SMS Radetzky supplies an explicitly informal rule of thumb for a disputed classification. A pre-dreadnought is a battleship conceived before HMS Dreadnought reset design expectations. A semi-dreadnought was already too far advanced for a complete redesign but incorporated some of the new ship's ideas. The uncertainty matters because the label describes a transitional design family rather than a perfectly bounded technical category.
Notable Point · 1:05:32-1:06:05
An informal way to read the semi-dreadnought label
SMS Radetzky supports an informal distinction between ships designed before Dreadnought and transitional battleships that absorbed only part of the new model.