Naval Gaming Introduction

Admiral John Arbuthnot (Jackie) Fisher via the HMS Dreadnought has commonly been given credit for creating the all-big-gun battleship (i.e., the "dreadnought"). While both deserve a lot of recognition, there are others who rarely get noted.

Admiral Fisher said in his rather self-serving memoirs that he first conceived the all-big-gun battleship in 1900, when he had a friend, W. H. Gard, the Chief Constructor of the Dockyard in Malta, create some basic sketches for what Fisher called HMS Untakable. This design was to be armed with 10-inch guns disposed in a traditional pre-dreadnought arrangement. This was refined over time until submitted for serious consideration in 1904. As First Sea Lord, Fisher was able to force consideration of his proposed ship by a review board of hand picked individuals. Approval was a foregone conclusion. The final design was drawn up in early 1905, and put under construction immediately.

While Fisher was working on his ideas, Colonel Vittorio Cuniberti, Chief Constructor of the Royal Italian Navy, and one of the foremost ship designers in the world, was designing a new type of ship. In 1902 he submitted a design for an all-big-gun battleship to the Italian Navy. This design had twelve 12-inch guns, no intermediate caliber guns, was heavier than the Dreadnought, and faster. The design did show its pre-dreadnought heritage in the disposition of its guns (four twin turrets, one fore, one aft, one on each side amidships, plus four single gun wing turrets). Nevertheless, this ship was everything a dreadnought should be. As the Italian Navy decided not to pursue the design, Cuniberti was allowed to publish the concept. In 1903 he submitted an article titled An Ideal Battleship for the British Fleet to Jane's Fighting Ships. This article described the ship he had designed. Cuniberti's design and article brought the all-big-gun issue into the open and sparked a general debate of a subject which a number of navies had been working on in secret.

Independently, the United States Navy had, after long arguing and in-fighting, come to the conclusion that the all-big-gun battleship was the next step in new construction. Cuniberti's article was a strong influence in this debate, and was a rallying point for proponents of this concept such as Admiral Sims and President Roosevelt. By the beginning of 1905 the plans for the new South Carolina class had been completed and approved. This design was similar, but smaller and slower than the ship envisioned by Cuniberti.

So, both the Royal Navy and the United States Navy had separately reached, by 1905, the same basic concept in battleship design that Colonel Cuniberti had proposed in 1902. The secrecy surrounding both navy's planning prevented them, and others, from realizing that they were all on the same path. But it was a path already explored and publicized by Colonel Cuniberti. While Admiral Fisher may have brought the first dreadnought type of battleship into existence, it was Vittorio Cuniberti who truly fathered the idea.