In the era of Cold War militarization and U. In the past twenty-five years, however, the story of the Anglo-German race has lost its luster as a cautionary tale as Europe confines its 20 th century to history and confronts a present not haunted by the specter of big power arms competitions and war.
Strikingly, there has been a sustained effort to rethink the Anglo-German arms race as a historical event, at least in the scholarly realm. While scholars of German Weltpolitik and battleship construction continue to stress the seriousness of the German challenge to British naval mastery and the reality of the arms competition, many historians of the Royal Navy and the British Empire have come to downplay the centrality of the arms race and the larger Anglo-German antagonism for the understanding of British naval policy and strategy before Today, the place of the Anglo-German naval race in the historical imagination of the future remains an open question.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. DOI : Version 1. Naval Race between Germany and Great Britain, Selected Bibliography Berghahn, Volker R. Martin's Press. Hobson, Rolf: Imperialism at sea. Naval strategic thought, the ideology of sea power, and the Tirpitz Plan, , Boston Brill Academic Publishers. Kennedy, Paul M. Lambert, Nicholas A. Massie, Robert K. Metadata Subjects.
Author Keywords. GND Subject Headings. LC Subject Headings. Rameau Subject Headings. Regional Section s. Thematic Section s. Classification Group.
The Grand Fleet was ready for action again the next day. The Germans had failed to destroy it, and were so badly shaken by the weight of the British response that they never again seriously challenged British control of the North Sea. Find out more at jutland. The Battle of Jutland, 31 May At darkness fell and the fleets parted.
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The Titanic Expeditions Buy. Understanding J. Bruce Ismay Buy. Technological development during the steamship age pushed 19 th century warship design to its limits, featuring battleships mounting large caliber, turreted guns, driven by high output piston steam engines, and protected by steel armor. By the turn of last century, a typical battleship mounted four inch guns in two twin-turrets and was armed with an assortment of intermediate gun batteries throughout the ship.
Reciprocating steam engines produced enough power to drive the ships to high speeds, typically fifteen to eighteen knots. Major drawbacks of these designs included difficulty in fire control for the different caliber ammunition.
Also, the steam engines required lengthy periods in port for maintenance overhauls and could not be run at full speed for very long without risking breakdowns. Led by First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher , British decision makers designed the HMS Dreadnought to steal the lead on the plans of other navies and launch a battleship that would outfight any ship afloat. Thus, the arrangement allowed the ship to fire eight heavy guns in a broadside, as compared to contemporary battleships that could answer only with four heavy guns.
HMS Dreadnought possessed no intermediate battery, making fire control and ammunition storage less difficult. Other features included turbine steam propulsion - the first use of lighter, dependable and efficient turbine engines in a battleship. These new engines allowed HMS Dreadnought to steam at almost twenty-one knots continuously, providing a speed advantage over potential enemy ships that would allow fleets to better close with a retreating enemy, avoid a more numerous enemy, or evade a torpedo threat when present.
Dreadnought also featured redistributed armor to protect guns, engines, and magazines more effectively. Finally, an innovative bulkhead structure in the interior of the ship made flood control easier, providing better survivability.
A hybrid heavy cruiser design, called a battlecruiser, featured similar characteristics, but possessed less heavy armor and fewer large guns to provide for even higher speed.
When necessary, the battlecruiser could join the battle fleet and serve alongside Dreadnought battleships, since its large guns could provide a similar offensive capability. Taking advantage of guns and turrets already completed for other ships and using other prefabricated construction, HMS Dreadnought was laid down in February and commissioned in December of the same year, a remarkable construction record for the time.
As newer and larger Dreadnought designs joined the Royal Navy, the original vessel served as flagship for the Home Fleet from to
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