The first of the new class of dreadnoughts were equipped with ten 12-inch guns set in five twin turrets, each gun being able to fire an 850lb shell 18,500 yards – more than 10 miles. The first British dreadnoughts had three of their five big gun turrets set on the centre line of the ship; A turret forward and two turrets, X and Y, aft. P turret was situated on the port side of the bridge superstructure, with Q turret on the starboard side in a staggered wing arrangement that allowed more space on the centreline of the vessel for boilers and machinery. The new dreadnoughts also had the latest 11-inch armour and faster new engines. They were indeed a revolution in naval warfare. Being the most important ships in the fleet, these battleships and the later battlecruiser evolution were called capital ships.
Before the dreadnought era, battleships and cruisers had no centralised fire control. Each gun was fired, independently of the others, from its respective turret. From 1906 onwards, battleships, and then battlecruisers, were fitted with the latest in range-finding techniques, sighting and fire control. Crucially, for the first time, all eight guns (and ten with later classes) in a broadside could be aimed and fired by one gunnery control officer positioned in an armoured chamber at the top of the conning tower just in front of the bridge – and also by a secondary gunnery control centre towards the stern of the ship. Officers in the spotting top – halfway up the foremast – observed the fall of shot, the splashes from shells landing beside the enemy ship far away in the distance, and could give suitable corrections to walk the guns in on their target.
The development of the dreadnought by Britain in 1906 could have been a colossal own goal – by destroying her traditional naval numerical supremacy in the balanced order of the time. But taking the calculated view that British shipyards could build more of the new dreadnoughts than could the shipyards of any rival countries, the Royal Navy gambled with the launch of HMS Dreadnought. They gambled – and won.
The dreadnought race stepped up in 1910 and 1911, with Germany laying down four capital ships in each of those years, and Britain laying down five. The British initially equipped their first dreadnoughts with 12-inch guns, which had a rate of fire of approximately 2 rounds per minute per gun. At long range, it was found that the latest version of this gun, which dated back to 1893 (but now had lengthened barrels), had accuracy problems.
To solve this, beginning with the Orion class of dreadnoughts of 1910/11, the Royal Navy quickly moved to the 13.5-inch gun. This larger gun allowed for a much larger shell, which gave improved penetration. The larger shell and increase in bore allowed a lower muzzle velocity, and this gave much greater accuracy and less barrel wear. The final development of the pre-war dreadnought was a 15-inch gun, which was reliable and accurate with a low muzzle velocity that gave outstanding barrel life. The first shipboard firing of such a gun took place in 1915.
Four Orion-class battleships were built for the Royal Navy between 1909 and 1912, and they were much larger than the earlier dreadnoughts. The next class, the King George V-class dreadnoughts such as Audacious were designed as an enlarged and improved evolution of the Orion class.
As Germany built up its own fleet of dreadnoughts, Britain responded by providing ten further super-dreadnoughts in the 1912 and 1913 budgets – the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes, which introduced further evolutions in armament, speed and protection. In contrast, Germany laid down only five battleships; she was now concentrating her resources on building up her ground forces. By the beginning of World War I in 1914, Britain had 22 of the new dreadnoughts in service compared to Germany’s 15. Britain also had another 13 under construction compared to Germany’s 5.
Battleships protected their most important and vulnerable parts inside an armoured box called the citadel, which ran from just in front of the forward gun turrets all the way back to aft of the stern gun turrets. Along the side of the citadel, on either side of the ship at the waterline, ran the main vertical armour belt, which was 11 inches thick in the first dreadnoughts but gradually got thicker with successive new classes of battleship.
In front of the forward gun turrets and aft of the stern gun turrets, a transverse armoured bulkhead ran athwartships, right across the ship from one side of the hull to the other. This transverse armour bulkhead connected the ends of the vertical main armour belts on both sides of the ship to form the rectangular framework of the citadel.
The deck over the smaller rapid fire casemate guns that lined either side of the beam of a dreadnought was armoured, and there was a further horizontal armour deck deep within the ship, designed to protect the machinery and magazines at the very bottom of the ship. In all, some 35–40 per cent of the weight of a battleship was made up of armour.
When the first generations of dreadnoughts were developed, the less powerful guns of the day fired in a relatively flat trajectory from relatively close range. Until 1905, normal battle range for capital ships was about 6,000 yards (3–4 miles) with long-range engagements perhaps out to 10,000 yards, or 6 miles. At both these ranges, the shell of a high-velocity gun would strike its target’s side. For this reason, a capital ship’s armour was concentrated on its vertical main belt along the hull side at the waterline and designed to protect the ship’s vital areas, such as magazines, boilers and turbines.
The thickest part of the main belt ran from forward of the forward turrets to aft of the aftmost turrets, whilst thinner armour protected the hull forward and aft of the citadel. At short range, a horizontally fired shell would not be able to strike the deck of the enemy ship – and so, to save unnecessary weight, decks were more lightly armoured than the vertical side armour belt.
As battleship design developed, however, successive generations of new and improved big guns were able to hurl their shells further and further. Soon, shells were being fired with a range of 21,000 yards – some 12 miles. More powerful guns, firing from greater distances, increased the height of the shell’s trajectory and produced a new phenomenon, ‘plunging fire’ or ‘falling shot’. This was more likely to strike the lightly armoured deck of a battleship rather than the thick vertical side armour belt.
As the great naval arms race developed, Audacious was laid down at Cammell Laird’s shipyard at Birkenhead, Merseyside on 23 March 1911. She was launched on 14 September 1912, and after fitting out afloat and the addition of her vertical armour belt plates, she was completed in August 1913. She was commissioned on 15 October 1913 and joined her sister ships in the 2nd Battle Squadron.
Audacious carried ten of the new Mk V 13.5-inch guns set in five twin turrets on her centre line: a super-firing forward pair called A and B turrets; a super-firing aft pair, X and Y turrets; and Q turret amidships. The staggered wing formation on earlier dreadnoughts, where P and Q turrets had been situated either side of the bridge superstructure allowing only 8 guns to fire in a broadside, had been abandoned – all turrets were now on the centre line and all 10 guns could now fire in a broadside. The new 13.5-inch gun could also fire an increased weight 1,400lb shell some 23,800 yards – about 13.5 miles. B turret was a super-firing turret, situated aft and above of A turret, whilst X turret was a super-firing turret forward and above the aftmost Y turret. The increased 1,400lb shell required four 106lb quarter charges of rod- based cordite. Each gun had its own magazine in the bowels of the ship that held 112 rounds per gun.
In addition to her main armament, Audacious was fitted with 16 breech-loading (BL) rapid fire Mark VII 4-inch secondary guns, set eight along either side in a mixture of casemate mounts and deckhouses, which were designed to target fast-moving torpedo boats that might close for a beam shot. These guns however proved to be ineffectual, being too light to deal with the newer and larger torpedo boats and destroyers and the increasing range of torpedoes. The casemates set in the forward superstructure were also found to be ineffectual in any kind of sea. The BL Mark VII 4-inch guns were removed in 1915 and substituted by 12 deck- mounted 4-inch guns. Three 21-inch submerged torpedo tubes were fitted, one in either beam and a third in the stern. She was protected by a 12-inch thick vertical waterline armour belt and an 8-inch upper belt.
The British