CentralNotice Dreadnought From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation , search For other uses, see Dreadnought (disambiguation) . The Royal Navy 's HMS Dreadnought , the world's first dreadnought The only remaining dreadnought still afloat, USS Texas , was launched in 1912 and is now a museum ship. The dreadnought was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy 's Dreadnought , made such a strong impression on people's minds when it was launched in 1906 that similar battleships built subsequently were referred to generically as "dreadnoughts", and earlier battleships became known as pre-dreadnoughts . Dreadnought '​s design had two revolutionary features: an "all-big-gun" armament scheme, with an unprecedented number of heavy-calibre guns, and steam turbine propulsion. [ a ] As dreadnoughts became a...