Armored Dreadnought ships in the 1800s?

Is there anyway a HMS-Dreadnought type could be developed in the 1800s with a POD of 1799 or so?

BlackWave

May not be too difficult if by the 1800's your willing to accept the late 1880's-1890's. A bit more tension and conflict, especially with a stronger naval base which means the RN isn't unchallenged so long could prompt that little more development earlier. Don't forget that Dreadnought in 1904-06 was 18ktons but less than a decade later the newest dreadnoughts were 30k+ tons with higher speeds, much heavier guns and many other improvements. Nothing like a period of tension to generate change.

If you mean before say 1880 you would need some sustained changes from early in the period to get that number of breakthroughs that much earlier I suspect.

Steve
 
Is there anyway a HMS-Dreadnought type could be developed in the 1800s with a POD of 1799 or so?

Fleet warfare between first rate powers could be more frequent throughout the century - if you look it didn't really happen, and where perhaps it did (Lissa) the outcome could be seen to be something of an anomaly.

Get the British and French to fight each other more often

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Yes, I've have to dig it up, but there was a sketch done for the Royal Navy, perhaps by Barnaby or White, that showed a probable successor to HMS Inflexible (1881) carrying eight 16in muzzle-loaded rifled guns. The layout was similar to the 20th century battlecruiser Invincible so the broadside would have been all eight guns. But the rate of fire was slow, IIRC about one salvo every five minutes.

One design considered for HMS Inflexible appears to have been six 16in MLR in three turrets arranged on the centerline. The Italia is considered to be a proto-battlecruiser.

What you won't have is the speed so the battlelines will be lumbering to close range. What will be needed to advances in gunnery control and rangefinding.
 
Don't see why not. Get Fulton's ideas accepted earlier to get the technology up to speed earlier. If the Paxhans explosive shell gets into service before the Crimean War it pushes up the need for armor. Get Erricson's turret accepted earlier and somebody will put the three together.
 
Don't see why not. Get Fulton's ideas accepted earlier to get the technology up to speed earlier. If the Paxhans explosive shell gets into service before the Crimean War it pushes up the need for armor. Get Erricson's turret accepted earlier and somebody will put the three together.

Unfortunately, both the Ericsson and Cole turrets were deadends, especially Ericsson's. US engineer James Eads built very complex and capable turrets for the US Navy, tho most of his ironclads saw action on the Mississippi.

One should look at the original plans for the USS Dunderberg, since she could serve as the first battleship. She would have carried two turrets atop her casement.
 
Yes, I've have to dig it up, but there was a sketch done for the Royal Navy, perhaps by Barnaby or White, that showed a probable successor to HMS Inflexible (1881) carrying eight 16in muzzle-loaded rifled guns. The layout was similar to the 20th century battlecruiser Invincible so the broadside would have been all eight guns. But the rate of fire was slow, IIRC about one salvo every five minutes.

One design considered for HMS Inflexible appears to have been six 16in MLR in three turrets arranged on the centerline. The Italia is considered to be a proto-battlecruiser.

What you won't have is the speed so the battlelines will be lumbering to close range. What will be needed to advances in gunnery control and rangefinding.

You wouldn't happen to be able to scan such a sketch, would you? The 1870-1893 era is my favorite in terms of warships.
 
One of the points of the Dreadnought was not that it was armoured, or that it had big guns or that it was fast. The point was that it was all of these things at once. Just more armour wouldn't be nearly as game changing.
 
You wouldn't happen to be able to scan such a sketch, would you? The 1870-1893 era is my favorite in terms of warships.

I do have a sketch and I'll try to see if I can scan and upload it here.

As first designed by William Webb the Dunderberg was to be 350 feet long, 68 feet wide and a draft of no more than 20 feet 6 inches. Her casemate was to carry eight 11in dalgren guns. Atop of the casemate were to be two turrets each containing two 15in dalgren guns. Speed was to be about 15 knots. Not to forget that she was to carry a large ram.

There are two excellent articles about her construction and her time under the French flag in Warship International No. 4, 1993.
 
Technology needed

For a ship like dreadnought, several pieces of technology are needed to make it effective.

Relatively fast firing heavy guns are very important. Until the big guns can fire fast, medium calliber weapons will be vital. Ohterwise, a fast armored cruiser is likely to be able to close and shoot up the superstructure and mission kill the battleship before one of the big, ponderous guns actually manages to hit it.

Speed, armor, and firepower all on one ship also needs good engines. It could be done without the turbine, but needs, at a minimum, good triple expansion engines IMHO.

Before the big gun could shoot fast, one possible responce to a dreadnought stye ship would be some meduim armored cruisers and some torpedo boats too big to be sunk with the tiny anti-torpedo boat guns then mounted.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be done, just reminding people of a few things to keep in mind when building one. Certainly, a decade or more earlier would be an option.

Here's some of what would, IMVHO, be the earliest guns that could shoot fast enough, with their dates of service.

Britain: 12"/40 mark IX..first entered service in 1901, 1.5 rounds per minute. (Modifications on the erlier 12"/35 Mk VIII got its fire up to 1.9 rounds per minute, I believe at about the same time, as mount design improved.)

The USA got its 12"/45 Mark V & VII firing at 2-3 rounds per minute in 1903, and in in 1906, got its previous model up to 2 rounds per minute.

France was well behind the other nations in getting rapid firing big guns to sea.

Germany had the 28 cm/40 (11") SK L/40 at sea in 1893, with a rate of fire of 2 rounds per minute.

Data from navweaps.com

Gunnery is far from the only factor, but these are, IMVHO, the earliest historical weapons suited for a true dreadnought. Before then, a gun firing a substantial medium calliber weapon is needed.

Of course, gun and mount development could progress faster, but some things are needed.

(HMS Dreadnought, other than the turbines, involved putting together a large pile of off the shelf components.)
 
For a ship like dreadnought, several pieces of technology are needed to make it effective.

Relatively fast firing heavy guns are very important. Until the big guns can fire fast, medium calliber weapons will be vital. Ohterwise, a fast armored cruiser is likely to be able to close and shoot up the superstructure and mission kill the battleship before one of the big, ponderous guns actually manages to hit it.

Speed, armor, and firepower all on one ship also needs good engines. It could be done without the turbine, but needs, at a minimum, good triple expansion engines IMHO.

Before the big gun could shoot fast, one possible responce to a dreadnought stye ship would be some meduim armored cruisers and some torpedo boats too big to be sunk with the tiny anti-torpedo boat guns then mounted.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be done, just reminding people of a few things to keep in mind when building one. Certainly, a decade or more earlier would be an option.

Here's some of what would, IMVHO, be the earliest guns that could shoot fast enough, with their dates of service.

Britain: 12"/40 mark IX..first entered service in 1901, 1.5 rounds per minute. (Modifications on the erlier 12"/35 Mk VIII got its fire up to 1.9 rounds per minute, I believe at about the same time, as mount design improved.)

The USA got its 12"/45 Mark V & VII firing at 2-3 rounds per minute in 1903, and in in 1906, got its previous model up to 2 rounds per minute.

France was well behind the other nations in getting rapid firing big guns to sea.

Germany had the 28 cm/40 (11") SK L/40 at sea in 1893, with a rate of fire of 2 rounds per minute.

Data from navweaps.com

Gunnery is far from the only factor, but these are, IMVHO, the earliest historical weapons suited for a true dreadnought. Before then, a gun firing a substantial medium calliber weapon is needed.

Of course, gun and mount development could progress faster, but some things are needed.

(HMS Dreadnought, other than the turbines, involved putting together a large pile of off the shelf components.)

Broadly agree, but the 12"/35 on the Majestics & Canopuses (Canopi? Canopuseses.) could be fired in some models at not much more than 1/minute, which is enough to justify an all-big gun arrangement, and fire control technology was available to support it.

Still you're talking 10 years earlier at the very most, and I think you would need some sort of significant fleet action involving a major European power in the 1890 timeframe.
 
As I said, you need a driver/

Battleship development in the last 3 years of the 19th century was to a large degree occurring in a practical limbo. As nobody fought each other (1878 excepted) they simply looked at each other's designs, copied and bettered them, and then built their own successors to theoretical designs already implemented

If the major fleets had fought each other more, more realistic questions would have been asked, more lessons learned, more urgency given to truly new ideas.

1878 is in its way a false lesson since it saw largely small Russian ships have successes against largely inept larger Turkish ships

\The next real lesson comes in the Sino-Japanese War, but the Chinese fought that with good ships but everything else shit including ammunition. A truly equal Battle of the Yalu would have taught everyone more lessons

Look at 1898, all naval almanacs, and the US's own naval commentators, thought the Spanish paper fleet a huge menace, but in fact they were paper tigers

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1878 is in its way a false lesson since it saw largely small Russian ships have successes against largely inept larger Turkish ships.

The above is patently false on many levels. The Ottomans had overwhelming naval superiority, so there was no real opportunity - or reason - to employ large ironclads in fleet work, so they were generally not. Why expose a large and expensive vessel to mines and torpedos when a smaller ship would suffice?

The Ottoman fleet's mission was to prevent the Russians from supplying their forces by sea, and it did this. It was also tasked to carry out amphibious invasions, which it also accomplished.

The only failure of the navy in the war was in riverine defense, in which the vessels in question were unfortunately under the control of the army.

To a lesser extent, it needed to provide naval gunfire support, not too useful since the fighting occurred away from the littoral.

But in these tasks it was exposed to torpedo attack, constantly, and it was the Ottomans that pioneered anti-torpedo defense, including the torpedo nets and searchlights that became the norm for all fleets. This war had an enormous influence on European naval thinking, overemphasizing torpedos and mines, because these were the only real potential weapons the Russians had.

If the Russians had possessed any large ships at all, you would have seen gunnery actions that would certainly have influenced thinking.

As it was, there was an action that provoked a lot of thought, the pursuit of Livadia by Asar-i Şevket. The latter being a casemate ironclad, was unable to effectively fire end-on upon the Russian ship, having to turn off-course to get guns to bear, which allowed the Russians to stay ahead of its faster pursuer.

That helped feed the obsession for end-on fire and provided impetus for turrets.

So in two regards, one major on another less so, the 1877-78 war did provide lessons for the world's navies.

One, even minor, line-battle would be sufficient to lead to big-gun ships.
 
Top