Weight of fire forces every navy to catch up

From the age of sail onward, ships had carried progressively fewer guns as individual weapons became more powerful, while effective range and rate of fire had not increased in the same proportion. Dreadnought restored weight of fire by concentrating many heavy guns that could be coordinated at long range. The same logic appears in the modern idea of organizing massed salvos across multiple ships. Competing navies then faced immediate pressure to build an answer.