From: phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen Harker)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,soc.culture.china,soc.history
Subject: Re: More Naval Rambling (Was: <None>)
Date: 3 Sep 92 09:14:53 +1000
Organization: Physics Department, Monash University, Australia

In article <jwb.715415630@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au>, jwb@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au (Jim Breen) writes:
> jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
> 
>>In 1901 the British Admiralty informed the Government that the 19th
>>century policy of having a navy capable of matching any two potential
>>enemies was no longer feasible if the U.S. was regarded as one of the
>>potential enemies.  Does anyone know what considerations went into 
>>this evaluation?  Would it have included an evaluation of the results
>>of the Spanish-Amercian War?
> 
> Possibly, but more probably a hard-nosed assessment of the industrial
> potential. Germany was arming at a furious rate, and the Admiralty was
> facing up to the problem that the cost of keeping an up-to-date navy of
> the size of the combination of the US and Germany would bankrupt the
> country. By 1900 it was becoming clear that Germany would probably be the 
> next enemy, as Bismark's heirs were spoiling for a fight, and Wilhelm
> obviously wanted a colonial empire.
> 
> Britain's naval supremacy in the late 1700s and early 1800s was at an
> immense cost. It consumed a huge proportion of the country's output,
> particularly in steel products.  In fact they were damned lucky. The
> French revolution resulted in much of the officer corps of their navy 
> either fleeing the country or losing their heads. By the standards of
> the day sailing and fighting a ship-of-the-line was a much more skilled
> task than sending infantry of cavalry into battle. The French shipyards
> still churned out the best warships in the world, but they either rotted
> in port, or were captured by the inferior but better handled Brits.

	Yes Britain's iron and steel production was less than than of both
the US and Germany.  While a lot of the German iron and steel was going
into armaments for the army this could not be assumed for the US.  This is
one reason why there tended to be such a big fuss about iron and steel
production earlier in the century.

[ and also writes ]
> thornley@nano.cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes:
> 
> >In article <ROTEN.92Aug31133031@CUBA.gsfc.nasa.gov> roten@CUBA.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Roten) writes:
> >>In article <jwb.715225686@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au> 
> >>jwb@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au (Jim Breen) writes:
> >>>In technology, it lagged behind both Britain and Germany in the 
> >>>"Dreadnaught" revolution in naval architecture of the early 1900s.  
> >>
> >Actually, the first dreadnaught battleships laid down were American.
> >They were in some respects ahead of their time, having all guns on the
> >centerline in superfiring turrets.  I'd say it was about this time that
		 ^^^^^^^^^^^
> >the U.S. started taking the lead in warship design.
> 
> I can't deny this, but I'll just comment that it is the first I've heard of
> it.  The "Dreadnaught" revolution was named after HMS Dreadnaught which is
> credited in (most) naval history circles as being the first ship in the
> faster/more armour/ bigger guns brigade. There had been ships with
> centreline turrets for a decade or so at that stage. [The Russians still
> claim that Popov invented the radio, not Marconi.]

	This is getting to the point where the questions should go to
_sci.military_ which concentrates on technical matters related to the
military, but then I can't resist :-).  This sort of information is covered
in almost all general books on battleship development, some references are
Siegfried Breyer's "Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905-1970", and Tony 
Gibbons' "The Complete Encyclopaedia of Batleships and Battlecruisers".
Basically the US designed and laid down a battleship that had more of the
eventual features of "modern" battleships before Dreadnought was laid down,
with the exception of turbine engines, in particular superfiring turrets. 
Dreadnought however was launched and into service well before the US ship.

[ and yet again ]
> Yes, these points can be debated forever. Did the Germans improve their
> deck armour after the pasting they got at the Dogger Bank and Heliogoland
> Bight battles. Was this the reason they sunk so many of Beatty's
> battlecruisers at Jutland. Who really started the tactic of "plunging
> fire", etc. etc. etc.

	No.  Deck armour was not improved in older shipsby anyone until
post WW1 reconstruction of old ships.  Germany modified the handling of
shells to eliminate a phase where an open path to the magazines that almost
caused the loss of a battlecruiser at Dogger Bank.  The extra flash
protection was adopted by the British after Jutland and in their case the
loss of a couple of ships.  It should be stressed that both had had some,
though insufficient, flash protection previously.  However this has nothing
to do with deck armour or any other kind of armour.

-- 
Stephen Harker			phs172m@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Monash University		Baloney baffles brains: Eric Frank Russell