About

Laid down on 2 October 1905 and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 2 December 1906, HMS Dreadnought was a revolutionary warship. She was the brainchild of First Sea Lord John Arbuthnot Fisher, who knew that her long range, all-big-gun armament and steam-turbine propulsion rendered every battleship afloat immediately obsolete. With her name quite literally meaning “fear nothing,” Dreadnought was the very embodiment of Fisher’s fearless, fervent approach to spreading his views on sea power and naval technology, his tenacity and determination to reform and shape the Royal Navy as he thought best. After becoming Baron Fisher in 1909, he coined an incredible pun in reference to Dreadnought for his coat of arms: “Fear God and dread nought.” While I may not share his use of aggressive rhetoric, I do share his appreciation of the importance of sea power—and of critical discussion and debate about it, drawing upon the past and looking forward to the future in order to interpret and decide what best to do in the present. On this blog can be found my essays and commentary on naval history, doctrine, technology, and more, past, present, and future.

Unless otherwise stated, no images on this site are my own.