Imperial Battleships

[Condottiere]

The concept wasn't exactly secret.

The first one to conceive of it was an Italian, the Japanese Satsuma and American South Carolina classes could be considered competitors, except that Fisher had the resources to push his vision first and fastest.

Hindsight says that if the British had developed a triple turret, they could have with a broken deck, had placed the turrets at positions A, X, Y, with nine guns, along the centre line, without really requiring superfiring.

Traveller predreadnoughts, could be armed with a mass driver or railgun spinal mount.

 

[rinku]

The same Christmas (1980) that I got Traveller, I received Avalon Hill's Jutland, so how about that? (I'd asked for either, was more enthusiastic about Jutland but got both and... the rest is history.)

Things moved so rapidly, that Dreadnaught (which was a single ship class) was only the best battleship in the world for 17 months, when its near-sister ship HMS Bellerophon was launched (followed by the other two ships in THAT class over the next few months. Though admittedly, the differences between the two classes were fairly minor). And that basically continued, with the RN adding about four ships a year for some time, each class being fairly similar but making changes.

By the battle of Jutland in 1916 which involved 28 battleships and 9 battlecruisers, HMS Dreadnaught was not exactly obsolete, but was well outclassed by more modern designs (especially the likes of the Queen Elizabeth class). As it happens, Dreadnaught was being refitted at the time of the battle and missed it.

Nine years is all there was between the launching of Dreadnaught and the battle of Jutland.

 

[Endie]

I kept my pedantic daemon under control so far, but since there seems to be a 50-50 split in what people are saying in this thread: it was HMS Dreadnought. The Dreadnaught was an American tug which totally failed to redefine the balance of naval warfare between the great powers in the first half of the 20th century.

 

[WHULorigan]

I kept my pedantic daemon under control so far, but since there seems to be a 50-50 split in what people are saying in this thread: it was HMS Dreadnought. The Dreadnaught was an American tug which totally failed to redefine the balance of naval warfare between the great powers in the first half of the 20th century.

Thanks for the correction. I had them reversed.