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Rather than try to fit more guns onto a ship, it was possible to increase the power of each gun. This could be done by increasing either the caliber of the weapon and hence the weight of shell, or by lengthening the barrel to increase...

The effectiveness of the guns depended in part on the layout of the turrets. Dreadnought, and the British ships which immediately followed her, carried five turrets: one forward and two aft on the centerline of the ship, and two in the ‘wings’ next to the...

Dreadnoughts mounted a uniform main battery of heavy-caliber guns; the number, size, and arrangement differed between designs. Dreadnought herself mounted ten 12-inch (305 mm) guns. 12-inch guns had been standard for most navies in the pre-dreadnought era and this continued in the first generation of...

The designers of dreadnoughts sought to provide as much protection, speed, and firepower as possible in a ship of a realistic size and cost. The hallmark of dreadnought battleships was an “all-big-gun” armament, but they also had heavy armor concentrated mainly in a thick belt...

In Japan, the two battleships of the 1903–04 Programme were the first in the world to be laid down as all-big-gun ships, with eight 12-inch (305 mm) guns. However, the armour of their design was considered too thin, demanding a substantial redesign.[28] The financial pressures...

The replacement of the 6-inch (152 mm) or 8-inch (203 mm) guns with weapons of 9.2-inch (234 mm) or 10-inch (254 mm) caliber improved the striking power of a battleship, particularly at longer ranges. However, uniform heavy-gun armament offered many other advantages. One advantage was...

An evolutionary step toward building more powerful battleships was to reduce the secondary battery mounted in barbettes and substitute additional turret-mounted heavy guns, typically 9.2-inch (234 mm) or 10-inch (254 mm). These ships have been described as ‘all-big-gun mixed-caliber’ or later ‘semi-dreadnoughts’. A distinguishing feature...

Until the Battle of the Yellow Sea[8] was fought on 10 August 1904, for naval battles of the 1890s the decisive weapon was the medium-caliber, typically 6-inch (152 mm), quick-firing gun firing at relatively short range; naval gunnery was too inaccurate to hit targets at...

The distinctive all-big-gun armament of the dreadnought was developed in the first years of the 20th century as navies sought to increase the firepower and range of their battleships. The majority of pre-dreadnought battleships had a main armament of four heavy guns of 12-inch (305...

The dreadnought was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th-century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy’s Dreadnought, had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as “dreadnoughts”, and earlier battleships became known...