1.
Light cruiser
–
A light cruiser is a type of small- or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the light armored cruiser, describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser. Prior to this smaller cruisers had been of the protected cruiser model, the first small steam-powered cruisers were built for the British Royal Navy with HMS Mercury launched in 1878. Such second and third class protected cruisers evolved, gradually becoming faster, better armed, germany took a lead in small cruiser design in the 1890s, building a class of fast cruisers—the Gazelle class—copied by other nations. Such vessels were powered by coal-fired boilers and reciprocating steam engines, the adoption of oil-fired water-tube boilers and steam turbine engines meant that older small cruisers rapidly became obsolete. Furthermore, new construction could not rely on the protection of coal bunkers, the British Bristol group of Town-class cruisers were a departure from previous designs, with turbine propulsion, mixed coal and oil firing and a 2-inch protective armoured belt as well as deck. Thus, by definition, they were armoured cruisers, despite displacing only 4,800 tons, the first true modern light cruisers were the Arethusa class which had all oil-firing and used lightweight destroyer-type machinery to make 29 knots. 1-inch to 5. 9-inch guns. Cruiser construction in Britain continued uninterrupted until Admiral Jacky Fishers appointment as First Sea Lord in 1904, the group of 21 Town-class cruisers begun in 1910 proved excellent in scouting in all types of weather and could carry enough fuel and ammunition to guard the shipping lanes. The Arethusa class, launched three years later, was also successful, British designers continued enlarging and refining subsequent cruiser designs throughout the war. The Germans built a number of cruisers in the belief that they were good multi-purpose vessels. However, the Germans were very late in adapting 5. 9-inch guns, with the Pillau and Wiesbaden-class cruisers the Germans followed the British example of heavier guns. Earlier German light cruisers were in competition with a series of British scout cruisers which had a speed of 25 knots. The Germans completed the last two of their Bremen-class cruisers in 1906 and 1907 and followed them up with four Königsberg-class and these last two classes, larger and faster than the Bremens, were armed the same and carried less deck armor. Other major powers concentrated on construction and built few cruisers. The United States, Italy, and Austria-Hungary each built only a handful of scout cruisers while Japan and Spain added a few based on British designs. The United States resumed building light cruisers in 1918, largely because the ships it then had in service had become obsolete, the first of these, the ten Omaha-class ships, displaced 7,050 tons and were armed with twelve 6-inch guns. Eight of these guns were mounted in casemates at the bow and stern. Fast and maneuverable, they were well-liked as seaboats despite being very wet in rough weather, the term light cruiser was given a definition by the London Naval Treaty of 1930
2.
MV Liemba
–
MV Liemba, formerly Graf Goetzen or Graf von Goetzen, is a passenger and cargo ferry that runs along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. The Marine Services Company Limited of Tanzania sails her, with stops to pick up and set down passengers. Graf von Goetzen was built in 1913 in Germany, and was one of three vessels the German Empire used to control Lake Tanganyika during the part of the First World War. Her captain had her scuttled on 26 July 1916 in Katabe Bay during the German retreat from Kigoma, in 1924, a British Royal Navy salvage team raised her and in 1927 she returned to service as Liemba. Liemba is the last vessel of the German Imperial Navy still actively sailing anywhere in the world, Liemba was the inspiration for the German gunboat Luisa in C. S. Foresters 1935 novel The African Queen, and John Hustons subsequent film version. The ship featured in the 1992 BBC Television travel series Pole to Pole, breadbox Productions in the US released a feature documentary film on the ship Liemba, narrated by Chiwoniso Maraire, in 2010. The Meyer-Werft Shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, built Goetzen in 1913 and named her after Count Gustav Adolf Graf von Götzen, Goetzen was designed to serve as a passenger and cargo ferry in conjunction with the Ostafrikanische Eisenbahngesellschaft. After preliminary assembly Goetzen was taken apart and shipped in 5000 boxes loaded on three vessels to Dar es Salaam in German East Africa. From there the trains of the Mittellandbahn carried the boxes to Kigoma and she was rebuilt there in 1914 and launched on 5 February 1915. Originally the ship had seven first class cabins and five second class cabins, as well as first, the machinery consisted at first of two round boilers for steam for the two triple expansion engines with a power rating of 250 indicated horsepower per engine. She also had an ice and cooling unit in an insulated cold storage with a capacity of 3 kilograms of ice per hour, and a lighting. The ship was designed for a crew of 64 men, during World War I the Germans converted Goetzen to an auxiliary warship under the name SMS Goetzen. They gave her a 10.5 cm gun from the light cruiser SMS Königsberg, a no longer operational. She also received an 8.8 cm gun, one of two that Königsberg had brought out from Germany to arm auxiliary cruisers should the opportunity arise, lastly, the survey ship SMS Möwe contributed two 37 mm Hotchkiss revolver guns to Goetzens armament. The Germans appointed Oberleutnant zur See Siebel captain of Goetzen, under his command Goetzen initially gave the Germans complete supremacy on Lake Tanganyika. She ferried cargo and personnel across the lake, and provided a base from which to launch attacks on Allied troops. It therefore became essential for the Allied forces to control of the lake themselves. The British then launched their two boats at Albertville on the shore of Lake Tanganyika
3.
Lake Tanganyika
–
Lake Tanganyika is an African Great Lake. It is the second oldest freshwater lake in the world, second largest by volume, the lake is divided among four countries – Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Zambia, with Tanzania and DRC possessing the majority of the lake. The water flows into the Congo River system and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean, the name apparently refers to Tanganika, the great lake spreading out like a plain, or plain-like lake. Lake Tanganyika is situated within the Albertine Rift, the branch of the East African Rift. It is the largest rift lake in Africa and the second largest lake by volume in the world and it is the deepest lake in Africa and holds the greatest volume of fresh water, accounting for 18% of the worlds available fresh water. It extends for 676 km in a general direction and averages 50 km in width. The lake covers 32,900 km2, with a shoreline of 1,828 km, a depth of 570 m. It holds an estimated 18,900 cubic kilometres and this is equivalent to about 16% of all fresh water on Earth. The catchment area of the lake is 231,000 km2, two main rivers flow into the lake, as well as numerous smaller rivers and streams. There is one major outflow, the Lukuga River, which empties into the Congo River drainage, the major river flowing into the lake is the Ruzizi River, formed about 10,000 years ago, which enters the north of the lake from Lake Kivu. The Malagarasi River, which is Tanzanias second largest river, enters the east side of Lake Tanganyika, the Malagarasi is older than Lake Tanganyika and, before the lake was formed, directly drained into the Congo River. Apparently it has rarely in the past had an outflow to the sea and it has been described as practically endorheic for this reason. The lakes connection to the sea is dependent on a water level allowing water to overflow out of the lake through the Lukunga into the Congo. Due to the tropical location, it has a high rate of evaporation. Thus it depends on a high inflow through the Ruzizi out of Lake Kivu to keep the lake high enough to overflow. Signs of ancient shorelines indicate that at times Tanganyika may have been up to 300 m lower than its present surface level, even its current outlet is intermittent and may not have been operating when first visited by Western explorers in 1858. Lake Tanganyika is an ancient lake and its three basins, which in periods with much lower water levels were separate lakes, are of different ages. The central began to form 9—12 million years ago, the northern 7—8 mya, there are several islands in Lake Tanganyika
4.
Naval artillery
–
Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare, later also for naval gunfire support against targets on land, and for anti-aircraft use. The idea of artillery dates back to the classical era. Julius Caesar indicates the use of ship-borne catapults against Britons ashore in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, the dromons of the Byzantine Empire carried catapults and fire-throwers. From the late Middle Ages onwards, warships began to carry cannon of various calibres, the Battle of Arnemuiden, fought between England and France in 1338 at the start of the Hundred Years War, was the first recorded European naval battle using artillery. The English ship Christopher was armed with three cannons and one hand gun, by the 15th century most Mediterranean powers were utilising heavy cannon mounted on the bow or stern of a vessel and designed to bombard fortresses on shore. By mid-century some vessels also carried smaller broadside cannons for bombarding other vessels immediately prior to an attempted boarding and these small guns were anti-personnel weapons and were fired at point blank range to accompany engagement with muskets or bows. From the 1470s both the Portuguese and Venetian navies were experimenting with cannons as anti-ship weapons, in 1489 John of Portugal further contributed to the development of naval artillery by establishing the first standardized teams of trained naval gunners. The 16th century was an era of transition in naval warfare, since ancient times, war at sea had been fought much like that on land, with melee weapons and bows and arrows, but on floating wooden platforms rather than battlefields. Though the introduction of guns was a significant change, it slowly changed the dynamics of ship-to-ship combat. As guns became heavier and able to more powerful gunpowder charges, they needed to be placed lower in the ship. Although some 16th-century galleys mounted broadside cannon, they did so at the expense of rowing positions which sacrificed speed, most early cannon were still placed in the forecastle and aftercastle of a ship where they might be conveniently pointed in any direction. Early naval artillery was a weapon to deter boarders, because cannon powerful enough to damage ships were heavy enough to destabilize any ship mounting them in an elevated castle. Being a crown industry, cost considerations did not curb the pursuit of the best quality, best innovations, the crown paid wage premiums and bonuses to lure the best European artisans and gunners to advance the industry in Portugal. This made broadsides, coordinated volleys from all the guns on one side of a ship, possible for the first time in history, at least in theory. Ships, such as Mary Rose, carried a mixture of cannon of different types and sizes, many designed for land use, and using incompatible ammunition at different ranges and rates of fire. The Mary Rose, like other ships of the time, was built during a period of development of heavy artillery. The heavy armament was a mix of older-type wrought iron and cast bronze guns, the bronze guns were cast in one piece and rested on four-wheel carriages which were essentially the same as those used until the 19th century. The breech-loaders were cheaper to produce and both easier and faster to reload, but could take less powerful charges than cast bronze guns, the majority of the guns were small iron guns with short range that could be aimed and fired by a single person
5.
World War I
–
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
