The name Dreadnought was applied to the first "modern" battleship built by GB circa 1905 that sparked a naval race that partially contributed to WW One.
Various countries expended enormous sums on battleships and battlecruisers that ended up being used rarely in the actual conflict, because they were too valuable to send into harm's way, with one notable exception.
GB switched from using coal to oil and now had an interest in securing oil fields in the middle east which later resulted in some curious lines being drawn in the Paris 1919 conference post-war. Then of course WW Two was significantly impacted by the need for oil.
HMS
Dreadnought was built as the Germans were (stupidly, wastefully, provocatively) trying to build a fleet that could challenge the Royal Navy for command of the seas. Admiral Jacky Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, conceived the idea of building a class of ships that would make all other battleships in the world obsolete. They would be bigger, faster, heavier, and more heavily armed. All of the big guns in its armament would be the same caliber.
The last class of battleships the Germans built before Dreadnought's arrival were those of the
Deutschland class. SMS
Deutschland and her four sisters featured a top speed of 18.5 knots and main and secondary batteries of 4 11” guns and 14 6.7” guns. Each ship was 418’8” long and weighed 14,218 tons fully loaded.
By comparison,
Dreadnought was 527’ long, weighed 21,060 tons fully loaded, and had a top speed of 21.6 knots. She had main and secondary batteries of 10 12” guns and 27 3” guns.
Dreadnought was a one-off. She would be followed by the slightly larger and improved
Bellerophon class. Those, in turn, would be succeeded by the
St. Vincent class, still bigger, more heavily armed, and carrying 12" main guns. Then would come the one-off HMS
Neptune, which would test new turret arrangements. The 2-ship
Colossus class that followed was basically an improved
Neptune design. Next would the 4-ship
Orion class, much larger and heavier, and with 13.5" main guns. These were such a leap ahead that they were called "super-dreadnoughts." They would be followed by the improved 4-ship
King George V class and the further-improved 4-ship
Iron Duke class. All of these would be in service by the start of World War I in 1914. They would be quickly followed in 1914-15 by the 5-ship
Queen Elizabeth class, bigger, faster, and armed with 15" main guns.
I haven't mentioned the parallel development and production of battle-cruisers, as big as battleships, with less armor but bigger engines, designed to be able to outgun anything they couldn't outrun and outrun anything they couldn't outgun.
Dreadnought and the bigger, better, faster, better-armed battleships that followed did not cow the Germans into abandoning their attempts to build a battle fleet to challenge the Brits--it caused them to redouble their efforts and build their own versions built to a somewhat different philosophy, emphasizing better armor protection at the expense of smaller main guns. So the naval arms race got even more expensive than it had been.
