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A 'dreadnought' was a battleship of the early 20th century, of a type modelled after the revolutionary HMS ''Dreadnought of 1906. Dreadnoughts were distinguished from previous battleships, known as pre-Dreadnoughts, by an 'all-big-gun' armament and by the use of steam turbines for propulsion.
Within a few years of HMS ''Dreadnought's launch, all navies were building ships inspired by her design. The product of British technical superiority and the willpower of Admiral Jackie Fisher, ''Dreadnought'' was no bolt from the blue. The concept of an all-big-gun ship had been in circulation for several years, and the Japanese had even laid down an all-big-gun battleship in 1904.^[1] The arrival of the Dreadnoughts sparked a new arms race, principally between Britain and Germany but reflected worldwide, as the new class of warships became a crucial symbol of national power.
Technical development continued rapidly through the dreadnought era, with step changes in armament, armor and propulsion meaning that ten years after ''Dreadnought's commissioning much more powerful ships were being built. These more powerful vessels were known as 'super-dreadnoughts'.
The only pitched battle between fleets of dreadnoughts was the Battle of Jutland, an indecisive clash which reflected Britain's continuing strategic dominance. Most of the dreadnoughts were scrapped or scuttled after the end of World War I, though some of the most advanced super-dreadnoughts continued in service through World War II.

Contents

Early All-Big-Gun Projects and HMS Dreadnought

Design

Dreadnought building

The Anglo-German arms race

U.S. Navy dreadnoughts

Japan

Dreadnoughts in other countries

The "super-Dreadnoughts"

In action

After World War I

Notes

References

Early All-Big-Gun Projects and HMS Dreadnought

At the turn of the 20th century, the most powerful warship afloat was the type of battleship which has become known as the pre-dreadnought. These ships had been developed by gradual evolution from the ironclad of the 1870s and 1880s. They typically carried four heavy guns, typically of 12 in (305 mm) calibre, a secondary battery of guns between 6 and 9 in (15 and 23 cm), and a range of lighter weapons. They were powered by triple-expansion steam engines fed by high-pressure boilers, and protected by thick steel armour over their turrets, magazines and machinery spaces.
As fire control, guns and torpedoes improved, battles took place at increasingly long ranges, where only the heaviest guns were of use. At the Battle of Yalu River in September 1894, most damage was done at a range of about 2,000 m. By contrast, the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904 and the Battle of Tsushima in 1905 were conducted at ranges in excess of 7,000 m.
The result of the increase in engagement range was an increasingly heavy secondary battery; the ''Lord Nelson'' class carried ten 9.2-inch (234 mm) guns alongside their four 12-inch (305 mm) guns. A natural conclusion of this trend was the introduction of a battleship which had a uniform armament of the heaviest guns. A further inducement to an 'all-big-gun' design was that, with a mixed battery, it was difficult to have effective fire control. Fire, especially at long range, was corrected by observing shell splashes in the water. It was impossible to tell shell-splashes caused by different batteries apart if the shells being fired were close to the same size. Also, different types of guns have different ballistic characteristics. Even guns of the same caliber can have different arcs of fire, depending upon barrel length, weight of the projectile and other factors. A uniform type of armament with standardized types of ammunition solved this problem and greatly simplified fire control.^[2] Having an eight-gun broadside also allowed salvo firing, vital for acquiring precise range over a long distance.
The all-big-gun concept was developed more or less simultaneously in four countries.
In 1900 the talented Admiral Jackie Fisher of the British Royal Navy, and a clique of designers and engineers around him, had drawn up design sketches for an all-big-gun ship. Fisher's rapid promotion into more senior positions gave him access to resources to develop his ideas, and when he achieved the rank of First Sea Lord in October 1904 he immediately set about gaining official approval for an all-big-gun ship.
Fisher was not premature; both the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy already had workable plans for all-big-gun ships. The Japanese design of 1903–4 featured eight 12-inch (305 mm) guns, a secondary battery of sixteen 6-inch (152 mm) guns (suggesting the designers had not entirely parted company with the pre-dreadnought concept), a planned displacement of 17000 tons, and a planned speed of 18 knots (33 km/h). The plan had to be abandoned because Japan was unable to acquire enough of the guns, which had to be imported from Britain. ''Satsuma'' completed with four 12-inch (305 mm) and twelve 10-inch (254 mm) guns — history might well have known the all-big-gun battleship forever as a 'satsuma'.^[3]
The U.S. Navy began design studies for an all-big-gun ship in Autumn 1903. The idea had first reached President Roosevelt in 1901, and on 3 March 1905 Congress authorized two all-big-gun ships. These ships, like the Japanese design, had eight 12-inch (305 mm) guns; however they took the step of removing the secondary battery altogether, and there were no guns between their 12 inch main armament and the twenty-two 3-inch (76 mm) anti-torpedo-boat guns. This decision reflected the view a battleship would only be called on to engage an armoured vessel at long range, and plentiful rapid-firing armament was superior against torpedo boats. Christened the ''South Carolina class'', they were completed in 1908.^[4]
Also in 1903, the famous naval architect Vittorio Cuniberti had published a paper in Jane's entitled "An Ideal Battleship for the British Navy", which called for a 17,000 ton ship carrying a main armament of twelve guns, protected by 12 inch (305 mm) armour and having a speed of 24 knots (44 km/h).^[5] Cuniberti had already proposed the idea to his own navy, the Regia Marina, which rejected it.
The British Committee on Naval Designs started by Fisher met for the first time in January 1905. After considering a range of designs, particularly arrangements of the turrets, the Committee settled on a design carrying ten 12-inch guns as her main armament, along with twenty-seven 12-pounders (3 inch, 76 mm), guns as her secondary armament. Not content with a revolutionary armament, the Royal Navy also introduced a steam turbine propulsion system, unprecedented in a large warship.^[4] The turbines promised a speed of 21 knots (39 km/h); the 2 to 3 knot (4 to 6 km/h) advantage over the typical pre-dreadnought and the other major ships was a significant tactical advantage.
Construction took place at a remarkable rate; her keel was laid on 2 October 1905, she was launched on 10 February 1906, and she was completed on 3 October 1906 — an impressive demonstration of British industrial might.^[4] The new ship was named ''Dreadnought'', a suitable name for a ship with no peer.

Design

Dreadnought building

In 1897, before ''Dreadnought'', the Royal Navy had 62 battleships in commission or building, a lead of 26 over France and of 50 over Germany,^[8] and nations as distant (and unlikely to be met in combat) as Brazil could (in theory) match the best Britain had. In November 1906, ''Dreadnought'' had the field to herself; there were no challengers. The new class prompted an arms race with serious strategic and economic consequences. Major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts to catch up with the United Kingdom. Possession of modern battleships was not only vital to naval power, but as with nuclear weapons today, represented a nation's standing in the world. Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Austria and the United States all began dreadnought programmes; and second-rank powers including Turkey, Argentina, Brazil and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American yards.^[9]

The Anglo-German arms race

''See also: Causes of World War I''
Britain and Germany had for some years been locked into a strategic struggle, as Germany asserted herself as a colonial as well as a European power. It was this threat which prompted the building of ''Dreadnought'' and made a naval arms race between the two nations inevitable.
While Fisher's reorganisation of the Navy in 1904 and 1905 actually cut the Naval Estimates,^[10] the pressing need for more and better ships to ensure naval superiority caused friction in the British government. The costs of maintaining the Royal Navy at a level capable of taking on the next two navies at the same time were immense.^[11]
The first German response to ''Dreadnought'' came with the ''Nassau''-class, laid down in 1907, followed by the ''Helgoland''-class in 1909. Together with two battlecruisers — a type for which the Germans had less admiration than Fisher, but which could be built under authorisation for armored cruisers, rather than capital ships — these classes gave Germany a total of ten modern capital ships built or building in 1909. While the British ships were somewhat faster and more powerful than their German equivalents, a 12:10 ratio fell very short of the 2:1 ratio that the Royal Navy wanted to maintain.
In 1909, the British Parliament authorised an additional four capital ships, holding out hope Germany would be willing to negotiate a treaty about battleship numbers. If no such solution could be found, an additional four ships would be laid down in 1910. Even this compromise solution meant (when taken together with some social reforms) raising taxes enough to prompt a constitutional crisis in Britain in 1909-10.
In 1910, the British eight-ship construction plan went ahead, including four ''Orion''-class super-dreadnoughts, and augmented by battlecruisers purchased by Australia and New Zealand. In the same period of time, Germany laid down only three ships, giving Britain a superiority of 22 ships to 13. The British resolve demonstrated by their construction programme led the Germans to seek a negotiated end to the arms race. While the Admiralty's new target of a 60% lead over Germany was near enough to Tirpitz's goal of cutting the British lead to 50%, talks foundered on the question on whether British Commonwealth battlecruisers should be included in the count, as well as non-naval matters like the German demands for recognition of her ownership of Alsace-Lorraine.
The pace of the dreadnought race stepped up in both nations' 1910 and 1911 budgets, with Germany laying down four capital ships each year and Britain five. The tensions came to a head following the German Naval Law of 1912. This proposed a fleet of 33 German battleships and battlecruisers, outnumbering the Royal Navy in home waters. To make matters worse, the Austro-Hungarian Fleet was building 4 dreadnoughts, while the Italians had four and were building two more. Against such threats, the Royal Navy could no longer guarantee vital British interests. Britain was faced with a choice of building more battleships, withdrawing from the Mediterranean, or seeking an alliance with France. Further naval construction was unacceptably expensive at a time when social welfare provision was making calls on the budget. Withdrawing from the Mediterranean would mean a huge loss of influence, weakening British diplomacy in the Mediterranean and shaking the stability of the British Empire. The only acceptable option, and the one taken by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, was to overturn a hundred years of splendid isolation and seek an alliance with France.^[12]
In spite of these important strategic consequences, the 1912 Naval Law had little bearing on the battleship force ratios. Britain responded by laying down ten new super-Dreadnoughts in her 1912 and 1913 budgets—ships of the ''Queen Elizabeth'' and ''Revenge'' classes, which introduced a further step change in armament, speed and protection—while Germany laid down only five, focusing resources on the Army.

U.S. Navy dreadnoughts

The American ''South Carolina''-class battleships were the first all-big-gun ships to be completed by one of Britain's rivals. The planning for the type had begun before the ''Dreadnought'' was launched, perhaps aided by secret briefing by sympathetic Royal Navy officials. Construction began in 1906, after the completion of the ''Dreadnought'', and the type had no turbines.
Smaller than ''Dreadnought'' at 16,000 tons standard displacement, they carried eight 12-inch (305 mm) guns in four twin turrets arranged in superfiring pairs fore and aft along the centerline of the keel. This arrangement gave ''South Carolina'' and her sister ''Michigan'' a broadside equal to ''Dreadnought's'' without requiring the cumbersome wing turrets of the first few British dreadnought classes. The superfiring or superimposed arrangement had not been proven until after ''South Carolina'' went to sea, and it was initially feared the weakness of the previous ''Virginia''-class would recur. Half of the first ten U.S. dreadnoughts used the older and less efficient reciprocating engines rather than turbines, which made many U.S. battleships slower than their British counterparts, but gave them much greater range, something of great importance in the Pacific.

Japan

The Japanese battleship ''Settsu''

With the defeat of the Russians, the Japanese navy became concerned about the potential for conflict with the USA. Japanese theorist Sato Tetsutaro developed the concept of a fleet at a minimum 70% of the U.S.'s to win a "decisive battle" (''per'' the doctrine of Mahan^[13]). However, Japan's first priority was to refit the pre-dreadnoughts she had captured from Russia, and to complete ''Satsuma'' and ''Aki''. Like the ''South Carolina''s, the ''Satsuma''s were designed before ''Dreadnought'', but gun shortages in Britain (which supplied them) delayed her completion and resulted in her carrying a mixed armament, so she was known as a 'semi-dreadnought'. It was not until 1909 Japan laid down her true dreadnoughts, ''Kawachi'' and ''Settsu'', which were not completed until 1912.

Dreadnoughts in other countries

''Provence'', a ''Bretagne''-class battleship.

Compared to the other major naval powers, France was slow to start building dreadnoughts, instead finishing the planned ''Danton''-class of pre-dreadnoughts, laying down five in 1907 and 1908. It was not until September 1910 the first of the ''Courbet''-class was laid down, making France the eleventh nation to enter the dreadnought race. The dreadnought race saw France drop from second to fifth in terms of naval power; however, the closer alliance with Britain made these reduced forces more than adequate for French needs.
Even though Cuniberti had promoted the idea of an all-big-gun battleship in Italy well before ''Dreadnought'', it took until 1909 for Italy to lay down one of her own. The construction of ''Dante Alighieri'' was prompted by rumours of Austro-Hungarian dreadnought building. A further five Dreadnoughts of the ''Cavour''- and ''Andrea Doria''-class followed as Italy sought to maintain its lead over Austria-Hungary. These ships remained the core of Italian naval strength until World War II. The subsequent ''Caracciolo''-class were cancelled on the outbreak of WWI.
In January 1909, Austro-Hungarian admirals circulated a document calling for a fleet of four dreadnoughts. However, a constitutional crisis in 1909-10 meant no construction could be approved. In spite of this, two dreadnoughts were laid down by shipyards on a speculative basis, and later approved along with an additional two. The resulting ships, all ''Tegetthoff''-class, were to be accompanied by a further four ships, but these were cancelled on the outbreak of World War I.
In June 1909, the Russian Empire laid down four dreadnoughts of the ''Gangut''-class for the Baltic Fleet and in 1911 three more ''Imperatritsa Mariya''-class dreadnoughts for the Black Sea.^[14] Taking lessons from Tsushima and influenced by Cuniberti, they ended up more closely resembling Fisher's battlecruisers than ''Dreadnought'' and proved badly flawed.^[15]
Spain commissioned three Dreadnoughts of the ''España''-class, laying the first down in 1909. The ''España''s were the lightest dreadnoughts ever built. While built in Spain, the construction was reliant on British assistance.^[16]
Brazil managed the remarkable achievement of being the third country with a dreadnought under construction, laying down two in British shipyards in 1907. This sparked off a small-scale arms race in South America, as Argentina and then Chile commissioned dreadnoughts. Argentina placed orders in American yards and Chile in Britain, meaning that both of Chile's two battleships were purchased by the British on the outbreak of war. One of them was later returned to the Chilean government.
Turkey ordered two dreadnoughts from British yards which were seized by the British while Greece's, ordered from Germany, was taken over by the Germans. The main armament, ordered in the United States, consequently equipped a class of British monitors. Greece in 1914 purchased two pre-dreadnoughts from the United States Navy, renaming them ''Kilkis'' and ''Limnos'' in Royal Hellenic Navy service.
The seizure of the two Turkish dreadnoughts, ''Reshadiye'' and ''Sultan Osman I''(HMS ''Erin'' and ''Agincourt'') nearing completion in 1914 in Britain, resulted in far-reaching international repercussions. The Turks were outraged by the British move and the Germans saw an opening. Through skillful diplomacy and by handing over the battlecruiser ''Goeben'' and the cruiser ''Breslau'', the Germans maneuvered the Ottoman Empire into the Central Powers.^[17]

The "super-Dreadnoughts"

''Orion'' class battleships in line

Even after ''Dreadnought's commission, battleships continued to grow in size, guns, and technical proficiency as countries vied to have the best ships. By 1914 ''Dreadnought'' was obsolete.
The arrival of 'super–Dreadnoughts' is not as clearly identified with a single ship in the same way that the Dreadnought era was initiated by HMS ''Dreadnought''. However, it is commonly held to start with the British ''Orion''-class, and for the German navy with the ''König''. What made them "super" was the unprecedented jump in displacement of 2,000–tons over the previous class, the introduction of the heavier 13.5inch (343 mm) gun, and the distribution of all the main armament on the centreline. Thus, in the four years between the laying down of ''Dreadnought'' and ''Orion'', displacement had increased by 25%, and weight of broadside had doubled.
British super-dreadnoughts were joined by other nations as well. In Japan, two ''Fuso-class'' super-dreadnoughts were laid down in 1912, followed by the ''Ise''s in 1914, with both classes carrying twelve 14-inch (356 mm) guns. In 1917, the ''Nagato''-class was ordered, the first dreadnoughts to mount guns, possibly making them the most powerful warships in the world. All were increasingly built from Japanese rather than imported components. In France, the ''Courbet''s were followed by three super-dreadnoughts of the ''Bretagne''-class; another five ''Normandie''s were cancelled on the outbreak of World War One.
The later super-dreadnoughts, principally the ''Queen Elizabeth''-class, dispensed with the "Q" turret amidships, so weight and volume were freed up for larger, oil-fired boilers. Oil had many advantages as a fuel over coal. It had more energy density than coal, and its liquid form vastly simplified refuelling arrangements; oil required no stokers, and emitted much less smoke, aiding gun laying and making the ships less visible on the horizon. The new 15 inch gun (381 mm) gave greater firepower in spite of the loss of a turret, and there was a thicker armour belt and improved underwater protection. The class had a 25 knot (46 km/h) design speed and they were considered the first fast battleships.
The design weakness of super-dreadnoughts, which distinguished them from post-World War I designs, was armor disposition. Their design placed emphasis on vertical protection, needed in short range battles. These ships were capable of engaging the enemy at 20,000 metres, but were vulnerable to the high angle ("plunging") fire at such ranges. Post-war designs typically had 5 to 6 inches (130 to 150 mm) of deck armor to defend against this. The concept of zone of immunity became a major part of the thinking behind battleship design. Lack of underwater protection was also a weakness of these pre-World War I designs which were developed only as the threat of the torpedo became real.
The United States Navy's "standard"-type battleships, beginning with the ''Nevada''-class, or "Battleship 1912", were designed with long-range engagements and plunging fire in mind; the first of these was laid down in 1912, five years before the Battle of Jutland taught the dangers of long-range fire to European navies. Important features of the standard battleships were "all or nothing" armor and "raft" construction, a philosophy under which only the parts of the ship worth giving the thickest possible protection were worth armoring at all, and enough reserve buoyancy should be contained within the resulting armored "raft" to keep afloat the entire ship in the event the unarmored bow and stern were thoroughly riddled and flooded.

In action

Main articles: Naval Warfare of World War I

British Grand Fleet during World War I

The First World War was almost an anticlimax for the great Dreadnought fleets. There was no decisive clash of modern battlefleets to compare with the Battle of Tsushima. The role of battleships was marginal to the great land struggle in France and Russia; and it was equally marginal to the First Battle of the Atlantic, the battle between German submarines and British merchant shipping.
By virtue of geography, the Royal Navy could keep the German High Seas Fleet bottled up in the North Sea with relative ease. Both sides were aware that, because of the greater number of British Dreadnoughts, a full fleet engagement would result in a British victory. The German strategy was therefore to try to provoke an engagement on favourable terms: either inducing a part of the Grand Fleet to enter battle alone, or to fight a pitched battle near the German coastline, where friendly fields, torpedo-boats and submarines could be used to even the odds.^[18]
The first two years of war saw conflict in the North Sea limited to skirmishes by battlecruisers at the Battle of Heligoland Bight and Battle of Dogger Bank and raids on the English coast. In the summer of 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on favourable terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets in the Battle of Jutland: an indecisive engagement.^[19]
In the other naval theatres there were no decisive pitched battles. In the Black Sea, Russian and Turkish battleships skirmished, but nothing more. In the Baltic, action was largely limited to convoy raiding and the laying of defensive minefields; the only significant clash of battleship squadrons was the Battle of Moon Sound at which one Russian pre-dreadnought was lost. The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by British and French blockading fleets. And in the Mediterranean, the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault on Gallipoli.
The course of the war also illustrated the vulnerability of battleships to cheaper weapons. In September 1914, the U-boat threat to capital ships was demonstrated by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three British armored cruisers by the German submarine U-9 in less than an hour. Sea mines proved a threat the next month, when the recently commissioned British super-Dreadnought ''Audacious'' struck a mine. By the end of October, British strategy and tactics in the North Sea had changed to reduce the risk of U-boat attack.^[20] While Jutland was the only major clash of battleship fleets in history, the German plan for the battle relied on U-boat attacks on the British fleet; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships, causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing paranoia in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships. By October 1916, the Royal Navy had essentially abandoned the North Sea, instructing the Grand Fleet not to go south of the Farne Islands unless adequately protected by destroyers.
For the German part, the High Seas Fleet determined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines; and since the submarines were more needed for commerce raiding, the fleet stayed in port for the remainder of the war.^[21] Other theatres equally showed the role of small craft in damaging or destroying Dreadnoughts. The two Austrian Dreadnoughts lost in 1918 were the casualties of torpedo boats and of frogmen.

After World War I

Most of the dreadnoughts were scrapped in the years after World War I. The German dreadnought fleet was scuttled at Scapa Flow by its crew. Britain, the USA and Japan briefly made plans for another bout of naval expansion, but concluded the Washington Naval Treaty to prevent another costly arms race. Most of the British fleet was scrapped as a result of the terms of the Washington Treaty and the expenditure cuts known as the Geddes Axe. The most modern super-Dreadnoughts of all three navies, together with some battlecruisers, formed the bulk of international naval strength through the 1920s and 1930s and, with some modernisation, into World War II
The term "dreadnought" gradually dropped from use. After World War I the pre-dreadnoughts and the first generations of dreadnoughts were scrapped; all battleships shared the characteristics of the dreadnought.

Notes

1. Gibbons, p. 168
2. Sumrall, R ''The Battleship and Battlecruiser'' in Gardiner & Brown (eds) ''Eclipse of the Big Gun''
3. Deng Jenshura & Mickel, ''Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy'', p.23
4. Sumrall, p.15
5. Cuniberti, Vittorio, "An Ideal Battleship for the British Fleet", ''All The World’s Fighting Ships'', 1903, pp.407-409.
6. Sumrall, p.15
7. Sumrall, p.15
8. ''The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery'', Paul M. Kennedy, ISBN 0-333-35094-4, p.209.
9. ''The First World War'', John Keegan, ISBN 0-7126-6645-1, p.281.
10. ''The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery'', Paul M. Kennedy, ISBN 0-333-35094-4, p. 218.
11. Greger, René, ''Schlachtschiffe der Welt'', pp.11 & 15.
12. ''The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery'', Paul M. Kennedy, ISBN 0-333-35094-4, p. 224
13. See also Imperial Japanese Navy and War Plan Orange.
14. Gibbons, p.205
15. Fitzsimons, Bernard, editor. "''Gangut''", in ''The Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Weapons and Warfare'', Volume 10, p.1086.
16. Gibbons, p.195
17. Greger, René: ''Schlachtschiffe der Welt'', p. 252
18. ''The First World War'', John Keegan, ISBN 0-7126-6645-1, p. 289
19. Ireland, Bernard: ''Jane's War At Sea'', pp. 88-95
20. Massie, Robert. ''Castles of Steel'', London, 2005. pp127-145
21. ''The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery'', Paul Kennedy, ISBN 0-333-35094-4, pp. 247-249

References

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★ The Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy 1897-1984, , E. H. H., Archibald, Blandford, 1984, ISBN 0-7137-1348-8

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★ ''Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The steam warship 1815-1905 - Conway's History of the Ship, , Robert (Ed.) and Lambert, Andrew (Ed.), Gardiner, Book Sales, , ISBN 978-0-78581-413-9

★ The Complete Encyclopedia of Battleships and Battlecruisers - A Technical Directory of all the World's Capital Ships from 1860 to the Present Day, , Tony, Gibbons, Salamander Books Ltd, 1983, ISBN 0-51737-810-8

★ Schlachtschiffe der Welt, , René, Greger, Motorbuch Verlag, 1993, ISBN 3-613-01459-9

★ Jane's War At Sea 1897-1997, , Bernard and Grove, Eric, Ireland, Harper Collins Publishers, 1997, ISBN 0-00-472065-2

★ The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, , Paul M., Kennedy, , 1983, ISBN 0-333-35094-4

★ Castles of Steel - Britain, Germany and the Winning of the Great War at Sea, , Robert, Massie, Pimlico, 2005, ISBN 1-844-134113

★ British Battleships, , Oscar, Parkes, first published Seeley Service & Co, 1957, published United States Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN 1-55750-075-4

★ Naval Warfare 1815-1914, , Lawrence, Sondhaus, , 2001, ISBN 0-415-21478-5

★ Corbett, Sir Julian. "Maritime Operations In The Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905." (1994). Originally Classified and in two volumnes. ISBN 1-5575-0129-7.