Battleship

The battleship was a heavily armored and massively armed capital ship employed as a front line war vessel in a naval engagement. This type of warship first entered service in 1895 with the British Royal Navy. She was HMS Majestic, which was the lead vessel of her class of 9 pre-dreadnought battleships. These early battleships were armed with four 305-mm and twelve 152-mm naval guns, while her belt armor was 229-mm thick. They were the first naval vessels to be propelled by 3-cylinder, triple expansion, steam engines, fed by 8 boilers. This class was followed by the King Edward VII-class of 8 pre-dreadnought battleships, the first of which was commissioned in 1905; these were also armed with 305-mm naval guns.

Commissioned in 1906, HMS Dreadnought introduced advanced technical innovation. She was the first battleship to be propelled by the modern and more efficient Parsons direct-drive steam turbines fed by 18 boilers instead of 8. Her number of main guns was increased to ten 305-mm (12-inch) naval ordnance, instead of the four on the Majestic and King Edward VII class. HMS Dreadnought was also faster and had thicker armor. The Imperial Japanese Navy was the first navy to acquire a dreadnought type battleship when the battleship Satsuma was commissioned in 1910. However, the Satsuma was still powered by the older triple-expansion steam engines. Meanwhile Germany introduced her first dreadnought type battleship in 1911, when the SMS Helgoland was commissioned along with three other battleships of her class. Most of the European navies took part in World War I deploying dreadnought type battleships. The United States Navy, on the other hand, had been reinforced with the New York-class battleships. The 1916 Battle of Jutland was famous because of the number of battleships involved in this naval engagement.

By the start of World War II battleships had a standard displacement of 20,000–64,000 tons and were armed with up to 12 turret guns of the main caliber (between 356 and 406 mm), up to 20 torpedo-defense, antiaircraft, or multipurpose artillery guns with calibers of 100–127 mm, and up to 80–140 small-caliber automatic antiaircraft cannons and large-caliber antiaircraft machine guns. The US Navy entered World War II equipped with the Iowa-class battleship, which was more advanced and faster war vessel and it was armed with more powerful guns; 406-mm (16-inch). The British Royal Navy deployed the King George V class battleships in World War II; however, HMS Vanguard, which was completed in 1946, would be the last battleship used by the Royal Navy. During Word War II, however, because of the increased role of naval aviation (especially carrier-based) and submarine forces and the loss of many battleships to aviation and submarines, these ships lost their importance. After the war all navies scrapped almost all their battleships.