Battleship

A battleship is a large, heavily-armored warship with a main battery consisting of the largest caliber of guns. It is larger, better-armed and better-armored than cruisers and destroyers.

Battleships have evolved a great deal over time, as designs continually adapt technological advances to maintain an edge. The word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a shortened form of line of battle ship, the dominant warship in the Age of Sail.^[1] The term came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a developed type of ironclad warship,^[2] and by the 1890s design had become relatively standard on what is now known as the pre–Dreadnought battleship. In 1905 HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design, and for many years modern battleships were referred to as dreadnoughts.

More than a type of war vessel, battleships constituted a potent symbol of national might and naval domination.^[3] For decades, the numbers and abilities of battleships were a major factor in diplomacy and military strategy. The global arms race in battleship construction in the early 1900s was a significant factor in the origins of the First World War, which saw a clash of huge battlefleets at the Battle of Jutland. The construction of battleships was limited by the Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s, but battleships both old and new were deployed during World War II.

Despite this record, some historians and naval theorists question the value of the battleship. Aside from Jutland, there were few battleship clashes. And despite their great firepower and protection, battleships were vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper craft: initially the torpedo and mine, and later aircraft and the guided missile.^[4] The growing range of engagement led to the battleship's replacement as the leading type of warship by the aircraft carrier during World War II, being retained into the Cold War only by the United States Navy for fire support purposes. These last battleships were removed from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in March 2006.

The ship of the line

Main article: Ship of the line

The ship of the line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing warship mounting a battery of up to 120 smoothbore and carronade guns. The ship of the line was a gradual evolution of a basic design dating as far back as the 1400s, but its basic design changed little between the adoption of line of battle tactics in the early 17th century and the end of the sailing battleship's heyday in the 1830s. From 1794, the alternative term 'line of battle ship' was contracted (informally at first) to 'battle ship' or 'battleship'.^[1]

The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant that the sailing battleship could wreck any wooden vessel, smashing the hull and masts and killing the crew. However, the effective range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards, and sail tactics were dependent on the wind.

The first major change to the ship of the line concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. Steam power was gradually introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century. The French Navy brought the technology to maturity with the 90-gun Le Napoléon in 1850^[5] — the first true steam battleship.^[6] Napoleon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots, regardless of the wind conditions: a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement. In the end, France and the United Kingdom were the only two countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships, although several other navies made some use of a mixture of screw battleships and paddle-steamer frigates. These included Russia, Turkey, Sweden, Naples, Prussia, Denmark and Austria.^[3]

Ironclads

Main article: Ironclad warship

The adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad: powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells. The first Royal Navy ship to bear the formal designation 'battleship' was the ironclad HMS Warrior.^[7]

Explosive shells

Wooden hull ships stood up comparatively well to solid shot, as e.g. shown in the 1866 battle of Lissa, where the old Austrian steam battleship Kaiser ranged across a confused battlefield, rammed an Italian ironclad and took a pounding of several 300 pound shells at point blank range. Despite losing her bowsprit and her foremast, and being set on fire, she was ready for action the very next day.^[8] By contrast, guns which fired explosive shells were a major threat to wooden ships, and became more widespread following the invention of the Paixhans guns in 1841. In the Crimean War, the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed a flotilla of wooden Turkish ships at the Battle of Sinop in 1853. Later in the war French ironclad floating batteries used similar weapons against the defenses at Kinburn.^[9]

Iron armor and construction

The development of high-explosive shells made the use of iron armor plate on warships necessary. By the end of the 1850s, the potential of iron as a construction material for large ships had been proven by the mammoth SS Great Eastern. In 1859 France launched La Gloire, the first ocean-going ironclad warship. She was developed as a ship of the line, but cut to one deck due to weight considerations. Although made of wood and reliant on sail for most of her journeys, La Gloire was fitted with a propeller, and her wooden hull was protected by a layer of thick iron armor.^[10] Gloire prompted further innovation from the Royal Navy, anxious to prevent France from gaining a technological lead. The superior armored frigate Warrior followed La Gloire by only fourteen months, and both nations embarked on a programme of building new ironclads and converting existing screw ships of the line to armored frigate status.^[11] Within two years, Italy, Austria, Spain and Russia had all ordered ironclad warships, and by the time of the famous clash of the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia at the Battle of Hampton Roads at least eight navies possessed ironclad ships.^[3]

Ironclad design saw wide experimentation. Different navies experimented with the positioning of guns, in turrets (like the USS Monitor), centre-batteries or barbettes, or with the ram as the principal weapon. As steam technology developed, masts were gradually removed from battleship designs. By the mid-1870s steel was used as a construction material alongside iron and wood. The French Navy's Redoutable, laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876, was a central battery and barbette warship which became the first battleship in the world to use steel as the principal building material.^[13] Russia tried circular battleships, which turned out to be one of the most unusual, if not outright bad, battleship designs ever built: when the guns were fired the ship spun on its axis like a top.^[4]

The pre-dreadnought

Main article: Pre-dreadnought

By the late 19th century, designs had gradually settled down what has become known as the pre-dreadnought battleship. These were heavily armored ships, mounting a mixed battery of guns in turrets, and without sails. The typical first-class battleship of the pre-dreadnought era displaced 15,000 to 17,000 tons, had a speed of 16 knots, and an armament of four 12-inch guns in two turrets fore and aft with a mixed-calibre secondary battery in turrets amidships around the superstructure.^[2] However, it was not until the 1880s that similar designs were widespread,^[4] and the type was perfected in the 1890s with the adoption of steel construction and armor.

The 12-inch main guns were the principal weapons for battleship-to-battleship combat. They were very slow-firing. The intermediate and secondary batteries had two roles. Against major ships, it was thought a 'hail of fire' from quick-firing secondary weapons could distract enemy gun crews by inflicting damage to the superstructure, and they would be more effective against smaller ships such as cruisers. Smaller guns (12-pounders and smaller) were reserved for protecting the battleship against the threat of torpedo attack from destroyers and torpedo boats.^[14]

The beginning of the pre-dreadnought era saw Britain's attempt to assert its naval might. For many years previously, Britain had taken naval supremacy for granted, and expensive naval projects were criticised by political leaders of all inclinations.^[3] However, in 1888, a war scare with France and the build-up of the Russian navy gave added impetus to naval construction, and the British Naval Defence Act of 1889 laid down a new fleet including eight new battleships. The principle that Britain's navy should be more powerful than the two next most powerful fleets combined was also enshrined. This policy was designed to deter French and Russian battleship-building, but both nations nevertheless expanded their fleets with more and better pre-dreadnoughts in the 1890s.^[3]

In the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, the battleship building race became defined by conflict between Britain and Germany. The German naval laws of 1898 and 1890 authorised a fleet of 38 battleships, a vital threat to the balance of naval power.^[3] Britain answered with further shipbuilding, but by the end of the pre-dreadnought era, British supremacy at sea had markedly weakened. In 1883, the United Kingdom had 38 battleships, twice as many as France and almost as many as the rest of the world put together. By 1897, Britain's lead was far less due to competition from France, Germany, and Russia, as well as the development of pre-dreadnought fleets in Italy, the United States and Japan.^[15] Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Chile and Brazil all had second-rate fleets led by armored cruisers, coast service battleships or monitors.^[16]

Pre-dreadnoughts continued the technical innovation of the ironclad. Turrets, armor plate, and steam engines were all improved over the years, and torpedo tubes were introduced. A small number of designs, including the American Kearsarge and Virginia classes, experimented with all or part of the 8-inch intermediate battery superimposed over the 12-inch primary, an arrangement called 'superfiring'. Results were poor: recoil factors and blast effects resulted in the 8-inch battery being completely unusable, and the inability to separately train the primary and intermediate armament led to significant tactical limitation. Even though such innovative designs saved weight (a key reason for their inception), they proved too cumbersome in practice.^[17]

The Dreadnought era

In 1906, the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought made existing battleships obsolete. Combining an 'all-big-gun' armament of ten 12-inch (305  millimetre) rifles with unprecedented speed and protection, Dreadnought prompted navies worldwide to re-evaulate their battleship building programmes. The product of British technical superiority and the willpower of Admiral Jackie Fisher, Dreadnought was no bolt from the blue. The concept of an all-big-gun ship had been in circulation for several years, and the Japanese had even laid down an all-big-gun battleship in 1904.^[18] The arrival of the Dreadnoughts sparked an arms race, principally between Britain and Germany but reflected worldwide, as the new class of warships became a crucial symbol of national power.

Technical development continued rapidly through the Dreadnought era, with step changes in armament, armor and propulsion meaning that ten years after Dreadnought's commissioning much more powerful ships were being built. These more powerful vessels were known as super-Dreadnoughts.

The origin of the Dreadnought

The Italian naval architect Vittorio Cuniberti first articulated the concept of an all-big-gun battleship in 1903, stressing a large armored warship with a single caliber of guns as its only armament. When the Italian Navy did not pursue his ideas, Cuniberti wrote an article in Jane's propagating his concept, proposing the "ideal" future British battleship of 17,000 tons, with a main battery of twelve 12-inch (305 mm) guns, 300  mm belt armor, and speed of 24 knots (44 km/h).^[19]

The battleship Satsuma of the Imperial Japanese Navy became the first ship in the world to be designed (1904) and laid down (May 15th, 1905) as an all-big-gun battleship, although her armament would ultimately not be completed to specifications due to shortages of the British 12-inch Armstrong guns. Satsuma retained triple-expansion steam engines, though her sister ship Aki, completed in 1911, used turbines.

The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) provided operational experience to validate the 'all-big-gun' concept. At the Battle of the Yellow Sea and the Battle of Tsushima, pre-Dreadnought fleets exchanged volleys of 12 in shells at ranges of 7 to 11 kilometres, beyond the range of the secondary batteries. It is often held that these engagements demonstrated the importance of the 12-inch gun over its smaller counterparts, though some historians take the view that the secondary batteries of the pre-Dreadnoughts were just as decisive as the larger weapons.^[3] None of this was lost on the head of the British Admiralty, Jackie Fisher. As early as 1904, Fisher had been convinced by the need for fast, powerful ships with an all-big-gun armament. If Tsushima influenced his thinking, it was to persuade him of the need to standardise on 12-inch guns.^[3] Fisher's concern was that submarines and destroyers would be equipped with torpedoes which had a longer effective range than battleship guns, making speed imperative for capital ships.^[3] Fisher's preferred option for the Royal Navy was his brainchild, the battlecruiser: lightly armored but heavily armed with eight 12-inch guns and propelled to a remarkable speed of 25 knots by steam turbines.

It was to prove the revolutionary technology that the battleship HMS Dreadnought was laid down in 1905 and sped to completion by 1906. She carried ten 12-inch guns, had an 11 in armour belt, and was the first large ship powered by steam turbines. She mounted her guns in five turrets; three along the centreline (one forward and two aft) and two on the wings, giving her twice the broadside of anything else afloat. She retained a number of 12-pounder (3 inch or 76 mm) quick-firing cannon for use against destroyers and torpedo-boats. Her armor was strong enough that she could conceivably go head-to-head with any other ship afloat in a gun battle and win.^[20] Dreadnought was to have been followed by three battlecruisers, their construction delayed to allow lessons from the Dreadnoughts construction to be used in their design. While Fisher may have intended Dreadnought to be the last Royal Navy battleship,^[3] the design was so successful that he found little support for his plan to switch over to a battlecruiser navy. Although there were some problems with the ship (the design's wing turrets strained the hull when firing broadside, and the top of the thickest armor belt lay below the waterline when the ship was fully loaded), the Royal Navy promptly commissioned another six ships to a similar design in the Bellerophon and St Vincent classes.

The dreadnought arms race

In 1897, before the revolution in design brought about by Dreadnought, the Royal Navy had 62 battleships in commission or building: a lead of 26 over France and of 50 over Germany.^[21] In 1906, the Royal Navy now had a lead of only one: the Dreadnought herself. The new class of ship prompted an arms race with major strategic consequences. Major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts to catch up with the United Kingdom. Possession of modern battleships was not only vital to naval power, but as with nuclear weapons today, represented a nation's standing in the world.^[3] Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Austria and the United States all began dreadnought programmes; and second-rank powers including Turkey, Argentina, Brazil and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American yards.^[22]

The Anglo-German arms race

See also: Causes of World War I

Britain and Germany had for some years been locked into a strategic struggle, as Germany asserted herself as a colonial as well as a European power. It was this threat which prompted the building of the Dreadnought and made a naval arms race between the two nations inevitable.

While Fisher's reorganisation of the Navy in 1904 and 1905 actually cut the Naval Estimates,^[23] the pressing need for more and better ships to ensure naval superiority caused friction in the British government. The costs of maintaining the Royal Navy at a level capable of taking on the next two navies at the same time were immense.^[24]

The first German response to Dreadnought came with the Nassau class, laid down in 1907, followed by the Helgoland class in 1909. Together with two battlecruisers — a type for which the Germans had less admiration than Fisher, but which could be built under authorisation for armored cruisers, rather than capital ships — these classes gave Germany a total of ten modern capital ships built or building in 1909. While the British ships were somewhat faster and more powerful than their German equivalents, a 12:10 ratio fell very short of the 2:1 ratio that the Royal Navy wanted to maintain.^[3]

In 1909, the British Parliament authorised an additional four capital ships, holding out hope that Germany would be willing to negotiate a treaty about battleship numbers. If no such solution could be found, an additional four ships would be laid down in 1910. Even this compromise solution meant (when taken together with some social reforms) raising taxes enough to prompt a constitutional crisis in Britain in 1909-10.

In 1910, the British eight-ship construction plan went ahead, including four Orion-class super-dreadnoughts, and augmented by battlecruisers purchased by Australia and New Zealand. In the same period of time, Germany laid down only three ships, giving Britain a superiority of 22 ships to 13. The British resolve demonstrated by their construction programme led the Germans to seek a negotiated end to the arms race. While the Admiralty's new target of a 60% lead over Germany was near enough to Tirpitz's goal of cutting the British lead to 50%, talks foundered on the question on whether British Commonwealth battlecruisers should be included in the count, as well as non-naval matters like the German demands for recognition of her ownership of Alsace-Lorraine.^[3]

The pace of the Dreadnought race stepped up in both nations' 1910 and 1911 budgets, with Germany laying down four capital ships each year and Britain five. The tensions came to a head following the German Naval Law of 1912. This proposed a fleet of 33 German battleships and battlecruisers, outnumbering the Royal Navy in home waters. To make matters worse, the Austro-Hungarian Fleet was building 4 dreadnoughts, while the Italians had four and were building two more. Against such threats, the Royal Navy could no longer guarantee vital British interests. Britain was faced with a choice of building more battleships, withdrawing from the Mediterranean, or seeking an alliance with France. Further naval construction was unacceptably expensive at a time when social welfare provision was making calls on the budget. Withdrawing from the Mediterranean would mean a huge loss of influence, weakening British diplomacy in the Mediterranean and shaking the stability of the British Empire. The only acceptable option, and the one taken by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, was to overturn a hundred years of splendid isolation and seek an alliance with France.^[25]

In spite of these important strategic consequences, the 1912 Naval Law had little bearing on the battleship force ratios. Britain responded by laying down ten new super-Dreadnoughts in her 1912 and 1913 budgets—ships of the Queen Elizabeth and Royal Sovereign classes which introduced a further step change in armament, speed and protection—while Germany laid down only five, focusing resources on the Army.^[3]

U.S. Navy dreadnoughts

The American South Carolina class battleships were the first all-big-gun-ships to be completed by one of Britain's rivals. The planning for the type had begun before the Dreadnought was launched, perhaps aided by secret briefing by sympathetic Royal Navy officials.^[3] Construction began in 1906, after the completion of the Dreadnought, and the type had no turbines. Smaller than Dreadnought at 16,000 tons standard displacement, they carried eight 12 in guns in four twin turrets arranged in superfiring pairs fore and aft along the centreline of the keel. This arrangement gave South Carolina and her sister Michigan a broadside equal to Dreadnought's without requiring the cumbersome wing turrets that were a feature of the first few British dreadnought classes. The superfiring arrangement had not been proven until after South Carolina went to sea, and it was initially feared that the weakness of the previous Virginia class ship's stacked turrets would repeat itself. Half of the first ten U.S. dreadnoughts used the older and less efficient reciprocating engines rather than steam turbines.

Japan

With the defeat of the Russians, the Japanese navy became concerned about the potential for conflict with the USA. Japanese theorist Sato Tetsutaro developed the concept that Japan needed a fleet at a minimum 70% the size of that of the USA to compete. However, Japan's first priority was to refit the pre–Dreadnoughts it had captured from Russia, and to complete the two Satsuma class ships as pre–Dreadnoughts. It was not until 1909 that Japan laid down her first Dreadnoughts, Kawachi and Settsu, while they were not complete until 1912. Two super–Dreadnoughts of the Fuso class and four Kongo–class battlecruisers were also laid down in 1912 and 1913, increasingly built from Japanese rather than imported components. While Japan adopted an 'eight–eight' Navy target — eight battleships and eight battlecruisers — it took until 1921 to hit the target, by which time the Washington Naval Treaty had negated it.^[3]

Dreadnoughts in other countries

Compared to the other major naval powers France was slow to start building Dreadnoughts, instead finishing the planned Danton class of pre–Dreadnoughts, laying down five in 1907 and 1908. It was not until September 1910 that the first Dreadnoughts (of the Courbet class) were laid down, making France the eleventh nation to enter the Dreadnought race. The Courbets were followed by three super–Dreadnoughts of the Bretagne class; another five Normandie class ships were planned but cancelled on the outbreak of war. The Dreadnought arms race saw France drop from second to fifth in terms of naval power; however, the closer alliance with Britain made these reduced forces more than adequate for French needs.^[3]

Even though Cuniberti had tried to promote the idea of an all-big-gun battleship in Italy well before the Dreadnought, it took until 1909 for Italy to lay down a Dreadnought of her own. The construction of Dante Alighieri was prompted by rumours of Austro-Hungarian Dreadnought building. A further five dreadnoughts of the Cavour class and Andrea Doria class followed as Italy sought to maintain its lead over Austria-Hungary. These ships remained the core of Italian naval strength until World War II. The subsequent Caracciolo-class were cancelled on the outbreak of WWI.

In January 1909, Austro-Hungarian admirals circulated a document calling for a fleet of four Dreadnoughts. However, a constitutional crisis in 1909–10 meant that no construction could be approved. In spite of this, two Dreadnoughts were laid down by shipyards on a speculative basis, and later approved along with an additional two. The resulting ships, all of the Tegetthoff class, were to be accompanied by a further four ships, but these were cancelled on the outbreak of World War I.

In June 1909, the Russian Empire laid down four dreadnoughts of the Gangut class for the Baltic Fleet and in 1911 three more Imperatritsa Mariya class dreadnoughts for the Black Sea.^[26]

Spain commissioned three dreadnoughts of the España class, laying the first down in 1909. The Españas were the lightest Dreadnoughts ever built, and had the weakest armament (of only 8 305 mm guns). While built in Spain, the construction was reliant on British assistance.^[27]

Brazil managed the remarkable achievement of being the third country with a Dreadnought under construction, laying down two in British shipyards in 1907. This sparked off a small-scale arms race in South America, as Argentina and then Chile commissioned Dreadnoughts. Argentina placed orders in American yards and Chile in Britain, meaning that both of Chile's two battleships were seized by the British on the outbreak of war. One of them was later returned to the Chilean government.

Turkey ordered two Dreadnoughts from British yards. Greece never ordered a Dreadnought, but in 1914 purchased two pre-Dreadnoughts from the United States Navy in 1914, renaming them Kilkis and Limnos in Royal Hellenic Navy service.

Many smaller navies ordered their ships from the British naval yards. At the near outbreak of WWI, the Royal Navy pressed ships under construction in British docks into their own service. This created some severe strains with the relations to the customers. The Ottoman Empire had two battleships near completion in Britain when the Royal Navy took over their ships. The Turks were outraged by the British move and the Germans saw an opening. Through skillful diplomacy and by handing over the battlecruiser Goeben and the cruiser Breslau the Germans maneuvered the Ottoman Empire into the Central Powers.^[28]

The "super dreadnoughts"

Even after Dreadnought's commission, battleships continued to grow in size, guns, and technical proficiency as countries vied to have the best ships. By 1914 Dreadnought was outmoded.

The arrival of super–dreadnoughts is not as clearly identified with a single ship in the same way that the dreadnought era was initiated by HMS Dreadnought. However, it is commonly held to start with the British Orion class, and for the German navy with the König. What made them "super" was the unprecedented jump in displacement of 2,000–tons over the previous class, the introduction of the heavier 13.5 inch (343 mm) gun, and the distribution of all the main armament on the centreline of the keel. Thus, in the four years that separated the laying down of Dreadnought and Orion, displacement had increased by 25%, and weight of broadside had doubled. Some later super-Dreadnought designs, principally the Queen Elizabeth class, were described as fast battleships: battleships with battlecruiser speed.

The design weakness of super dreadnoughts, which distinguished them from post-World War I designs, was armor disposition. Their design placed emphasis on vertical protection which was needed in short range battles. These ships were capable of engaging the enemy at 20,000 metres, but were vulnerable to the angle of fire that came at such ranges. Post-war designs typically had 5 to 6 inches of deck armor to defend against this dangerous, plunging fire. The concept of zone of immunity became a major part of the thinking behind battleship design. Lack of underwater protection was also a weakness of these pre-World War I designs which were developed only as the threat of the torpedo became real. The United States Navy's "standard"-type battleships, beginning with the Nevada class, or "Battleship 1912", were designed with long-range engagements and plunging fire in mind; the first of these ships, USS Nevada, was laid down in 1912, five years before the Battle of Jutland taught the dangers of long-range fire to European navies. Important features of the standard battleships were "all or nothing" armor and "raft" construction, a philosophy under which only the parts of the ship worth armoring with the thickest armor that could be fitted to the ship were worth armoring at all, and that enough reserve buoyancy should be contained within the resulting armored "raft" to float the entire ship in the event that the unarmored bow and stern be thoroughly riddled and flooded.

World War I

Main article: Naval Warfare of World War I

War was almost an anticlimax for the great dreadnought fleets. There was no decisive clash of battlefleets to compare with the Battle of Trafalgar. The role of battleships was marginal to the great land struggle in France and Russia; and it was equally marginal to the First Battle of the Atlantic, the battle between German submarines and British merchant shipping.

By virtue of geography, the Royal Navy could keep the German German High Seas Fleet bottled up in the North Sea with relative ease. Both sides were aware that, because of the greater number of British dreadnoughts, a full fleet engagement would result in a British victory. The German strategy was therefore to try to provoke an engagement on favourable terms: either inducing a part of the Grand Fleet to enter battle alone, or to fight a pitched battle near the German coastline, where friendly fields, torpedo-boats and submarines could be used to even the odds.^[29] The first two years of war saw conflict in the North Sea limited to skirmishes by battlecruisers at the Battle of Heligoland Bight and Battle of Dogger Bank and raids on the English coast. In the summer of 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on favourable terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets in the Battle of Jutland: an indecisive engagement.^[30]

In the other naval theatres there were no decisive pitched battles. In the Black Sea, Russian and Turkish battleships skirmished, but nothing more. In the Baltic, action was largely limited to convoy raiding and the laying of defensive minefields; the only significant clash of battleship squadrons was the Battle of Moon Sound at which one Russian dreadnought was lost. The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by British and French blockading fleets. And in the Mediterranean, the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault on Gallipoli.

The course of the war also illustrated the vulnerability of battleships to cheaper weapons. In September 1914, the U-boat threat to capital ships was demonstrated by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three British armored cruisers by the German submarine U9 in less than an hour. Sea mines proved a threat the next month, when the recently commissioned British super-dreadnought Audacious struck a mine. By the end of October, British strategy and tactics in the North Sea had changed to reduce the risk of U-boat attack.^[31] While Jutland was the only major clash of battleship fleets in history, the German plan for the battle relied on U-boat attacks on the British fleet; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships, causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing paranoia in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships. By October 1916, the Royal Navy had essentially abandoned the North Sea, instructing the Grand Fleet not to go south of the Farne Islands unless adequately protected by destroyers. For the German part, the High Seas Fleet detemined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines; and since the submarines were more needed for commerce raiding, the fleet stayed in port for the remainder of the war.^[32] Other theatres equally showed the role of small craft in damaging or destroying dreadnoughts. The two Austrian dreadnoughts lost in 1918 were the casualties of torpedo boats and of frogmen. The Allied capital ships lost in Gallipoli were sunk by mines and torpedo,^[33] while a Turkish pre-dreadnought was caught in the Dardanelles by a British submarine.

The inter-war period

The inter-war period saw the battleship subjected to strict international limitations to prevent a costly arms-race breaking out.

For many years, German battleships simply ceased to exist. The Armistice with Germany required that most of the High Seas Fleet be disarmed and interned in a neutral port; largely because no neutral port could be found, the ships remained in British custody in Scapa Flow, Scotland. The Treaty of Versailles specified that the ships should be handed over to the British. However, instead most of these ships were scuttled by their German crews on 21 June 1919 just before the signature of the peace treaty. Versailles also limited the German Navy, preventing Germany from building or possessing any capital ships.^[34]

While the victors were not limited by the Treaty of Versailles, many of the major naval powers were crippled from years of war. Faced with the prospect of a naval arms race against the USA, Britain was keen to conclude the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. This treaty limited the number and size of battleships that each major nation could possess, requiring Britain to accept parity with the USA and abandoning the British alliance with Japan.^[35] The Washington treaty was followed by a series of other naval treaties, e.g. the First Geneva Naval Conference (1927), the First London Naval Treaty (1930), the Second Geneva Naval Conference (1932), and finally the Second London Naval Treaty (1936), which all meant limitations for major warships. These treaties would effectively end on 1 September 1939 with the beginning of World War II, but the ship classifications that had been agreed upon still apply.^[36] The treaty limitations meant that fewer new battleships were launched from 1919–1939 than from 1905–1914. The treaties also inhibited development by putting maximum limits on the weights of ships. Designs like the projected British N3 battleship, the first American South Dakota class, and the Japanese Kii class — all of which continued the trend to larger ships with bigger guns and thicker armor — never got off the drawing board. Those designs which were commissioned during this period were referred to as treaty battleships.

Rise of the aircraft carrier

As early as 1914, the British Admiral Percy Scott prophesied that battleships would soon be made irrelevant by aeroplanes.^[37] By the end of World War I, aeroplanes had successfully adopted the torpedo as a weapon.^[38] A proposed attack on the German fleet at anchor in 1918 using the Sopwith Cuckoo carrier-borne torpedo-bomber was considered and rejected — but it was only so long before such a technique would be adopted.

In the 1920s, General Billy Mitchell of the United States Army Air Corps, believing that air forces had rendered navies around the world obsolete, presented his theory which claimed that aircraft could sink ships "under war conditions". This infuriated the U.S. Navy, but Mitchell was nevertheless allowed to conduct a series of bombing tests on battleships. In 1921, he successfully sank numerous ships, including the stationary German World War I battleship, the Ostfriesland and the American pre-dreadnought Alabama.

Although Mitchell had stressed "war-time conditions", the ships themselves were obsolete, had no damage control and were stationary defenseless targets. The sinking of Ostfriesland was accomplished only by violating agreed-upon rules that would have allowed Navy engineers to examine the effects of various munitions; Mitchell's airmen disregarded the rule and quickly sank the ship in a coordinated attack. This proved—at least to Mitchell—that surface fleets were obsolete. In 1922, he met the like-minded Italian air power theorist Giulio Douhet on a trip to Europe and soon after an excerpted translation of Douhet's The Command of the Air began to circulate in the Air Service.^[39] While far from conclusive, Mitchell's test was significant in that it put proponents of the battleship against naval aviation on the back foot.^[3]

Rearmament

Even when the threat of war became significant again in the late 1930s, battleship construction never regained the level of importance which it had held in the years before World War I. The "building holiday" imposed by the naval treaties meant that the building capacity of dockyards worldwide was relatively reduced, and the strategic picture had changed. The development of the strategic bomber meant that the navy was no longer the only method of projecting power overseas. And the development of the aircraft carrier meant that battleships had a rival for the resources available for capital ship construction.

In Germany, the ambitious Plan Z for naval rearmament was abandoned in favour of a strategy of submarine warfare supplemented by the use of Bismarck class battleships and battlecruisers as commerce raiders. In Britain, the most pressing need was for air defences and convoy escorts to safeguard the civilian population from bombing or starvation, and re-armament construction plans consisted of five ships of the King George V class. It was in the Mediterranean that navies remained most committed to battleship warfare. France intended to build six battleships of the Dunkerque and Richelieu classes, and the Italians two powerful Littorio-class ships. Neither navy built significant aircraft carriers. The USA preferred to spend limited funds on aircraft carriers until the South Dakota Class. Japan, also prioritising aircraft carriers, nevertheless began work on the two mammoth Yamato class battleships.^[4]

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish navy consisted of two small dreadnought battleships, España and Jaime I. España, by then in reserve at the northwestern naval base of El Ferrol, fell into Nationalist hands in July 1936. The crew onboard Jaime I mutined and joined the Republican Navy. Thus each side would have one battleship; however, the Republican Navy generally lacked experienced officers. The Spanish battleships mainly restricted themselves to mutual blockades, convoy escort duties and shore bombardments—they rarely involved themselves in direct fighting against other surface units.^[40] In April 1937, España ran onto a mine that had been laid by own forces and sank with little loss of life. In May 1937, Jaime I was damaged by Nationalist air attacks and a grounding incident. The ship was forced to go back to port to be repaired. There she was again hit by several aerial bombs. It was then decided to tow the battleship to a more secure port, but during the transport she suffered an internal explosion that caused 300 deaths and her total loss. Several Italian and German capital ships participated in the non-intervention blockade. On May 29, 1937, two Republican aircraft managed to bomb the German pocket battleship Deutschland outside Ibiza, causing severe damage and loss of life. Admiral Scheer retaliated two days later by bombarding the city of Almería causing much destruction, and the resulting Deutschland incident meant the end of German and Italian support for non-intervention.^[41]

World War II

German battleships — obsolete pre-dreadnoughts — fired the first shots of World War II with the bombardment of the Polish garrison at Westerplatte;^[42] and the final surrender of the Japanese Empire took place aboard a United States Navy battleship. Between the two events, it became clear that battleships were now essentially auxiliary and aircraft carriers the new principal ships of the fleet.

Battleships played a part in major engagements in Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean theatres; in the Atlantic, the Germans experimented with taking the battleship beyond conventional fleet action into an independent commerce raider. However, there were few battleship-on-battleship engagements. Battleships had little impact on the destroyer and submarine Battle of the Atlantic, and most of the decisive fleet clashes of the Pacific war were determined by aircraft carriers.

In the first year of the war, armored warships defied predictions that aircraft would dominate naval warfare. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau surprised and sank the aircraft carrier Glorious off western Norway in June 1940.^[43] Although unescorted carriers still were considered vulnerable to attack by other ships, and therefore had to travel with escort, this engagement marked the last time a fleet carrier be sunk by surface gunnery. In the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir, British battleships opened fire on the French battleships harboured in Algiers with their own heavy guns, and later pursued fleeing French ships with planes from aircraft carriers.

Taranto to Pearl Harbour

In late 1940 and 1941, a range of engagements across the globe saw battleships harassed by carrier aircraft.

The first example of the power of naval aviation was the British air attack on the Italian naval base at Taranto that took place on the night of 11 November–12 November 1940. The Royal Navy flew a small number of aircraft to attacking the Italian fleet at harbour. One Italian battleship was sunk and two damaged. Just as importantly the attack forced the Italian navy to change tactics and seek battle against the superior British navy, resulting in the defeat at the Battle of Cape Matapan.

The battleship war in the Atlantic was driven by the attempts of German capital ship commerce raiders—two battleships, the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, and two battlecruisers—to influence the Battle of the Atlantic by destroying Atlantic convoys supplying the United Kingdom. The superior numbers of British surface units devoted themselves to protecting the convoys, and seeking out and trying to destroy the German ships, assisted by both naval and land-based aircraft and by sabotage attacks. On 24 May 1941, during an attempt to break out into the North Atlantic, the battleship commerce raider Bismarck, was engaged by the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Hood. The Bismarck sank the Hood.^[44] The Royal Navy hunted down Bismarck; an attack by Swordfish biplane torpedo-bombers from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal disabled her steering and allowed the British heavy units to catch up; Bismarck was sunk on May 27.^[45]

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Within a short time five of eight U.S. battleships were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. The Japanese had neutralized the U.S. battleship force in the Pacific region through an air attack, and thereby proven Mitchell's theory, showing the vulnerability of major warships lying at anchor, as at Taranto. The American aircraft carriers were however out to sea and evaded detection. They in turn would take up the fight, eventually turning the tide of the war in the Pacific. The sinking of the British battleship Prince of Wales and her escort, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse further demonstrated the vulnerability of a battleship to air attack, in this case while at sea without air cover. Both ships were on their way to assist in the defense of Singapore when they were caught by Japanese land-based bombers and fighters on December 10 1941. Prince of Wales has the distinction of being the first battleship sunk by aircraft while underway and able to defend herself.^[46]

The Pacific battles

At many of the crucial battles of the Pacific, for instance Coral Sea and Midway, battleships were either absent or overshadowed as carriers launched wave after wave of planes into the attack at a range of hundreds of miles. Battleships in the Pacific ended up primarily performing shore bombardment and anti-aircraft defense for the carriers. Even the largest battleships ever constructed, Japan's Yamato class, which carried a main battery of nine 18-inch (457 millimetre) guns and were designed as a principal strategic weapon, were never given a chance to show their potential.^[47]

In the Battle of Guadalcanal on November 15 1942, the United States battleships South Dakota and Washington fought and destroyed the Japanese battleship Kirishima.

The Battle off Samar, on 25 October 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf proved that battleships were still a lethal weapon. The American escort carriers of "Taffy 3" had a narrow escape from falling under the guns of the Japanese battleships Yamato, Kongō, Haruna and Nagato and their cruiser escort. American destroyers and aircraft attacked the battleships, enabling the American task force to disengage. Inexplicably, the Japanese fleet disengaged as well, despite being near to their intended target - the American amphibious landing forces at Leyte.

At Leyte Gulf, on 25 October 1944, six battleships, led by admiral Jesse Oldendorf of the U.S. 7th Fleet sank the Japanese admiral Shoji Nishimura's battleship Yamashiro and would have sunk Fusō if it had not already been broken in two by destroyer torpedoes moments earlier during the Battle of Surigao Strait. This engagement marked the last time in history when battleship faced battleship. It was also the day before this battle in a separate group further north that Musashi, sistership to Yamato, was sunk by aircraft attacks long before she could come within striking range of the American fleet.

Soviet and Finnish battles

During the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, the Soviet battleships Marat and Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya made several attempts to neutralize Finnish coastal batteries in order to implement a full naval blockade. The damage was however little on the Finnish side and the defenders bit back, claiming at least one hit on Marat.^[48] During the German assault on the Soviet Union, the Soviet battleships would serve as convoy escorts during the evacuation of Tallinn, and as floating batteries during the siege of Leningrad.^[49] The dense German and Finnish minefields and the submarine nets would effectively restrict Soviet traffic in the Gulf of Finland, forcing the larger vessels to remain at port.^[50][51] The Marat would eventually be sunk at her moorings by the German Stuka pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel on 23 September 1941. The wreck continued in action as a floating battery for the remainder of the siege. Marat would later be refloated and both battleships served until the 1950s.^[52]

Fire support

With the German capital-ship raiders sunk or forced to remain in port, shore bombardment became the focus of Allied battleships in the Atlantic. It was while covering the Allied invasion of Morocco that the Massachusetts fought Vichy French battleship Jean Bart on 27 October,1942. A concentration of six battleships occurred as part of Operation Neptune, in support of the D-Day landings in June 1944. D-Day also saw the humble sacrifice of two obsolete dreadnoughts, which were sunk as part of the breakwater around the Allied Mulberry harbours.

Response to the air threat

During the later stages of the war, the air defences of the Allied battleships had been significantly improved. The battleships were now literally covered with anti-aircraft guns, and with the arrival of the proximity fuse, radar, and carrier-based air cover, air attacks became much more risky. To counter these defenses, the Axis Powers implemented different methods. The Italians used with success their tested method of having frogmen delivering explosive charges to the ships, and managed to sink HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth in the shallow waters of the harbor of Alexandria. Other more or less successful Italian methods included manned torpedoes and small motor assault boats, which were filled with explosives, aimed at the target, sped up to full speed, while the pilot catapulted himself out from the dashing craft.^[53]

The Germa