HMS Hibernia is shown in July 1908, with fire-control tops placed on her two masts so that one should be either above or below her funnel smoke in any case (Dreadnought’s after control position was very low for the same reason). The upper pole on her mainmast was a wireless gaff to support a high antenna, a common fitting at the time, but soon eliminated. Other ships of the class had semaphores at the maintop; a semaphore is visible abaft Hibernia’s bridge, near what appears to be a 24in signal light (the two searchlights on the bridge wings are the new 36in type then being introduced; this type would be superseded by twin 24in projectors). Hibernia could be distinguished from most of her sisters by her square control tops (only Britannia also had such tops). In this photo she did not yet have the range repeaters later added to her tops.
This argument for greater battle ranges was coupled with Fisher’s demand for higher tactical speed. An enemy would not submit to being torn apart by a shower of 6in shells. He would try to close the range. Only higher speed would enable a British fleet to choose its battle range so as to force an enemy to submit to a pounding he could not effectively return. Higher speed would also enable a British fleet to catch a fleeing enemy fleet. If the whole British fleet did not enjoy superior speed, it needed a fast wing capable of catching and slowing the enemy fleet. These two considerations explain Fisher’s fascination with high speed and his desire to merge the battleship and armoured cruiser categories of warships. They also make it obvious that Fisher would not and could not divorce fast armoured cruisers (battlecruisers) from a battle fleet tactical (as well as scouting) role.
At the same time armour was improving, offering the same protection in much smaller thicknesses – hence in much less weight per square foot. To remain competitive, the quick-firing battery had to gain punch. The Royal Navy and others adopted ‘semi-quick-firing’ guns of greater power (in the British case, 7.5in and then 9.2in guns). At the same time, the firing rate of the heaviest guns improved, as did their ability to hit accurately at greater ranges. The initial boost in gunnery had come from ‘continuous aim’, which could be applied to a 6in QF gun but not to a heavier slower-firing weapon. However, Fisher’s effort to improve battle range resulted in a new method of firing. Guns fired in salvos and their aim was corrected by a spotter aloft working with calculators in a transmitting station under armour. Heavy guns fired on the roll, a technique substantially inferior to continuous aim, but errors in a salvo averaged out enough to improve hitting at ranges formerly available only to medium-calibre guns. Moreover, the higher rate of fire achieved by newer heavy guns made salvo firing effective. In 1901 Fisher wrote that officers preferred the 10in to the 12in gun because of its higher rate of fire, though clearly he preferred 6in guns. By 1904, Fisher was advocating a battleship armed with sixteen 10in guns. Later in the year his associate and friend Captain Bacon convinced him that 12in guns now fired so rapidly that they could be substituted.2
The King Edward VII class were the first British semi-dreadnoughts, the first step on the path to the all-big-gun ship. Replacing some 6in quick-firing guns with 9.2in guns could be considered either a simple change in battery or the beginning of a momentous shift towards uniform calibre main armament. This is HMS Hindustan. The small turret abeam the bridge holds a 9.2in gun; the other secondary guns are all 6in and were intended to engage the same ships as the heavier weapons. The ship had smaller guns (12pdrs) to fight off attacking torpedo boats. They are just visible on the shelter deck under the starboard bridge wing. Torpedo craft were expected to attack mainly at night, so searchlights were an important element of torpedo defence. Those on board this ship were 24in in diameter. Two can be seen at the ends of the bridge wings, with another on the small platform under the foretop and another on a platform aft. Note the wireless gaff rigged on the mainmast and the identification bands on her funnels.
HMS Hibernia was another of the King Edward VII class. Three of her 12pdrs are clearly visible just above the rear end of her after 12in turret. These ships had a total of fourteen 12pdrs and fourteen 3pdrs, the latter conceived as anti-personnel complements to the 12pdrs (early destroyers also had a mix of 12pdrs and 3pdrs). She had four 12pdrs forward under her bridge wings and two more aft, plus two in an upper-deck battery on each side and two more on each side of the deck above. Two of her 3pdrs were mounted atop each turret, but they are not very visible here. This photograph was taken in July 1908.
Faster-firing heavy guns were not a peculiarly British development; they were appearing at the same time in most of the major navies. However, the argument for longer battle ranges and for sufficient speed to impose them seems to have been unique. Thus for many navies, once guns of near-full calibre were accepted as part of the normal secondary battery, the leap to uniform main armament was not too difficult. It can be found in US sketch designs as early as 1903 and it may have been proposed before that. Several navies built ships with mixed batteries including 9.2in or 10in secondaries. They were later called ‘semi-dreadnoughts’. From the point of view of the jump in size and cost associated with entirely new kinds of battleships, semi-dreadnoughts offered nearly the same shock effect as the full dreadnoughts which closely followed them. The British got to an all-big-gun armament first, but the most unique feature of HMS Dreadnought was probably the turbine powerplant which gave her unparalleled strategic and tactical mobility.
Hibernia shows 3pdrs atop her forward turret and her forward starboard 9.2in turret.
The key development pushing the Royal Navy to adopt heavy secondary guns seems to have been the US decision to provide its new battleships with an 8in battery in addition to the usual 6in rapid-fire guns. Ironically, this decision had nothing to do with changes in battleship protection. In the past, the US Navy had provided its battleships with an intermediate battery of 8in guns, probably mainly because it could not manufacture rapid-fire 6in weapons. These guns performed relatively well during the Spanish-American War in 1898, meaning that they did better than the extremely mediocre heavy guns. A modern 8in gun was therefore included in the battery of the post-war US battleship, which in 1899 was provisionally named Pennsylvania (in fact this name was applied to a large armoured cruiser; the design was the Virginia class).3 To British observers, Pennsylvania was the most powerfully-armed battleship in the world, with eight 8in and the usual 6in battery (twelve guns). Other foreign navies seemed poised to adopt intermediate batteries.4 They also seemed to be adopting higher speeds than the 18 knots (on eight-hour trials) standard in the Royal Navy.
DNC Sir William White proposed eight 7.5in guns and twelve 6in as a reasonable equivalent to the Pennsylvania secondary battery. Captain William H May, CO of the gunnery school HMS Excellent, considered it pointless to retain 6in guns, which could not penetrate their main objectives, the casemates protecting foreign secondary batteries. Better to make the jump to an all-7.5in secondary battery of fourteen guns. A 7.5in AP shell could penetrate 6in KNC armour at 2000 yds, compared to 5in for a 6in shell. If the 7.5in could fire at least two rounds per minute and roughly double the number of 6in could be carried, the rate of hitting would be as 1 to 6, but a proportion of the 6in would explode outside the enemy’s casemate armour (all the 7.5in would penetrate it). The 7.5in shell had twice the burster weight, hence would be far more effective against unarmoured parts of an enemy ship. DNO considered the 7.5in gun under-rated; it was credited with 1½ rounds per minute (like an 8in gun), but as of August 1900, it had been loaded and fired six times in one minute. This improvement much affected any comparison with foreign ships. Controller (A K Wilson) rejected the DNO proposal on the grounds that 7.5in guns could not be mounted in main deck casemates because of their great length. He therefore preferred eight 7.5in in twin hydraulic turrets plus twelve 6in in main deck casemates.
White saw the new single 9.2in/46.7 cal gun being mounted in armoured cruisers (Cressy and Drake classes) might be an alternative to the twin 7.5in. With its greater energy and larger-capacity shell, it would be more effective against armour of moderate