by Michael Fassbender

Created on: December 06, 2011   Last Updated: December 07, 2011

While the navies of the First World War rarely met in large engagements, still they played a crucial role in the course of the war.  The naval arms race that developed between Britain and Germany had been a major reason for the outbreak of war in 1914, while the failure of the German Navy to break the British blockade or to enforce a blockade of its own was decisive in the war’s conclusion.  The navies of the Great Powers had been transformed substantially by technological developments over the previous two decades, and so naval tactics were often quite new. 

Surface Action

Surface fleets were dominated by the battleships, then often known as dreadnoughts.  These vessels combined a large number of heavy guns with a thick layer of armor, and yet their turbine engines gave them enough speed to participate in the rare instances of large-scale action.  Capable of firing directly at targets ten miles away, the dreadnoughts did not need to draw too close in order to be effective.

While the emplacement of guns on turrets permitted a 360 degree field of fire, dreadnoughts were most effective in firing a broadside, much like the sailing vessels of Nelson’s day.  Most classes of dreadnought placed their guns on the center axis, which enabled all to fire in a broadside.  Thus, the rules of maneuver could be surprisingly archaic, with an emphasis on crossing the opponent’s path, enabling one’s own ships to fire broadsides at vessels heading into the fire.  Known as “Crossing the T,” this tactic was successfully executed by the British several times in the greatest naval engagement of the war, the Battle of Jutland.

Dreadnoughts did not go into battle unescorted, however.  Smaller craft, known as cruisers, accompanied the dreadnoughts, sailing at some distance from the heavier vessels, simultaneously screening them from the enemy while providing advance notice of enemy activity.  The cruisers that sailed in these actions were typically of the heavy variety, protected by armor plating and carrying medium-sized guns.  They were strong enough to deal with small threats on their own, and help would quickly be available for larger threats, if the cruiser were unable to withdraw.

A new development in the last years before the outbreak of war was the emergence of the battlecruiser, a vessel between the dreadnoughts and the cruisers in strength.  The battlecruisers were roughly as large

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