A dreadnought was a type of battleship that emerged in the early 20th century. It all started in 1906, when the Royal Navy launched HMS Dreadnought. With its
steam turbine engine, and uniform “all big gun” battery, its design was so superior that it made literally every other battleship in the world completely obsolete. The USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and even Chile, Brazil and Argentina frantically began building and buying ships of this type, which collectively became known as “
dreadnoughts”. This “dreadnought race” is comparable to the nuclear arms race of the Cold War.
Dreadnoughts were enormously expensive, and a nation’s technological, economic and industrial power was measured by how many dreadnoughts it possessed. Dreadnoughts ruled the waves up until WWII, when the age of battleships in general came to an end. Aircraft carriers and naval aviation superseded them as the key striking power of a modern fleet.
British and German
dreadnoughts clashed inconclusively during WWI in 1916 at the
battle of Jutland, considered by some the largest
naval battle in history.
Spain built three dreadnoughts of the España class. Because of the feeble Spanish economy, they were the smallest dreadnoughts ever built. They did see combat action, but all three were destroyed in rather ignominious ways.
