Naval History Forums

Does anyone know why the RN, HSF, USN, IJN etc. didn't take their pre-dreadnoughts and have them undergo refits such as adding an additional turret or two, placing in new guns etc. to match the dreadnought standard?

You could take a Royal Sovereign-class ship, remove the aft mast and place a size appropriate wing turret

I would guess that the work entailed would be quite complex and expensive. Those ships were designed with tight parameters, just throwing on an extra turret would NOT be a simple matter, and probably couldn't be done at all without a major rebuild.

I would be willing to bet that fitting an extra turret on a couple of pre-dreadnoughts would cost about the same as building a new one. I'd rather have one purpose-built, brand new, relatively fast dreadnought than two slow half-assed rebuilds with three turrets each, reciprocal engines, etc.

You gotta good point, the money you'd use JUST refitting a pre-dreadnought is ABOUT the same amount you'd use JUST to order a new Dreadnought-type battleship

Pre dreadnoughts need to be reffit with turbines which is something they were not designed.

Okay, got it

The turrets and barbettes and trunks are an integral part of the hull and armor system. Just adding one is not a simple undertaking. I would say it is virtually impossible. First off, there simply isn't any space, unless you are to remove something else, which almost certainly has to be the engines, and predreadnoughts are comparatively slow to begin with. And even if space was somehow found, it would be such a massive undertaking that practically the whole ship would have to be rebuilt.

Besides, predreadnought ships were obsolete in other ways than just the number of turrets, they were slower and had much less underwater protection. And they were a lot smaller.

I don't know of any case where a heavy gun turret was added to a ship, though there were quite a few where they were removed, most often to provide space for more powerful machinery.

In all my readings of the time period, I am completely unaware of any nation retrofitting a Pre-Dreadnought into one. The reasons for that decision are all clearly described above.

A long after-the fact response: in any head-to-head exchange between a modified "updated" pre-dreadnought and a designed dreadnought, the lack of increased armor protection would render the pre-dreadnought nothing more than a sea bed anchor.