"The WWI Battleships That Saved (And Doomed) the..." Topic

…British Empire.

"World War I was shaped by the new vehicles developed during the four years of conflict. A century after the start of the war, we're looking back at the most remarkable vehicles—the planes, cars, tanks, ships, and zeppelins—it helped bring about.

Aviation and the automobile were in their infancy when World War I started in 1914, but naval warfare had thousands of years of history behind it. It was, however, in a period of dramatic change, and the ships Britain poured its resources into building helped the country win the war—and eventually lose its empire.

At the time, the backbone of the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet consisted of dozens of dreadnought battleships. The HMS Dreadnought, commissioned in 1906, was the latest in a line of warships that had carried the name since the 1500s. The name referred to a heavy overcoat worn in stormy weather, but the HMS Dreadnought was so revolutionary its name came to describe an entire class of battleships…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Nice article.

Lots of questionable statements in that article; I'm surprised that the historian quoted has a job at the Naval War College. Maybe he was misquoted.

MH

Bump, per "/mivacommon/boards/topics.mv: Line 575: MvLOCKFILE: Runtime Error: Error creating lockfile 'boards/topics.dbf.lck': Timed out waiting for lock "

MH

Yes, several erroneous statements.

The battleships were only part of the fleet:

link

'By early 1914 the Royal Navy had 18 modern dreadnoughts (6 more under construction), 10 battlecruisers, 20 town cruisers, 15 scout cruisers, 200 destroyers, 29 battleships (pre-dreadnought design) and 150 cruisers built before 1907.'

When you look at 30 battleships in relation to the merchant fleet it doesn't seem like too many ships:

link

'I can tell you offhand that some 5,000 Merchant Navy ships were sunk and 15,000 merchant mariners killed during the war.'

'Without knowing exactly what you require, the Gross Steam and Motor tonnage of the British Empire at the outbreak of war was 21,045,000 tons (representing about 48% of World tonnage) . New construction, captures, purchases and transfers during the war totalled 6,679,000 tons. War losses and transfers were 9,763,000 tons. At the time of the Armistice the tonnage was 17,961,000. (Source: Fayle "Seaborne Trade").

At the beginning of the war there were some 170,000 men of British birth employed in the Mercantile Marine and 100,000 men employed in fishing around the coast of the UK. (Source: Hurd "The Merchant Navy"). '

So, no, I don't think that building them doomed the British Empire.

Tqngo, Suggest you read 'Castles of Steel'

Thanks for your recomendation my friend.
I would go for it.

Amicalement
Armand

"Aviation and the automobile were in their infancy when World War I started in 1914, but naval warfare had thousands of years of history behind it. "

I find this statement a little odd. It compares two technologies with an ongoing process. Surely land warfare also had thousands of years of history behind it.

Bob

All in all, not a very good article. Too many errors and broad unsupported assumptions for my taste.

It was not the cost of the navy that financially ruined Great Britain and produced the collapse of the British empire. The budget for maintaining and operating a large navy had been part of the British national economic calculus for at least two centuries. The fatal economic blow was the combined additional cost of raising a multi-million man army, building a massive air force, waging war worldwide, committing to a major European land campaign ….. and then effectively repeating the entire process twenty years later.

coastal2 sums up well – "Too many errors and broad unsupported assumptions".

B