Before we start a quick explanation on the all big gun race.  I have deliberately  avoided of the use of the term “Dreadnought” before the date of her launched, as it was a term not in use before that day. Instead I have used the name Fisher created, “Untakeable”

I have also christened the USN class as the Michigan.  While the class is more popularly known as the “South Carolina” she was the first of her class and it seemed gentlemanly not to.

Ok let us begin….

 

THE RACE

 

BEGINNINGS IN THE  MEDITERRANEAN.

In 1899 Admiral “Jackie” Fisher was the C-in-C of the prestigious Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet. He inherited a command that judged itself by the gleam of its brass and perfection of its paint work. It was a fleet that cruised sedately at 13 knots. He was to retain the post for three years, and in that time took a Victorian Fleet, shook it, reshaped it and made it fitter for modern war. He encouraged his junior officers to think for themselves, to be innovative and creative. Fisher gave lectures and his officers listened, debated and gave their opinion. During his tenure the fleet concentrated on manoeuvre’s, gunnery and seamanship. In 1902 he lowered his flag on what was now a modern 15 knot fleet. It was in this atmosphere that he conceived of the concept for the ‘All-Big-Gun’ ship. One ship and one overwhelming calibre of the quicker firing 10-inch guns. He gave his creation a name, ‘HMS Untakeable’, and his motto was, “speed is armour”.

Fisher had come to recognize that any future sea battle would in most probability open fire at the longer ranges that the new large calibre guns now made possible. Gunnery would become far more of a long range skill, but the mixed calibre that the capital ship carried at this time, made these ranges difficult. At such ranges a 10 or 12-inch shell splash looked all but identical. The Gunnery officer could not correct his aim if he could not tell which shell created which splash.

Fisher also came to recognized that with the increasing range of the battleships torpedo, closing the distance between the battling adversaries was no longer possible. He understood these two problems and found his solution in ‘HMS Untakeable’.

Fisher accepted that any ship, mounted with just one calibre of 10″ guns, combined with a fast turn of speed would be the Queen of the sea. He developed the idea within his mind, and shared his concepts within the new atmosphere that he had fostered within the Mediterranean Fleet. Two “perfect “ship’s emerged from this fertile process;  one a battleship, ‘HMS Untakeable’ and the other a cruiser titled ‘HMS Unapproachable’. With the two plans forming within his mind, he approached the like minded Chief Constructor of the Malta Dockyard, W.H. Gard, who produced a number of designs based on Fisher’s two “perfect” ships.

HMS ‘Untakeable (1)’ was the “cruiser-battleship” concept, with a minimum speed to match a 1900 cruiser, (21knots). The speed of the navies newest cruisers was currently between 19 and 23 knots, while the fleets heavy weights, (the battleships) was between 17 and 20 knots. ‘HMS Untakeable (1)’ had a displacement of circa 14 to 15,000 tons, an armament of four 10-inch guns and twelve 7.5-inch guns. In addition the ship was to have an anti-torpedo boat defense of approximately sixteen 4-inch guns mounted in single, unshielded, pedestal mounts and located on the superstructure. The 12 pounder (3in) was in fact the standard Royal Navy Anti-torpedo defence in 1900, and this was to come to be used on the future ‘HMS Dreadnought’.

 

The ‘Untakeable (1)’ was designed towards the end of the era when all battleships were expected to exchange fire at a range of less than 3,000 yard, a distance where rate of fire was of great important. Both the turret design and its layout for the ‘Untakeable (1)’ has been lost to us, but the evidence hints at two twin 10-inch turrets on the centre-line. One turret was fore and the other aft of the superstructure, in raised super-firing positions, over a 7.5″ turret.  Forward of the leading 10-inch turret, as well as aft of the trailing turret, was the two possible 7.5-inch twin turrets side by side on the upper deck. The three turrets formed a triangle with the 10-inch sat on the lower apex.

Two further twin 7.5-inch turrets were located amidships, one to port and one to starboard, in raised super-firing positions, permitting them to fire over the 7.5-inch turrets located forward and aft of them. Prince Louis of Battenberg later claimed that it was from Gard’s mind that this layout came.

‘HMS Untakeable (2)’ was most likely conceived in 1902, and was a simple enlargement of ‘Untakeable (1)’, but in addition she had the six twin 7.5-inch turrets replaced with six twin 10-inch turrets, there by increasing the armament up to sixteen 10-inch guns, and this is our first glimps of the sapling that will grow into the modern battleship.

The ‘Untakeable (2)’ design was not to last long and she gave way to ‘Untakeable 3’ designed probably in 1903? ‘Untakeable 3’ was all but the same in design as her predecessor, the only differences being with both the number and calibre of her heavy guns and some of the armour thicknesses. The ‘experts’ concluded that given Untakeable 2 and 3’s specifications, they would in reality have achieved a speed of 22.5 to 23 knots rather than the 21 knots, the design stated.

The armament for ‘Untakeable 3’ was finally upgraded to the 12-inch we associate with Fishers creations, mounted into four twin turrets, with one turret forward and one aft of the superstructure on the centre-line. The remaining two turreted would be mounted on the port and one to starboard amidships. This configuration allowed for equalized fire all round, allowing the ship to fire equal shell weights on all points.

The calibre up-grade was not of fishers mind as he was a disciple to the quicker firing 10- inch. But his junior officers had pushed for the increase, feeling it to be the better option.

In June 1902 with a briefcase containing his “perfect” battleships plans, he lowered his flag and returned to London and the post as Second Sea Lord.

ACROSS THE POND

As Fisher reshaped the Mediterranean Fleet and conceived the shape and form of ‘HMS Untakeable’, forward thinking minds across the Atlantic in the United States of America, developed a similar concept.

In 1901 elements within the United States Navy (USN) also contemplated a new generation of battleships with a minimum battery of four large 12-inch (305 mm), eight 8-inch (203 mm), and twelve 7-inch (178 mm) guns. During May of 1902 a design of two 13,000 ton ships, armed with twelve 10-inch guns was put forward, in the belief that it would offer a slightly heavier broadside, than those of the other navies battleships. But the concept was to be rejected in favour of a traditional mixed-caliber battleship.

There has been, since 1874, a monthly magazine published by the United States Naval Institute entitled “Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine”. But we shall for the sake of expediency, (and my typing) call it by its 21st century name “Proceedings”. It is today one of the oldest continuously published magazines within the US, and its subject matter covers topics concerning global security. It includes articles from both military professionals, civilian experts, historical essays…… Over two months in 1902 Lieutenant Matt H. Signor published articles in the prestigious magazine. The Lieutenant argued the case for a ship to be armed with six 13-inch (330 mm) and six 10-inch (254 mm)/40 caliber guns all mounted into four triple turrets. His ships secondary battery would in addition, comprise of 5-inch (127 mm)/60 cal guns. His articles were to cause a stir within the magazine readership. A readership that was (and is), read by active-service personal , civilian ‘experts’, retired military, Secretaries of Defense, Secretaries of the Navy, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral’s, etc…

The succeeding editions carried comments on Signor’s theories from Captain William M. Folger, {1}Professor P. R. Alger {2} and a naval constructor, David W. Taylor, {3}. Their comments were in general to question the actual feasibility of creating Signor’s design, but despite their concerns, they praised the article as a step in generally the right direction. Professor Alger agreed that Signor was on the right path with the concept of a larger armament, but he questioned the feasibly of the triple turrets and counter-proposed eight 12-inch guns in four twin turrets, which he felt was a realistic arrangement.

The seed for what would in time grow into the Michigan design was to be planted by Lieutenant Commander Homer Clark Poundstone, USN, who would over the course of the following year, become the main voice for the USN ‘all-big-gun design’. During December 1902 Poundstone presented a paper he had written, to President Roosevelt, in which he put forward a proposal for a larger battleship. He argued for the replacement of the navies popular mixed 8 and 12-inch gunned ships, replacing them with the 9 and 11-inch gun. Roosevelt liked Poundstone’s ideas and praised them, but he also felt that getting such a radical concept pass Congress would be close to impossible.

In the March and June 1903 editions of the ‘Proceedings ‘ magazine, Poundstone publicly proposing the idea for an “all-big-gun-ship,” comprised of twelve 11-inch (279 mm) guns mounted onto a 19,330 long tons (19,640 t) hull, which he had come to favour over the design he had presented to the President. The 11-inch gun battleship he named as the ‘USS Possible’.

During 1903, Poundstone’s designs began to gain the attention of the American naval authorities. In the same time as Proceedings published Poundstone’s second article, the Naval Constructor, Washington Irving Chambers, submitted a design, that appears to have grown from the seeds of Poundstone ideas. Chambers design was sent to the Naval War College, where given that he was a trained naval architect working for the Navy, it was given serious consideration.

The navy was able to place any designs put before it for consideration with the Naval War College’s, where war games could be held to evaluate the designs if deemed  worthy of it. That years Colleges War Games were conducted during the summer at the college’s Newport conference. The games concluded that a “All-big-gun-ship” ship armed with either twelve 11- or 12-inch guns (eight to the broadside) would be the equal of any three conventional battleships. The conference declared its favour for new “All-big-gun-ship” ship, and proposed that such a ship should in fact be designed.

THE FAR EAST

Six thousand seven hundred and seventy one miles west of Washington D.C, minds in Japan turned their attention to the shape of their navies next generation of battleships. As 1903 passed by and Anglo, American minds contemplated their new battleship designs, Japan drew closer to a war with the Czar’s Imperial Russia. On the eve of launching its war, the Imperial Japaneses Navy (IJN) concluded there was a need for a modern and more powerful Japanese fleet, in order for them to assert their undisputed control over the China Seas. The year 1903 was to see the IJN conduct a series of training exercises, which served to demonstrated what Fisher and Poundstone had both already concluded. The Japanese too realized the impossibility of distinguishing between the splashes of a 10-inch and 12-inch shells, at a long range. The navy’s ‘traditionalists’ continued to preach for closer action, in the Nelson tradition. But the modern minds foresaw, that surface battles could only be fought at ever-greater ranges, that the modern guns and that optics had brought to the worlds navies. The IJN finally instructed its designers to draft plans for a battleship carrying only one calibre of weapon, the 12-inch gun. A “Pre-design” concept of the light armoured battleship was proposed by the end of 1903.

The ‘pre-Satsuma’ ship had a 17,000 displacement, with waterline length of 450′ (429′ pp), a beam of 80′ and a draught drawing 27’10”. Her engines were to have given an 18 knot speed. Her armament comprised eight 12-inch, sixteen 4-inch, four 4.7-inch and four underwater 18-inch torpedo tubes.

Initially, the Japanese shipbuilding engineer Kaneda Wasaburo was a supporter of the “all-big-gun” concept. But he came to realize that at the current period, Japanese industry could not implement such a revolutionary project and the plans were sent for revision.

The revision process yielded a class comprised of two ships, and these were to be authorized under the ‘Russo-Japanese War Emergency program’, and while they were to be built in the Japanese yards, considerable material would need to be imported from the British and American manufacturers (in fact over 60% of the total materials). Amongst these imports ordered were the centre piece of the design, the 12-inch guns. The first draft design had called for eight 12-inch guns mounted into four twin turrets and arranged in pairs fore-and-aft. But that only served to restrict the fire forward and aft of turret numbers ‘2’ and ‘3’, as ‘1’ and ‘4’ would block their forward or aft fire. The design bore a similarity to the Royal Navy’s Lord Nelson class, and its not impossible that the Japanese designers were shown the Nelson’s’ plans, as the British we’re giving assistance in the design process. The Japanese design incorporated the centre turret that had been removed from the Lord Nelsons on cost restrictions.

The IJN thought process had seen the merging of the battleship with the armored cruiser, and this concept was reflected within the design. The vessels had belt armour of a mere seven inches, the same as the armored cruiser Tsukuba, which was then under design as part of the same program. Tsukuba was equally a hybrid design, with a battleship’s main armament (four 12-inch guns) combined with a cruiser’s speed and protection. But the two new battleships needed a superior level of protection to that of an armored cruiser, and the Navy duly rejected the design.

With the deadlines drawing ever closer the designers finally drafted a ship based on an enlarged version of the Tsukuba, but with a battleships level of armament and combined with an improved armour scheme. In her profile she looked very much like a cruiser, with a flush deck, and she would have carried a dozen 12-inch guns, with twin turrets four and aft and in each “wing” position, and single turrets at the “corners.” (The turret configuration was identical to the future Nassau, but with the addition of a port and starboard pair of turrets mounted to the centre points). The design fired a broadside of eight 12-inch and three 12-inch forward and aft. The navy accepted the design and finally placed the orders in 1904, making Japan the first nation to place an order a ‘All-big-gun’ battleship.

ITALIAN FLAIR

In October 1903 while Japan was defining it’s “All Big Gun” design, and Fisher was settling into the role of Second Sea Lord, an Italian naval architect name Vittorio Cuniberti, was to propose in print, the concept of an ‘all-big-gun-battleship’. His article, entitled “An Ideal Battleship for the British Navy”, was published in Jane’s Fighting Ships 1903, and is widely held to be the first public outing of the concept. But as we have seen, the Americans had published 4 months earlier, and both publications were not for the public, but very much specialist. So both catered for the same readership.

The ship Cuniberti’s article proposed was named as “Colossus”. The core of his piece was for the ship to carry only one calibre of gun, the biggest available at the time, the 12 inch (305 mm). His ship would in addition be fast at 24 knots, allowing her to the luxury of selecting the point of attack. He argued in favor of a ship with twelve 12-inch guns mounted on to a slightly larger displacement than was usual at the time, 17,000 tons, as he believed the higher weight would allow for 12 inches of armour and machinery capable of propelling the ship at 24 knots to be installed.

 

Cuniberti believed that his ship would able to fire one broadside of such weight, that she would simply overwhelm each of her enemies ship’s in rapid succession, finally destroying their entire fleet. He argued that a squadron of “Colossus’s” would give a fleet such an overwhelming advantage it would be the ultimate deterrent.

There would only naturally be a price tag for building such a ship and part of Cuniberti’s argument was that “”Colossus” ” would be of such a financial outlay that only the “navy at the same time most potent and very rich” could afford them.

Cuniberti offered his design to the Italian government, but they declined it, giving budgetary reasons, but did grant him permission to write the article for the Jane’s Fighting Ships. The publication of Cuniberti’s ” ideal battleship” has as I have said, a place in folk law that it mark beginning of the ‘All-big-gun’ concept. But its true place within our tale is in making the thought process more widely available, as by time the ink had dried, Great Britain, Japan and the USA were all further down the path than merely reading an article. Poundstone on having read through Cuniberti’s piece, used it to illustrate of the popularity for this new concept within the Europeans navies, in order to “scare-monger” the USA to invest in the all-big-gun design.

 

USA POLITICS AND WAR GAMERS .

As the year of publications drew to it close, Poundstone’s designs finally began to generate attention from within America’s naval authorities. After being ‘tweaked’ by Washington Irving Chambers, Poundstone’s ideas were placed before the Naval War College, where in the war games held during the 1903 Newport Conference, it was put to the test. The results showed that a battleship lacking a secondary batteries of 7 or 8-inch armament, but armed with lone twelve 11 or 12-inch guns, would be able to deliver a broadside of such strength, that it would equated to three of the battleships currently in service. The group of ‘experts’ who competed in the War Games gave the following reasons for their finding’s as the effective gun range when related to the maximum length of an enemy’s torpedo range. At this time, the torpedo had an average range of 3,000 yards (2,700 m), a distance over which the 7 and 8-inch guns then in use aboard the USN ships, would be unable to penetrate the armour of the enemies battleships. To make matters worse, it was conceivable that, with the 4,000 yard (3,700m) torpedo under development, the gun ranges would need to be further increased, making the intermediate gun calibers even more obsolete. But the War game ‘experts’ concluded that a main battery of 11 or 12-inch guns would be able to penetrate the armour and yet still retain sufficient explosive power to severely damage the enemies battleship interior. In addition they concluded that adding a large number of 3-inch (76 mm) to the ship, she would have a strong defense against the torpedo-carrying unarmored destroyers.

 

With the war games conclusions having been accepted, the General Board issued a formal request in October 1903 to the Bureau of Construction and Repair, asking that it draw-up a feasibility study for a battleship, based on the gaming conclusions. They were asked to consider a battleship armed with only one heavy caliber of twelve guns, the12-inch, and as many 3-inch (anti-torpedo-boat) guns as feasible. This design was to be the genesis of the Michigan design. But despite the request, by the 26th January 1904 little progress on the project had been made, and it had stagnated. But the lack of movement by Bureau of Construction and Repair allowed the General Board luxury of requesting a fresh design that was to move away from the one caliber design. Instead they now sought a ship carrying four 12-inch guns, eight 10-inch or even larger guns, but with no intermediate armament beyond that of 3-inch anti-destroyer guns. The change as a growing concern amongst the naval authorities, that an ‘all-big-gun’ ship would be unable to physically and safely carry such a heavy armament. But the Bureau of Construction and Repair remained all but free of movement on the amended request until September. Then finally they began the planning of a ship with four 12-inch guns in dual turrets along with eight dual 10-inch or four single 12-inch guns.

 

While Bureau of Construction and Repair undertook its planning, (or not), in England Admiral ‘Jackie’ Fisher had early in 1904 created an unofficial committee of advisors to help him in deciding on the shape his “HMS Untakeable” designs would take. He was fully aware of both the Japanese and US interest within the ‘All-big-gun’ concepts, and that time was of a premium. While Fisher and his committee pondered over the final form “HMS Untakeable” should adopt, the 1904 Newport Conference, at the Naval War College was examining three battleship designs:

1: The design originating from the 1903 conference.

2: A new Bureau of Construction and Repair design from September.

3: The most recent battleships then under construction, the Connecticut class.

But once more the conference’s war games demonstrated that 7″, 8″ and 10-inch batteries guns would be of little use, even if impacting on an armoured belt at the ideal angle of 90°. At that angle they would fail to penetrate anything above 12-inches of Krupp armour. The question of speed was also closely examined, and it was shown that if given a 3 knot advantage over an enemy fleet, it would be of no consequence in the final result of almost every conceivable naval battle. The slower ships would remain within range by simply turning on a tighter course. (Authors note: I accept the tighter course idea, but question first with a 3 knot disadvantage as to how they would close the range to begin with?).

At both the 1903 and 1904 conferences it was to be recognized that the current torpedo range of 3,000 yards, an 8-inch gun projectile would unable to penetrate the average battleship’s medium armour. Even using a 10-inch gun, it would most likely still not be possible to penetrate the thickest battleship armor. The 1904 conclusions were that it was more than likely that only a 12-inch gun would be able to do the job. The forecasted increase in the range of the next generation of torpedoes out to 7,000 to 8,000 yards, only served in its support of the 12-inch argument.

But while elements within the navy continued to resist the ‘modern’ thinking during the middle-to-late of 1904, Poundstone was never to pause in his lobbying of the General Board. The Bureau of Construction and Repair continued to argue that the final victor in a naval battle would be the light guns, and that a large uniform battery was just not practical.

The original plans had called for heavy wing turrets, which would put a significant amount of strain onto the hull, as well as requiring large holes cut into the ship’s upper strength member, the decks, for the wing barrettes, the cylindrical towers atop which turrets rotated. Also in an effort to reduce the costs of such a ship, the normal displacement was limited by Congress to 16,000 tonnes. With the weight added by the superimposed guns increasing the freeboard by 10 feet,or one deck, weight need saving elsewhere. Even with the loss of the secondary battery from the design, the weight saved was still not sufficient, and the hull was redesigned with the stern deck set at a lower level, having originally been flush. During this period tests into the feasibility of using turbines had been made, but they were not to be satisfactorily completed in time. As a result when the final design of the Michigan class was projected, turbines were still not an available option, forcing the use of reciprocating engines on the two ships.As a side note, Dreadnought was slightly cheaper to maintain than the Lord Nelson class due to not needing to carry and maintain two different calibers of shells, a saving the Michigan must have experienced to?

FROM ORDERS TO KEELS.

In the far east during 1904, Japan’s Chief Inspector of Shipbuilding, Kondo Motoki, was to approve the newly revised version of the 1903 project. The new ship’s displacement had been increased to 19,000 tons, and the armament was to now comprise of twelve 12-inch (305-mm) guns for the main caliber and the same number of 4.7-inch (120-mm), anti-torpedo boat guns. In May 1904 the necessary funds were allocated for the construction of the ships, and in December the order for the construction of the “super-battleships” by the naval shipyard in Yokosuka was placed. But because of the yards busy war time schedule of repair work, the first of the two craft, the Satsuma’s keel was placed on hold until a slip became available.

On the 21st October 1904 Fisher was promoted to the rank of First Sea Lord, and he brought with him his designs for ‘HMS Untakeable(3)’.

	‘HMS Untakeable (2)’	‘HMS Untakeable (3)’	‘HMS Untakeable (4)’
Displacement	16,000		17,000
Length	500 ft		555 ft
Beam	80 ft		80 ft
Draught	25 ft		24 ft 6″
I.H.P	30,000		32,000
Speed	21 kts		21 kts
Armament	8×12″(4 turrets)		12 ×12″ (6 turrets)
ARMOUR
Turrets & barbettes	10″	12″	barrettes:10″, 8″, 2½” roof
			Turrets:12″ shield, 10″ sides, 2½” roof
Water line belt (citadel)	9″	12″	10″
Water-line belt (fore & aft)	2in fore & aft
Upper Belt	7″ abreast machinery spaces and 10-inch abreast magazines	9″ abreast citadel	8″abreast citadel
Citadel	12-inch
Communication tube	6-inch
Transverse Bulkheads	7-inch	9-inch	10-inch
Anti-Torpedo Bulkhead	2-inch level with magazines
Main Deck	2-inch over citadel, 1.5in forward
Turtle Deck	1-inch from bow to after barbette, 2-inch aft		2½in
Main deck			1in, 1½in
Middle deck			1in, 2in

 

‘HMS Untakeable (3)’ was the version that he intended to be the final design, from which the actual ship would be crafted. But his friend for the Mediterranean days, Gard, brought pressure for a forth design, ‘Untakeable (4)’. The reason for the change are unknown to us today, but there were rumours of the USN being in the process of designing its own one calibre battleship, armed equally with twelve 12-inch. On the 17th August 1904, the Daily Mail newspaper reported that the Bureau of Construction had plans for a ship mounting guns of a “greater calibre than 10in”. The clipping of this article is still preserved in ‘Dreadnoughts’ ships file. Gard almost certainly read the piece, and was to respond with a design whose fire power wasn’t to be surpassed by a Royal Navy design, until the ‘King George V’ Class of super-dreadnoughts of 1910.

Gard’s new design was to be the ‘Untakeable 4’. She was to be fitted with triple groups of twin, super-firing turrets, giving her a broadside of 18 shells totalling 15,300lbs (850×18), and was a significant improvement over her predecessors. Once more, given her dimensions and displacement she would have been capable of 23 knots.

As Gard crafted ‘Untakeable 4’ and the Americans became entangle in politics, on the 8th December 1904 on receipt of a report from the German naval attache in London, detailing the Vickers ‘all-big-gun’ design, the Kaiser was to write “in my opinion this is the battleship of the future”. But the Imperial Navy was to pursue the concept no further, until the Dreadnought was revealed.

While designs were debated, the USN undertook a series of firing exercise during 1904 to demonstrated the effectiveness of long range gunnery. The exercises illustrated that long-range gunnery was only really effective if the salvoes splashes could be seen from a high observation post. These conclusions would in the following twelve months see the creation of the iconic American cage masts.

With the arrival of 1905 the three navies of Britain, the USA and Japan, had each travelled separate paths, but come to the same conclusion as to the validity of the “All Big Gun” ship. Both Fisher and the Admiralty now recognized that if they didn’t build the first ship, then other nations would and the British supremacy at sea would be threatened, if not lost.

During January 1905, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Selborne, formed a ‘Committee on Designs’, which included members of Fisher’s former unofficial committee. The new and official committee was tasked with examining the designs that had been proposed, and then to assist in the details of the design progress. Fisher was responsible for the appointment of all the committee members and was himself President of the Committee. The committee also was to include the recently appointed Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy, Captain Henry Jackson. In addition, in February 1905, the future C-in-C of the Grand Fleet, John Rushworth Jellicoe, prior to his appointment as Director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes a month later, was appointed. Another committee member was (the then) Captain Charles Edward Madden, who in 1907 would serve as Captain to the Dreadnought, before going onto rise to be C-in-C of the Atlantic Fleet in 1919. Whilst ‘supposedly’ independent, the ‘Committee on Designs’ served to deflect any criticism from both Fisher and the Board of the Admiralty, as it could only consider the options already placed before it.

Fisher was to never deny that the introduction of ‘Untakeable’ would temporarily reduce the British lead in battleship numbers to just one ship, but he was firm in his belief that one ‘Untakeable’ equated to two and a half of the existing battleship. Fisher pushed for ‘end-on-fire’, a fast speed and armour. He was in addition a supporter of the 10-inch weapons with its faster rate of fire, but his officers championed for the 12-inch weapon.

The Committee now turned it’s attention to design ‘E’ which was powered by reciprocating engines , and bore two groups of super-firing 12- inch armed turrets. The committee in turn progressed on to design ‘G’ which like wise was equipped with reciprocating engines. Her weaponry was twelve 12-inch located into twin turrets, two on the centre fore and aft, plus two on the beam. Design ‘H’ brought turbines, 5 twin 12-inch turrets. Three turrets fired aft on centre line, forward and two on the beams.

On the 18th January 1905 the committee was to finally decide on the format of the main armament, rejecting the super-firing arrangement, due to concerns about the effects of muzzle blast, on the open sighting hoods located on the turret roof below. They choose the turbine propulsion over reciprocating engines in an effort to save 1,100 long tons within the ships total displacement. Before being disbanded, a number of other issues were decided upon by the committee. These included the number of shafts (up to six having been considered), the calibre and quantity of the anti-torpedo boat armament, as well as adding longitudinal bulkheads to protect the magazines and shell rooms from any underwater explosions. This last decision was considered necessary after the Russian battleship Tsesarevich was believed to only have survived a Japanese torpedo hit during the Russo-Japanese War because of her heavy internal bulkhead. To avoid any increase in the displacement of the ship, the thickness of her waterline belt was reduced by 1 inch (25 mm).

The Committee finally completed its work on 22 February 1905 and reported on their conclusions the following month. It was also decided, given the radical nature of the design, to place no orders for a second ship, until the first ship had completed her trials and she could be evaluated. With the design agreed upon, the hull shape was tested at the Admiralty’s experimental ship tank at Gosport, where seven amendments to the final hull form were made. With the design finally complete, a team comprising of three assistant engineers and thirteen draughtsman worked on producing the detailed drawings. To speed up the build time, the hulls internal structure was simplified as much as was possible, and an attempt was made to standardize on a number of plate shapes, that would only vary then in their thickness.

With Fishers committee having reported on its conclusions, the Gosport tests in progress and the Japanese awaiting a free slipway, on the 3rd March 1905, Congress finally passed a bill that was to authorize the Navy to begin the construction of two new ‘all-big-gun’ battleships. These were to bear the names Michigan and South Carolina.

The US Congress had always been, understandably, an important factor in the US navies building programmes. Between the late 1890s and up to around 1902 the tonnage size of US. battleships had risen steadily from 12,500 to circa 16,000 tons. As the tonnage grew, Congress had tried to retain some control of the size and ultimately the cost of the USN new ships. By the spring of 1903 a compromise had been reached, and Congress authorizing the construction of two small battleships (the 13,000-ton Idaho class) and three 16,000 ton ships. Congress limited the speed to 16 knots and the tonnage 16,000 long tons, the same weight as the mixed-battery Connecticut class of two years prior. Congress’s attempts to enforce limitations on the navy was met with a mixed reception from the naval designers. The retired Admiral of the Navy, George Dewey, and others, thought the limit should have been set at the minimum standard of foreign battleships, or around 18,000 long tons. Other designers felt that by adding a significant amount of speed and or firepower, something an increase in tonnage would bring, it would merely enlarge the targets profile. One of the shortcuts was to re-use the 12-inch (305 mm)/45 caliber Mark 5 gun already found on the Connecticut and Mississippi classes. Although of a proven design they lacked range compared to their British equivalents.

 

COMPARISON OF US & BRITISH GUNS.
	Connecticut	Dreadnought
Model	12″/40 caliber Mark 3 and Mark 4	12″/45 (30.5 cm) Mark X
Introduced	1902	1906
Range	19,000 yds	25,000 yds
Rds per min	2	1.5
Shell	870lbs	850lbs
Penetration	12,000 at 9.4″	10000 at 10.6″

 

In April 1905, Capp’s was to produce design number ’19’ (Scheme S), one in a series of all-big-gun battleships. The super-firing concept seems to have originated from around this period too, which after the British had a considered and dismissed the format. The American interest was generated when Capp’s asked if the Bureau of Engineering could shrink the machinery spaces, in order to give him more centerline space for the main battery.

It was the French who introduced the first ship with super-firing artillery, but not of the same caliber, (10.8 and 5.46-inch), to their battleship Henri IV, launched in 1899. But it was to be Capp’s who proposed the concept be adopted within the USN. He instituted the idea of eight 12-inch guns mounted on the centerline into four turrets, with two of the turrets raised above the adjoining turret and to be able to fire directly over them.

At this period turrets were aimed locally through ‘hoods’ mounted on their roofs. The concept of super-firing turrets was fairly obviously not suited, as firing along the ship’s centerline, the guns blasts would seriously interfering with and damage the lower turrets, as well as the gunners there in. But Capp’s argument was that a fleet would normally steam in a line-ahead formation, with its ships firing broadsides. As a result the danger of blast damage would be insignificant and instead the exchange would be decided by the number of guns on the broadside. He suggested that economically it was far better to mount all the ships main guns along the centerline, with two of the four turrets higher than the others. At the same period, the Bureau of Ordnance redesigned the navies gun sights, relocating them instead from the turret roof hoods to the turrets’ sides. The Michigan would be the first battleships to feature this solution. It was to only be a few years before the worlds other navies chose the same super-firing arrangement, though sighting hoods were retained for a number of years in many navies.

After nearly six months of waiting, on the 15th May 1905 the Japanese laid the keel of the IJN Satsuma, making Japan the first nation to lay a keel for the new generation of ‘all-big-gun’ ships down. Two weeks after work had commenced on the new battleship, the deliberations over the merit of the ‘all-big-gun’ ship were finally confirmed when Japan won the Battle of Tsushima. The battle demonstrated that any real damage to the Russian fleet had been inflicted by the large calibre guns of the Japanese fleet.

Captain William Pakenham, a Royal Navy observer at the battle of Tsushima was to write, “12-inch gunfire’ by both sides demonstrated hitting power and accuracy, whilst 10-inch shells passed unnoticed”. Both the Battles of the Yellow Sea and of Tsushima were to be analysed by the three Admiralties. Fisher expected his board to both refine, implement and confirm his ideas for a battleship, with the speed of 21 knots and 12-inch guns. He felt that at the Battle of Tsushima, Admiral Togo had only been able to cross the Russians ‘T’ due to his superior speed. The long range (14,000 yd)13,000 metres)) of the shell fire during the Battle of the Yellow Sea only served to confirm what the Fisher cliche already believed.

The month of Tsushima, was the month that the Royal Navy in an effort to achieve Fisher’s goal of building the ship in a single year, commenced stockpiling materials in advance of the keel even being laid down. With pieces of the huge construction ready and in storage before the keel was even laid down, her construction could then be only greatly accelerated.

After five months of pre-construciton work, and 141 days after the Satsuma’s keel had been laid, on the 2nd October 1905, work was laid commenced on slip No 5 at H.M Dockyard Portsmouth. The dockyard at the time had a reputation as the fastest ship building yard in the world, and was the one most likely to achieve Fisher’s 12 month goal. As the keel was laid down, already approximately six thousand man weeks-of-work had been put into the construction project. As work commenced on the hull, the slip was screened from prying eyes and rumours were circulated that the design was in fact no different from that of any than other battleships.

With the job underway on the concealed slipway in Portsmouth, already £12,217 (£1,363,180 @ 2016) had been spent on labour, £29,078 (£3,244,542 @ 2016) had been spent on materiel. In addition 1,100 men were already employed in her construction, but that number was to rapidly increased to a final total of 3,000. On previous projects the shipyard workers had worked to a 48-hour week, but with the Dreadnought the working week was increased to a 69-hours, (11.5 hrs per day) over six day week. Work started at 06.00 and ran to 18.00, which included compulsory overtime, and with only a thirty minute break for lunch, (the maths dictates there was a “coffee” & “tea” break too). Double shifting was even considered in an effort to ease the long hours which were, not unsurprisingly, unpopular with the work force, but labour shortages made this impossible.

By Day 6 (7th October) the first of the bulkheads and most of the middle deck beams were already in place. By Day 20 the forward part of the bow was in position and the hull plating was well underway. By Day 55 all of the upper deck beams were in place and by day 83 the upper deck plates were in position. Day 125 (4 February) saw the hull finished.

HMS DREADNOUGHT

On the 10th February 1906, 132 days after her keel had been laid, Fisher’s ‘Untakeable ‘ was christened HMS Dreadnought, with a bottle of Australian wine by King Edward VII. The bottle took a number of attempts before it shattered on the ships bow. Given the importance of the ship, the launch had been planned as a large elaborate festive event, but the court was still in mourning for Queen Alexandra’s father, who had died twelve days before. The Queen was not to attend and a more sober event took place.

After a series of delays forced on to the project by wartime demands, and the Tsukubaz {5} having finally been launched from her slipway in Kure on the 22nd December 1905, Japans second “All-big-gun” ship, the Aki, was laid down on the 15th March 1906.

While Britain’s HMS Dreadnought was busy fitting out, and the Satsuma was being brought closer to her launch date, in the USA Capp’s had finally, by June 1906 completed the design work on his project.

Captain Reginald H. S. Bacon assumed command of the near completed HMS Dreadnought on the 2nd July 1906 and eighteen days, later on the 20th July, the USN finally placed the contracts for their two ‘all-big-gun’ ships. The USS Michigan contract was issued on the 20th July to the William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company (also known as William Cramp & Sons Ship & Engine Building Company) of Philadelphia and the USS Michigan contact went the following day to the New York Shipbuilding Corporation.

As the ink on the USN’s two contracts dried, the Dreadnoughts fitting out was underway at No 15 dock, to where she had been towed, after her launch. Steam was raised for the first time in her boilers on the 1st October 1906, and two days later she went out to sea, for two days of trials off Devonport, only a year and a day after her keel being laid down.

Six days later on the 9 October she undertook an eight hour full power contractors trial off Polperro on the east Cornwall Coast, during which she was to average between 20.05 and 21.6 knots on the measured mile. She then returned to Portsmouth for her gun and torpedo trials, before undertaking her final fitting out, (she had officially’ been completed in October 1906). On the 11th December 1906 she was commissioned into the fleet, only fifteen months after being laid down.

The rest of her trails were to proceed well. On her first run she made 17.72 knots over a ‘distance in turning’ of 359 yards, in a ‘turn time’ over 4 points’ of 36.0 seconds.

Run number two was at 14.8 knots, over 268 yards and the 4 points were accomplished in 25.0 seconds.

The third run was at 10.9 knots, over 156 yards at a similar turn of 27.5 seconds.

Turn number 4 was at 9.02 knots, at a distance of 165 yards, turning at    32.7 seconds.

The fifth turn was 8.9 knots, over 175 yards, with the four points at 34.8 seconds.

The final sixth turn was at 7.71 knots, over 169 yards and at a time of 39.0 seconds.

As the Dreadnought concluded her trials in the English channel, a hundred and fifty one days since the contract had been awarded, on the 17th December 1906, the Michigan’s (BB27) keel was laid down on 17 December 1906, one day before the Michigan’s (BB26). The contracts had set the price for the construction of each hull and machinery at $3,585,000.00, of which $2,660,000.00 was allotted to hull and $925,000.00 for the propelling and auxiliary machinery. It also stipulated she was to achieve an average speed of 18.50 knots in the open sea over for four consecutive hours, at a mean draught of 24 feet 6 inches, corresponding to a displacement of 16,000 tons; and twenty-four-hour endurance and coal-consumption trials under the same conditions at 17 knots and 12 knots speed.

NOT ENOUGH 12-INCH GUNS IN ENGLAND.

Japan as their first ‘all-big-gun’ ships slowly grew to it’s  full grandeur on the two slipways, the Navy and its designers started making ‘improvements’ on the plans. The Navy warmed to the idea of using test-turbine propulsion in a large warship, and ordered a set from Curtiss in the United States. In addition the design team increased the ships secondary armament from the twelve 4.7-inch guns in Satsuma to eight 6-inch guns for the Aki. The turbine change with the Aki’s machinery brought her three funnels as opposed to her sister’s two.

On the 15th May 1906 the Emperor Meiji, in company with the navy minister and other officials were present at the launch of the worlds first All-Big-Gun keel. On her launch the Satsuma had the then largest displacement in world. On the 11th June 1905 the Japanese Navy announced the name of the name of “No. 2 Battleship” as “Satsuma”

Japan was not yet in a position to produce her own heavy guns, and had turned to her new European ally, Great Britain, in particular Vickers Sons & Company in the North of England, to supply the 12-inch guns for the two new battleships.

During the previous decade, a typical British class of four battleships would have required an order for sixteen 12-inch guns. But the Dreadnought alone required 10 of these monster, which was equal to the demand by two and half pre-dreadnought battleship guns, but used on one hull. In addition the new battle cruiser concept also required 12-inch guns. The armored cruisers that preceded the new battle cruisers had mounted no such big guns, but each battle cruiser, required eight. Almost overnight the Royal Navy’s demand for 12″ guns increased by 300%, from 16 to 64. In addition Brazil had already placed orders for three battleships requiring another 36 big guns.

There were only two private firms manufacturing such heavy weaponry in Britain, Armstrong’s and Vickers. They had both jointly been scheming for the past few decades to win foreign contracts and they now used their duopoly to force prices up. It is also within the realms of possibility that Armstrong’s bore a grudge against the Japanese for building their new ships in their own yards, after a long run of orders from the firm’s shipbuilding division.

In 1905 following their victory over the Czar’s Russia, the IJN become the proud owner of five obsolete, high milage, one former owner, Russian battleships. As obsolete as they were, a sense of national pride required the ex-Russian ships to flaunt the Rising Sun in the Japanese sphere of interest, and to show how powerful the Japanese now were. The vessels needed both rebuilding and re-arming, all of which was expensive. An unforeseen expense following on the heels of an expensive war. Despite that, the government insisted they be given priority for their refits, so they could be shown to the world sooner than later. All planned battleship construction was duly put on hold.

All the ex-Russian ships required a new main armament, totalling twenty 12-inch guns. The Japanese had found modern war disastrously  expensive and now faced financial chaos. The Americans demanded cash up front for the turbine machinery and the Japanese could not afford forty-four 12-inch guns of which 24 were for their two new “All-big-gun” ships and 20 more for the Russian prizes.

But Armstrong’s duly offered a compromise. The firm had manufactured a large number of 10-inch guns on the basis of an order from Brazil for three small battleships, each carrying a dozen of the weapons. On his promotion to First Lord of the Admiralty Fisher believed that his support for the 10-inch gun’s rapid fire would induce its adoption in the new generation of battleships. But nothing had worked out quite as Armstrong’s had forecast. They were now left with a large number of these 10-inch guns but with no customers, and duly offered them to the Japanese at a bargain price.

Unhappily with political and financial restraints, the IJN had little choice but to accept and assigned the 12-inch guns they had manage to buy to the ex-Russian ships. They were forced to re-cast the design of Satsuma and Aki around the bargain priced 10-inch guns. With that decision Japan dropped out from the all-big-gun race. The Satsuma was to commission on the 25th March 1910 and of the three prototype keel she was laid down first and to be commissioned last.

In December 1905, following the 1904 firing exercises, the Board on Fire Control suggested a spotting platform to be located high up in the ships mast. It also proposed the original idea of a lattice mast. They figured that it would remain stable, even in the event of shells striking it and severing some of its supports. They even believed that some shells would pass through the cages lattice work and not detonate!

It’s plausible that the cage, or latticed mast was inspired on news of the early British progress in long-range gunnery. The US Bureau of Ordnance would have preferred a light weight bridge set below the funnel tops, so it would remain smoke-free. But the supporters of long-range fire remain claimed that the higher the spotters, the longer the effective range-which be, bring superiority to an exchange of fire. Capp’s does not seem to have had much interest in this issue. He merely wanted the traditional pole masts set far enough from the ship’s bridge so that if a shell burst against them, the fragments or the mast failings and toppling would not destroy the conning tower. Capp’s’ solution was to arrange his two masts set off the centerline, diagonal to each other.

The Bureau of Navigation, pushed for the lattice masts on the ships, in opposition to both the C&R and the Bureau of Ordnance, in an effort to save weight. The Secretary of the Navy was to make the final ruling, approving high cage masts after an Atlantic Fleet battle practice had demonstrated the functionality of the structures. The Michigan’s were to be completed with Capp’s’ masts cut down to king posts for the boat cranes, and centerline cage masts installed. Once more the Michigan design was altered and these were to be the first battleships completed with what would became a trademark of US. dreadnought design.

In March 1907, with her ships finally under construction, the USN undertook a series of experiments to test the practicality of the planned super-firing turrets. The monitor USS Florida (1898) was modified with one of her 12″ (30.5 cm) guns being re-located into the forward superstructure, to allow it to fire over her lone turret. The turret had been refitted to represent the design for the South Carolina, but with the exception of the gun sights mounted slightly further aft, to be closer to the muzzle of the superstructure gun. The tests commenced on the 6th March 1907, concluding with full charge firing on the 15th. It was concluded that they were a complete successful with the official report claiming that “the shock felt was trifling, and the officer at the sight felt no jar, nor was his vision of the horizon interrupted otherwise than by the smoke of the discharge.” The only design change that was made was to the turrets installed on subsequent ships, giving them a slight thicker turret roof.

In the five months since theirs keel had been laid down, work had continued uninterrupted, then finally on the 26th May the USS Michigan was christened by Carol Newberry, the daughter of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Truman Handy Newberry. As the hull slid down into the water she was slightly more than half complete. The launch was promoted as “epoch-making”, and the occasion was to draw many prominent individuals, including the governor and lieutenant-governor of Michigan, the governor of New Jersey, the mayor of Detroit, and the secretary of the Interior Department, along with many naval admirals and constructors. The South Carolinas turn to be dispatched into the water came on the 1st July 1908, and Frederica Ansel, the daughter of the governor of the state of Michigan, Martin Ansel, christened the ship. Like her sister, Michigan was just over halfway completed when she was launched.

Michigan’s fitting-out work was finally completed by the end of February 1910, and she was commissioned into the USN on the 1st March that year by Captain Augustus.F.Fechteler. She departed from Philadelphia the 6th March for her shakedown cruise.

The Michigan’s trials were conducted at the navy’s testing grounds off Rockland, Maine, commencing hers on the 9 June 1909. Although the ship completed her “standardization-run”, her other trials were disrupted when she ran aground on a sand bar. She was pulled off without incident, but it was quickly discovered that both propellers required repair, delaying the completion of the trials until 20 to 24 June. The new battleship was delivered to the Navy on the 1st September 1909, and was about three months in advance of the contract time. The Michigan’s final fitting out was completed by the 4 January 1910, when she was commissioned into the USN. Her shakedown cruise lasted until 7th June 1910. making in all a very exhaustive series of trials. These trials were all accomplished with success.

As the USN dreadnoughts came into service HMS Dreadnought under the command of her fifth Captain, had cruised to the Mediterranean, Caribbean and was serving as the flagship of the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet. In the years leading up to the war, Fire-control technology developed at a rapid rate and the most important advancement were in the director firing system. This comprised of a fire-control director mounted high in the ship which provided data electrically to the turrets via pointers. The turret crew were trained to follow this inward flow of data. The director layer fired the guns simultaneously, which greatly helped in spotting the fall of the shells and also reduced the effects of the roll than if the guns fired independently and out of sync. A prototype was installed on board Dreadnought in 1909, but it was to be later removed in order to avoid conflict with her duties as flagship to the Home Fleet. The year 1910 would see her officers fall pray to humiliating Dreadnought Hoax, but that the story for another article.

By the close of 1910 the race for the first All-big-gun ship was over. But who built the best and who won?

 

WHICH WAS BEST?

 

So for their £1,785,683 HMS Dreadnought and the $3,585,000 (£2,673,245) USS Michigan what did they get?

TURBINES

The two vessels shared a number of similarities, but they both were to introduce a one new piece each to  the art of warship building unique to themselves. The Dreadnought was to be the first British battleship to make use of the steam turbines, in place of the more common reciprocating triple-expansion steam engines.

The turbine had been around since the last years of the nineteenth century. Prior to 1905 no large commercial ships had yet to use turbines, the first British cruiser (HMS Topaze, 1904) to use them had not yet even gone to sea and the first turbine powered destroyers were only four years old. The Dreadnought was to have two paired sets of Parsons direct-drive turbines, each of which was housed in a separate engine-room and powered a shaft each. As a result of her turbines she was to be two and a half knots faster than her rivals. They had been designed to produce a total of 23,000 shaft horsepower, but she was to exceed that, almost reaching 27,018 shp during her October 1906. Dreadnought had been designed for a speed of 21 knots, but they was surpassed to reach 21.6 knots on her trials.

The turbines were also to have an impact on the working conditions within the engine room, making them a far more pleasant and much less noisy place to work in. The turbines also lowered the hulls centre of gravity allowing for the heavier weapon weight to be carried on a higher freeboard. They were also to be more reliable, serving to reduce the cost on maintenance, and as a result the Dreadnought could spend more time, at sea. They brought faster cruising and less vibration to the ships performance. It should also be remembered both the US and Japan wanted to follow the same path with Turbines, but were prevented by ‘unforseen circumstances’.

While were in the area engines and speed, the ship was also to develope an early reputation for being an easy vessel to handle, compared to being almost like a destroyer. Her design even gave her good visibility, as if from the bridge of a destroyer!

What was to mark the Dreadnought from her US and Japanese rival designs was the decision to install turbines, instead of the traditional reciprocating engines, which resulted a higher speed, faster cruising and less vibration. It was to be these turbines that established Dreadnought as a revolutionary design. The Americans and the Japanese had not recognized their new type of ships as a fundamental break with the past. Dreadnought was a new design from keel plate to ships mast, but the Michigan was built onto the hull of a Connecticut-class battleship, and was a ‘pre-“All Big Gun”‘ ship with a rearranged armament.

SUPER-FIRING

 

If the Royal Navy brought the turbine to the “All Big Gun” table, the USN’S contribution was the super-firing turret.

With the acceptance of the all-big-gun battery mounted along the centerline gun, a significant amount of armour weight was saved. Traditional medium armour that was used to protect the casements, containing the 7-inch guns, was no longer required, and in addition the reduction from 8 to 4 turrets saved 50% off both the turret and its accompanying armour weight.

Rear Admiral Washington Capp’s had conceived a design that contained both a large calibre armament and combined it with a thick armour system, both built on or around that of a small hull. Capp’s with his belief of fleet rather than single-ship actions, felt that that while the wing turret, which was common with European designs was useful for putting out a maximum amount of broadside weight in any direction, they were less powerful when operating as part of a line of battle. Capp’s understood that the main reason for a battleships existence was to deliver the maximum shell weight possible with each fresh broadside. His adoption of the super-firing turrets placed them along the hulls centerline, consequently allowing for permitting a shorter hull, while retaining the more powerful broadside. A hull with all its main battery placed along the center of the ship would be able to deliver an equal amount of shell to port or starboard during a broadside. He felt the wing turret configuration brought more shortcomings, with their location on the left or right of a ship’s superstructure leading to smaller broadsides, and in addition the extra weight placed on the hulls sides led to “torsional stress” and “rolling inertia”.

He also believed that with the increased number of turrets, with their magazines would demand a greater amount of space within an already limited ships interior. Capp’s attempted in a number of ways to stay within the tonnage limit set by Congress. The ships machinery needed to be reduced in its size in order to permit it to fit within the space between the fore and aft magazines, both of which were larger than usual. The boiler rooms were moved further inboard in an effort to free up more space for the hulls torpedo protection. The biggest ‘handicap’ though was the ships propulsion units. They demanded a significant amount of the limited space available within the hull, resulting in the impracticability  of installing the machinery then in use, to deliver the same amount of power. Capp’s as a result proposed that the number of boilers be reduced by one-third in an effort to free up room, and its plausible that at this stage he may have considered the turbine propulsion system. But all the Bureau of Engineering could offer in response to his dilemma was the removal of the centre-line bulkhead to increase the available space. In the end, the restrictions of armament and armor meant that the Michigan’s top speed was lower than the Dreadnought and all future US battleships.

But once both ships were commissioned the differences in the turret arrangement were obvious. HMS Dreadnought had ten 12-inch with a full shell potential of 8,500 Ibs. But forward and aft that deminished to six guns firing 5,100 Ibs and on her broadside to eight guns firing a 6,800b broadside. The USS Michigan had eight 12-inch guns firing four forward and all eight on the broadside giving shell weights of 3,804 Ibs, 6,960 lbs respectively. Its’s worth remembering if you fired every 12″ gun the Dreadnought carried, you would despatch 8500lbs of shells in total, but 6,800lbs would go in one broadside direction and another 1,700lbs in a second wasted 180° opposite broadside. The Dreadnought did have a superior fire on her stern quarters (6 to 4), but that deminished to 4 to 4 on the bow quarters. The heavier US shell gave the Michigan a better broadside fire than Dreadnought, but we need to remember on which angle were battlefleets strove to fire. As with Togo crossing the “T” its broadside . Within a decade all battleships coming off the slips bore Capps superfiring configuration. Fisher had dabbled with it but he was a man who was a disciple of fore and aft fire. It was the Americans who were to adopt the superfiring configuration and Fisher’s successors  who copied them in the 1909 Orion class.

Once the shells were fired, at 10,000 yards Dreadnought would pierce 10.6-inches, and at 7,600 yards 12-inches of armour. Michigan would at 9000 yards penetrate 12.2-inches and at 6,000 yards 16.6-inches.

The Dreadnoughts guns might range 5000 yards or 2.8 miles further, but Michigan had both the superior gun configuration, heavier broadside and once on target burrow deeper into the targets armour.

MORE INOVATIONS

 

A couple of other firsts for the Michigan. She was the first US battleship to have a two-stage shell and powder hoists installed. Ammunition cars ferried carried both the shell and powder from the lower to the upper handling room, from where they were pushed by hand, through a flap-covered opening into the next ammunition cars, which in turn carried them up into the turrets and the guns.

The turrets training was by two 25-hp motors and each gun had a 15-hp motor fitted for its elevation. A 10-hp motor drove the chain rammer carried on an extension of the cradle. All the electric motors were fitted with manual powered hand drives to serve as a backup. Once in the upper handling room, the ammunition was transferred between hoists by a rammer powered by a 10-hp electric motor.

The hoists for the Michigan class were manufactured by the Washington Navy Yard and proved to be both reliable and functional. The Delaware class hoists were in turn produced by the Bethlehem Steel company and proved to be problematical, eventually being removed. An ad-hoc rope whip system was installed in their stead.

The Michigan was the first USN ship to be fitted with the new “hyposcope,” a gun sight which used a series of mirrors to remote the point of aim. This device was rigidly connected to the gun trunnions and set into the side of the turret. Previous gun sight designs had been located on the turret roof in hoods and were connected by a complicated system to the guns. This resulted in “lost motion” as the slack in the linkage connections meant that the gun sights were unable exactly follow the gun elevations exactly. At short ranges, this “lost motion” was not important, but as the range opened up, the accuracy became gradually worse. The hyposcope permitted range transmissions from any gun to the other guns on the ship allowing for a unified elevation, and the shell fall patterns became tighter.

Each gun in the turrets elevated separately, but each turret had a crewman single sight-setter in each who was responsible for setting the correct range for both the hydroscopes. A third sight installed for the gun mount trainer and this projected up through the turret roof. It has been suggested that these characteristic turret-side sights fitted onto USN turrets were in order to allow the new super-firing guns to shoot directly over the lower turrets, but this is most likely not so.

One last innovation introduced into the Dreadnought was officers quarters or their location. Traditionally within the Royal Navy, the Officers accommodation was located to the aft of the ship, but on the Dreadnought this tradition was reversed. The result was the officers being closer to their action stations, but this was to prove to be unpopular with them, not least due to the fact they were now nearer the noisy auxiliary machinery, but the turbines made the rear of the ship a much quieter place than it had been in previous classes. This arrangement was to remain as standard through the succeeding dreadnoughts designs, until the advent of the King George V class of 1910. Another improvement was the removal of the longitudinal passageways that ran between compartments below decks. The doors connecting compartments were always closed during battle to prevent the spread of fires and flooding.

Lieutenant Lionel Dawson would later recalled that he found Dreadnought in the time he served in her to be  “a very uncomfortable ship……The mess-decks were small and cramped, and, being aft, most inconvenient for the internal economy of the ship.

She was the first battleship in which the greater part of the officers’ quarters were forward. It was by no means an unqualified advantage. Cabins were small and distributed all over the ship, wherever room could be found for them. My first cabin was in one of the mess-decks aft, and a horrible place it was to live in. From it one had to walk half the length of the ship to the officers’ bathroom. My second was forward, all mixed up with the chain cables and a Diesel engine that provided an auxiliary supply light for the fore part of the ship when necessary, and whose vibrations made life in its vicinity very uncomfortable when it was running. There was a good wardroom forward,very light and airy, and on the upper deck; the Admiral’s quarters, on the deck below, were also good”.

TO CONCLUDE

So to conclude, which nation built, (in my opinion) the better “Dreadnought”. It’s an easy choice, if your looking for speed and handling it’s Dreadnought , and your seeking a conventional sea battle the Michigan .

A final thought; If the Japanese had completed the Satsuma as designed would all succeeding Battleships have been Satsuma ‘s and pre-Satsumas?

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NOTES

{1} Folger; Civil War officer, commander of the North Atlantic Squadron during the Spanish–American War in April 1898, commander of US Philippine squadron in 1899 during the Philippine–American War, Admiral……

{2} Alger: Capt. Philip R. Alger was a professor of mathematics at the United States Naval Academy and an expert on ordnance and the chemistry of explosives. According to his obituary, the morning after Maine was destroyed Alger “put up a bulletin at the Navy Department stating that the vessel had been blown up from an internal explosion. The act caused a commotion, and the notice was soon ordered down by Mr. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy.” The New York Times, 24 February 1912.

{3} Taylor :An ‘up-and-coming officer’ and the future head of the Bureau of Construction and Repair

{4} The IJN Tsukuba’s class was to be the worlds two most powerful cruisers, until the commissioning of HMS Invincible, the worlds first battle cruiser.