title: Kate Jackson

text: Lucy Kate Jackson (born October 29, 1948) is an American actress and television producer, known for her television roles as Sabrina Duncan in the series "Charlie's Angels" (1976–1979) and Amanda King in the series "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" (1983–1987). Her film roles include "Making Love" (1982) and "Loverboy" (1989). She is a three-time Emmy Award nominee and four-time Golden Globe Award nominee.


title: Kate Jackson

text: Jackson began her career in the late 1960s in summer stock, before landing major television roles in "Dark Shadows" (1970–71), "Bonanza" (1972–72), and "The Rookies" (1972–1976). She also appeared in the film "Night of Dark Shadows" (1971). The huge success of her role as Sabrina Duncan on "Charlie's Angels" saw her appear on the front cover of "Time" magazine, alongside co-stars Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith, while her role as Mrs. King won her Germany's Bravo Golden Otto Award for Best Female TV Star three times (1986–1988). She then continued to star in numerous TV movies, including "Quiet Killer" (1992), "Empty Cradle" (1993) and "Satan's School for Girls" (2000), a remake of the 1973 TV movie of the same name in which she also starred.


title: Kate Jackson

text: Jackson was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of Ruth (née Shepherd) and Hogan Jackson, a business executive. She attended The Brooke Hill School for Girls while residing in Mountain Brook. Jackson went on to enroll at the University of Mississippi as a history major where she was a member of the Delta Rho chapter of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Halfway through her sophomore year, she transferred to Birmingham–Southern College, a liberal arts college, taking classes in speech and history of the theatre. At the end of the academic year, Jackson became an apprentice at the Stowe Playhouse in Stowe, Vermont, and then moved to New York City to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.


title: Kate Jackson

text: Initially, Jackson worked as an NBC page and tour guide at the network's Rockefeller Center before landing a role as the mysterious, silent ghost Daphne Harridge on the 1960s supernatural daytime soap opera "Dark Shadows". In 1971, Jackson had a starring role as Tracy Collins in "Night of Dark Shadows", the second feature film based on the daytime serial. This movie was more loosely based on the series than the first feature film, and it did not fare as well at the box office. The same year, she appeared in two episodes of the short-lived sitcom "The Jimmy Stewart Show".


title: Kate Jackson

text: She then appeared as nurse Jill Danko for four seasons on the 1970s crime drama "The Rookies". A supporting cast member, Jackson filled her free time by studying directing and editing. She also appeared in several TV films during this period. Jackson's performance was well received in the 1972 independent film "Limbo", one of the first theatrical films to address the Vietnam War and the wives of soldiers who were POWs, MIA or killed in action. She also appeared in "Death Scream", a 1975 television dramatization of the circumstances surrounding the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese.


title: Kate Jackson

text: In 1975, Jackson met with "Rookies" producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg to discuss her contractual obligation to star in another television series for Spelling/Goldberg Productions upon that show's cancellation. Goldberg told her of a series that was available—because "every network has passed on it,” "The Alley Cats". Spelling said that when he told Jackson the title of the series had to be changed and asked her what she would like to call it, she replied "Charlie's Angels,” pointing to a picture of three female angels on the wall behind Spelling. Jackson was originally cast as Kelly Garrett (which ultimately went to her co-star Jaclyn Smith), but decided upon Sabrina Duncan instead. The huge success of the show saw Jackson, Smith and Farrah Fawcett-Majors (who played Jill Munroe) appear on the front cover of "Time" magazine. The show aired as a movie of the week on March 21, 1976, before debuting as a series on September 22, 1976. Because Jackson was considered the star of "Charlie's Angels" following her experience and four years on "The Rookies", her original role of Kelly Garrett was featured prominently in the pilot movie.


title: Kate Jackson

text: Jackson hosted the thirteenth episode of season four of "Saturday Night Live" which aired in February 1979. During her monologue, she referred to being an NBC page ten years earlier where she led tours of the studio. At the beginning of the third season of "Charlie's Angels", Jackson was offered the Meryl Streep role in the feature film "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979), but was forced to turn it down because Spelling told her that the show's shooting schedule could not be rearranged to give her time to do the film. At the end of the third season, Jackson left the show saying, "I served it well and it served me well, now it's time to go." Spelling cast Shelley Hack as her replacement.


title: Kate Jackson

text: Jackson starred alongside Harry Hamlin and her "Rookies" co-star Michael Ontkean in the feature film "Making Love" (1982), directed by Arthur Hiller. It was a movie some considered to be ahead of its time, and attempted to deal sensitively with the topic of homosexuality. However, it received tepid reviews and did poorly at the box office.


title: Kate Jackson

text: In 1983, Jackson had a starring role in "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", a one-hour action drama in which she played housewife Amanda King opposite Bruce Boxleitner's spy, code-named "Scarecrow.” Jackson also co-produced the series with Warner Brothers Television through her production company, Shoot the Moon Enterprises. During this time she developed an interest in directing. "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" aired for four seasons from 1983–1987.


title: Kate Jackson

text: During filming of the show's fourth season, in January 1987, Jackson had a mammogram for the first time, which found a small malignant tumor. Her series' producer—the only person she told about the diagnosis—rescheduled her work on the show. She checked in to a hospital under an alias to have a lumpectomy. Jackson returned to the series a week later, working with the aid of painkillers through five weeks of radiation treatments.


title: Kate Jackson

text: After undergoing breast cancer treatment, Jackson followed up on "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" by taking on the main role in "Baby Boom", a 1988 TV sitcom version of a 1987 film of the same name. The series lasted less than one season, canceled with episodes left unaired.


title: Kate Jackson

text: In September 1989, another mammogram indicated residual breast cancer that the previous operation had missed. Jackson had a partial mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Jackson's "Charlie's Angels" colleague Jaclyn Smith made statements indicating her support of Jackson.


title: Kate Jackson

text: In 1995, Jackson was diagnosed as having been born with an atrial septal defect that had previously gone undetected. Jackson underwent open-heart surgery to correct the defect.


title: Kate Jackson

text: Jackson spoke publicly about breast cancer and heart health and received the "Power of Love" award in 2003 from the American Heart Association for raising awareness among the public regarding those issues.


title: Kate Jackson

text: In 2004, the television film "" aired, with actress Lauren Stamile portraying Jackson. In August 2006, Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith, the three original Angels, made a surprise appearance together at the "58th Primetime Emmy Awards" in a tribute to the recently deceased "Angels" creator Aaron Spelling.


title: Kate Jackson

text: In 2007, Jackson played the mother of FBI agent Emily Prentiss on "Criminal Minds". In August 2008, she was a guest judge on an episode of Jaclyn Smith's Bravo reality series "Shear Genius", presiding over a hairdressing competition to update the original trio's signature hairdos.


title: Kate Jackson

text: On August 3, 2010, Gallery Books announced a contract with Jackson to publish her memoirs. The book, expected in 2011, has been repeatedly delayed, with the latest update reporting a scheduled release for two days before 2021.


title: Kate Jackson

text: Jackson lived with, and was engaged to, actor Edward Albert in the mid-1970s. She was then linked romantically to producer Robert Evans, stuntman Gary Quist and actors Dirk Benedict, Nick Nolte and Warren Beatty. After a six-month courtship, Jackson married actor Andrew Stevens (the son of actress Stella Stevens) in August 1978. The couple divorced in 1981. After her divorce from Stevens, Jackson said, "I felt as if my ex-husband drove up to my bank account with a Brink's truck." Jackson was then linked with actor Gary Pendergast and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz. She married New York businessman David Greenwald in 1982, and they formed 'Shoot The Moon Productions' together, the company that produced Jackson's series "Scarecrow and Mrs. King". The couple divorced in 1984.


title: Kate Jackson

text: After the divorce, Jackson was frequently seen with dermatologist Arnold Klein. While recovering from her second bout with breast cancer and on vacation in Aspen, Colorado in 1989, Jackson met Tom Hart, the owner of a Utah ski lodge, and the pair married in 1991. The couple resided both in Los Angeles and Park City, Utah. Jackson became stepmother to Sean, Hart's son from a previous relationship. Jackson and Hart divorced in 1993. In 1995, Jackson adopted a son, Charles Taylor Jackson.


title: Kate Jackson

text: In May 2010, Jackson sued her financial advisor, Richard B. Francis, claiming his actions cost her more than $3 million ($ million today) and brought her to financial ruin. The parties reached an undisclosed settlement in December 2010.


title: Dreadnought

text: The dreadnought (alternatively spelled dreadnaught) was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's , had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as "dreadnoughts", and earlier battleships became known as pre-dreadnoughts. Her design had two revolutionary features: an "all-big-gun" armament scheme, with an unprecedented number of heavy-calibre guns, and steam turbine propulsion. As dreadnoughts became a crucial symbol of national power, the arrival of these new warships renewed the naval arms race between the United Kingdom and Germany. Dreadnought races sprang up around the world, including in South America, lasting up to the beginning of World War I. Successive designs increased rapidly in size and made use of improvements in armament, armour and propulsion throughout the dreadnought era. Within five years, new battleships outclassed "Dreadnought" herself. These more powerful vessels were known as "super-dreadnoughts". Most of the original dreadnoughts were scrapped after the end of World War I under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, but many of the newer super-dreadnoughts continued serving throughout World War II.


title: Dreadnought

text: Dreadnought-building consumed vast resources in the early 20th century, but there was only one battle between large dreadnought fleets. At the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the British and German navies clashed with no decisive result. The term "dreadnought" gradually dropped from use after World War I, especially after the Washington Naval Treaty, as virtually all remaining battleships shared dreadnought characteristics; it can also be used to describe battlecruisers, the other type of ship resulting from the dreadnought revolution.


title: Dreadnought

text: The distinctive all-big-gun armament of the dreadnought was developed in the first years of the 20th century as navies sought to increase the range and power of the armament of their battleships. The typical battleship of the 1890s, now known as the "pre-dreadnought", had a main armament of four heavy guns of calibre, a secondary armament of six to eighteen quick-firing guns of between calibre, and other smaller weapons. This was in keeping with the prevailing theory of naval combat that battles would initially be fought at some distance, but the ships would then approach to close range for the final blows (as they did in the Battle of Manila Bay), when the shorter-range, faster-firing guns would prove most useful. Some designs had an intermediate battery of guns. Serious proposals for an all-big-gun armament were circulated in several countries by 1903.


title: Dreadnought

text: All-big-gun designs commenced almost simultaneously in three navies. In 1904, the Imperial Japanese Navy authorized construction of , originally designed with twelve guns. Work began on her construction in May 1905. The Royal Navy began the design of HMS "Dreadnought" in January 1905, and she was laid down in October of the same year. Finally, the US Navy gained authorization for , carrying eight 12-inch guns, in March 1905, with construction commencing in December 1906.


title: Dreadnought

text: The move to all-big-gun designs was accomplished because a uniform, heavy-calibre armament offered advantages in both firepower and fire control, and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 showed that future naval battles could, and likely would, be fought at long distances. The newest guns had longer range and fired heavier shells than a gun of calibre. Another possible advantage was fire control; at long ranges guns were aimed by observing the splashes caused by shells fired in salvoes, and it was difficult to interpret different splashes caused by different calibres of gun. There is still debate as to whether this feature was important.


title: Dreadnought

text: In naval battles of the 1890s the decisive weapon was the medium-calibre, typically , quick-firing gun firing at relatively short range; at the Battle of the Yalu River in 1894, the victorious Japanese did not commence firing until the range had closed to , and most of the fighting occurred at . At these ranges, lighter guns had good accuracy, and their high rate of fire delivered high volumes of ordnance on the target, known as the "hail of fire". Naval gunnery was too inaccurate to hit targets at a longer range.


title: Dreadnought

text: By the early 20th century, British and American admirals expected future battleships would engage at longer distances. Newer models of torpedo had longer ranges. For instance, in 1903, the US Navy ordered a design of torpedo effective to . Both British and American admirals concluded that they needed to engage the enemy at longer ranges. In 1900, Admiral Fisher, commanding the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet, ordered gunnery practice with 6-inch guns at . By 1904 the US Naval War College was considering the effects on battleship tactics of torpedoes with a range of .


title: Dreadnought

text: The range of light and medium-calibre guns was limited, and accuracy declined badly at longer range. At longer ranges the advantage of a high rate of fire decreased; accurate shooting depended on spotting the shell-splashes of the previous salvo, which limited the optimum rate of fire.


title: Dreadnought

text: On 10 August 1904 the Imperial Russian Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy had one of the longest-range gunnery duels to date—over during the Battle of the Yellow Sea. The Russian battleships were equipped with Liuzhol range finders with an effective range of , and the Japanese ships had Barr & Stroud range finders that reached out to , but both sides still managed to hit each other with fire at . Naval architects and strategists around the world took notice.


title: Dreadnought

text: An evolutionary step was to reduce the quick-firing secondary battery and substitute additional heavy guns, typically . Ships designed in this way have been described as 'all-big-gun mixed-calibre' or later 'semi-dreadnoughts'. Semi-dreadnought ships had many heavy secondary guns in wing turrets near the center of the ship, instead of the small guns mounted in barbettes of earlier pre-dreadnought ships.


title: Dreadnought

text: Semi-dreadnought classes included the British and ; Russian ; Japanese , , and ; American and ; French ; Italian ; and Austro-Hungarian .


title: Dreadnought

text: The design process for these ships often included discussion of an 'all-big-gun one-calibre' alternative. The June 1902 issue of "Proceedings of the US Naval Institute" contained comments by the US Navy's leading gunnery expert, P. R. Alger, proposing a main battery of eight guns in twin turrets. In May 1902, the Bureau of Construction and Repair submitted a design for the battleship with twelve guns in twin turrets, two at the ends and four in the wings. Lt. Cdr. Homer C. Poundstone submitted a paper to President Theodore Roosevelt in December 1902 arguing the case for larger battleships. In an appendix to his paper, Poundstone suggested a greater number of guns was preferable to a smaller number of . The Naval War College and Bureau of Construction and Repair developed these ideas in studies between 1903 and 1905. War-game studies begun in July 1903 "showed that a battleship armed with twelve guns hexagonally arranged would be equal to three or more of the conventional type."


title: Dreadnought

text: The Royal Navy was thinking along similar lines. A design had been circulated in 1902–1903 for "a powerful 'all big-gun' armament of two calibres, viz. four and twelve guns." The Admiralty decided to build three more "King Edward VII"s (with a mixture of 12-inch, 9.2-inch and 6-inch) in the 1903–1904 naval construction programme instead. The all-big-gun concept was revived for the 1904–1905 programme, the "Lord Nelson" class. Restrictions on length and beam meant the midships 9.2-inch turrets became single instead of twin, thus giving an armament of four 12-inch, ten 9.2-inch and no 6-inch. The constructor for this design, J.H. Narbeth, submitted an alternative drawing showing an armament of twelve 12-inch guns, but the Admiralty was not prepared to accept this. Part of the rationale for the decision to retain mixed-calibre guns was the need to begin the building of the ships quickly because of the tense situation produced by the Russo-Japanese War.


title: Dreadnought

text: The replacement of the guns with weapons of calibre improved the striking power of a battleship, particularly at longer ranges. Uniform heavy-gun armament offered many other advantages. One advantage was logistical simplicity. When the US was considering whether to have a mixed-calibre main armament for the , for example, William Sims and Poundstone stressed the advantages of homogeneity in terms of ammunition supply and the transfer of crews from the disengaged guns to replace gunners wounded in action.


title: Dreadnought

text: A uniform calibre of gun also helped streamline fire control. The designers of "Dreadnought" preferred an all-big-gun design because it would mean only one set of calculations about adjustments to the range of the guns. Some historians today hold that a uniform calibre was particularly important because the risk of confusion between shell-splashes of 12-inch and lighter guns made accurate ranging difficult. This viewpoint is controversial, as fire control in 1905 was not advanced enough to use the salvo-firing technique where this confusion might be important, and confusion of shell-splashes does not seem to have been a concern of those working on all-big-gun designs. Nevertheless, the likelihood of engagements at longer ranges was important in deciding that the heaviest possible guns should become standard, hence 12-inch rather than 10-inch.


title: Dreadnought

text: The newer designs of 12-inch gun mounting had a considerably higher rate of fire, removing the advantage previously enjoyed by smaller calibres. In 1895, a 12-inch gun might have fired one round every four minutes; by 1902, two rounds per minute was usual. In October 1903, the Italian naval architect Vittorio Cuniberti published a paper in "Jane's Fighting Ships" entitled "An Ideal Battleship for the British Navy", which called for a 17,000-ton ship carrying a main armament of twelve 12-inch guns, protected by armour 12 inches thick, and having a speed of . Cuniberti's idea—which he had already proposed to his own navy, the "Regia Marina"—was to make use of the high rate of fire of new 12-inch guns to produce devastating rapid fire from heavy guns to replace the 'hail of fire' from lighter weapons. Something similar lay behind the Japanese move towards heavier guns; at Tsushima, Japanese shells contained a higher than normal proportion of high explosive, and were fused to explode on contact, starting fires rather than piercing armour. The increased rate of fire laid the foundations for future advances in fire control.


title: Dreadnought

text: In Japan, the two battleships of the 1903–1904 programme were the first in the world to be laid down as all-big-gun ships, with eight 12-inch guns. The armour of their design was considered too thin, demanding a substantial redesign. The financial pressures of the Russo-Japanese War and the short supply of 12-inch guns—which had to be imported from the United Kingdom—meant these ships were completed with a mixture of 12-inch and 10-inch armament. The 1903–1904 design retained traditional triple-expansion steam engines, unlike "Dreadnought".


title: Dreadnought

text: The dreadnought breakthrough occurred in the United Kingdom in October 1905. Fisher, now the First Sea Lord, had long been an advocate of new technology in the Royal Navy and had recently been convinced of the idea of an all-big-gun battleship. Fisher is often credited as the creator of the dreadnought and the father of the United Kingdom's great dreadnought battleship fleet, an impression he himself did much to reinforce. It has been suggested Fisher's main focus was on the arguably even more revolutionary battlecruiser and not the battleship.


title: Dreadnought

text: Shortly after taking office, Fisher set up a Committee on Designs to consider future battleships and armoured cruisers. The committee's first task was to consider a new battleship. The specification for the new ship was a 12-inch main battery and anti-torpedo-boat guns but no intermediate calibres, and a speed of , which was two or three knots faster than existing battleships. The initial designs intended twelve 12-inch guns, though difficulties in positioning these guns led the chief constructor at one stage to propose a return to four 12-inch guns with sixteen or eighteen of 9.2-inch. After a full evaluation of reports of the action at Tsushima compiled by an official observer, Captain Pakenham, the Committee settled on a main battery of ten 12-inch guns, along with twenty-two 12-pounders as secondary armament. The committee also gave "Dreadnought" steam turbine propulsion, which was unprecedented in a large warship. The greater power and lighter weight of turbines meant the 21-knot design speed could be achieved in a smaller and less costly ship than if reciprocating engines had been used. Construction took place quickly; the keel was laid on 2 October 1905, the ship was launched on 10 February 1906, and completed on 3 October 1906—an impressive demonstration of British industrial might.


title: Dreadnought

text: The first US dreadnoughts were the two "South Carolina"-class ships. Detailed plans for these were worked out in July–November 1905, and approved by the Board of Construction on 23 November 1905. Building was slow; specifications for bidders were issued on 21 March 1906, the contracts awarded on 21 July 1906 and the two ships were laid down in December 1906, after the completion of the "Dreadnought".


title: Dreadnought

text: The designers of dreadnoughts sought to provide as much protection, speed, and firepower as possible in a ship of a realistic size and cost. The hallmark of dreadnought battleships was an "all-big-gun" armament, but they also had heavy armour concentrated mainly in a thick belt at the waterline and in one or more armoured decks. Secondary armament, fire control, command equipment, and protection against torpedoes also had to be crammed into the hull.


title: Dreadnought

text: The inevitable consequence of demands for ever greater speed, striking power, and endurance meant that displacement, and hence cost, of dreadnoughts tended to increase. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 imposed a limit of 35,000 tons on the displacement of capital ships. In subsequent years treaty battleships were commissioned to build up to this limit. Japan's decision to leave the Treaty in the 1930s, and the arrival of the Second World War, eventually made this limit irrelevant.


title: Dreadnought

text: Dreadnoughts mounted a uniform main battery of heavy-calibre guns; the number, size, and arrangement differed between designs. "Dreadnought" mounted ten 12-inch guns. 12-inch guns had been standard for most navies in the pre-dreadnought era, and this continued in the first generation of dreadnought battleships. The Imperial German Navy was an exception, continuing to use 11-inch guns in its first class of dreadnoughts, the .


title: Dreadnought

text: Dreadnoughts also carried lighter weapons. Many early dreadnoughts carried a secondary armament of very light guns designed to fend off enemy torpedo boats. The calibre and weight of secondary armament tended to increase, as the range of torpedoes and the staying power of the torpedo boats and destroyers expected to carry them also increased. From the end of World War I onwards, battleships had to be equipped with many light guns as anti-aircraft armament.


title: Dreadnought

text: Dreadnoughts frequently carried torpedo tubes themselves. In theory, a line of battleships so equipped could unleash a devastating volley of torpedoes on an enemy line steaming a parallel course. This was also a carry-over from the older tactical doctrine of continuously closing range with the enemy, and the idea that gunfire alone may be sufficient to cripple a battleship, but not sink it outright, so a coup de grace would be made with torpedoes. In practice, torpedoes fired from battleships scored very few hits, and there was a risk that a stored torpedo would cause a dangerous explosion if hit by enemy fire. And in fact, the only documented instance of one battleship successfully torpedoing another came during the action of 27 May 1941, where the British battleship claimed to have torpedoed the crippled at close range.


title: Dreadnought

text: The effectiveness of the guns depended in part on the layout of the turrets. "Dreadnought", and the British ships which immediately followed it, carried five turrets: one forward, one aft and one amidships on the centreline of the ship, and two in the 'wings' next to the superstructure. This allowed three turrets to fire ahead and four on the broadside. The "Nassau" and classes of German dreadnoughts adopted a 'hexagonal' layout, with one turret each fore and aft and four wing turrets; this meant more guns were mounted in total, but the same number could fire ahead or broadside as with "Dreadnought".


title: Dreadnought

text: Dreadnought designs experimented with different layouts. The British "Neptune"-class battleship staggered the wing turrets, so all ten guns could fire on the broadside, a feature also used by the German . This risked blast damage to parts of the ship over which the guns fired, and put great stress on the ship's frames.


title: Dreadnought

text: If all turrets were on the centreline of the vessel, stresses on the ship's frames were relatively low. This layout meant the entire main battery could fire on the broadside, though fewer could fire end-on. It meant the hull would be longer, which posed some challenges for the designers; a longer ship needed to devote more weight to armour to get equivalent protection, and the magazines which served each turret interfered with the distribution of boilers and engines. For these reasons, , which carried a record fourteen 12-inch guns in seven centreline turrets, was not considered a success.


title: Dreadnought

text: A superfiring layout was eventually adopted as standard. This involved raising one or two turrets so they could fire over a turret immediately forward or astern of them. The US Navy adopted this feature with their first dreadnoughts in 1906, but others were slower to do so. As with other layouts there were drawbacks. Initially, there were concerns about the impact of the blast of the raised guns on the lower turret. Raised turrets raised the centre of gravity of the ship, and might reduce the stability of the ship. Nevertheless, this layout made the best of the firepower available from a fixed number of guns, and was eventually adopted generally. The US Navy used superfiring on the "South Carolina" class, and the layout was adopted in the Royal Navy with the of 1910. By World War II, superfiring was entirely standard.


title: Dreadnought

text: Initially, all dreadnoughts had two guns to a turret. One solution to the problem of turret layout was to put three or even four guns in each turret. Fewer turrets meant the ship could be shorter, or could devote more space to machinery. On the other hand, it meant that in the event of an enemy shell destroying one turret, a higher proportion of the main armament would be out of action. The risk of the blast waves from each gun barrel interfering with others in the same turret reduced the rate of fire from the guns somewhat. The first nation to adopt the triple turret was Italy, in the , soon followed by Russia with the , the Austro-Hungarian , and the US . British Royal Navy battleships did not adopt triple turrets until after the First World War, with the , and Japanese battleships not until the late-1930s . Several later designs used quadruple turrets, including the British and French .


title: Dreadnought

text: Rather than try to fit more guns onto a ship, it was possible to increase the power of each gun. This could be done by increasing either the calibre of the weapon and hence the weight of shell, or by lengthening the barrel to increase muzzle velocity. Either of these offered the chance to increase range and armour penetration.


title: Dreadnought

text: Both methods offered advantages and disadvantages, though in general greater muzzle velocity meant increased barrel wear. As guns fire, their barrels wear out, losing accuracy and eventually requiring replacement. At times, this became problematic; the US Navy seriously considered stopping practice firing of heavy guns in 1910 because of the wear on the barrels. The disadvantages of guns of larger calibre are that guns and turrets must be heavier; and heavier shells, which are fired at lower velocities, require turret designs that allow a larger angle of elevation for the same range. Heavier shells have the advantage of being slowed less by air resistance, retaining more penetrating power at longer ranges.


title: Dreadnought

text: Different navies approached the issue of calibre in different ways. The German navy, for instance, generally used a lighter calibre than the equivalent British ships, e.g. 12-inch calibre when the British standard was . Because German metallurgy was superior, the German 12-inch gun had better shell weight and muzzle velocity than the British 12-inch; and German ships could afford more armour for the same vessel weight because the German 12-inch guns were lighter than the 13.5-inch guns the British required for comparable effect.


title: Dreadnought

text: Over time the calibre of guns tended to increase. In the Royal Navy, the "Orion" class, launched 1910, had ten 13.5-inch guns, all on the centreline; the "Queen Elizabeth" class, launched in 1913, had eight guns. In all navies, fewer guns of larger calibre came to be used. The smaller number of guns simplified their distribution, and centreline turrets became the norm.


title: Dreadnought

text: A further step change was planned for battleships designed and laid down at the end of World War I. The Japanese s in 1917 carried guns, which was quickly matched by the US Navy's . Both the United Kingdom and Japan were planning battleships with armament, in the British case the . The Washington Naval Treaty concluded on 6 February 1922 and ratified later limited battleship guns to not more than calibre, and these heavier guns were not produced.


title: Dreadnought

text: The only battleships to break the limit were the Japanese , begun in 1937 (after the treaty expired), which carried main guns. By the middle of World War II, the United Kingdom was making use of guns kept as spares for the to arm the last British battleship, .


title: Dreadnought

text: Some World War II-era designs were drawn up proposing another move towards gigantic armament. The German H-43 and H-44 designs proposed guns, and there is evidence Hitler wanted calibres as high as ; the Japanese 'Super "Yamato"' design also called for 20-inch guns. None of these proposals went further than very preliminary design work.


title: Dreadnought

text: The first dreadnoughts tended to have a very light secondary armament intended to protect them from torpedo boats. "Dreadnought" carried 12-pounder guns; each of her twenty-two 12-pounders could fire at least 15 rounds a minute at any torpedo boat making an attack. The "South Carolina"s and other early American dreadnoughts were similarly equipped. At this stage, torpedo boats were expected to attack separately from any fleet actions. Therefore, there was no need to armour the secondary gun armament, or to protect the crews from the blast effects of the main guns. In this context, the light guns tended to be mounted in unarmoured positions high on the ship to minimize weight and maximize field of fire.


title: Dreadnought

text: Within a few years, the principal threat was from the destroyer—larger, more heavily armed, and harder to destroy than the torpedo boat. Since the risk from destroyers was very serious, it was considered that one shell from a battleship's secondary armament should sink (rather than merely damage) any attacking destroyer. Destroyers, in contrast to torpedo boats, were expected to attack as part of a general fleet engagement, so it was necessary for the secondary armament to be protected against shell splinters from heavy guns, and the blast of the main armament. This philosophy of secondary armament was adopted by the German navy from the start; "Nassau", for instance, carried twelve and sixteen guns, and subsequent German dreadnought classes followed this lead. These heavier guns tended to be mounted in armoured barbettes or casemates on the main deck. The Royal Navy increased its secondary armament from 12-pounder to first and then guns, which were standard at the start of World War I; the US standardized on 5-inch calibre for the war but planned 6-inch guns for the ships designed just afterwards.


title: Dreadnought

text: The secondary battery served several other roles. It was hoped that a medium-calibre shell might be able to score a hit on an enemy dreadnought's sensitive fire control systems. It was also felt that the secondary armament could play an important role in driving off enemy cruisers from attacking a crippled battleship.


title: Dreadnought

text: The secondary armament of dreadnoughts was, on the whole, unsatisfactory. A hit from a light gun could not be relied on to stop a destroyer. Heavier guns could not be relied on to hit a destroyer, as experience at the Battle of Jutland showed. The casemate mountings of heavier guns proved problematic; being low in the hull, they proved liable to flooding, and on several classes, some were removed and plated over. The only sure way to protect a dreadnought from destroyer or torpedo boat attack was to provide a destroyer squadron as an escort. After World War I the secondary armament tended to be mounted in turrets on the upper deck and around the superstructure. This allowed a wide field of fire and good protection without the negative points of casemates. Increasingly through the 1920s and 1930s, the secondary guns were seen as a major part of the anti-aircraft battery, with high-angle, dual-purpose guns increasingly adopted.


title: Dreadnought

text: Much of the displacement of a dreadnought was taken up by the steel plating of the armour. Designers spent much time and effort to provide the best possible protection for their ships against the various weapons with which they would be faced. Only so much weight could be devoted to protection, without compromising speed, firepower or seakeeping.


title: Dreadnought

text: The bulk of a dreadnought's armour was concentrated around the "armoured citadel". This was a box, with four armoured walls and an armoured roof, around the most important parts of the ship. The sides of the citadel were the "armoured belt" of the ship, which started on the hull just in front of the forward turret and ran to just behind the aft turret. The ends of the citadel were two armoured bulkheads, fore and aft, which stretched between the ends of the armour belt. The "roof" of the citadel was an armoured deck. Within the citadel were the boilers, engines, and the magazines for the main armament. A hit to any of these systems could cripple or destroy the ship. The "floor" of the box was the bottom of the ship's hull, and was unarmoured, although it was, in fact, a "triple bottom".


title: Dreadnought

text: The earliest dreadnoughts were intended to take part in a pitched battle against other battleships at ranges of up to . In such an encounter, shells would fly on a relatively flat trajectory, and a shell would have to hit at or just about the waterline to damage the vitals of the ship. For this reason, the early dreadnoughts' armour was concentrated in a thick belt around the waterline; this was thick in "Dreadnought". Behind this belt were arranged the ship's coal bunkers, to further protect the engineering spaces. In an engagement of this sort, there was also a lesser threat of indirect damage to the vital parts of the ship. A shell which struck above the belt armour and exploded could send fragments flying in all directions. These fragments were dangerous but could be stopped by much thinner armour than what would be necessary to stop an unexploded armour-piercing shell. To protect the innards of the ship from fragments of shells which detonated on the superstructure, much thinner steel armour was applied to the decks of the ship.


title: Dreadnought

text: The thickest protection was reserved for the central citadel in all battleships. Some navies extended a thinner armoured belt and armoured deck to cover the ends of the ship, or extended a thinner armoured belt up the outside of the hull. This "tapered" armour was used by the major European navies—the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. This arrangement gave some armour to a larger part of the ship; for the very first dreadnoughts, when high-explosive shellfire was still considered a significant threat, this was useful. It tended to result in the main belt being very short, only protecting a thin strip above the waterline; some navies found that when their dreadnoughts were heavily laden, the armoured belt was entirely submerged. The alternative was an "all or nothing" protection scheme, developed by the US Navy. The armour belt was tall and thick, but no side protection at all was provided to the ends of the ship or the upper decks. The armoured deck was also thickened. The "all-or-nothing" system provided more effective protection against the very-long-range engagements of dreadnought fleets and was adopted outside the US Navy after World War I.


title: Dreadnought

text: The design of the dreadnought changed to meet new challenges. For example, armour schemes were changed to reflect the greater risk of plunging shells from long-range gunfire, and the increasing threat from armour-piercing bombs dropped by aircraft. Later designs carried a greater thickness of steel on the armoured deck; "Yamato" carried a main belt, but a deck thick.


title: Dreadnought

text: The final element of the protection scheme of the first dreadnoughts was the subdivision of the ship below the waterline into several watertight compartments. If the hull were holed—by shellfire, mine, torpedo, or collision—then, in theory, only one area would flood and the ship could survive. To make this precaution even more effective, many dreadnoughts had no doors between different underwater sections, so that even a surprise hole below the waterline need not sink the ship. There were still several instances where flooding spread between underwater compartments.


title: Dreadnought

text: The greatest evolution in dreadnought protection came with the development of the anti-torpedo bulge and torpedo belt, both attempts to protect against underwater damage by mines and torpedoes. The purpose of underwater protection was to absorb the force of a detonating mine or torpedo well away from the final watertight hull. This meant an inner bulkhead along the side of the hull, which was generally lightly armoured to capture splinters, separated from the outer hull by one or more compartments. The compartments in between were either left empty, or filled with coal, water or fuel oil.


title: Dreadnought

text: Dreadnoughts were propelled by two to four screw propellers. "Dreadnought" herself, and all British dreadnoughts, had screw shafts driven by steam turbines. The first generation of dreadnoughts built in other nations used the slower triple-expansion steam engine which had been standard in pre-dreadnoughts.


title: Dreadnought

text: Turbines offered more power than reciprocating engines for the same volume of machinery. This, along with a guarantee on the new machinery from the inventor, Charles Parsons, persuaded the Royal Navy to use turbines in "Dreadnought". It is often said that turbines had the additional benefits of being cleaner and more reliable than reciprocating engines. By 1905, new designs of reciprocating engine were available which were cleaner and more reliable than previous models.


title: Dreadnought

text: Turbines also had disadvantages. At cruising speeds much slower than maximum speed, turbines were markedly less fuel-efficient than reciprocating engines. This was particularly important for navies which required a long range at cruising speeds—and hence for the US Navy, which was planning in the event of war to cruise across the Pacific and engage the Japanese in the Philippines.


title: Dreadnought

text: The US Navy experimented with turbine engines from 1908 in the , but was not fully committed to turbines until the "Pennsylvania" class in 1916. In the preceding "Nevada" class, one ship, the "USS Oklahoma", received reciprocating engines, while the "USS Nevada" received geared turbines. The two "New York"-class battleships of 1914 both received reciprocating engines, but all four ships of the "USS Florida" (1911) and "USS Wyoming" (1912) classes received turbines.


title: Dreadnought

text: The disadvantages of the turbine were eventually overcome. The solution which eventually was generally adopted was the geared turbine, where gearing reduced the rotation rate of the propellers and hence increased efficiency. This solution required technical precision in the gears and hence was difficult to implement.


title: Dreadnought

text: One alternative was the turbo-electric drive where the steam turbine generated electrical power which then drove the propellers. This was particularly favoured by the US Navy, which used it for all dreadnoughts from late 1915–1922. The advantages of this method were its low cost, the opportunity for very close underwater compartmentalization, and good astern performance. The disadvantages were that the machinery was heavy and vulnerable to battle damage, particularly the effects of flooding on the electrics.


title: Dreadnought

text: Turbines were never replaced in battleship design. Diesel engines were eventually considered by some powers, as they offered very good endurance and an engineering space taking up less of the length of the ship. They were also heavier, however, took up a greater vertical space, offered less power, and were considered unreliable.


title: Dreadnought

text: The first generation of dreadnoughts used coal to fire the boilers which fed steam to the turbines. Coal had been in use since the very first steam warships. One advantage of coal was that it is quite inert (in lump form) and thus could be used as part of the ship's protection scheme. Coal also had many disadvantages. It was labor-intensive to pack coal into the ship's bunkers and then feed it into the boilers. The boilers became clogged with ash. Airborne coal dust and related vapors were highly explosive, possibly evidenced by the explosion of . Burning coal as fuel also produced thick black smoke which gave away the position of a fleet and interfered with visibility, signaling, and fire control. In addition, coal was very bulky and had comparatively low thermal efficiency.


title: Dreadnought

text: Oil-fired propulsion had many advantages for naval architects and officers at sea alike. It reduced smoke, making ships less visible. It could be fed into boilers automatically, rather than needing a complement of stokers to do it by hand. Oil has roughly twice the thermal content of coal. This meant that the boilers themselves could be smaller; and for the same volume of fuel, an oil-fired ship would have much greater range.


title: Dreadnought

text: These benefits meant that, as early as 1901, Fisher was pressing the advantages of oil fuel. There were technical problems with oil-firing, connected with the different distribution of the weight of oil fuel compared to coal, and the problems of pumping viscous oil. The main problem with using oil for the battle fleet was that, with the exception of the United States, every major navy would have to import its oil. As a result, some navies adopted 'dual-firing' boilers which could use coal sprayed with oil; British ships so equipped, which included dreadnoughts, could even use oil alone at up to 60% power.


title: Dreadnought

text: The US had large reserves of oil, and the US Navy was the first to wholeheartedly adopt oil-firing, deciding to do so in 1910 and ordering oil-fired boilers for the "Nevada" class, in 1911. The United Kingdom was not far behind, deciding in 1912 to use oil on its own in the "Queen Elizabeth" class; shorter British design and building times meant that "Queen Elizabeth" was commissioned before either of the "Nevada"-class vessels. The United Kingdom planned to revert to mixed firing with the subsequent , at the cost of some speed—but Fisher, who returned to office in 1914, insisted that all the boilers should be oil-fired. Other major navies retained mixed coal-and-oil firing until the end of World War I.


title: Dreadnought

text: Dreadnoughts developed as a move in an international battleship arms-race which had begun in the 1890s. The British Royal Navy had a big lead in the number of pre-dreadnought battleships, but a lead of only one dreadnought in 1906. This has led to criticism that the British, by launching HMS "Dreadnought", threw away a strategic advantage. Most of the United Kingdom's naval rivals had already contemplated or even built warships that featured a uniform battery of heavy guns. Both the Japanese Navy and the US Navy ordered "all-big-gun" ships in 1904–1905, with "Satsuma" and "South Carolina", respectively. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II had advocated a fast warship armed only with heavy guns since the 1890s. By securing a head start in dreadnought construction, the United Kingdom ensured its dominance of the seas continued.


title: Dreadnought

text: The battleship race soon accelerated once more, placing a great burden on the finances of the governments which engaged in it. The first dreadnoughts were not much more expensive than the last pre-dreadnoughts, but the cost per ship continued to grow thereafter. Modern battleships were the crucial element of naval power in spite of their price. Each battleship signalled national power and prestige, in a manner similar to the nuclear weapons of today. Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Japan and Austria-Hungary all began dreadnought programmes, and second-rank powers—including the Ottoman Empire, Greece, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile—commissioned British, French, German, and American yards to build dreadnoughts for them.


title: Dreadnought

text: The construction of "Dreadnought" coincided with increasing tension between the United Kingdom and Germany. Germany had begun building a large battlefleet in the 1890s, as part of a deliberate policy to challenge British naval supremacy. With the signing of the Entente Cordiale in April 1904, it became increasingly clear the United Kingdom's principal naval enemy would be Germany, which was building up a large, modern fleet under the "Tirpitz" laws. This rivalry gave rise to the two largest dreadnought fleets of the pre-1914 period.


title: Dreadnought

text: The first German response to "Dreadnought" was 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 the authorization for armoured cruisers, rather than for capital ships—these classes gave Germany a total of ten modern capital ships built or building in 1909. The British ships were faster and more powerful than their German equivalents, but a 12:10 ratio fell far short of the 2:1 superiority the Royal Navy wanted to maintain.


title: Dreadnought

text: In 1909, the British Parliament authorized an additional four capital ships, holding out hope Germany would be willing to negotiate a treaty limiting battleship numbers. If no such solution could be found, an additional four ships would be laid down in 1910. Even this compromise meant, when taken together with some social reforms, raising taxes enough to prompt a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom in 1909–1910. In 1910, the British eight-ship construction plan went ahead, including four "Orion"-class super-dreadnoughts, augmented by battlecruisers purchased by Australia and New Zealand. In the same period, Germany laid down only three ships, giving the United Kingdom a superiority of 22 ships to 13. The British resolve, as demonstrated by their construction programme, led the Germans to seek a negotiated end to the arms race. 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%, but talks foundered on the question on whether to include British colonial battlecruisers in the count, as well as on non-naval matters like the German demands for recognition of ownership of Alsace-Lorraine.


title: Dreadnought

text: The dreadnought race stepped up in 1910 and 1911, with Germany laying down four capital ships each year and the United Kingdom five. Tension 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 for the United Kingdom, the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Navy was building four dreadnoughts, while Italy had four and was building two more. Against such threats, the Royal Navy could no longer guarantee vital British interests. The United Kingdom was faced with a choice between 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 region and shaking the stability of the British Empire. The only acceptable option, and the one recommended by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, was to break with the policies of the past and to make an arrangement with France. The French would assume responsibility for checking Italy and Austria-Hungary in the Mediterranean, while the British would protect the north coast of France. In spite of some opposition from British politicians, the Royal Navy organised itself on this basis in 1912.


title: Dreadnought

text: In spite of these important strategic consequences, the 1912 Naval Law had little bearing on the battleship-force ratios. The United Kingdom responded by laying down ten new super-dreadnoughts in its 1912 and 1913 budgets—ships of the "Queen Elizabeth" and "Revenge" classes, which introduced a further step-change in armament, speed and protection—while Germany laid down only five, concentrating resources on its army.


title: Dreadnought

text: The American "South Carolina"-class battleships were the first all-big-gun ships completed by one of the United Kingdom's rivals. The planning for the type had begun before "Dreadnought" was launched. There is some speculation that informal contacts with sympathetic Royal Navy officials influenced the US Navy design, but the American ship was very different.


title: Dreadnought

text: The US Congress authorized the Navy to build two battleships, but of only 16,000 tons or lower displacement. As a result, the "South Carolina" class were built to much tighter limits than "Dreadnought". To make the best use of the weight available for armament, all eight 12-inch guns were mounted along the centreline, in superfiring pairs fore and aft. This arrangement gave a broadside equal to "Dreadnought", but with fewer guns; this was the most efficient distribution of weapons and proved a precursor of the standard practice of future generations of battleships. The principal economy of displacement compared to "Dreadnought" was in propulsion; "South Carolina" retained triple-expansion steam engines, and could manage only compared to for "Dreadnought". For this reason the later were described by some as the US Navy's first dreadnoughts; only a few years after their commissioning, the "South Carolina" class could not operate tactically with the newer dreadnoughts due to their low speed, and were forced to operate with the older pre-dreadnoughts.


title: Dreadnought

text: The two 10-gun, 20,500-ton ships of the "Delaware" class were the first US battleships to match the speed of British dreadnoughts, but their secondary battery was "wet" (suffering from spray) and their bow was low in the water. An alternative 12-gun 24,000-ton design had many disadvantages as well; the extra two guns and a lower casemate had "hidden costs"—the two wing turrets planned would weaken the upper deck, be almost impossible to adequately protect against underwater attack, and force magazines to be located too close to the sides of the ship.


title: Dreadnought

text: The US Navy continued to expand its battlefleet, laying down two ships in most subsequent years until 1920. The US continued to use reciprocating engines as an alternative to turbines until the "Nevada", laid down in 1912. In part, this reflected a cautious approach to battleship-building, and in part a preference for long endurance over high maximum speed owing to the US Navy's need to operate in the Pacific Ocean.


title: Dreadnought

text: With their victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the Japanese became concerned about the potential for conflict with the US. The theorist Satō Tetsutarō developed the doctrine that Japan should have a battlefleet at least 70% the size of that of the US. This would enable the Japanese navy to win two decisive battles: the first early in a prospective war against the US Pacific Fleet, and the second against the US Atlantic Fleet which would inevitably be dispatched as reinforcements.


title: Dreadnought

text: Japan's first priorities were to refit the pre-dreadnoughts captured from Russia and to complete "Satsuma" and . The "Satsuma"s were designed before "Dreadnought", but financial shortages resulting from the Russo-Japanese War delayed completion and resulted in their carrying a mixed armament, so they were known as "semi-dreadnoughts". These were followed by a modified "Aki"-type: and of the "Kawachi"-class. These two ships were laid down in 1909 and completed in 1912. They were armed with twelve 12-inch guns, but they were of two different models with differing barrel-lengths, meaning that they would have had difficulty controlling their fire at long ranges.


title: Dreadnought

text: 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. In September 1910 the first of the was laid down, making France the eleventh nation to enter the dreadnought race. In the Navy Estimates of 1911, Paul Bénazet asserted that from 1896 to 1911, France dropped from being the world's second-largest naval power to fourth; he attributed this to problems in maintenance routines and neglect. The closer alliance with the United Kingdom made these reduced forces more than adequate for French needs.


title: Dreadnought

text: The Italian Regia Marina had received proposals for an all-big-gun battleship from Cuniberti well before "Dreadnought" was launched, but it took until 1909 for Italy to lay down one of its own. The construction of "Dante Alighieri" was prompted by rumours of Austro-Hungarian dreadnought-building. A further five dreadnoughts of the and 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 were suspended (and later cancelled) on the outbreak of World War I.


title: Dreadnought

text: In January 1909 Austro-Hungarian admirals circulated a document calling for a fleet of four dreadnoughts. A constitutional crisis in 1909–1910 meant no construction could be approved. In spite of this, shipyards laid down two dreadnoughts on a speculative basis—due especially to the energetic manipulations of Rudolf Montecuccoli, Chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy—later approved along with an additional two. The resulting ships, all "Tegetthoff" class, were to be accompanied by a further four ships of the , but these were cancelled on the Austro-Hungarian entry into World War I.


title: Dreadnought

text: In June 1909 the Imperial Russian Navy began construction of four "Gangut" dreadnoughts for the Baltic Fleet, and in October 1911, three more dreadnoughts for the Black Sea Fleet were laid down. Of seven ships, only one was completed within four years of being laid down, and the "Gangut" ships were "obsolescent and outclassed" upon commissioning. Taking lessons from Tsushima, and influenced by Cuniberti, they ended up more closely resembling slower versions of Fisher's battlecruisers than "Dreadnought", and they proved badly flawed due to their smaller guns and thinner armour when compared with contemporary dreadnoughts.


title: Dreadnought

text: Spain commissioned three ships of the , with the first laid down in 1909. The three ships, the smallest dreadnoughts ever constructed, were built in Spain with British assistance; construction on the third ship, , took nine years from its laying down date to completion because of non-delivery of critical material, especially armament, from the United Kingdom.


title: Dreadnought

text: Brazil was the third country to begin construction on a dreadnought. It ordered three dreadnoughts from the United Kingdom which would mount a heavier main battery than any other battleship afloat at the time (twelve 12-inch/45 calibre guns). Two were completed for Brazil: was laid down on by Armstrong (Elswick) on 17 April 1907, and its sister, , followed thirteen days later at Vickers (Barrow). Although many naval journals in Europe and the US speculated that Brazil was really acting as a proxy for one of the naval powers and would hand the ships over to them as soon as they were complete, both ships were commissioned into the Brazilian Navy in 1910. The third ship, "Rio de Janeiro", was nearly complete when rubber prices collapsed and Brazil could not afford her. She was sold to Turkey in 1913.


title: Dreadnought

text: The Netherlands intended by 1912 to replace its fleet of pre-dreadnought armoured ships with a modern fleet composed of dreadnoughts. After a Royal Commission proposed the purchase of nine dreadnoughts in August 1913, there were extensive debates over the need for such ships and—if they were necessary—over the actual number needed. These lasted into August 1914, when a bill authorizing funding for four dreadnoughts was finalized, but the outbreak of World War I halted the ambitious plan.


title: Dreadnought

text: The Ottoman Empire ordered two dreadnoughts from British yards, "Reshadiye" in 1911 and "Fatih Sultan Mehmed" in 1914. "Reshadiye" was completed, and in 1913, Turkey also acquired a nearly-completed dreadnought from Brazil, which became "Sultan Osman I". At the start of World War I, Britain seized the two completed ships for the Royal Navy. "Reshadiye" and "Sultan Osman I" became and "Agincourt" respectively. ("Fatih Sultan Mehmed" was scrapped.) This greatly offended the Ottoman Empire. When two German warships, the battlecruiser and the cruiser , became trapped in Ottoman territory after the start of the war, Germany "gave" them to the Ottomans. (They remained German-crewed and under German orders.) The British seizure and the German gift proved important factors in the Ottoman Empire joining the Central Powers in October 1914.


title: Dreadnought

text: Greece had ordered a dreadnought from Germany, but work stopped on the outbreak of war. The main armament for the Greek ship had been ordered in the United States, and the guns consequently equipped a class of British monitors. In 1914 Greece purchased two pre-dreadnoughts from the United States Navy, renaming them and in Royal Hellenic Navy service.


title: Dreadnought

text: The Conservative Party-dominated House of Commons of Canada passed a bill purchasing three British dreadnoughts for $35 million to use in the Canadian Naval Service, but the measure was defeated in the Liberal Party-dominated Senate of Canada. As a result, the country's navy was unprepared for World War I.


title: Dreadnought

text: Within five years of the commissioning of "Dreadnought", a new generation of more powerful "super-dreadnoughts" was being built. The British "Orion" class jumped an unprecedented 2,000 tons in displacement, introduced the heavier 13.5-inch (343 mm) gun, and placed all the main armament on the centreline (hence with some turrets superfiring over others). In the four years between "Dreadnought" and "Orion", displacement had increased by 25%, and weight of broadside (the weight of ammunition that can be fired on a single bearing in one salvo) had doubled.


title: Dreadnought

text: British super-dreadnoughts were joined by those built by other nations. The US Navy , laid down in 1911, carried 14-inch (356 mm) guns in response to the British move and this calibre became standard. In Japan, two super-dreadnoughts were laid down in 1912, followed by the two ships in 1914, with both classes carrying twelve 14-inch (356 mm) guns. In 1917, the "Nagato" class was ordered, the first super-dreadnoughts to mount 16-inch guns, making them arguably the most powerful warships in the world. All were increasingly built from Japanese rather than from imported components. In France, the "Courbet"s were followed by three super-dreadnoughts of the , carrying guns; another five s were canceled on the outbreak of World War I. The aforementioned Brazilian dreadnoughts sparked a small-scale arms race in South America, as Argentina and Chile each ordered two super-dreadnoughts from the US and the United Kingdom, respectively. Argentina's and had a main armament equaling that of their Brazilian counterparts, but were much heavier and carried thicker armour. The British purchased both of Chile's battleships on the outbreak of the First World War. One, , was later repurchased by Chile.


title: Dreadnought

text: Later British super-dreadnoughts, principally the "Queen Elizabeth" class, dispensed with the midships turret, freeing weight and volume for larger, oil-fired boilers. The new 15-inch (381 mm) gun gave greater firepower in spite of the loss of a turret, and there were a thicker armour belt and improved underwater protection. The class had a design speed, and they were considered the first fast battleships.


title: Dreadnought

text: The design weakness of super-dreadnoughts, which distinguished them from post-1918 vessels, was armour disposition. Their design emphasized the vertical armour protection needed in short-range battles, where shells would strike the sides of the ship, and assumed that an outer plate of armour would detonate any incoming shells so that crucial internal structures such as turret bases needed only light protection against splinters. This was in spite of the ability to engage the enemy at , ranges where the shells would descend at angles of up to thirty degrees ("plunging fire") and so could pierce the deck behind the outer plate and strike the internal structures directly. Post-war designs typically had 5 to 6 inches (130 to 150 mm) of deck armour laid across the top of single, much thicker vertical plates to defend against this. 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 originated before the use of torpedoes became widespread.


title: Dreadnought

text: The United States Navy designed its 'Standard-type battleships', beginning with the "Nevada" class, with long-range engagements and plunging fire in mind; the first of these was laid down in 1912, four 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" armour and "raft" construction—based on a design philosophy which held that only those parts of the ship worth giving the thickest possible protection were worth armouring at all, and that the resulting armoured "raft" should contain enough reserve buoyancy to keep the entire ship afloat in the event the unarmoured bow and stern were thoroughly punctured and flooded. This design proved its worth in the 1942 Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, when an ill-timed turn by silhouetted her to Japanese guns. In spite of receiving 26 hits, her armoured raft remained untouched and she remained both afloat and operational at the end of action.


title: Dreadnought

text: The First World War saw no decisive engagements between battlefleets to compare with Tsushima. The role of battleships was marginal to the land fighting in France and Russia; it was equally marginal to the German war on commerce ("Handelskrieg") and the Allied blockade.


title: Dreadnought

text: By virtue of geography, the Royal Navy could keep the German High Seas Fleet confined to the North Sea with relative ease, but was unable to break the German superiority in the Baltic Sea. Both sides were aware, because of the greater number of British dreadnoughts, that a full fleet engagement would likely 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 coast, where friendly minefields, torpedo boats, and submarines could even the odds.


title: Dreadnought

text: 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 May 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on favourable terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets on 31 May to 1 June in the indecisive Battle of Jutland.


title: Dreadnought

text: 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 Sea, action was largely limited to convoy raiding and the laying of defensive minefields. The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet was confined to the Adriatic Sea by the British and French blockade but bombarded the Italians on several occasions, notably at Ancona in 1915. And in the Mediterranean, the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault at Gallipoli.


title: Dreadnought

text: The course of the war 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 elderly British armoured cruisers by the German submarine in less than an hour. Mines continued to prove a threat when a month later the recently commissioned British super-dreadnought struck one and sank in 1914. By the end of October, British strategy and tactics in the North Sea had changed to reduce the risk of U-boat attack. Jutland was the only major clash of dreadnought battleship fleets in history, and 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 led to growing concern in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships.


title: Dreadnought

text: For the German part, the High Seas Fleet determined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines, and since submarines were more needed for commerce raiding, the fleet stayed in port for much of the remainder of the war. Other theatres showed the role of small craft in damaging or destroying dreadnoughts. The two Austrian dreadnoughts lost in November 1918 were casualties of Italian torpedo boats and frogmen.


title: Dreadnought

text: The outbreak of World War I largely halted the dreadnought arms race as funds and technical resources were diverted to more pressing priorities. The foundries which produced battleship guns were dedicated instead to the production of land-based artillery, and shipyards were flooded with orders for small ships. The weaker naval powers engaged in the Great War—France, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia—suspended their battleship programmes entirely. The United Kingdom and Germany continued building battleships and battlecruisers but at a reduced pace.


title: Dreadnought

text: In the United Kingdom, Fisher returned to his old post as First Sea Lord; he had been created 1st Baron Fisher in 1909, taking the motto "Fear God and dread nought". This, combined with a government moratorium on battleship building, meant a renewed focus on the battlecruiser. Fisher resigned in 1915 following arguments about the Gallipoli Campaign with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.


title: Dreadnought

text: The final units of the "Revenge" and "Queen Elizabeth" classes were completed, though the last two battleships of the "Revenge" class were re-ordered as battlecruisers of the . Fisher followed these ships with the even more extreme ; very fast and heavily armed ships with minimal, armour, called 'large light cruisers' to get around a Cabinet ruling against new capital ships. Fisher's mania for speed culminated in his suggestion for , a mammoth, lightly armoured battlecruiser.


title: Dreadnought

text: In Germany, two units of the pre-war were gradually completed, but the other two laid down were still unfinished by the end of the War. , also laid down before the start of the war, was completed in 1917. The , designed in 1914–1915, were begun but never finished.


title: Dreadnought

text: In spite of the lull in battleship building during the World War, the years 1919–1922 saw the threat of a renewed naval arms race between the United Kingdom, Japan, and the US. The Battle of Jutland exerted a huge influence over the designs produced in this period. The first ships which fit into this picture are the British , designed in 1916. Jutland finally persuaded the Admiralty that lightly armoured battlecruisers were too vulnerable, and therefore the final design of the Admirals incorporated much-increased armour, increasing displacement to 42,000 tons. The initiative in creating the new arms race lay with the Japanese and United States navies. The United States Naval Appropriations Act of 1916 authorized the construction of 156 new ships, including ten battleships and six battlecruisers. For the first time, the United States Navy was threatening the British global lead. This programme was started slowly (in part because of a desire to learn lessons from Jutland), and never fulfilled entirely. The new American ships (the "Colorado"-class battleships, "South" "Dakota"-class battleships and s), took a qualitative step beyond the British "Queen Elizabeth" class and "Admiral" classes by mounting 16-inch guns.


title: Dreadnought

text: At the same time, the Imperial Japanese Navy was finally gaining authorization for its 'eight-eight battlefleet'. The "Nagato" class, authorized in 1916, carried eight 16-inch guns like their American counterparts. The next year's naval bill authorized two more battleships and two more battlecruisers. The battleships, which became the , were to carry ten 16-inch guns. The battlecruisers, the , also carried ten 16-inch guns and were designed to be capable of 30 knots, capable of beating both the British Admiral- and the US Navy's "Lexington"-class battlecruisers.


title: Dreadnought

text: Matters took a further turn for the worse in 1919 when Woodrow Wilson proposed a further expansion of the United States Navy, asking for funds for an additional ten battleships and six battlecruisers in addition to the completion of the 1916 programme (the not yet started). In response, the Diet of Japan finally agreed to the completion of the 'eight-eight fleet', incorporating a further four battleships. These ships, the would displace 43,000 tons; the next design, the , would have carried guns. Many in the Japanese navy were still dissatisfied, calling for an 'eight-eight-eight' fleet with 24 modern battleships and battlecruisers.


title: Dreadnought

text: The British, impoverished by World War I, faced the prospect of slipping behind the US and Japan. No ships had been begun since the Admiral class, and of those only had been completed. A June 1919 Admiralty plan outlined a post-war fleet with 33 battleships and eight battlecruisers, which could be built and sustained for £171 million a year (approximately £ today); only £84 million was available. The Admiralty then demanded, as an absolute minimum, a further eight battleships. These would have been the G3 battlecruisers, with 16-inch guns and high speed, and the N3-class battleships, with guns. Its navy severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles, Germany did not participate in this three-way naval building competition. Most of the German dreadnought fleet was scuttled at Scapa Flow by its crews in 1919; the remainder were handed over as war prizes.


title: Dreadnought

text: The major naval powers avoided the cripplingly expensive expansion programmes by negotiating the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922. The Treaty laid out a list of ships, including most of the older dreadnoughts and almost all the newer ships under construction, which were to be scrapped or otherwise put out of use. It furthermore declared a 'building holiday' during which no new battleships or battlecruisers were to be laid down, save for the British "Nelson" class. The ships which survived the treaty, including the most modern super-dreadnoughts of all three navies, formed the bulk of international capital ship strength through the interwar period and, with some modernisation, into World War II. The ships built under the terms of the Washington Treaty (and subsequently the London Treaties in 1930 and 1936) to replace outdated vessels were known as treaty battleships.


title: Dreadnought

text: From this point on, the term 'dreadnought' became less widely used. Most pre-dreadnought battleships were scrapped or hulked after World War I, so the term 'dreadnought' became less necessary.


title: George Clooney filmography

text: George Clooney is an American actor and filmmaker. He is one of the highest-grossing actors of all time with over $1.9 billion total box office gross and an average of $61.7 million per film. He has been involved in thirteen films that grossed over $200 million at the worldwide box office.


title: George Clooney filmography

text: Clooney starred in the television series "The Facts of Life" (1985–87), "Roseanne" (1988–91), "Bodies of Evidence" (1992–93), "Sisters" (1993–94) and "ER" (1994–99). Early in his career, Clooney also appeared in a number of low-budget film roles like "" (1983), "Return to Horror High" (1987), "Combat Academy" (1987), "Return of the Killer Tomatoes" (1988), "Unbecoming Age" (1992) and "The Harvest" (1993). His role as doctor Doug Ross on "ER" earned him Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations.


title: George Clooney filmography

text: In the 1990s Clooney appeared in the films "From Dusk till Dawn" (1996), "One Fine Day" (1996), with Michelle Pfeiffer, "The Peacemaker" (1997) with Nicole Kidman, "Batman & Robin" (1997), and "Out of Sight" (1998) opposite Jennifer Lopez. The new millennium saw Clooney in films "The Perfect Storm" (2000), which earned $328.7 million at the box office and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2000), which won him a Golden Globe Award, as well as Empire Award and Satellite Award nominations. In 2001, he teamed up again with Soderbergh for the star-studded caper film "Ocean's Eleven", alongside Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and many others. The film was followed by two sequels starring Clooney, "Ocean's Twelve" in 2004 and "Ocean's Thirteen" in 2007. He has also appeared in "Solaris" (2002), "Welcome To Collinwood" (2002), "Intolerable Cruelty" (2003), "Syriana" (2005), for which he was rewarded with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, "The Good German" (2006), "Michael Clayton" (2007), "Burn After Reading" (2008), "Up in the Air" (2009), for the latter earning an Academy Award nomination. Clooney also directed and starred in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" (2002), "Good Night, and Good Luck" (2005), "Leatherheads" (2008), "The Ides of March" (2011), and "The Midnight Sky" (2020).


title: George Clooney filmography

text: In 2011, Clooney starred in Alexander Payne's "The Descendants", earning a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and an Academy Award nomination. In 2013, he co-starred opposite Sandra Bullock in the space thriller "Gravity". He directed, co-produced, co-wrote, and starred in "The Monuments Men", originally scheduled for release in 2013, but pushed back until 2014. He next starred in Brad Bird's science fiction film "Tomorrowland", released on May 22, 2015.


title: Airbus A340

text: The Airbus A340 is a long-range, wide-body passenger airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus.


title: Airbus A340

text: In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner, and developed the A340 quadjet in parallel with the A330 twinjet. In June 1987, Airbus launched both designs with their first orders and the A340-300 took its maiden flight on 25 October 1991. It was certified along with the A340-200 on 22 December 1992 and both versions entered service in March 1993 with launch customers Lufthansa and Air France. The larger A340-500/600 were launched on 8 December 1997; the A340-600 flew for the first time on 23 April 2001 and entered service on 1 August 2002.


title: Airbus A340

text: Keeping the eight-abreast economy cross-section of the A300, the early A340-200/300 has a similar airframe to the A330.


title: Airbus A340

text: Differences include four CFM56s instead of two high-thrust turbofans to bypass ETOPS restrictions on trans-oceanic routes, and a three-leg main landing gear instead of two for a heavier MTOW.


title: Airbus A340

text: Both airliners have fly-by-wire controls, which was first introduced on the A320, as well as a similar glass cockpit. The later A340-500/600 have a larger wing and are powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 500 for a heavier MTOW.


title: Airbus A340

text: The shortest A340-200 measured 59.4 m (195 ft), and could cover 12,400 km / 6,700 nmi with 210–250 seats in 3-class.


title: Airbus A340

text: The most common A340-300 reached 63.7 m (209 ft) to accommodate 250–290 passengers and had a 13,500 km / 7,300 nmi range.


title: Airbus A340

text: The A340-500 was 67.9 m (223 ft) long to seat 270–310 over 16,670 km / 9,000 nmi, the longest-range airliner at the time.


title: Airbus A340

text: The longest A340-600 was stretched to 75.4 m (247 ft), then the longest airliner, to accommodate 320–370 passengers over 14,450 km / 7,800 nmi.


title: Airbus A340

text: As improving engine reliability allowed ETOPS operations for almost all routes, more economical twinjets have replaced quadjets on many routes.


title: Airbus A340

text: On 10 November 2011, Airbus announced that the production reached its end, after 380 orders had been placed and 377 delivered from Toulouse, France.


title: Airbus A340

text: By the end of 2021, the global A340 fleet had completed more than 2.5 million flights over 20 million block hours and carried over 600 million passengers with no fatalities.


title: Airbus A340

text: When Airbus designed the Airbus A300 during the 1970s it envisioned a broad family of airliners to compete against Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, two established US aerospace manufacturers. From the moment of formation, Airbus had begun studies into derivatives of the Airbus A300B in support of this long-term goal. Prior to the service introduction of the first Airbus airliners, Airbus had identified nine possible variations of the A300 known as A300B1 to B9. A tenth variation, conceived in 1973, later the first to be constructed, was designated the A300B10. It was a smaller aircraft that would be developed into the long-range Airbus A310. Airbus then focused its efforts on the single-aisle market, which resulted in the Airbus A320 family, which was the first digital fly-by-wire commercial aircraft. The decision to work on the A320, instead of a four-engine aircraft proposed by the Germans, created divisions within Airbus. As the SA or "single aisle" studies (which later became the successful Airbus A320) underwent development to challenge the successful Boeing 737 and Douglas DC-9 in the single-aisle, narrow-body airliner market, Airbus turned its focus back to the wide-body aircraft market.


title: Airbus A340

text: The A300B11, a derivative of the A310, was designed upon the availability of "ten ton" thrust engines. Using four engines, it would seat between 180 and 200 passengers, and have a range of . It was deemed a replacement for the less-efficient Boeing 707s and Douglas DC-8s still in service. The A300B11 was joined by another design, the A300B9, which was a larger derivative of the A300. The B9 was developed by Airbus from the early 1970s at a slow pace until the early 1980s. It was essentially a stretched A300 with the same wing, coupled with the most powerful turbofan engine available at the time. It was targeted at the growing demand for high-capacity, medium-range, transcontinental trunk routes. The B9 offered the same range and payload as the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, but it used between 25% to 38% less fuel. The B9 was therefore considered a replacement for the DC-10 and the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar.


title: Airbus A340

text: To differentiate the programme from the SA studies, the B9 and B11 were redesignated the TA9 and TA11 (TA standing for "twin aisle"), respectively. In an effort to save development costs, it was decided that the two would share the same wing and airframe; the projected savings were estimated at US$500 million (about £490 million or €495 million). The adoption of a common wing structure also had one technical advantage: the TA11's outboard engines could counteract the weight of the longer-range model by providing bending relief. Another factor was the split preference of those within Airbus and, more importantly, prospective airliner customers. Airbus vice president for strategic planning, Adam Brown, recalled,


title: Airbus A340

text: North American operators were clearly in favour of a twin[jet], while Asians wanted a quad[jet]. In Europe, opinion was split between the two. The majority of potential customers were in favour of a quad despite the fact, in certain conditions, it is more costly to operate than a twin. They liked that it could be ferried with one engine out, and could fly 'anywhere'— ETOPS (extend-range twin-engine operations) hadn't begun then.


title: Airbus A340

text: The first specifications of the TA9 and TA11 were released in 1982. While the TA9 had a range of , the TA11 range was up to . At the same time, Airbus also sketched the TA12, a twin-engine derivative of the TA11, which was optimised for flights of a lesser range. By the time of the Paris Air Show in June 1985, more refinements had been made to the TA9 and TA11, including the adoption of the A320 flight deck, fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control system and side-stick control. Adopting a common cockpit across the new Airbus series allowed operators to make significant cost savings; flight crews would be able to transition from one to another after one week of training. The TA11 and TA12 would use the front and rear fuselage sections of the A310. Components were modular and also interchangeable with other Airbus aircraft where possible to reduce production, maintenance and operating costs.


title: Airbus A340

text: Airbus briefly considered a variable camber wing; the concept was that the wing could change its profile to produce the optimum shape for a given phase of flight. Studies were carried out by British Aerospace (BAe) at Hatfield and Bristol. Airbus estimated this would yield a 2% improvement in aerodynamic efficiency. However, the plan was later abandoned on grounds of cost and difficulty of development.


title: Airbus A340

text: Airbus had held discussions with McDonnell Douglas to jointly produce the aircraft, which would have been designated as the "AM 300". This aeroplane would have combined the wing of the A330 with the fuselage of the McDonnell Douglas MD-11. However, talks were terminated as McDonnell Douglas insisted on the continuation of its trijet heritage. Although from the start it was intended that the A340 would be powered by four CFM56-5 turbofan engines, each capable of , Airbus had also considered developing the aircraft as a trijet due to the limited power of engines available at the time, namely the Rolls-Royce RB211-535 and Pratt & Whitney JT10D-232 (redesignated PW2000 in December 1980).


title: Airbus A340

text: As refinements in the A340's design proceeded, a radical new engine option, the IAE SuperFan, was offered by International Aero Engines, a group comprising Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney, Japanese Aero Engines Corporation, Fiat and MTU Aero Engines (MTU). The engine nacelles of the superfan engine consisted of provisions to allow a large fan near the rear of the engine. As a result of the superfan cancellation by IAE, the CFM56-5C4 was used as the sole engine choice instead of there being an alternate option as originally envisioned. The later, longer-range versions, namely the A340-500 and −600, are powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engines.


title: Airbus A340

text: On 27 January 1986, the Airbus Industrie Supervisory Board held a meeting in Munich, West Germany, after which board-chairman Franz Josef Strauß released a statement, "Airbus Industrie is now in a position to finalise the detailed technical definition of the TA9, which is now officially designated the A330, and the TA11, now called the A340, with potential launch customer airlines, and to discuss with them the terms and conditions for launch commitments". The designations were originally reversed because the airlines believed it illogical for a two-engine jet airliner to have a "4" in its name, whilst a quad-jet would not. On 12 May 1986, Airbus dispatched fresh sale proposals to five prospective airlines including Lufthansa and Swissair.


title: Airbus A340

text: In preparations for production of the A330/A340, Airbus's partners invested heavily in new facilities. Filton was the site of BAe's £7 million investment in a three-storey technical centre with an extra of floor area. BAe also spent £5 million expanding the Broughton wing production plant by to accommodate a new production line. However, France saw the biggest changes with Aérospatiale starting construction of a new Fr.2.5 billion ($411 million) assembly plant, adjacent to Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, in Colomiers. By November 1988, the first pillars were erected for the new "Clément Ader" assembly hall. The assembly process, meanwhile, would feature increased automation with holes for the wing-fuselage mating process drilled by eight robots. The use of automation for this particular process saved Airbus 20% on labour costs and 5% on time.


title: Airbus A340

text: British Aerospace accepted £450 million funding from the UK government, short of the £750 million originally requested. Funds from the French and West German governments followed thereafter. Airbus also issued subcontracts to companies in Austria, Australia, Canada, China, Greece, Italy, India, Japan, South Korea, Portugal, the United States, and Yugoslavia. The A330 and A340 programmes were jointly launched on 5 June 1987, just prior to the Paris Air Show. The program cost was $3.5 billion with the A330, in 2001 dollars. The order book then stood at 130 aircraft from 10 customers, apart from the above-mentioned Lufthansa and International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC). Eighty-nine of the total orders were A340 models. At McDonnell Douglas, ongoing tests of the MD-11 revealed a significant shortfall in the aircraft's performance. An important carrier, Singapore Airlines (SIA), required a fully laden aircraft that could fly from Singapore to Paris, against strong headwinds during mid-winter in the northern hemisphere. The MD-11, according to test results, would experience fuel starvation over the Balkans. Due to the less-than-expected performance figures, SIA cancelled its 20-aircraft MD-11 order on 2 August 1991, and ordered 20 A340-300s instead. A total of 200 MD-11s were sold, versus 380 A340s.


title: Airbus A340

text: The first flight of the A340 occurred on 21 October 1991, marking the start of a 2,000-hour test flight programme involving six aircraft. From the start, engineers noticed that the wings were not stiff enough to carry the outboard engines at cruising speed without warping and fluttering. To alleviate this, an underwing bulge called a "plastron" was developed to correct airflow problems around the engine pylons and to add stiffness. European JAA certification was obtained on 22 December 1992; the FAA followed on 27 May 1993.


title: Airbus A340

text: In 1992, unit cost of an A340-200 was US$105M and US$110M for an A340-300. (equivalent to $ million in dollars).


title: Airbus A340

text: The first A340, a −200, was delivered to Lufthansa on 2 February 1993 and entered service on 15 March. The 228-seat airliner was named "Nürnberg". The first A340-300, the 1000th Airbus, was delivered to Air France on 26 February, the first of nine it planned to operate by the end of the year. Air France replaced its Boeing 747s with A340s on its Paris–Washington D.C. route, flying four times weekly. Lufthansa intended to replace aging DC-10s with the A340s on Frankfurt–New York services.


title: Airbus A340

text: On 16 June 1993, an A340-200 dubbed the "World Ranger" flew from the Paris Air Show to Auckland, New Zealand in 21 hours 32 minutes and back in 21 hours 46 minutes after a five-hour stop; this was the first non-stop flight between Europe and New Zealand and the longest non-stop flight by an airliner at the time. The flight from Paris to Auckland broke six world records with 22 persons and five center tanks. Taking off at 11:58 local time, it arrived back in Paris 48 hours and 22 minutes later, at 12:20. This record held until 1997 when a Boeing 777-200ER flew from Seattle to Kuala Lumpur.


title: Airbus A340

text: Formulated in 1991, the A340-400X concept was a simple 12-frame, stretch of the −300 from 295 to 335 passengers with the MTOW increased to and the range decreased by .


title: Airbus A340

text: CFM International was then set to develop a new engine for $1–1.5 billion that generated a thrust rating between the 150 kN (34,000 lbf) CFM56 and the 315–400 kN (70–90,000 lbf) GE90.


title: Airbus A340

text: In 1994, Airbus was studying a heavier A340 Advanced with a reinforced wing and a selection of 178 kN (40,000 lbf) engines; these included the Pratt & Whitney advanced ducted propulsor, CFM International CFMXX or Rolls Royce RB411, to a −300 stretch for 50 more passengers over the same range, a −300 with the −200 range and a −200 with more range. These models were slated to be introduced in 1996.


title: Airbus A340

text: In 1995, the A340-400 was slated for introduction in the year 2000, seating 380 passengers with a take-off weight.


title: Airbus A340

text: In April 1996, GE Aviation obtained an exclusivity for the 375-passenger −600 stretch with engines, above the limit of the CFM International engines made in partnership with SNECMA and dropping the CFMXX.


title: Airbus A340

text: The −600 would be stretched by 20–22 frames to , unit thrust was raised from to and maximum takeoff weight would be increased to .


title: Airbus A340

text: The wing area would increase by to through a larger chord needing a three-frame centre fuselage insert and retaining the existing front and rear spars, and a span increased by , alongside a 25% increase in wing fuel capacity and four wheels replacing the centre twin-wheel bogie.


title: Airbus A340

text: A −500 with the larger wing and engines and three extra frames for 310 passengers would cover to replace the smaller range A340-200.


title: Airbus A340

text: At least $1 billion would be needed to develop the airframe, excluding the $2 billion required for engine development supported by the engine manufacturer.


title: Airbus A340

text: It was enlarged by 40% to compete with the then in-development 777-300ER/200LR: the wing would be expanded with a tapered wing box insert along the span extension, it would have enlarged horizontal stabilizers and the larger A330-200 fin and it would need 222–267 kN (50–60,000 lbf) of unit thrust.


title: Airbus A340

text: The ultra-long-haul -500 stretch would seat 316 passengers, a little more than the −300, over , while the -600 stretch would offer a 25% larger cabin for 372 passengers over a range of .


title: Airbus A340

text: Unwilling to commit to a $1 billion development without good return on investment prospects and a second application, in 1997 GE Aviation stopped exclusivity talks for GE90 scaled down to 245–290 kN (55–65,000 lbf), leaving Rolls-Royce proposing a more cost-effective Rolls-Royce Trent variant needing less development and Pratt & Whitney suggesting a PW2000 advanced ducted propulsor, a PW4000 derivative or a new geared turbofan.


title: Airbus A340

text: In June 1997, the 250 kN (56,000 lbf) Rolls-Royce Trent 500 was selected, with growth potential to , derived from the A330 Rolls-Royce Trent 700 and the B777 Rolls-Royce Trent 800 with a reduced fan diameter and a new LP turbine, for a 7.7% lower TSFC than the 700.


title: Airbus A340

text: Airbus claims 10% lower operating costs per seat than the −300, 3% below those of what Boeing was then advertising for the 777-300X.


title: Airbus A340

text: The $2.9 billion program was launched in December 1997 with 100 commitments from seven customers worth $3 billion, aiming to fly the first −600 in January 2001 and deliver it from early 2002 to capture at least half of the 1,500 sales forecast in the category through 2010.


title: Airbus A340

text: In 1998, the −600 stretch was stabilised at 20 frames for , the MTOW rose to and the unit thrust to , keeping the Trent 700 fan diameter with its scaled and compressors and the high-speed, low-loading HP and IP turbines of the Trent 800.


title: Airbus A340

text: Despite the −500/600 introduction, sales slowed in the 2000s as the Boeing 777-200LR/-300ER dominated the long-range 300–400 seat market.


title: Airbus A340

text: In January 2006, Airbus confirmed it had studied an A340-600E ("Enhanced") that was more fuel-efficient than earlier A340s, reducing the per-seat fuel consumption by 8–9% compared to the −600. This model would become more competitive with the Boeing 777-300ER by utilizing new Trent 1500 engines and technologies from the A350 initial design.


title: Airbus A340

text: At 380 passengers, the advertised three-class seating of the −600 was well above the real world average of 323 seats, while the B777-300ER is advertised for 365 and offers 332, impacting seat costs.


title: Airbus A340

text: By 2018, a 2006 -600 was worth $18M and a 2003 one $10M, projected to fall to $7M in 2021 with a $200,000/month lease rate falling to $180,000 in 2021; its D check cost $4.5M and its engine overhaul $3–6M.


title: Airbus A340

text: In 2005, 155 B777s were ordered against 15 A340s: twin engine ETOPS restrictions were overcome by lower operating costs compared to quad jets and the relaxation of ETOPS requirements for the A330, 777, and other twinjets.


title: Airbus A340

text: In 2007, Airbus predicted that another 127 A340 aircraft would likely be produced through 2016, the projected end of production.


title: Airbus A340

text: In 2011, the unit cost of an A340-300 was US$238.0M ($M today), US$261.8M for an A340-500 ($M today) and US$275.4M for an A340-600 ($M today).


title: Airbus A340

text: On 10 November 2011, Airbus announced the end of the A340 program. At that time, the company indicated that all firm orders had been delivered. The decision to terminate the program came as A340-500/600 orders came to a halt, with analyst Nick Cunningham pointing out that the A340 "was too heavy and there was a big fuel burn gap between the A340 and Boeing's 777". Bertrand Grabowski, managing director of aircraft financier DVB Bank SE, noted "in an environment where the fuel price is high, the A340 has had no chance to compete against similar twin engines, and the current lease rates and values of this aircraft reflect the deep resistance of any airlines to continue operating it".