Can you be more specific? Before 1906, most battleships followed a pattern of two heavy turrets, one in the front of the ship and one in the back, each with two guns, as the principal armament. This type of battleship is known as "Pre-Dreadnought." As naval artillery became larger and larger and capable of greater ranges, naval designers wanted to create larger capital ships that had a larger focus on long-range fire-power. HMS Dreadnought, launched in 1906, was the first of this type of capital ship, which is why battleship design is split between pre- and post-dreanought eras. Along with almost triple the firepower of a pre-dreadnought vessel, the Dreadnought also featured lighter and more powerful turbine engines instead of reciprocating ones, making it and its descendants faster. However, turbine engines and multiple turrets weren't necessarily technologies that came out of the naval arms race, but were instead technologies that fed into it and created the dreadnought building race between Britain and Germany. Apart from basic ship design, the ten years before the war also saw improvements in fire control, as the ships were now larger, taller, and better spotting platforms with more guns to manage.
As for tactics, not much changed during the arms race. The last large battles between pre-dreadnought ships (the Russo-Japanese War) featured the same sort of tactical basics as the famous large battles of the First World War (crossing the T, shooting from downwind). The development of the battlecruiser (a lightly armored but fast battleship) changed strategic tactics a bit, and both Germany and Britain had seperate battlecruiser/scouting squadrons, but even so the principles when they actually fought were much the same.
Dreadnought by Robert Massie is highly recommended about the naval buildup to the war.
Doctrinally, the naval arms race between Great Britain and the German Empire represented a major shift in both nations naval forces war plans, fleet dispositions, and strategic priorities. Common to both nations was the cost of developing, building, and maintaining a battle ready steel fleet, the global (or lack thereof) commitments of maintaining imperial or local superiority, and the shifting diplomatic situation of the preceding Great War world having their influences on how Britain and Germany organized and dispersed their vessels, and how they planned for conflict on the seas. However, there’s a clear enough difference between the British and German navies that it is more useful to examine each nation individually.
The Imperial German Navy
The Unification of Germany was an important and clearly impactful event in both European and global history. Its concentration of and rise in military power on the Continent, and in economic power worldwide, along with it’s respectable (if late) entrance to the imperialist scene, constituted one of the more remarkable state entrances to history. The development of “navalism”, the Mahan-driven Gospel of Sea Power, and its increasing grip on global powers hit Germany especially hard while Wilhelm II ruled as Kaiser. However, the realization of navalist ideals was only brought about by the controversially zealous Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. So dedicated to the strengthening of German seapower that he sought to have it influence more than just the military aspects of German statehood, its creation being powered by German industry and shipyards, its ships being manned by all Germans (as opposed to the army, which notably had a separate Bavarian section under kingdom control), its funding from the people who would be directly informed of the advantages of a strong naval force (by 1899 the German Naval League boasted a 240,000 person membership). If navalism was Mahan’s gospel, then Tirpitz was truly its greatest prophet.
Tirpitz’ Fleet Acts set off and accelerated the naval arms race between the two powers. Central to German naval strategy was his “Risk Theory”, that over time German shipbuilding would create a naval force threatening enough (and close enough to British home waters) to deter the British from going to war, or if they did, from engaging the Germans on the sea. Doctrinally, this constituted a concentration of Germany’s most powerful ships, including the entirety of its battleships, in the North Sea area. This meant that Germany’s colonial stations were patrolled by older cruiser types, and an understanding that the opportune challenge to British dominance on the waters was to threaten them as close to the British Isles as possible. Where Britain had global commitments, Germany had no real need to match them. Being able to build up a battle fleet in the North Sea area could allow the Imperial Navy to gain local parity, or even advantage, against a stretched Royal Navy. Tirpitz foolishly believed that Britain was unable to match the rate of German shipbuilding, or was unwilling to match German buildup in the North Sea. As well, he placed a lot of faith in being able to deter the British, where in reality he only helped antagonize them and push them to build alliances with other rival powers.
The Royal Navy
Across the North Sea, another controversial figure was heading his navy and radically changing its strategic priorities. John Fisher, First Sea Lord, is regarding in naval history as having been very influential in introducing and developing new technologies to maintain British maritime dominance. Among those being the introduction of the HMS Dreadnought, the development of the battlecruiser, the acceptance and development of submarines, and a reformation of British gunnery and ship practices.
As mentioned earlier, Tirpitz bet a lot of British inability to match German shipbuilding or to commit to a North Sea engagement. Spurred by the radical growth in German sea power, however, Great Britain was even more resolved to not let this new potential threat overcome the island empire. Instrumental to the domestic efforts to keep Britain at the forefront of naval superiority was a Winston Churchill, the same Churchill of national World War Two fame, during his time as First Lord of the Admiralty in the years 1911-15. The first important act was a recognition of the potential German threat and the abandonment of the traditional “two power policy”, where the Royal Navy was tasked to maintain a superiority in ships to the next two largest navies (historically being nations like France, Russia, Spain, etc.). This policy change was also practical in that Britain was increasingly unable to meet this standard as the older European naval powers like France and Russia were being replaced by other world navies like the USA and Japan, who were on the beginnings of great naval growth. Now completely focused on maintaining superiority over the German Empire, Britain was able to keep a considerable lead in ships, especially in the important standard setting dreadnought and battlecruiser classes, and never really was in danger of being overcome by local German superiority. Churchill, noted in history for his own passionate commitment to whatever project he was attached to, was equally passionate in ensuring that Great Britain was at the forefront of the world’s maritime powers.
John Fisher and Churchill’s common dedication to the Royal Navy also saw their working together in other doctrinal and strategic changes. Diplomatically, the development of alliances with nations like Russia and the Entente with France freed up a lot of stress and overseas worry for naval forces. The latter diplomatic move is especially important, as the Royal Navy began a gradual “abandonment” of the Mediterranean Sea to move vessels to home waters around the British Isles. With a more-or-less alliance (in the time before the Great War) with France, Britain felt it safe enough to downsize the naval forces in the Med. With it, an unwritten understanding between the French and British navies was brought about, where Britain was more able to protect itself and the French Atlantic coast from the German Navy by shifting Royal Navy forces to the North Sea area, the French would shift their forces to keep the Mediterranean largely open and safe from potential enemies like Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire. This understanding continued into the war. In the Far East, the British alliance with Japan was paramount in securing British holdings in the Pacific and allowing those naval forces to be recalled in home waters. The Japanese navy, itself a respectable and ever growing force in a post Russo-Japanese War region, would be more than enough to see off the potential German commerce raiders in Asia. As mentioned, the German naval buildup and arms race only pushed Britain to maintain friendly relations with Germany’s enemies to keep a local superiority in the North Sea where German ships were concentrated.
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Sources include,
A Naval History of World War One by Paul G. Halpern
Imperialism at Sea: Naval Strategic Thought, the Ideology of Sea Power, and the Tirpitz Plan, 1875-1914 by Rolf Hobson
Dreadnought by Robert Massie
Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution by Nicholas Lambert
