Dreadnought: The Battleship that Changed Everything

[Music] [Applause] [Music] at the turn of the 20th century the Royal Navy was the world's most powerful maritime force securing the British Empire's interests from China to the West Indies and everywhere in between she was also increasingly vulnerable with great powers across the world increasing their naval strength to a point where they could challenge the long invincible British Navy chief among these was the new German Empire which began an aggressive battleship building program from 1899 onwards determined not to lose its premier position at sea the Royal Navy ramped up its own production and moved to design a radically new kind of battleship that would have greater firepower and speed than anything currently afloat in December 1906 this new ship was commissioned representing such a technological leap Ford's that she made every other battleship immediately obsolete and sparks her no-holds-barred naval arms race between the Kaiser and the King the new ship's name was HMS dreadnought [Music] in the late 19th century the British were mainly concerned with the fleets of France and Russia which if combined might have the strength to overwhelm the larger Royal Navy to counteract this threat in 1889 the British Parliament passed the naval defense Act which introduced a legal requirement for the Royal Navy to maintain a fleet equal to that of the next two largest navies combined to meet this target the Navy ramped up its shipbuilding commissioning seven new classes of battleship between 1890 and 1900 alone in 1897 in Britain had 62 armored ships over 5,000 tons in commission compared to 36 for France and 18 for Russia this balance of power met the to power standard but it was about to be upset by the fourth-placed German Navy and its new state secretary captain Alfred Tirpitz Tirpitz had a vision for the Imperial German Navy that went well beyond the 12 armored ships that it possessed in 1897 he wanted a large fleet of powerful German battleships enough to challenge Britain for control of the North Sea almost as soon as he was in office in June 1897 he wrote a memo setting out his views for Germany the most dangerous naval enemy at the present time is England the military situation against England requires battleships in his greater number as possible Tirpitz proposed a fleet of 19 battleships and his plans were accepted by the Reichstag on March 26 1898 a fleet of this strength would not be enough to give the British serious headaches but that was to change following an incident during the Boer War which Britain found itself involved in at the turn of the century in January 1903 German steamers were stopped by the British off the east coast of Africa suspected of smuggling weapons to the poor's no weapons were found than all three ships were eventually released but it was the kind of outrage that Tirpitz seized upon according to Robert Massey the German officer seized the moment to declare that only a powerful fleet could prevent such a national humiliation the response must be a double of the 1898 building program a second naval law was passed in June that same year increasing the strength of the future German battle fleet 238 battleships a force that would make Germany the second ranked naval power in the world by 1905 Germany had in commissioned or under construction fifteen new battleships of the Wittelsbach Braun's Reich and Deutschland classes in a direct challenge to Britain's supremacy at sea in London the Admiralty moved swiftly to respond to his new threat commissioning the first of eight new King entered the seventh class battleships in 1905 during the same year a large scale reform process was begun by the Navy's new professional head First Sea Lord Admiral Jackie Fisher throughout his naval career Jackie Fisher had been at the forefront of innovation convinced that the raw Navy had to grasp new technology and approaches with both hands or risk being overtaken by other powers on his appointment as First Sea Lord in October 1904 he found a fleet that focused its main strength in the Mediterranean as a weapon pointed against the French as well as basing moderately strong fleets scattered across the globe responding to the new German threat and the improving relations between Britain and France Fischer shifted the emphasis to the North Sea he pulled back the raw Navy's best battleships from across the world and focused them at home as a weapon pointed squarely at Germany he embarked on a ruthless culling of the Navy's ranks - scrapping 90 obsolete ships that in his words were too weak to fight and too slow to runaway and placed 64 more into reserve the Navy of Jackie Fisher was to be a leaner and meaner machine with fewer more powerful ships the encapsulation of this approach was the design of a radically new breed of battleship which when completed would be such a giant leap for that all who followed would take its name in December 1904 Admiral Jackie Fisher opened the first meeting of a committee to design a new generation of British battleships he tasked them with designing his ship with a high top speed and the uniform armaments of as many large 12-inch guns as possible unlike previous battleships which might have four 12-inch guns in a variety of smaller calibers designed for medium and short range Fisher wanted a ship that was designed to herd the maximum amount of seed at the enemy from the maximum possible range this was a radical changing doctrine for Royal Navy battleships for a long time it lasts even thought that modern fleets would fights at point-blank range just as in a time of Nelson construction on this experimental new ship began in October 1905 and proceeded at breakneck pace Admiral Fisher demanded dreadnought be delivered in just 12 months as a very public statement of Britain's shipbuilding superiority this was far faster than the previous construction record at Portsmouth of 31 months on October 3rd 1906 one year and one day from the laying of her keel dreadnought left Portsmouth for sea trials she was commissioned two months later and made the competition completely irrelevant whereas the newest German battleship the Deutschland had 411 inch guns dreadnought mounted 12 inch guns ten of them cutting edge steam turbines and her engines allowed her to reach 21 knots substantially faster than the 18 and a half knots managed by the Deutschland of course the Deutschland had a great many guns at smaller calibers 14 6-inch and 22 3 inch guns but these would be useless against a ship which had vastly more firepower at long distance and the speed to stay safely out of range of smaller calibers quite simply dreadnought made every single other battleship on earth obsolete as soon as she was commissioned from 1906 battleships would be divided into dreadnaughts and pre-dreadnought according to massey when confirmation of Desai's speed and armament of the dreadnought reached berlin something close to panic ensued ironically though by rendering all pre-dreadnought battleships obsolete the biggest loser was Britain the raw Navy's existing advantage was effectively wiped out by dreadnought and it did not take long for her rivals to produce their own interpretation of the design in 1908 the German Navy commissioned their first red nor Nassau which mounted 12 11 inch guns and could do 19 knots it was the starting gun on a full-throated naval arms race with control of the North Sea at stake digging deep into her industrial capabilities Germany delivered three more Nassau class dreadnaughts by May 1910 and six more of the Heligoland and Kaiser classes by the end of 1912 in response Britain ramped up her own production commissioning six additional dreadnaughts of the Bella fir'aun's and Vincent and Colossus classes by May 1910 and during 1912 brought into service for Orion class superdreadnought armed with larger thirteen and a half inch guns to reinforce Britain's determination to maintain its superiority over the Kaiser League marina in March 1912 the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill announced that the to power standard had been dropped in favour of simply maintaining 60% more dreadnought than Germany when Germany ordered a new dreadnought in the 1912-13 programme the last of the Kearney class Britain ordered five more all of the new queen elizabeth-class which hadn't even more powerful armament of 15-inch guns this trend was repeated the following year with the five battleships of the Royal Sovereign class ordered against two German dreadnought byun and bharden by the tyre of the Battle of Jutland in 1916 the Pretender constructed 30 dreadnoughts 11 more than the Germans it was a comprehensive industrial victory and in truth by the start of the first world war Germany was already pivoting to submarine rather than battleship construction all in all the wrong name entered the first world war with her naval supremacy intact fielding in 1914 72 battleships 10 battle cruisers a hundred and thirty six cruisers and 80 submarines her main rival Germany could muster 35 battleships 6 battle cruisers 25 cruisers and 40 submarines this clear superiority allowed the British to maintain a blockade throughout the Great War strangling Germany into an eventual surrender only once at Jutland did the high seas fleet seriously attempt to break this parade an engagement which saw the British lose more ships and more men but emerged essentially victorious due to the ability to absorb losses provided by possessing such massive grand fleet Jutland was also the pinnacle of the dreadnought concept with two enormous battle lines fighting thousands of yards apart firing some of the largest caliber shells then afloat battleships of all nations would follow the all big gun format for the next half century and seal dreadnought themselves were made mostly obsolete by the advent of the aircraft carrier thank you for watching this video on the Extra Ordinary battleship that was HMS dreadnought this video as you might know is part of Operation two DCs a collaboration on naval history between myself and 16 other youtube history channels this is episode 13 in the collaboration and either side of me we have the amateur historian with a fascinating video on the role of iron clams in the u.s. Civil War and Emperor tiger star with a great contribution on the United States love of avenging sunken ships as always I'm grateful for the support from my patrons in making this video possible I get 0:11 you from YouTube sailor support they provide means quite literally everything to me if you like my work and want to see more of it made then consider throwing a couple of dollars my way to help make that happen thank you all very much for watching and I will see you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Historigraph

Views: 703,403

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Keywords: hms dreadnought, operation odysseus, ww1 battleships, anglo german naval arms race, world war 1 battleships, battle of jutland, Historigraph, history documentary, castles of steel, Dreadnought, Jackie Fisher, Royal Navy history documentary, Hearts of Oak, Armchair Historian, EmperorTigerstar, historical analysis, DOCUMENTARY, #OperationOdysseus

Id: iFZXdyGlJy0

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 24 2018