E-in-C wrote that the Committee really wanted triple screws. However, space and weight and the need for subdivision all demanded four or more shafts. Turbines normally consisted of a high- and a low-pressure cylinder. For compactness, the two could drive two shafts and that in turn militated for an even number of shafts. Hence the four-shaft arrangement, with the shafts paired.
A Legend dated 8 March 1905 was labelled Dreadnought rather than ‘New Battleship Design H’. It showed the same 12in armour at the waterline as a Lord Nelson, but thicker side armour above it (8in and 9in rather than 4in). However, the 14 February 1905 version showed 11in–4in side armour (17,750 tons) and the reduction in maximum waterline armour survived the design process (the Cover does not explain why the cut was made). On 21 February 1905 the Admiralty members of the Committee on Designs met to discuss underwater protection. They decided to keep the magazines as far as possible from the skin of the ship. Where they were 15ft or more from the skin, 2in protection should suffice; otherwise it would be 2½in. DNC was asked to consider reductions in armour to compensate for the extra weight: barbettes to be 12in–8in instead of the current 12in–10in; turrets to be reduced from 12in to 11in (consistent with maintaining balance); forward conning tower to be reduced from 12in to 11in and after conning tower reduced to 8in; slope of armour deck to be omitted in way of the magazine protection as in recent Russian ships (and the question to be considered whether the loss of protection against shellfire should be made good by thickening the belt in this area).17 In the course of design, displacement was cut from 18,000 tons to 17,900 tons and length (between perpendiculars) from 510ft to 490ft. At some point during the design process the number of 12pdr anti-torpedo guns was increased by a third, from eighteen to twenty-seven. Some of the sketch designs already showed 4in rather than 3in (12pdr) anti-torpedo guns.
Fisher was well aware of the likely impact of his revolutionary ship. He sought to build her as quickly as possible, so as to administer the greatest possible shock to other navies and also to keep all details very secret. Even the existence of the project was secret. No design had been chosen. Narbeth was not pleased to see a report in the 30 December 1904 Daily Mail that the Admiralty planned a ship armed with ten 12in guns, displacing 17,000 to 18,000 tons – nearly exactly the figures which would be chosen for HMS Dreadnought.18
When the Navy Estimates were submitted in March 1905, she was described as an experimental departure from previous practice. In April 1905 Arthur Lee, Civil Lord of the Admiralty, told a Gosport audience that the Admiralty had no intention of cutting new construction. The lull in shipbuilding had simply allowed it to assimilate the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War. The first new ship would be laid down at Portsmouth in the autumn; the dockyard would have the credit for having built the most powerful battleship in the world in the shortest time the world had ever known.19 British naval correspondents speculated that the new ship would be based on the design abandoned by the Admiralty in 1903 in favour of repeat King Edward VIIs. They were unaware that the Lord Nelson was not too different from the abandoned design, speculating that Watts had conceived something far more impressive.
Detailed design work was carried out by Portsmouth Dockyard, which would build the ship. From the first, the priority was quick construction, so Portsmouth gathered as much material as it could before laying the ship down on 2 October 1905. In the interest of speeding construction, 12in guns and mountings were taken from the two Lord Nelsons under construction, and it appears that 12pdrs were as well. Transfers from the two ships substantially slowed their construction, so that both were completed after Dreadnought had made them obsolescent. She officially began trials on 3 October 1906, although she was not entirely complete for another two months. The combination of extraordinarily quick construction and absolute secrecy was stunning. Although several other navies were contemplating all-big-gun battleships, none was ready to begin construction.
Dreadnought in the Mediterranean, 1913, photographed by the Grand Photo Studio of Malta. The most prominent modification is the canvas and pipe structure built around the two forward 12pdrs on ‘A’ turret, most likely to shield them from the glare of the two searchlights in the bridge wings. It was fitted during a 1911 refit. Work to fit a hooded 9ft rangefinder to ‘A’ turret began during a 16 March–29 May 1912 refit; she was given a temporary unarmoured rangefinder while this work was incomplete (installation was completed during a 12 February–30 April 1913 refit at Portsmouth). The 1912 refit included installation of an enlarged foretop to take a stabilised Argo 9ft rangefinder. The masthead searchlight was removed in 1910 and a frame designed to keep the steaming lights clear of the funnel exhaust fitted to the foremast. The mainmast was taken down. The structure apparently built up around the after conning tower consisted of portable flaps. The foretop was again rebuilt during a 7 May–7 June 1915 refit, this time to take a main battery director on top. At the same time the other turrets were fitted with 9ft rangefinders in armoured hoods and the 12pdrs atop ‘A’ turret were removed. In 1917 the maintop was replaced by a platform carrying three searchlights (the two lower down were removed). The two bridge wing searchlights were moved to positions on the struts of the foremast, below the top of the forefunnel. After Jutland the ship received anti-flash protection and some additional deck armour. The stern torpedo tube was removed in 1918 and the torpedo tube compartment converted to a high-angle magazine.
