The First Agel of the "All Big Gun" Battleship

In this book, author Chris McNab presents two seminal pieces of writing, separated by only 11 years. These two could be regarded as bookends to the strategic thinking that had initially led to the launch of the transformational all-big-gun battleship – HMS Dreadnought – as well as the first niggling recognitions of its looming obsolescence.

The first was an article penned in 1903 by Vittorio Emilio Cuniberti, an astute Italian engineer, entitled "An Ideal Battleship for the British Fleet." Recognizing the advances of the prior decade or so, he envisioned a capital ship of around 17,000 tons displacement – powered by newer, more efficient steam turbines – that would allow speeds that were impossible for contemporary heavy combatants.

This speculative vessel would also sport turrets bristling with 12-inch main guns, capable of firing devastating salvos, without relying on the mixed calibers of existing warships. Of course, its vital parts would still be sheathed in heavy armor.

McNab notes that Cuniberti's thoughts weren't particularly original, but their publication in the international naval bible – Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships – was credited to be the "literal starting gun for the dreadnought arms race," with some historians accusing Cuniberti's piece of being an "implicit driving force on the rush to war."

Yet, little more than a decade later, McNab points to another renowned theorist who was accurately projecting the end of the dreadnoughts' oh-so-recent strategic dominance. In 1914, Admiral Sir Percy Scott published a letter where he flatly declared the following: "In my opinion, as the motor-vehicle has driven the horse from the road, so has the submarine driven the battleship from the sea." He believed that what Britain needed was "an enormous fleet of submarines, airships, and airplanes...."

Mind you, gunnery expert Scott's sage opinion came while the Dreadnought and its kin had already been ruling the waves for eight years. Its very launch had sparked a reinvigorated (and staggeringly expensive) naval-construction race between the giant industrial rivals, Britain and Germany (as well as lesser ones among several other nations with oceans on their borders).

Five years before Scott aired his opinions, the Royal Navy's 1909 building program had even heralded the arrival of the Orion class, whose units were introduced as "superdreadnoughts." (And appropriately so. These powerful successors were faster, although heavier than the original; also carried more shielding; and they boasted 10 – then massive – 13.5-inch guns.)

Dazzled by this progress, however, few strategists or political leaders were ready to pay attention to Admiral Scott's prescient observations – then, or for decades later. Quite simply, too much treasure and national pride were wrapped up into building these wonder weapons; by W.W. I, any serious questioning of their ultimate value was muted.

Casemate Illustrated: As one might expect from the Casemate Illustrated Special Series, there is a profusion of period photos and illustrations – 200 to be precise. The editors prefer to side-step scholarly footnote clutter. The author made it his business, however, to include numerous references from cited primary sources, such as blueprints, journals, logs, diagrams, departmental lists, newspapers, cruise reports, and standard handbooks like The Stoker's Manual or The Naval Annual 1913. This careful assembly of contemporary materials presents a vivid sense of the working equipment, duties, routines, daily functions, and life aboard, thereby evoking a keen sense of what the crews of these magnificent vessels experienced.

Mr. McNab has written numerous books on military history, and he quickly demonstrates his mastery of relevant technology during this 233-page treatment. The intricate chapters on design, fire-control, gunnery, ventilation, and boiler engineering leave nothing to be desired in terms of detail (occasionally, to the point of being overwhelming). Nevertheless, the writing is generally crisp and engaging.

It is clear, however, that the weary Casemate copywriters (concentrating on all the myriad technical details that they had to check and recheck) occasionally became too overtaxed to carefully examine every line or fact.

Otherwise, the reader would never have to puzzle over a sentence like this: "The USS Texas was a New York class battleship laid down on April 17, 1911, launched on May 18, 1812, and commissioned on March 12, 1914." Or a proclamation that the December 10th, 1941 sinking of the HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse "was the first time in history that capital ships had been sunk by airpower," when the next paragraph features the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

First Out of the Gate: McNab's book focuses on the British experience before, during, and just after W.W. I, likely because the Royal Navy was the first out of the gate with thee dreadnought model. Moreover, that nation's leaders had the strategic awareness, popular support, ship-building base – and, not least, sheer determination – to stay ahead.

Imperial Germany's goal in the naval race was apparently not to match Britain's sea strength, but to simply be strong enough to give its rival pause, or to block its moves when necessary. Consequently, its grand strategy always seemed rather muddled, or simply reactive, with its high command not recognizing opportunities until too late, or remaining overfocused on its biggest ships. Nevertheless, the pre-W.W. I choice to blatantly compete with Great Britain became a tremendous national task that spurred years of costly tit-for-tat responses.

To be said, McNab also goes beyond the main contestants, assigning plenty of space to reviews of other countries' strenuous efforts to acquire these majestic steel brutes for their various sea strategies, or simply to enhance their chest-beating national pride.

British Visionaries: One of the more prominent of the British visionaries, Admiral "Jackie" John Fisher (First Sea Lord, from late 1904 to 1910) had likely read Cuniberti's famous article when it appeared back in 1903. He probably wasn't very surprised at its conclusions. The concepts then expressed reflected certain innovations that Fisher was already familiar with. He had been reviewing them with his friends, like Sir Phillip Watts, the Director of Naval Construction, and several others who had also been monitoring the steady march of technological progress.

By the opening years of the 20th Century, the advancing power of ever-bigger guns and more sophisticated fire-control systems had started to shift range accuracy farther and farther out, beyond the 3,000 or so yards originally considered normal practice for big guns. Although torpedo capabilities were also growing, the role of the shorter-ranged secondary ones that fended off pesky close-in launch vessels appeared less vital. Those torpedo attackers could be dealt with at a greater distance, perhaps even without escorts.

Another advantage was that the gun layers' targeting would not be as confused by the variety of shell splashes from a mix of calibers, like the less potent 7.5” or 9.2” bores.

The long-anticipated major contest of pre-dreadnoughts ultimately confirmed many of Fisher's and his friends' observations. This 1905 clash between Russian and Japanese fleets (the latter largely British-built) took place in the Tsushima straits off Korea. The indisputable Japanese victory helped these early influencers notice that battleship design had reached an inflection point (as we would say nowadays).

Among other things, McNab points out that exchanges between the biggest guns (12-inchers) in that mighty engagement had commenced at around 7,000 yards. Moreover, these fires were the ones that turned out to be the most effective armor-piercers.

A British official observer aboard a Japanese battlewagon, Captain William Pakenham, concluded: "...the effect of the fire of every gun is so much less than that of the next larger size, that when 12in guns are firing, shots from 10in pass unnoticed...everything in this war has tended to emphasize the vast importance to a ship, at every stage of her career, of carrying some of the heaviest and furthest (sic) shooting guns."

Development of more efficient engines – particularly the Parson steam turbines – was also a major factor that nudged British experts closer toward an awkward conclusion: The Royal Navy's backbone of superiority – its 45 sea-seizing heavy capital ships (as well as entire classes of slower cruisers) – would soon be rendered obsolete. With Fisher and his supporters' backing, Britain trumped this enormous risk by making them all obsolete first, before any rival could. Perfidious Albion was able to launch the game-changing HMS Dreadnought on February 10, 1906.

This new battleship would indeed be quick enough to outmaneuver older opponents. It could then pound them with penetrating broadsides from a distance that they could not respond to, while likely fending off any swifter vessels before they had time to launch torpedoes.

Overwhelming Irony: McNab of course points out an overwhelming irony: These pricey monsters seldom saw real action in W.W. I, especially against the enemy equivalents that they had been built to take on. Moreover, the author emphasizes their rather poor accuracy, despite improved guns and refined methods of fire control.

As it happened, most of the surface actions in the vital North Sea-blockade area were not the significant engagements that many had envisioned. Rather, most were usually raids carried out by the speedier, lighter-armored, big-gun battlecruisers – offshoots of the original dreadnought concept. These were another brainchild of Admiral Fisher's, and a classification readily copied by the Imperial German Navy.

Most significantly, however, the deluxe dreadnoughts' vulnerability to the likes of cheap and cheesy submarines or mines became more and more evident throughout the war. One of the most potent of the early superdreadnoughts, the HMS Audacious, hit a single drifting (“friendly”) mine during its Fall 1914 exercises. A half day later, it was firmly settled on the bottom.

The single major W.W. I match that did occur between equals – that is, the majority of the dreadnought/superdreadnought powerhouses of the British and German navies – occurred on May 31-June 1, 1916 at the Skagerrak (or, as the Anglo-Saxons call it, Jutland). McCabe devotes 18 pages to this rather anticlimactic battle, after which both antagonists claimed one sort of victory or another. (Tactical, strategic . . . whatever.)

On each side, the dreadnought class and its successors survived stunning punishment, but the British battlecruisers did not survive much at all, and three went down, with casualties in the thousands. Their numerically inferior enemy only lost one pre-dreadnought and (post-battle) a wounded battlecruiser. In total, both antagonists removed 22 lesser warships from the playing board.

Afterwards, however, the heavy ships of the German High Seas fleet did stubbornly venture into the North Sea on various operations (despite the false Brit narrative that they just rusted at their docks), but there was never again any significant contact, for one reason or another. Eventually surrendered to the Allied victors, dozens of surviving, exorbitantly expensive capital ships were later scuttled in defiance by their own German crews.

What seemed, at the time, like a gigantic waste was actually for the best. The day of even the superdreadnoughts was approaching its technological twilight, but, once again, few acknowledged the wisdom of Percy Scott's 1914 recommendations even after the First World War's naval experience had underlined them.

Cost-Benefit Analysis: This reviewer was disappointed, however, that McNab chose not to fully address the overhanging question: Was the reinvigorated naval race that had been instigated by the Dreadnought's 1906 launch actually worth the candle for Britain and Germany? (Obviously, other nations had their own, less urgent rationales for their outlays.)

Perhaps the price tag was indeed justified for the sceptered isle. Politically and strategically speaking, Britain could never let perceived naval supremacy slip from its grasp, nor could the Admiralty mount its long-planned blockade in the North Sea with only lighter craft, open to easy challenge by enemy big boys.

In hindsight, however, it is easy to conclude that Germany might have spent its war chest in more useful ways. One dreadnought's cost could have bought, say, a score of U-boats, for instance.

Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that submarines' true worth was ignored before W.W. I evidence of it piled up. And there were other issues: the specialized sailors needed were scarcer, especially in light of German manpower shortages; moreover, sneaky underwater attacks were distasteful to the proud Prussian military elites.

The Imperial army, however, might have benefited if the Kaiser had not been so fascinated with the naval competition – an obsession regularly stroked by Grand Admiral Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz, his Navy Secretary since 1897, whose only dreams were large.

A source estimates that "every dreadnought cost the equivalent of a division's weaponry, and Tirpitz effectively cost the army the equivalent of two full corps from 1909-1914." (Strategy & Tactics Quarterly, "Dreadnoughts," Issue 12, p. 22).

Those potential corps could have been quite useful, certainly in the war's early days. (Just sayin'.)

Such a cost-benefit discussion would have been welcome in this work, if McNab had chosen to expand on it, as would have been a more extensive review of the interesting transition from coal- to purely oil-fired engines. The original warship had been designed to operate on both coal and oil (which had been used earlier in smaller craft); this full shift to major vessels, however, was first accomplished in a superdreadnought: the "fast-battleship" (24-25 knots) Queen Elizabeth class, constructed between October 1912 and February 1916. The concession to advancing technology was pushed by the -- who else? -- the far-sighted and indefatigable Jackie Fisher, and, in the later stages, his pal Winston Churchill, who became the next First Sea Lord in 1911.

As with the concept of the original dreadnought, the implementation of this keynote idea was a courageous jump into the future. Despite the many advantages of oil fuel, Britain already had excellent coal reserves, but almost none of oil. So, the question became: Where to secure a steady supply of said resource? As it happened, this particular W.W. I military decision produced geopolitical concussions that have been reverberating to this very day. (Middle East, anybody?)

When you pick up a Casemate book in this series, you expect to open a door on what the back cover describes as "unparalleled detail into the weapons, equipment, and machinery of war," and the author delivers all this in a satisfying, fine-grained read. Most engrossing, however, is his presentation of the thought work behind the design of the Dreadnought, as well as the gradual recognition of the technological evolutions that eventually made this potent machine possible. Once committed to its success, however, naval strategists, admiralties, and politicians were reluctant to realize --or at least as fast as Admiral Percy Scott had done -- that the fast all-big-gun battleship was itself falling victim to those same evolutionary forces in war making.

Note: Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts is also available in e-editions.

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