Dreadnought

dreadnought, dreadnaught

1. A battleship armed with heavy guns of uniform calibre

2. Slang a heavyweight boxer

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Dreadnought 

a British battleship that inaugurated this class of warships.

The design of the Dreadnought reflected the experiences of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, in which the inadequacies of the armorclads were revealed. Built in Portsmouth in 1905-06, the Dreadnought had a displacement of 17,900 tons and a speed of 21 knots (39 km/hr). Its armament consisted of ten 305-mm guns mounted on five two-gun towers; 24 76-mm guns mounted on the sides (on large-diameter towers) and on the bow and the stern; and five underwater torpedo tubes, four in the sides and one in the stern. Its armor was 280 mm thick at the center, 203 mm at the bow and the stern, 44-70 mm on the deck, and 280 mm around the towers and the deck cabins. The main difference between the Dreadnought and its predecessors, the armorclads, were the unified calibers of all the main and antimine artillery, greater speed, and antimine defense; a rhombic arrangement of the artillery towers made it possible to fire from the sides and stern from eight and from the bow from six guns of the main caliber. The Russian equivalent of the Dreadnought was the improved battleships of the Sevastopol’ type.