Battleship

A battleship is a large, heavily armored warship with a main battery consisting of large guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most formidable warship types ever built, until they were surpassed by aircraft carriers beginning in the 1940s. The modern battleship traces its origin to the sailing ship of the line, which was developed into the steam ship of the line and soon thereafter the ironclad warship. After a period of extensive experimentation in the 1870s and 1880s, ironclad design was largely standardized by the British Royal Sovereign class, which are usually referred to as the first "pre-dreadnought battleships". These ships carried an armament that usually included four large guns and several medium-caliber guns that were to be used against enemy battleships, and numerous small guns for self-defense.

Naval powers around the world built dozens of pre-dreadnoughts in the 1890s and early 1900s, though they saw relatively little combat; only two major wars were fought during the period that included pre-dreadnought battles: the Spanish–American War in 1898 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. The following year, the British launched the revolutionary all-big-gun battleship HMS Dreadnought. This ship discarded the medium-caliber guns in exchange for a uniform armament of ten large guns. All other major navies quickly began (or had already started) "dreadnoughts" of their own, leading to a major naval arms race. During World War I, only one major fleet engagement took place: the Battle of Jutland in 1916, but neither side was able to achieve a decisive result.