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Minas Geraes
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Description

The gun trials of our first dreadnought, Minas Geraes, where all the guns capable of training to the port side were fired, forming what was at that time the heaviest broadside ever fired off a warship!

As a big fan of my national history during both the Second Empire and the Early Republic, I was amazed when I first heard of the story behind this battleship:

"At the beginning of the XX century, the Brazilian Navy decided to upgrade and increase its fleet, igniting a naval arms race between the top South American powers. Brazil was the third country in the world to begin construction on a dreadnought. It ordered three dreadnoughts from the United Kingdom which would mount a heavier main battery than any other battleship afloat at the time (twelve 12 in (30 cm)/45 calibre guns) according to Scientific American. Two were completed: Minas Geraes was laid down on by Armstrong on 17 April 1907, and its sister, São Paulo, followed thirteen days later at Vickers. Although many naval journals in Europe and the US speculated that the ships were really acting as a proxy for one of the naval powers and would hand the ships over to them as soon as they were complete, both ships were commissioned into the Brazilian Navy in 1910."