Calling every earlier battleship a pre-dreadnought makes HMS Dreadnought the standard by which its predecessors are judged. The label was useful First World War administrative shorthand for separating older ships from dreadnought battle fleets, but the builders of the 1890s did not use it as a design category. It hides at least two distinct generations and becomes especially awkward for ships completed after Dreadnought that continued the older mixed-battery lineage. Battleship types make more sense when classified forward from their own technological context.
Chapter · 0:00-6:34
Why "pre-dreadnought" can obscure the ships
The opening challenges a backwards-looking label and separates the distinct generations of late nineteenth-century battleships.