Pre - dreadnought battleship Pre - dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea - going battleship s built between the mid - to late - 1880s and 1905 . Pre - dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s . Built from steel , and protected by hardened steel armour , pre - dreadnought battleships carried a main battery of very heavy guns in barbettes ( open or with armored gunhouses ) supported by one or more secondary batteries of lighter weapons . They were powered by coal - fuelled triple - expansion steam engines . In contrast to the chaotic development of ironclad warships in preceding decades , the 1890s saw navies worldwide start to build battleships to a common design as dozens of ships essentially followed the design of the British . The similarity in appearance of battleships in the 1890s was underlined by the increasing number of ships being built . New naval powers such as Germany , Japan , and the United States began to establish themselves with fleets of pre - dreadnoughts , while the navies of Britain , France , and Russia expanded to meet these new threats . The decisive clash of pre - dreadnought fleets was between the Russians and Japanese during the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905 . These battleships were abruptly made obsolete by the arrival of in 1906 . " Dreadnought " followed the trend in battleship design to heavier , longer - ranged guns by adopting an " all - big - gun " armament scheme of ten 12 inch guns . Her innovative steam turbine engines also made her faster . The existing pre - dreadnoughts were decisively outclassed , and new and more powerful battleships were from then on known as dreadnought s while the ships laid down previously were designated pre - dreadnoughts . In spite of their obsolescence , the pre - dreadnought battleships played an important secondary role in World War I and two even briefly served as combat vessels in the German Navy early in World War II . Evolution . The pre - dreadnought developed from the ironclad battleship . The first ironclads — " La Gloire " and — looked much like sailing frigate s , with three tall masts and broadside batteries , when they were commissioned at the start of the 1860s . Only eight years later HMVS " Cerberus " , the first breastwork monitor , was launched . Only three years later followed , a turret ironclad which more resembled a pre - dreadnought than previous and contemporary turretless ironclads . Each ship lacked masts and carried four heavy guns in two turrets fore and aft . " Devastation " was the first ocean - worthy breastwork monitor , built to attack enemy coasts and harbours ; because of her very low freeboard , she could not fight on the high seas as her decks would be swept by water and spray , interfering with the working of her guns . Navies worldwide continued to build masted , turretless battleships which had sufficient freeboard and were seaworthy enough to fight on the high seas . The distinction between coast - assault battleship and cruising battleship became blurred with the , ordered in 1880 . These ships reflected developments in ironclad design , being protected by iron - and - steel compound armour rather than wrought iron . Equipped with breech - loading guns of between 12 - inch and 16 ¼ - inch ( 305 mm and 413 mm ) calibre , the Admirals continued the trend of ironclad warships towards gigantic weapons . The guns were mounted in open barbette s to save weight . Some historians see these ships as a vital step towards pre - dreadnoughts ; others view them as a confused and unsuccessful design . The subsequent of 1889 retained barbettes but were uniformly armed with guns ; they were also significantly larger ( at 14 , 000 tons displacement ) and faster ( due to triple - expansion steam engines ) than the Admirals . Just as importantly , the " Royal Sovereign " s had a higher freeboard , making them unequivocally capable of the high - seas battleship role . The pre - dreadnought design reached maturity in 1895 with the . These ships were built and armoured entirely of steel , and their guns were mounted in fully enclosed barbettes , inevitably referred to as turrets . They also adopted a main gun , which , due to advances in casting and propellant , was lighter and more powerful than the previous guns of larger calibre . The " Majestic " s provided the model for battleship building in the Royal Navy and many other navies for years to come . Armament . Pre - dreadnoughts carried guns of several different calibres , for different roles in ship - to - ship combat . The main armament was four heavy guns , mounted in two centreline turrets fore and aft . Very few pre - dreadnoughts deviated from this arrangement . These guns were slow - firing , and initially of limited accuracy ; but they were the only guns heavy enough to penetrate the thick armour which protected the engines , magazines , and main guns of enemy battleships . The most common calibre for the main armament was 12 inches , although some ships used smaller guns because they could attain higher rates of fire ; British battleships from the " Majestic " class onwards carried this calibre , as did French ships from the " Charlemagne " class ( laid down in 1894 ) . Japan , importing most of its guns from Britain , used 12 - inch guns . The United States used both 12 - and guns for most of the 1890s until the ( not to be confused with the earlier of Spanish - American War notoriety ) , laid down in 1899 , after which the gun was universal . The Russians used both 12 - and as their main armament ; the , " Retvizan " , " Tsesarevich " , and had main batteries while the mounted guns . The first German pre - dreadnought class used an gun but decreased to a gun for the two following classes and returned to 11 - inch guns with the . While the calibre of the main battery remained quite constant , the performance of the guns improved as longer barrels were introduced . The introduction of slow - burning nitrocellulose and cordite propellant allowed the employment of a longer barrel , and therefore higher muzzle velocity — giving greater range and penetrating power for the same calibre of shell . Between the " Majestic " class and " Dreadnought " , the length of the British 12 - inch gun increased from 35 calibres to 45 and muzzle velocity increased from 2417 feet per second ( 737 m / s ) to 2725 ( 830 m / s ) . Pre - dreadnoughts also carried a secondary battery . This consisted of smaller guns , typically , though any calibre from 4 to 9 . 4 inches ( 100 to 240 mm ) could be used . Virtually all secondary guns were " quick firing " , employing a number of innovations to increase the rate of fire . The propellant was provided in a brass cartridge , and both the breech mechanism and the mounting were suitable for rapid aiming and reloading . The role of the secondary battery was to damage the less well - armoured parts of an enemy battleship ; while unable to penetrate the main armour belt , it might score hits on lightly armoured areas like the bridge , or start fires . Equally important , the secondary armament was to be used against enemy cruiser s , destroyer s , and even torpedo boat s . A medium - calibre gun could expect to penetrate the light armour of smaller ships , while the rate of fire of the secondary battery was important in scoring a hit against a small , manoeuvrable target . Secondary guns were mounted in a variety of ways ; sometimes carried in turrets , they were just as often positioned in fixed armoured casemates in the side of the hull , or in unarmoured positions on upper decks . Some of the pre - dreadnoughts carried an " intermediate " battery , typically of 8 - inch ( 203 mm ) to 10 - inch calibre . The intermediate battery was a method of packing more heavy firepower into the same battleship , principally of use against battleships or at long ranges . The United States Navy pioneered the intermediate battery concept in the , , and classes , but not in the battleships laid down between 1897 and 1901 . Shortly after the USN re - adopted the intermediate battery , the British , Italian , Russian , French , and Japanese navies laid down intermediate - battery ships . This later generation of intermediate - battery ships almost without exception finished building after " Dreadnought " , and hence were obsolete before completion . During the ironclad age , the range of engagements increased ; in the Sino - Japanese War of 1894 – 5 battles were fought at around 1 mile ( 1 , 600 m ) , while in the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904 , the Russian and Japanese fleets had opened fire at over 8 miles ( 12 . 8 km ) before settling down to ranges at 3 . 5 miles ( 5 , 600 m ) . The increase in engagement range was due in part to the longer range of torpedoes , and in part to improved gunnery and fire control . In consequence , shipbuilders tended towards heavier secondary armament , of the same calibre that the " intermediate " battery had been previously ; the Royal Navy ' s last pre - dreadnought class , the " Lord Nelson " class , carried ten 9 . 2 - inch guns as secondary armament . Ships with a uniform , heavy secondary battery are often referred to as " semi - dreadnoughts " . The pre - dreadnought ' s armament was completed by a tertiary battery of light , rapid - fire guns . These could be of any calibre from 3 - inch ( 76 mm ) down to machine gun s . Their role was to give short - range protection against torpedo boats , or to rake the deck and superstructure of a battleship . In addition to their gun armament , many pre - dreadnought battleships were armed with torpedo es , fired from fixed tubes located either above or below the waterline . By the pre - dreadnought era the torpedo was typically 18 inches ( 46 cm ) in diameter and had an effective range of several thousand yards . However , it was virtually unknown for a battleship to score a hit with a torpedo . Protection . Pre - dreadnought battleships carried a considerable weight of steel armour . Experience showed that rather than giving the ship uniform armour protection , it was best to concentrate armour over critical areas . The central section of the hull , which housed the boilers and engines , was protected by the main belt , which ran from just below the waterline to some distance above it . This " central citadel " was intended to protect the engines from even the most powerful shells . The main armament and the magazines were protected by projections of thick armour from the main belt . The beginning of the pre - dreadnought era was marked by a move from mounting the main armament in open barbette s to an all - enclosed , turret mounting . The main belt armour would normally taper to a lesser thickness along the side of the hull towards bow and stern ; it might also taper up from the central citadel towards the superstructure . The deck was typically lightly armoured with 2 to 4 inches of steel . This lighter armour was to prevent high - explosive shells from wrecking the superstructure of the ship . The battleships of the late 1880s , for instance the , were armoured with iron and steel compound armour . This was soon replaced with more effective case - hardened steel armour made using the Harvey process developed in the United States . First tested in 1891 , Harvey armour was commonplace in ships laid down in 1893 – 5 . However , its reign was brief ; in 1895 , the German " Kaiser Friedrich III " pioneered the even better Krupp armour . Europe adopted Krupp plate within five years , and only the United States persisted in using Harvey steel into the 20th century . The improving quality of armour plate meant that new ships could have better protection from a thinner and lighter armour belt ; 12 inches ( 305 mm ) of compound armour provided the same protection as just 7 . 5 inches ( 190 mm ) of Harvey or 5 . 75 inches ( 133 mm ) of Krupp . Propulsion . Almost all pre - dreadnoughts were powered by reciprocating steam engines . Most were capable of top speeds between 16 and . The ironclads of the 1880s used compound engines , and by the end of the 1880s the even - more efficient triple expansion compound engine was in use . Some fleets , though not the British , adopted the quadruple - expansion steam engine . The main improvement in engine performance during the pre - dreadnought period came from the adoption of increasingly higher pressure steam from the boiler . Scotch marine boiler s were superseded by more compact water - tube boilers , allowing higher - pressure steam to be produced with less fuel consumption . Water - tube boilers were also safer , with less risk of explosion , and more flexible than fire - tube types . The Belleville - type water - tube boiler had been introduced in the French fleet as early as 1879 , but it took until 1894 for the Royal Navy to adopt it for armoured cruisers and pre - dreadnoughts ; other water - tube boilers followed in navies worldwide . The engines drove either two or three screw propellers . France and Germany preferred the three - screw approach , which allowed the engines to be shorter and hence more easily protected ; they were also more maneuverable and had better resistance to accidental damage . Triple screws were , however , generally larger and heavier than the twin - screw arrangements preferred by most other navies . The French also built the only class of turbine powered pre - dreadnought battleships , the of 1907 . Coal was the almost exclusive fuel for the pre - dreadnought period , though navies made the first experiments with oil propulsion in the late 1890s . An extra knot or two of speed could be gained by applying a ' forced draught ' to the furnaces , where air was pumped into the furnaces , but this risked damage to the boilers . Pre - dreadnought fleets and battles . The pre - dreadnought battleship in its heyday was the core of a very diverse navy . Many older ironclads were still in service . Battleships served alongside cruiser s of many descriptions : modern armoured cruiser s which were essentially cut - down battleships , lighter protected cruiser s , and even older unarmoured cruisers , sloops and frigates whether built out of steel , iron or wood . The battleships were threatened by torpedo boat s ; it was during the pre - dreadnought era that the first destroyer s were constructed to deal with the torpedo - boat threat , though at the same time the first effective submarine s were being constructed . The pre - dreadnought age saw the beginning of the end of the 19th century naval balance of power in which France and Russia vied for competition against the massive British Royal Navy , and saw the start of the rise of the ' new naval powers ' of Germany , Japan and the USA . The new ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy and to a lesser extent the U . S . Navy supported those powers ' colonial expansion . While pre - dreadnoughts were adopted worldwide , there were no clashes between pre - dreadnought battleships until the very end of their period of dominance . The First Sino - Japanese War in 1894 – 95 influenced pre - dreadnought development , but this had been a clash between Chinese battleships and a Japanese fleet consisting of mostly cruisers . The Spanish - American War of 1898 was also a mismatch , with the American pre - dreadnought fleet engaging Spanish cruisers . Not until the Russo - Japanese War of 1904 – 05 did pre - dreadnoughts engage on an equal footing . This happened in three battles : the Russian tactical victory during the Battle of Port Arthur on 8 – 9 February 1904 , the indecisive Battle of the Yellow Sea on 10 August 1904 , and the decisive Japanese victory at the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905 . These battles upended prevailing theories of how naval battles would be fought , as the fleets began firing at one another at much greater distances than before ; naval architects realized that plunging fire ( explosive shells falling on their targets largely from above , instead of from a trajectory close to horizontal ) was a much greater threat than had been thought previously . Gunboat diplomacy was typically conducted by cruisers or smaller warships . A British squadron of three protected cruisers and two gunboats brought about the capitulation of Zanzibar in 1896 ; and while battleships participated in the combined fleet Western powers deployed during the Boxer rebellion , the naval part of the action was performed by gunboats , destroyers and sloops . Europe . European navies remained dominant in the pre - dreadnought era . The British Royal Navy remained the world ' s largest fleet , though both Britain ' s traditional naval rivals and the new European powers increasingly asserted themselves against its supremacy . In 1889 , Britain formally adopted a ' Two Power Standard ' committing it to building enough battleships to exceed the two largest other navies combined ; at the time , this meant France and Russia , who became formally allied in the early 1890s . The and were followed by a regular programme of construction at a much quicker pace than in previous years . The , , and classes appeared in rapid succession from 1897 to 1905 . Counting two ships ordered by Chile but taken over by the British , the Royal Navy had 39 pre - dreadnought battleships ready or building by 1904 , starting the count from the " Majestic " s . Over two dozen older battleships remained in service . The last British pre - dreadnoughts , the , appeared after " Dreadnought " herself . France , Britain ' s traditional naval rival , had paused its battleship building during the 1880s because of the influence of the Jeune Ecole doctrine , which favoured torpedo boat s to battleships . After the Jeune Ecole ' s influence faded , the first French battleship laid down was " Brennus " , in 1889 . " Brennus " and the ships which followed her were individual , as opposed to the large classes of British ships ; they also carried an idiosyncratic arrangement of heavy guns , with " Brennus " carrying three guns and the ships which followed carrying two 12 - inch and two 10 . 8 - inch in single turrets . The , laid down 1894 – 96 , were the first to adopt the standard four gun heavy armament . The Jeune Ecole retained a strong influence on French naval strategy , and by the end of the 19th century France had abandoned competition with Britain in battleship numbers . The French suffered the most from the Dreadnought revolution , with four ships of the still building when " Dreadnought " launched , and a further six of the begun afterwards . Germany ' s first pre - dreadnoughts , the , were laid down in 1890 . By 1905 , a further 19 battleships were built or under construction , thanks to the sharp increase in naval expenditure justified by the 1898 and 1900 Navy Laws . This increase was due to the determination of the navy chief Alfred von Tirpitz and the growing sense of national rivalry with the UK . Besides the " Brandenburg " class , German pre - dreadnoughts include the ships of the , , and classes — culminating in the , which served in both World Wars . On the whole , the German ships were less powerful than their British equivalents but equally robust . Russia equally entered into a programme of naval expansion in the 1890s ; one of Russia ' s main objectives was to maintain its interests against Japanese expansion in the Far East . The " Petropavlovsk " class begun in 1892 took after the British s ; later ships showed more French influence on their design , such as the . The weakness of Russian shipbuilding meant that many ships were built overseas for Russia ; the best ship , the " Retvizan " , being largely constructed in America . The Russo - Japanese War of 1904 – 05 was a disaster for the Russian pre - dreadnoughts ; of the 15 battleships completed since " Petropavlovsk " , eleven were sunk or captured during the war . One of these , the famous " Potemkin " , mutinied and was scuttled , however she was later raised and recommissioned . After the war , Russia completed four more pre - dreadnoughts after 1905 . Between 1893 and 1904 , Italy laid down eight battleships ; the later two classes of ship were remarkably fast , though the " Regina Margherita " class was poorly protected and the " Regina Elena " class lightly armed . In some ways , these ships presaged the concept of the battlecruiser . The Austro - Hungarian Empire also saw a naval renaissance during the 1890s , though of the nine pre - dreadnought battleships ordered only the three of the " Habsburg " class arrived before " Dreadnought " herself made them obsolete . America and the Pacific . The United States started building its first ever battleships in 1891 . These ships were short - range coast - defence battleships that were similar to the British except for an innovative intermediate battery of 8 - inch guns . The US Navy continued to build ships that were relatively short - range and poor in heavy seas , until the laid down in 1901 – 02 . Nevertheless , it was these earlier ships that ensured American naval dominance against the antiquated Spanish fleet — which included no pre - dreadnoughts — in the Spanish - American War , most notably at Battle of Santiago de Cuba . The final two classes of American pre - dreadnoughts ( the s and s ) were completed after the completion of the " Dreadnought " and after the start of design work on the USN ' s own initial class of dreadnoughts . The US Great White Fleet of 16 pre - dreadnought battleships circumnavigated the world from 16 December 1907 , to 22 February 1909 . Japan was involved in both of the major naval wars of the pre - dreadnought era . The first Japanese pre - dreadnought battleships , the " Fuji " class , were still being built at the outbreak of the First Sino - Japanese War of 1894 – 95 , which saw Japanese armoured cruiser s and protected cruiser s defeat the Chinese Beiyang Fleet , composed of a mixture of old ironclad battleships and cruisers , at the Battle of the Yalu River . Following their victory , and facing Russian pressure in the region , the Japanese placed orders for four more pre - dreadnoughts ; along with the two " Fuji " s these battleships formed the core of the fleet which twice engaged the numerically superior Russian fleets at the Battle of the Yellow Sea and the Battle of Tsushima . After capturing eight Russian battleships of various ages , Japan built several more classes of pre - dreadnought after the Russo - Japanese War . Obsolescence . In 1906 , the commissioning of brought about the obsolescence of all existing battleships . " Dreadnought " , by scrapping the secondary battery , was able to carry ten guns rather than four . She could fire eight heavy guns broadside , as opposed to four from a pre - dreadnought ; and six guns ahead , as opposed to two . The move to an ' all - big - gun ' design was a logical conclusion of the increasingly long engagement ranges and heavier secondary batteries of the last pre - dreadnoughts ; Japan and the USA had designed ships with a similar armament before " Dreadnought " , but were unable to complete them before the British ship . It was felt that because of the longer distances at which battles could be fought , only the largest guns were effective in battle , and by mounting more 12 - inch guns " Dreadnought " was two to three times more effective in combat than an existing battleship . The armament of the new breed of ships was not their only crucial advantage . " Dreadnought " used steam turbines for propulsion , giving her a top speed of 21 knots , against the 18 knots typical of the pre - dreadnought battleships . Able both to outgun and outmaneuver their opponents , the dreadnought battleships decisively outclassed earlier battleship designs . Nevertheless , pre - dreadnoughts continued in active service and saw significant combat use even when obsolete . Dreadnoughts and battlecruisers were believed vital for the decisive naval battles which at the time all nations expected , hence they were jealously guarded against the risk of damage by mines or submarine attack , and kept close to home as much as possible . The obsolescence and consequent expendability of the pre - dreadnoughts meant that they could be deployed into more dangerous situations and more far - flung areas . World War I . During World War I , a large number of pre - dreadnoughts remained in service . The advances in machinery and armament meant that a pre - dreadnought was not necessarily the equal of even a modern armoured cruiser , and was totally outclassed by a modern dreadnought battleship or battlecruiser . Nevertheless , the pre - dreadnought played a major role in the War . This was first illustrated in the skirmishes between British and German navies around South America in late autumn 1914 . while two German cruisers menaced British shipping , the Admiralty insisted that no battlecruisers could be spared from the main fleet and sent to the other side of the world to deal with them . Instead the British dispatched a pre - dreadnought of 1896 vintage , . Intended to stiffen the British cruisers in the area , in fact her slow speed meant that she was left behind at the disastrous Battle of Coronel . " Canopus " redeemed herself at the Battle of the Falkland Islands , but only when grounded to act as a harbour - defence vessel ; she fired at extreme range ( 13 , 500 yards ) on the German cruiser SMS " Gneisenau " , and while the only hit was from an inert practice shell which had been left loaded from the previous night ( the ' live ' shells of the salvo broke up on contact with water ; one inert shell ricocheted into one of " Gneisenau " ' s funnels ) , this certainly deterred " Gneisenau " from a potentially damaging raid on a British squadron which was still taking on coal . The subsequent battle was decided by the two s which had been dispatched after Coronel . This appears to have been the only meaningful engagement of an enemy ship by a British pre - dreadnought . In the Black Sea five Russian pre - dreadnoughts saw brief action against the Ottoman battlecruiser " Yavuz " during the Battle of Cape Sarych in November 1914 . The principle that disposable pre - dreadnoughts could be used where no modern ship could be risked was affirmed by British , French and German navies in subsidiary theatres of war . The German navy used its pre - dreadnoughts frequently in the Baltic campaign . However , the largest number of pre - dreadnoughts was engaged at the Gallipoli campaign . Twelve British and French pre - dreadnoughts formed the bulk of the force which attempted to ' force the Dardanelles ' in March 1915 . The role of the pre - dreadnoughts was to support the brand - new dreadnought engaging the Turkish shore defences . Three of the pre - dreadnoughts were sunk by mines , and several more badly damaged . However , it was not the damage to the pre - dreadnoughts which led to the operation being called off . The two battlecruisers were also damaged ; since " Queen Elizabeth " could not be risked in the minefield , and the pre - dreadnoughts would be unable to deal with the Turkish battlecruiser lurking on the other side of the straits , the operation had failed . Pre - dreadnoughts were also used to support the Gallipoli landings , with the loss of three more : , and . A squadron of German pre - dreadnoughts was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 ; German sailors called them the " five minute ships " , which was the amount of time they were expected to survive in a pitched battle . In spite of their limitations , the pre - dreadnought squadron played a useful role . As the German fleet disengaged from the battle , the pre - dreadnoughts risked themselves by turning on the British battlefleet as dark set . Nevertheless , only one of the pre - dreadnoughts was sunk : SMS " Pommern " went down in the confused night action as the battlefleets disengaged . Following the November 1918 Armistice , the U . S . Navy converted fifteen older battleships , eight armoured cruisers and two larger protected cruisers for temporary service as transports . These ships made one to six trans - Atlantic round - trips each , bringing home a total of more than 145 , 000 passengers . World War II . After World War I , most battleships , dreadnought and pre - dreadnought alike , were disarmed under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty . Largely this meant the ships being broken up for scrap ; others were destroyed in target practice or relegated to training and supply duties . One , " Mikasa " , was given a special exemption to the Washington Treaty and was maintained as a museum and memorial ship . Germany , which lost most of her fleet under the terms of the Versailles treaty , was allowed to keep eight pre - dreadnoughts ( of which only six could be in active service at any one time ) which were counted as armoured coast - defence ships ; two of these were still in use at the beginning of World War II . One of these , " Schleswig - Holstein " , shelled the Polish Westerplatte peninsula during the opening of the German invasion of Poland . " Schleswig - Holstein " served for most of the War as a training ship ; she was sunk while under refit in December 1944 , and broken up " in situ " in January 1945 . The other , " Schlesien " , was mined and then scuttled in March 1945 . A number of the inactive or disarmed pre - dreadnoughts were nevertheless sunk in action during World War II , such as the Greek pre - dreadnoughts " Kilkis " and " Lemnos " , bought from the U . S . Navy in 1914 . While neither of the ships was in active service , they were both sunk by German divebombers after the German invasion in 1941 . In the Pacific , the U . S . Navy submarine sank the disarmed Japanese pre - dreadnought " Asahi " in May 1942 . A veteran of Tsushima , she was serving as a repair ship . Post World War II . No pre - dreadnoughts served post World War II . However , the hulk of the ex - USS " Oregon " ( BB - 3 ) was used until 1956 , after which she was scrapped . Lone Survivor . The only pre - dreadnought preserved today is the Japanese Navy ' s flagship at the Battle of Tsushima , the " Mikasa " , which is now located in Yokosuka , where it has been a museum ship since 1925 .