But while battleships on all sides spent much of the war safely at anchor, two new disruptive technologies emerged: submarines and naval aircraft. Both sides held back to ensure that their battleships were not sunk. The battle of Jutland in 1916 was an exception, bringing 28 Royal Navy battleships face to face with 16 German battleships.

In World War I (1914–1918), most British battleships served defensive duty, keeping the German fleet bottled up in port. A single battleship accounted for more than 2 million pounds sterling, the equivalent of over US$5 billion today, or almost 10% of Great Britain’s naval budget in 1900. Poorer nations could only look on with envy. The Great Powers-Great Britain, the USA, Germany, Russia, Japan, and Italy-scrambled to build their own. This was a significant upgrade from the first Royal Navy Dreadnought (1573), which flung solid shot weighing 10 to 12 pounds several hundred yards in “broadsides” against other wooden ships.ĭreadnought rendered other warships obsolete.

Armed with five turrets containing 12-inch guns, Dreadnought could hurl 850-pound explosive shells 14 miles. Three boiler rooms drove high-pressure turbine engines generating 23,000 horsepower. At 527 feet long and displacing 18,000 tons, it was the largest warship ever built. In 1906, the British Navy launched HMS Dreadnought.

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