Background In 1906 the british launched one of the most revolutionary ships ever build - The HMS Dreadnought. Besides being a big ship powered by turbines the ship was constructed with all big guns. That ment that the earlier battleship wass equiped with typical 4 main guns intended to engage other battleships plus an additional number of midsized guns to engage cruisers. The Dradnought was equiped only with 10 12inch guns making its brioasides twice as powerfull than any other capital ship in the world. The design effectivetly rendered all other battleships obsolete. This ship launched a naval shipbuilding race between the politcal powers. which consumed a huge amount of the nations industrial capacity up to and during WWI. In 1913 the british launched the HMS Queen Elizabeth which was often described as Super Dreadnoughts. They where bigger, faster, heavyer armoured and heavyer armed than any other ship. The following years 4 more ships where launched. All ships served with houner in both world wars. Warspite is properly the most distinguished ship ever in the Royal Navy. |
HMS Queen Elizabeth
HMS Valiant
HMS Barham
HMS Malya
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