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HMS 'Dreadnought' is launched Feb. 10 1906


Valin

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History of War

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When she was completed, in December 1906, HMS Dreadnought was the most powerful battleship in the world. She was the first all-big-gun battleship to enter service, and the first battleship to be powered by Parsons turbines. As a result she was two and a half knots faster than her rivals, and carried twice the firepower of earlier battleships.

To put the Dreadnought in context we need to look at the last generation of pre-Dreadnought battleships. In Britain that was the Lord Nelson class, whose construction actually overlapped with the Dreadnought. These were 17,820 tonne ships, carrying four 12in guns and ten 9.2in guns and capable of reaching a top speed of 18kts. The German equivalent was the Deutschland class, 13,993 tonnes, armed with four 11in and fourteen 6.9 in guns and capable of 18.5kts. The 12in guns were perhaps twice as powerful as the 9in guns.

In contrast the Dreadnought carried ten 12in guns, although could only fire eight of them in a broadside and could reach a top speed of 21 kts, 2.5-3 knots quicker than existing battleships. She was even slightly cheaper to maintain than the Lord Nelson class of ships, a result of not needing to carry and maintain two different calibres of shells.

The all-big-gun ship was an idea that was in the air in the years before the appearance of the Dreadnought. In American work had already begun on the South Carolina class, which when completed carried eight 12in guns. There had been calls to give the Lord Nelsons an all 12in armament.

Dreadnought was the first of these ships to be laid down, in October 1905, and was built at great speed. She was launched just over four months later, in February 1906, and was officially considered to have been completed in October 1906, after just a year. In fact it would take another two months to complete her, but this was still the shortest period of time ever taken to complete a battleship.

 

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4 Years Later laugh.png

 

Virginia Woolf and the Dreadnought Hoax

 

The Dreadnought Hoax was a practical joke that Virginia Woolf and her friends played on the British Navy when they disguised themselves as Abyssinian princes and convinced the navy to give them a private tour of Britain’s flagship, the H.M.S. Dreadnought.

 

The prank occurred in February of 1910, when the group of friends, which included their ringleader Horace de Vere Cole, Virginia’s brother Adrian Stephen, Guy Ridley, Anthony Buxton, Duncan Grant as well as Virginia Woolf (who was then Virginia Stephen), disguised their skin color with skin darkeners, dressed up in long caftans, placed turbans on their heads and glued fake beards to their faces.

 

After disguising themselves, the group then sent a telegram to the navy announcing their intended arrival at the ship and headed to London’s Paddington station.

 

Bloomsbury-group-members-during-the-Drea

Virginia Woolf, Adrian Stephen, Guy Ridley, Anthony Buxton, Duncan Grant and Horace de Vere Cole during the Dreadnought Hoax in February of 1910 (Virginia Woolf is on the far left.)

 

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