The Sailor
31-12-2007, 21:41
FEAR NOTHING
As Stan pointed out in my other thread about the "Live Bait Squadron", it was HMS Dreadnought that put an end to Otto Weddigen and U-9 by ramming it in March 1915.
The sixth HMS Dreadnought of the Royal Navy was a revolutionary battleship which entered service in 1906 and it's introduction helped spark off a major naval arms race as navies around the world rushed to match her, particularly the German navy in the build up to World War I.
Dreadnought was the first battleship of her era to have a uniform main battery, rather than having a few large guns complemented by a heavy secondary battery of somewhat smaller guns. She was also the first capital ship to be powered by steam turbines, making her the fastest battleship in the world at the time of her completion.
With a unique configeration of ten 12inch, she could fire an eight gun broadside.
Also the new design called for the main armament to be the same calibre of gun.
With multi calibre ship's guns, each calibre of gun had different ballistic properties, which greatly complicated gunnery, especially when watching for splashes. Either the smaller-caliber guns would have to hold fire to wait for the slower-firing heavies, losing the advantage of their faster rate of fire, or it would be uncertain whether a splash was due to a heavy or a light gun, making ranging and aiming unreliable.
The once-revolutionary warship was sold for scrapping by just 1922.
Enclosed is a pic of a fine model cleanly showing the artillery configeration. The old black and whites made it hard to see anything, even in this fine photo of the day.
As Stan pointed out in my other thread about the "Live Bait Squadron", it was HMS Dreadnought that put an end to Otto Weddigen and U-9 by ramming it in March 1915.
The sixth HMS Dreadnought of the Royal Navy was a revolutionary battleship which entered service in 1906 and it's introduction helped spark off a major naval arms race as navies around the world rushed to match her, particularly the German navy in the build up to World War I.
Dreadnought was the first battleship of her era to have a uniform main battery, rather than having a few large guns complemented by a heavy secondary battery of somewhat smaller guns. She was also the first capital ship to be powered by steam turbines, making her the fastest battleship in the world at the time of her completion.
With a unique configeration of ten 12inch, she could fire an eight gun broadside.
Also the new design called for the main armament to be the same calibre of gun.
With multi calibre ship's guns, each calibre of gun had different ballistic properties, which greatly complicated gunnery, especially when watching for splashes. Either the smaller-caliber guns would have to hold fire to wait for the slower-firing heavies, losing the advantage of their faster rate of fire, or it would be uncertain whether a splash was due to a heavy or a light gun, making ranging and aiming unreliable.
The once-revolutionary warship was sold for scrapping by just 1922.
Enclosed is a pic of a fine model cleanly showing the artillery configeration. The old black and whites made it hard to see anything, even in this fine photo of the day.