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]] A battleship is a large, heavily- Armored Warship with a main battery consisting of the largest Caliber of Gun s. They are larger, better-armed and better-armored than Cruiser s. Battleships have evolved a great deal over time, as designs continually adapt technological advances to maintain an edge. The word ''battleship'' was coined around 1794 and is a shortened form of '' Line Of Battle Ship '', the dominant warship in the Age Of Sail ."battleship" The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. 4 Apr. 2000 The term came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a developed type of Ironclad Warship ,Stoll, J. ''Steaming in the Dark?'', Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol. 36 No. 2, Jun 1992 and by the 1890s design had become relatively standard on what is now known as the Pre-''Dreadnought'' Battleship . In 1905, HMS ''Dreadnought'' heralded a revolution in battleship design, and for many years modern battleships were referred to as Dreadnought s. As much as a type of war vessel, battleships constituted a potent symbol of national might and naval domination.Sondhaus, L. ''Naval Warfare 1815-1914'', ISBN 0-415-21478-5 For decades, the numbers and abilities of battleships were a major factor in Diplomacy and military Strategy . The global Arms Race in battleship construction in the early 1900s was a significant factor in the origins of World War I , which saw a clash of huge battlefleets at the Battle Of Jutland . The construction of battleships was limited by the Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s, but battleships both old and new were deployed during World War II . Despite this record, some historians and naval theorists question the value of the battleship. Aside from Jutland, there were few great battleship clashes. And despite their great firepower and protection, battleships remained vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper ordnance and craft: initially the during World War II, being retained into the Cold War only by the United States Navy for fire support purposes. These last battleships were removed from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in March 2006. THE SHIP OF THE LINE See Also: Ship of the line The ship of the line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing warship mounting a Battery of up to 120 Smoothbore and Carronade Gun s. The ship of the line was a gradual evolution of a basic design dating as far back as the 1400s, and had changed little between the adoption of Line Of Battle tactics in the early 17th century and the end of the sailing battleship's heyday in the 1830s. From 1794, the alternative term 'line of battle ship' was contracted (informally at first) to 'battle ship' or 'battleship'. '' (1850), the first steam battleship]] The sheer number of guns fired Broadside meant that the sailing battleship could wreck any wooden vessel, smashing the hull and masts and killing the crew. However, the effective range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards, and sail tactics were dependent on the wind. The first major change to the ship of the line concept was the introduction of Steam Power as an auxiliary Propulsion System . Steam power was gradually introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft and later for Frigate s. The , Turkey , Sweden , Naples , Prussia , Denmark and Austria . IRONCLADS See Also: Ironclad warship The adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the .1 ]] Explosive shells Wooden-hulled ships stood up comparatively well to solid shot, as shown in the 1866 , the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed a flotilla of wooden Turkish ships with explosive shells at the Battle Of Sinop in 1853. Later in the war French ironclad floating batteries used similar weapons against the defenses at Kinburn .Lambert, Andrew: ''Battleships in Transition'', pp. 92-96 Iron armor and construction (1859), the first ocean–going Ironclad warship]] The development of high-explosive shells made the use of iron , anxious to prevent France from gaining a technological lead. The superior armored frigate ''Warrior'' followed ''La Gloire'' by only fourteen months, and both nations embarked on a programme of building new ironclads and converting existing screw ships of the line to armored frigate.Gibbons, pp. 30-31 Within two years, Italy, Austria, Spain and Russia had all ordered ironclad warships, and by the time of the famous clash of the USS ''Monitor'' and the CSS ''Virginia'' at the Battle Of Hampton Roads at least eight navies possessed ironclad ships. (1876), the first battleship to use steel as the main building material.Gibbons, p. 93]] Navies experimented with the positioning of guns, in Turrets (like the USS ''Monitor'' ), Centre-batteries or Barbette s, or with the Ram as the principal weapon. As steam technology developed, masts were gradually removed from battleship designs. By the mid-1870s steel was used as a construction material alongside iron and wood. The French Navy's ''Redoutable'' , laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876, was a central Battery and Barbette warship which became the first battleship in the world to use steel as the principal building material.Conway Marine, "Steam, Steel and Shellfire" (p. 96) THE PRE-DREADNOUGHT See Also: Pre-dreadnought , flagship of the Japanese fleet at the Battle Of Tsushima , in 1905]] , a typical late pre-dreadnought battleship]] By the late 19th century, there was an increasing similarity between battleship designs, and the type now known as the 'pre-dreadnought battleship' emerged. These were heavily armored ships, mounting a mixed battery of guns in turrets, and without sails. The typical first-class battleship of the pre-dreadnought era displaced 15,000 to 17,000 Ton s, had a speed of 16 Knots , and an armament of four 12- Inch guns in two turrets fore and aft with a mixed-calibre secondary battery amidships around the superstructure. An early design with superficial similarity to the pre-dreadnought is the British ''Devastation''-class of 1871.Gibbons, Tony: ''The Complete Encyclopedia of Battleships'', p. 101 However, it was not until the 1880s that similar designs were widespread, and the type was perfected in the 1890s with the adoption of steel construction and armor. The slow-firing main guns were the principal weapons for battleship-to-battleship combat. The intermediate and secondary batteries had two roles. Against major ships, it was thought a 'hail of fire' from quick-firing secondary weapons could distract enemy gun crews by inflicting damage to the superstructure, and they would be more effective against smaller ships such as Cruiser s. Smaller guns (12-pounders and smaller) were reserved for protecting the battleship against the threat of torpedo attack from Destroyer s and Torpedo Boat s.War at Sea in the Ironclad Age, Richard Hill, ISBN 0-304-35273-X The beginning of the pre-dreadnought era saw Britain's attempt to assert its naval might. For many years previously, Britain had taken naval supremacy for granted, and expensive naval projects were criticised by political leaders of all inclinations. However, in 1888, a war scare with France and the build-up of the Russian navy gave added impetus to naval construction, and the British Naval Defence Act of 1889 laid down a new fleet including eight new battleships. The principle that Britain's navy should be more powerful than the two next most powerful fleets combined was also enshrined. This policy was designed to deter French and Russian battleship-building, but both nations nevertheless expanded their fleets with more and better pre-dreadnoughts in the 1890s. In the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, the battleship building race became defined by conflict between Britain and Germany. The German naval laws of 1890 and 1898 authorised a fleet of 38 battleships, a vital threat to the balance of naval power. Britain answered with further shipbuilding, but by the end of the pre-dreadnought era, British supremacy at sea had markedly weakened. In 1883, the United Kingdom had 38 battleships, twice as many as France and almost as many as the rest of the world put together. By 1897, Britain's lead was far less due to competition from France, Germany, and Russia, as well as the development of pre-dreadnought fleets in Italy, the United States and Japan.Kennedy, p. 209 Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Chile and Brazil all had second-rate fleets led by Armored Cruiser s, Coast Service Battleship s or Monitors .Preston, Anthony: ''Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II'' Pre-dreadnoughts continued the technical innovation of the ironclad. Turrets, armor plate, and Steam Engine s were all improved over the years, and Torpedo tubes were introduced. A small number of designs, including the American ''Kearsarge'' and ''Virginia'' classes, experimented with all or part of the 8-inch intermediate battery superimposed over the 12-inch primary. Results were poor: recoil factors and blast effects resulted in the 8-inch battery being completely unusable, and the inability to separately train the primary and intermediate armament led to significant tactical limitation. Even though such innovative designs saved weight (a key reason for their inception), they proved too cumbersome in practice.Preston, Anthony. (1972) ''Battleships of World War I'', New York City: Galahad Books THE DREADNOUGHT ERA See Also: Dreadnought In 1906, the revolutionary HMS ''Dreadnought'' , created as a result of pressure from Admiral John A. Fisher , made existing battleships obsolete. Combining an 'all-big-gun' armament of ten 12-inch (305 Mm ) rifles with unprecedented speed and protection, she prompted navies worldwide to re-evaluate their battleship building programmes. While 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,Gibbons, p.168 ''Dreadnought'' sparked a new Arms Race , principally between Britain and Germany but reflected worldwide, as the new class of warships became a crucial element of national power. Technical development continued rapidly through the dreadnought era, with step changes in armament, armor and propulsion. Ten years after ''Dreadnoughts commissioning, much more powerful ships, the super-dreadnoughts''', were being built. The origin of ''Dreadnought'' 's ''Satsuma'' , the first ship to be designed (1904) and laid down (May 15th, 1905) as an "'all-big-gun" battleship was also the largest battleship in the world at the time of her launch]] General Vittorio Cuniberti , the Italian Navy's chief naval architect, first articulated the concept of an all-big-gun battleship in 1903. When the '' Regia Marina '' did not pursue his ideas, Cuniberti wrote an article in ''Jane's'' proposing an "ideal" future British battleship, a large armored warship of 17,000 tons, armed solely with a single caliber main battery (twelve 12-inch {305 mm} guns), carrying 300 mm Belt Armor , and capable of 24 Knot s (44 km/h).Cuniberti, Vittorio, "An Ideal Battleship for the British Fleet", ''All The World’s Fighting Ships'', 1903, pp.407-409. The Imperial Japanese Navy 's battleship ''Satsuma'' became the first ship in the world designed (1904) and laid down (1905) as an all-big-gun battleship, although her armament would ultimately not be completed to specifications due to shortages of the British 12-inch Armstrong guns. ''Satsuma'' retained triple-expansion engines, though her sister ship ''Aki'' , completed in 1911, used turbines. An American design, ''South Carolina'' , authorized 1905, also makes the claim for "first dreadnought", but she and her sister, ''Michigan'', would not be launched until 1908. Both used triple-expansion engines, but had superior layout of their main battery, dispensing with ''Dreadnought'' The s.
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