 The firepower of a battleship demonstrated by USS Iowa (c. 1984). The muzzle blasts distort the ocean surface. A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the battleship was the most powerful type of warship, and a fleet of battleships was considered vital for any nation that desired to maintain command of the sea.
The term battleship came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship, now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought into the United Kingdom's Royal Navy heralded a revolution in battleship design. Subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought, were referred to as "dreadnoughts", though the term eventually became obsolete as they became the only type of battleship in common use.
Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, and for decades the battleship was a major factor in both diplomacy and military strategy. A global arms race in battleship construction began in Europe in the 1890s and culminated at the decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905, the outcome of which significantly influenced the design of HMS Dreadnought. The launch of Dreadnought in 1906 commenced a new naval arms race. Three major fleet actions between steel battleships took place: the long range gunnery duel at the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904, the decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905, both, during the Russo-Japanese War, and the inconclusive Battle of Jutland (1916) during the First World War. Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of dreadnoughts of the war, it was the last major battle in naval history fought primarily by battleships.
The Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships, though technical innovation in battleship design continued. Both the Allied and Axis powers built battleships during World War II, though the increasing importance of the aircraft carrier meant that the battleship played a less important role than had been expected. Read more...\
 SMS Radetzky was the lead ship of the three Radetzky class of pre-dreadnought battleships (Schlachtschiff) of the Austro-Hungarian Navy (K.u.K. Kriegsmarine), named for the 19th century Austrian Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz. Radetzky and her sisters, Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand and Zrinyi, were the last pre-dreadnoughts built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy—they were followed by the larger and significantly more powerful Tegetthoff-class dreadnoughts. Radetzky was built at the Stabilimento Tecnico in Trieste and commissioned into the fleet on 15 January 1911. The ship conducted training cruises in the Mediterranean Sea before the outbreak of World War I in mid-1914. During the war, Radetzky operated largely as a fleet in being alongside her two sisters and the four Tegetthoffs; in doing so, the ships tied down considerable naval forces from the Triple Entente. Radetzky did participate in some offensive operations, primarily shore bombardments in the Adriatic Sea against French, Montenegrin, and Italian targets. With the war going against the Austro-Hungarians by the end of 1918, Radetzky was prepared to be transferred to Yugoslavia. On November 10, 1918—just one day before the end of the war—Yugoslav navy officers sailed the old battleship out of Pola and eventually surrendered to a squadron of American submarine chasers. In the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the transfer was not recognized; instead, Radetzky was given to Italy and broken up for scrap.
Günther Lütjens (25 May 1889 - 27 May 1941) was a German admiral whose military service spanned almost three decades, most well known for his actions during World War II, especially his command of the Operation Rheinübung sortie. Joining the Kaiserliche Marine in 1907, he served aboard the SMS Freya, Elsass, and König Wilhelm, then commanded several torpedo boats until the end of World War I, earning the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. In 1921, he joined the Reichsmarine, serving in and eventually commanding the 3rd Torpedo Boat Flotilla and Karlsruhe. In 1936, Lütjens was appointed Chief of Personnel of the Kriegsmarine, then assigned as Führer der Torpedoboote the next year.
When World War II erupted, he was Commander of Scouting Forces in Operation Weserübung, notably the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau (using the latter as his flagship), then promoted to Commander of Battleships and third Flottenchef. Rheinübung originally planned for all four battleships (Bismarck, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Tirpitz) to make a raid into the Atlantic, but ultimately sailed with only Bismarck and Prinz Eugen on 19 May, 1941. On 24 May, his ships were intercepted by HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales at the Battle of the Denmark Strait, in which Hood was famously sunk. Furious at the loss of their most powerful ship, the Royal Navy began a dogged pursuit that ultimately sunk the Bismarck and killed Lütjens on 27 May. The German destroyer Lütjens (D185), lead ship of the Lütjens-class destroyers of the modern German Navy, would be named for him.
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Residue was never left in the [16-inch] guns. After each firing, the residue powder was blown out with compressed air. The rifling of each gun had to be checked after firing to ascertain there were no cracks in the tube. I happened to be the unlucky gunner's mate chosen to do this in turret two. I had to actually crawl the complete length of the tube, continuously rotating to search each square inch of the inside surface of the rifling to search for cracks and in the process scraping a fair amount of skin from my shoulders, elbows and knees.
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| | — Gunner's Mate 3rd Class Billy J. Slate, regarding his service aboard USS North Carolina (BB-55)
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Operation Majestic Titan is the code name for a long-term Wikipedian project with two primary objectives, the first of which is to create the single largest featured topic on Wikipedia, centered around the battleships considered, planned, built, operated, canceled, or otherwise recorded. There are probably a few hundred articles of this nature which will be included, from the earliest pre-dreadnoughts to the last of the dreadnoughts. Once all articles are featured this project will reorient to ensuring that the articles remain up to standard. If you're interested, please view the project page to familiarize yourself with the guidelines, and simply pick an article to improve! There is also ongoing discussion you can participate in.
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