WWI Warship. Royal navy. HMS Dreadnought. The protective Crinoline,. H.M.S. Dreadnought getting out torpedo nets. HMS Dreadnought was a battleship of the Royal Navy that revolutionised naval power. Her entry into service in 1906 represented such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the 'dreadnoughts', as well as the class of ships named after her. The generation of ships she made obsolete became known as 'pre-dreadnoughts'. She was the sixth ship of that name in the Royal Navy. She became the only battleship to sink a submarine when she rammed the SM U-29 when it unexpectedly broke the surface after firing a torpedo at another dreadnought in 1915.