1.
Naval artillery
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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
2.
French Navy
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The French Navy, informally La Royale, is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces. As of June 2014, the French Navy employed a total of 36,776 personnel, the reserve element of the French Navy consisted of 4,827 personnel of the Operational Reserve. The French naval fleet includes more than a hundred vessels and nuclear type submarines, the history of the French Navy dates back to the History of the French Navy of Antiquity to the Renaissance, part of the History of the French Navy. The French Royal Navy was quasi inexistent prior 1624, the Ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem, which was both a religious and military order, had its own respective international war fleet which assured the policing of the seas in the Mediterranean. The members which had satisfied obligations for periods in service at sea fulfilling their service, were granted the rank of Knights Hospitaller, however, many considered the naval service formation to integrate later, while being well formed, their respective navy. The Ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem was one of the ancestors of the French naval schools and in principal, the Order accordingly formed most of the ships Captains, Officers of the French Royal Navy and Admirals of the Marine française de guerre de la Méditerranée. During the Revolution, the French Navy succeeded to the French Royal Navy, under the First French Empire and the Second French Empire, the navy was designated as the Imperial French Navy. The French Navy is still designated today familiarly as La Royale and this expression was used by commercial sailors due to their military service at the corps of the navy by the institution of maritime inscription. The implementation then of the Ministère de la Marine later the de la Marine de guerre française at rue Royale. The symbol of the French Navy, which was since origin a golden anchor » and this symbol featured on all naval vessels, the arms, uniforms, the couriers, equipment, and general arms of the navy. This symbol was replaced in 1990 by a logo featuring a bow section of a warship with two ascending red and blue spray foams, and the inscription Marine nationale. The Chief of Staff of the French Navy was Admiral Bernard Louzeau, the navy became a consistent instrument of national power around the seventeenth century with Richelieus efforts under Louis XIII, and Colberts under Louis XIV. Under the tutelage of the Sun King, the French Navy was well-financed and -equipped, managing to score several victories in the Nine Years War against the Royal Navy. Financial troubles, however, forced the navy back to port and allowed the English, before the Nine Years War, in the Franco-Dutch War, it managed to score a decisive victory over a combined Spanish-Dutch fleet at the Battle of Palermo. The French Navy scored various successes, as in the campaigns led in the Atlantic by Picquet de la Motte, in 1766, Bougainville led the first French circumnavigation. During the American Revolutionary War the French Navy played a role in supporting the Americans. French warships participated in the battle by bombarding British ground forces, in India, Suffren waged campaigns against the British, successfully contending for supremacy against Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes. In the Mediterranean, the French Navy waged a campaign during a 1798 French invasion of Egypt
3.
World War I
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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
4.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
5.
Gun barrel
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A gun barrel is a part of firearms and artillery pieces. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, a gun barrel must be able to hold in the expanding gas produced by the propellants to ensure that optimum muzzle velocity is attained by the projectile as it is being pushed out by the expanding gas. Modern small arms barrels are made of known and tested to withstand the pressures involved. Artillery pieces are made by various techniques providing reliably sufficient strength, early firearms were muzzle-loading, with powder, and then shot loaded from the muzzle, capable of only a low rate of fire. During the 19th century effective mechanical locks were invented that sealed a breech-loading weapon against the escape of propellant gases, the early Chinese, the inventors of gunpowder, used bamboo, a naturally tubular stalk, as the first barrels in gunpowder projectile weapons. Early European guns were made of iron, usually with several strengthening bands of the metal wrapped around circular wrought iron rings. The Chinese were the first to master cast-iron cannon barrels, early cannon barrels were very thick for their caliber. Bore evacuator Bore snake Cannon Muzzle Polygonal rifling Rifling Slug barrel Smoothbore
6.
Shell (projectile)
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A shell is a payload-carrying projectile that, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot. Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used, originally, it was called a bombshell, but shell has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Words cognate with grenade are still used for an artillery or mortar projectile in some European languages, shells are usually large-calibre projectiles fired by artillery, combat vehicles, and warships. Shells usually have the shape of a cylinder topped by a nose for good aerodynamic performance, possibly with a tapering base. Solid cannonballs did not need a fuse, but hollow munitions filled with something such as gunpowder to fragment the ball, needed a fuse, percussion fuses with a spherical projectile presented a challenge because there was no way of ensuring that the impact mechanism hit the target. Therefore, shells needed a fuse that was ignited before or during firing. The earliest record of shells being used in combat was by the Republic of Venice at Jadra in 1376, shells with fuses were used at the 1421 siege of St Boniface in Corsica. These were two hollowed hemispheres of stone or bronze held together by an iron hoop, as described in their book, these hollow, gunpowder-packed shells were made of cast iron. At least since the 16th Century grenades made of ceramics or glass were in use in Central Europe, a hoard of several hundred ceramic greandes were discovered during building works in front of a bastion of the Bavarian City of Ingolstadt, Germany dated to the 17th Century. Lots of the grenades obtained their orignal blackpowder loads and igniters, most probably the grenades were intentionally dumped the moat of the bastion before the year 1723. Early powder burning fuses had to be loaded fuse down to be ignited by firing or a portfire put down the barrel to light the fuse, other shells were wrapped in bitumen cloth, which would ignite during the firing and in turn ignite a powder fuse. Nevertheless, shells came into use in the 16th Century. By the 18th Century, it was known that the fuse towards the muzzle could be lit by the flash through the windage between the shell and the barrel, the use of exploding shells from field artillery became relatively commonplace from early in the 19th century. Until the mid 19th century, shells remained as simple exploding spheres that used gunpowder and they were usually made of cast iron, but bronze, lead, brass and even glass shell casings were experimented with. The word bomb encompassed them at the time, as heard in the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner, typically, the thickness of the metal body was about a sixth of their diameter and they were about two thirds the weight of solid shot of the same calibre. To ensure that shells were loaded with their fuses towards the muzzle, in 1819, a committee of British artillery officers recognised that they were essential stores and in 1830 Britain standardised sabot thickness as a half inch. The sabot was also intended to reduce jamming during loading, despite the use of exploding shell, the use of smoothbore cannons, firing spherical projectiles of shot, remained the dominant artillery method until the 1850s. By the late 18th century, artillery could use canister shot to defend itself from infantry or cavalry attack and this involved loading a tin or canvas container filled with small iron or lead balls instead of the usual cannonball
7.
Caliber
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In guns, particularly firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel, or the diameter of the projectile it fires, in hundredths or sometimes thousandths of an inch. For example, a 45 caliber firearm has a diameter of.45 of an inch. Barrel diameters can also be expressed using metric dimensions, as in 9mm pistol, when the barrel diameter is given in inches, the abbreviation cal can be used. Good performance requires a bullet to closely match the diameter of a barrel to ensure a good seal. While modern cartridges and cartridge firearms are referred to by the cartridge name. Firearm calibers outside the range of 17 to 50 exist, but are rarely encountered. Larger calibers, such as.577.585.600.700, the.950 JDJ is the only known cartridge beyond 79 caliber used in a rifle. Referring to artillery, caliber is used to describe the length as multiples of the bore diameter. A 5-inch 50 calibre gun has a diameter of 5 in. The main guns of the USS Missouri are 1650 caliber, makers of early cartridge arms had to invent methods of naming the cartridges, since no established convention existed then. One of the early established cartridge arms was the Spencer repeating rifle, later various derivatives were created using the same basic cartridge, but with smaller-diameter bullets, these were named by the cartridge diameter at the base and mouth. The original No.56 became the. 56-56, and the smaller versions. 56-52. 56-50, the. 56-52, the most common of the new calibers, used a 50-cal bullet. Optionally, the weight in grains was designated, e. g. 45-70-405. Variations on these methods persist today, with new cartridges such as the.204 Ruger, metric diameters for small arms refer to cartridge dimensions and are expressed with an × between the bore diameter and the length of the cartridge case, for example,7. 62×51 NATO. This indicates that the diameter is 7. 62mm, loaded in a case 51mm long. Similarly, the 6. 5×55 Swedish cartridge has a diameter of 6.5 mm. An exception to rule is the proprietary cartridge used by U. S. maker Lazzeroni. The following table lists commonly used calibers where both metric and imperial are used as equivalents
8.
Breech-loading weapon
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A breech-loading gun is a firearm in which the cartridge or shell is inserted or loaded into a chamber integral to the rear portion of a barrel. Modern mass production firearms are breech-loading, early firearms, on the other hand, were almost entirely muzzle-loading. In field artillery, breech loading allows the crew to reload the gun without exposing themselves to fire or repositioning the piece. The main challenge for developers of breech-loading firearms was sealing the breech and this was eventually solved for smaller firearms by the development of the self-contained metallic cartridge. For firearms too large to use cartridges, the problem was solved by the development of the interrupted screw, breech-loading swivel guns were invented in the 14th century. The breech-loading swivel gun had a rate of fire, and was especially effective in anti-personnel roles. Breech-loading firearms are known from the 16th century, Henry VIII possessed one, which he apparently used as a hunting gun to shoot birds. More breech-loading firearms were made in the early 18th century, one such gun known to have belonged to Philip V of Spain, and was manufactured circa 1715, probably in Madrid. It came with a ready-to load reusable cartridge, patrick Ferguson, a British Army officer, developed in 1772 the Ferguson rifle, a breech-loading flintlock firearm. Later on into the century there were attempts in Europe at an effective breech-loader. There were concentrated attempts at improved cartridges and methods of ignition, the cartridge was loaded through the breech and fired with a needle. The needle-activated central-fire breech-loading gun would become a feature of firearms thereafter. The corresponding firearm was also developed by Pauly, Pauly made an improved version, which was protected by a patent on 29 September 1812. In 1846 another Paris Frenchman, Benjamin Houllier, patented the first fully metallic cartridge containing powder in a metallic shell, Houllier commercialised his weapons in association with the gunsmiths Blanchard or Charles Robert. In English-speaking countries the Flobert cartridge corresponds to the.22 BB, the first centrefire cartridge was introduced in 1855 by Pottet, with both Berdan and Boxer priming. The Dreyse Zündnadelgewehr or Dreyse needle gun, was a single-shot breech-loading rifle using a rotating bolt to seal the breech and it was so called because of its. 5-inch needle-like firing pin, which passed through a paper cartridge case to impact a percussion cap at the bullet base. It began development in the 1830s under von Dreyse and eventually a version of it was adopted by Prussia in the late 1840s. The paper cartridge and the gun had numerous deficiencies, specifically, however, the rifle was used to great success in the Prussian army in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866
9.
Interrupted screw
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An interrupted screw or interrupted thread is a mechanical device typically used in the breech of artillery guns. It is believed to have invented in 1845. It is a screw that has a section of thread along its axis removed, the screw is mated with a partially threaded hole at the rear of the weapons chamber, where the screw has threads the hole has none, and vice versa. The screw can thus be smoothly inserted all the way into the gun, an earlier method was the use of a wedge to block the rear of the gun. Sealing was further improved with the de Bange obturator in 1872, the major weakness of the original designs was that only half of the circumference of the breechblock could be threaded, hence a fairly long breechblock was still required to achieve a secure lock. Axel Welin solved this problem with his stepped interrupted screw design and this design has threads of the block and breech cut in steps of successively larger radius. This is the design still in use with bagged charge artillery. Rifled breech loader Welin breech block Interrupted screw breech mechanisms Navweaps. com Interrupted threads used on naval guns
10.
Gun laying
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Gun laying is the process of aiming an artillery piece, such as a gun, howitzer or mortar on land, or at sea, against surface or air targets. It may be laying for direct fire, where the gun is aimed similarly to a rifle, or indirect fire, the term includes automated aiming using, for example, radar-derived target data and computer-controlled guns. Gun laying means moving the axis of the bore of the barrel in two planes, horizontal and vertical. A gun is traversed – rotated in a horizontal plane – to align it with the target, Gun laying is a set of actions to align the axis of a gun barrel so that it points in the required direction. This alignment is in the horizontal and vertical planes, Gun laying may be for direct fire, where the layer sees the target, or indirect fire, where the target may not be visible from the gun. Gun laying has sometimes called training the gun. Laying in the vertical plane uses data derived from trials or empirical experience, for any given gun and projectile types, it reflects the distance to the target and the size of the propellant charge. It also incorporates any differences in height between gun and target, with indirect fire, it may allow for other variables as well. With indirect fire the horizontal angle is relative to something, typically the guns aiming point, depending on the gun mount, there is usually a choice of two trajectories. The dividing angle between the trajectories is about 45 degrees, it varies due to gun dependent factors. Below 45 degrees the trajectory is called low angle, above is high angle, the differences are that low angle fire has a shorter time of flight, a lower vertex and flatter angle of descent. All guns have carriages or mountings that support the barrel assembly, early guns could only be traversed by moving their entire carriage or mounting, and this lasted with heavy artillery into World War II. Mountings could be fitted into traversing turrets on ships, coast defences or tanks, from circa 1900 field artillery carriages provided traverse without moving the wheels and trail. The carriage, or mounting, also enabled the barrel to be set at the elevation angle. With some gun mounts it is possible to depress the gun, some guns require a near-horizontal elevation for loading. An essential capability for any elevation mechanism is to prevent the weight of the barrel forcing its heavier end downward and this is greatly helped by having trunnions at the centre of gravity, although a counterbalance mechanism can be used. It also means the elevation gear has to be enough to resist considerable downward pressure. However, mortars, where the forces were transferred directly into the ground
11.
Dreadnought
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The dreadnought was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. Dreadnoughts design had two features, an all-big-gun armament scheme, with more heavy-calibre guns than previous ships. As dreadnoughts became a symbol of power, the arrival of these new warships was a crucial catalyst in the intensifying naval arms race between the United Kingdom and Germany. With the launch of a ship, Dreadnought, the scales of naval power were reset overnight. As a result, dreadnought races sprang up around the world, including in South America, successive designs increased rapidly in size and made use of improvements in armament, armour, and propulsion throughout the dreadnought era. Within five years, new battleships had outclassed Dreadnought and these more powerful vessels were known as super-dreadnoughts. The only surviving dreadnought is USS Texas, located near the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site, dreadnought-building consumed vast resources in the early 20th century, but there was only one battle between large dreadnought fleets. In the 1916 Battle of Jutland, the British and German navies clashed with no decisive result, some designs had an intermediate battery of 8-inch guns. Serious proposals for an all-big-gun armament were circulated in several countries by 1903, all-big-gun designs commenced almost simultaneously in three navies. In 1904, the Imperial Japanese Navy authorized construction of Satsuma, work began on her construction in May 1905. The Royal Navy began the design of HMS Dreadnought in January 1905, finally, the US Navy gained authorization for USS Michigan, carrying eight 12-inch guns, in March 1905, with construction commencing in December 1906. The newest 12-inch guns had longer range and fired heavier shells than a gun of 10-inch or 9. 2-inch calibre, there is still debate as to whether this feature was important. At these ranges, lighter guns had good accuracy, and their rate of fire delivered high volumes of ordnance on the target. Naval gunnery was too inaccurate to hit targets at a longer range, by the early 20th century, British and American admirals expected future battleships would engage at longer distances. Newer models of torpedo had longer ranges, for instance, in 1903, the US Navy ordered a design of torpedo effective to 4,000 yards. Both British and American admirals concluded that they needed to engage the enemy at longer ranges, in 1900, Admiral Sir John Jackie Fisher, commanding the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet, ordered gunnery practice with 6-inch guns at 6,000 yards. By 1904 the US Naval War College was considering the effects on battleship tactics of torpedoes with a range of 7,000 yards to 8,000 yards, the range of light and medium-calibre guns was limited, and accuracy declined badly at longer range. At longer ranges the advantage of a rate of fire decreased, accurate shooting depended on spotting the shell-splashes of the previous salvo
12.
Courbet-class battleship
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The Courbet class battleships were the first dreadnoughts built for the French Navy before World War I. The class comprised four ships, Courbet, France, Jean Bart, All four ships were deployed to the Mediterranean Sea for the entirety of World War I, spending most of their time escorting French troop convoys from North Africa and covering the Otranto Barrage. An Anglo-French fleet led by Courbet succeeded in sinking the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser Zenta in the Battle of Antivari, Jean Bart was torpedoed in the bow by U-12 on 21 December 1914, but she was able to steam to Malta for repairs. France sank after striking a rock in Quiberon Bay in 1922 and they were relegated to training duties during the 1930s. Courbet and Paris escaped to Portsmouth where they became depot and accommodation ships after the French armistice in 1940, Jean Bart was demilitarised, renamed Océan, and became a school hulk in Toulon. She was captured there on 27 November 1942, although she was not scuttled and she was used for experiments with large shaped charge warheads by the Germans until she was sunk by the Allies in 1944, later broken up in place in 1945. Courbet was scuttled on 9 June 1944 as a breakwater for a Mulberry harbour used during the Battle of Normandy, concerned about underwater hits, the classs French designers decided to extend the waterline armour belt well below the waterline as compared to their contemporaries. The main armour was also thinner than that of its British or German counterparts, the Courbets were longer than their predecessors, at 166 m overall. The ships had a beam of 27 m and at full load a draft of 9.04 m at the bow and these ships proved to be rather wet in service, as they were bow-heavy because of the superimposed turrets forward. The Courbet-class ships had four Parsons direct-drive steam turbines which were rated at 28,000 shp, each ship had twenty-four Belleville water-tube or Niclausse boilers, eight small and sixteen large. The large boilers were in the two boiler rooms and the small boilers were in the rear boiler room, each boiler room housed eight boilers. These boilers were coal-burning with auxiliary oil sprayers and they had a top speed of 21 knots, although all four were faster during trials. The ships carried up to 2,700 long tons of coal and 906 long tons of oil and they could steam for 4,200 nautical miles at a speed of 10 knots. The French rejected their standard hexagonal configuration for the armament of the Courbet class. Twelve 305 mm Mle 1910 45-calibre guns were mounted in six gun turrets. The guns had an elevation of only 12°. They fired 432-kilogram armour-piercing projectiles at a velocity of 783 m/s at a rate of 1. 5–2 rounds per minute. At maximum elevation, this provided a range of only 13,500 m
13.
Bretagne-class battleship
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The Bretagne-class battleships were the first super-dreadnoughts built for the French Navy during the First World War. The class comprised three vessels, Bretagne, the ship, Provence, and Lorraine. They were an improvement of the previous Courbet class, and mounted ten 340 mm guns instead of twelve 305 mm guns as on the Courbets, a fourth was ordered by the Greek Navy, though work was suspended due to the outbreak of the war. The three completed ships were named after French provinces, the three ships saw limited service during World War I, and were primarily occupied with containing the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea. After the war, they conducted training cruises in the Mediterranean, after the outbreak of World War II, the ships were tasked with convoy duties and anti-commerce raider patrols until the fall of France in June 1940. Lorraine was disarmed by the British in Alexandria and recommissioned in 1942 to serve with the Free French Naval Forces and she provided gunfire support during Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France, and shelled German fortresses in northern France. She survived as a training ship and a floating barracks until the early 1950s. Bretagne and Provence were scrapped in 1952 and 1949, respectively, Germany had built eight dreadnoughts and one battlecruiser and the United States had six built and four more building. Late that year, the French Navy laid down the first of the four Courbet class ships, to remedy the inferiority of the French fleet, the government passed the Statut Naval on 30 March 1912, authorizing a force of twenty-eight battleships, to be in service by 1920. The first three ships were to be laid down in 1912, the Bretagne class were replacements for the battleships Carnot, Charles Martel and Liberté. They were developed from the Courbet class, and were built with the same hulls, the primary reason for the decision to use the same hull design as the Courbet class was limitations of French shipyards. The Courbet-class ships were the largest possible ships that could fit in existing dockyards, the additional weight of the 340 mm turrets compared to the 305 mm of the Courbet-class ships imposed insurmountable problems for the designers. After several other proposals, the CSM chose a design with five twin turrets and this would achieve the same broadside of ten guns, despite the reduction in the number of guns. The width of the belt was reduced by 20 mm to compensate for the increased weight of the main battery. Provence was the first ship of the class to be laid down, Bretagne was laid down at the Arsenal de Brest shipyard in Brest on 22 July 1912. Lorraine followed at the Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire shipyard in St. Nazaire almost six months later on 7 November 1912. Due to the outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914, French industrial capacity was redirected to the army, the Greek Navy ordered a battleship to be named Vasilefs Konstantinos to the same design from AC de St Nazaire Penhoet. Work began in June 1914 but ceased on the outbreak of war in August, the contract dispute was settled in 1925
14.
Normandie-class battleship
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The Normandie class of dreadnought battleships was a group of five ships ordered for the French Navy in 1912–13. The class comprised Normandie, the ship, Flandre, Gascogne, Languedoc. The design incorporated a radical arrangement for the twelve 340 mm main battery guns, the first four ships were also equipped with an unusual hybrid propulsion system that used both steam turbine and triple expansion engines to increase fuel efficiency. The ships, named after provinces of France, were never completed due to shifting production requirements after the outbreak of war in 1914, the first four ships were sufficiently advanced in construction to permit their launching to clear the shipyards for other, more important work. Many of the built for the ships were instead converted for use by the Army. After the war, the French Navy considered several proposals to complete the ships, the weak French post-war economy, however, necessitated that the first four ships be broken up for scrap. The last ship, which was not significantly advanced at the work halted, was converted into an aircraft carrier in the 1920s. She remained in service in various capacities until the 1960s, the ship was ultimately scrapped in 1967. In December 1911, the French Navys Technical Committee issued a report examined the design of the Bretagne class that had been ordered for 1912. They concluded that the gun turret was an unsatisfactory choice. This position influenced the construction of the class of dreadnought battleships. The French Navys design staff submitted the first draft of the new design in February 1912. The size of French shipyard facilities significantly impacted the design, length was limited to 172 meters, breadth to 27.8 m, and draft to approximately 8.8 m. These dimensions limited the ship to a displacement of around 25,000 metric tons, the design staff advocated retaining the same armament and armor as the previous Bretagne class, and a top speed of 21 knots. The design staff prepared another version that was armed with a battery of sixteen 406 mm guns in four quadruple turrets and had a top speed of 20 knots. The Technical department prepared two different designs for the propulsion system, the latter design was adopted for the new ships, as the all-turbine system was less fuel-efficient. The fifth ship, Béarn, however, was equipped with four sets of turbines. The armor layout of the Bretagne class was retained, and the full load draft fixed at no greater than 9 m, the next issue to be addressed was the main armament
15.
Explosive material
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An explosive charge is a measured quantity of explosive material, which may be composed of a single ingredient or a combination of two or more. Materials that detonate are said to be high explosives and materials that deflagrate are said to be low explosives, Explosives may also be categorized by their sensitivity. Sensitive materials that can be initiated by a small amount of heat or pressure are primary explosives. A wide variety of chemicals can explode, a number are manufactured specifically for the purpose of being used as explosives. The remainder are too dangerous, sensitive, toxic, expensive, unstable, in contrast, some materials are merely combustible or flammable if they burn without exploding. The distinction, however, is not razor-sharp, though early thermal weapons, such as Greek fire, have existed since ancient times, the first widely used explosive in warfare and mining was black powder, invented in 9th century China. This material was sensitive to water, and it produced copious amounts of dark smoke, the first useful explosive stronger than black powder was nitroglycerin, developed in 1847. Since nitroglycerin is a liquid and highly unstable, it was replaced by nitrocellulose, TNT in 1863, smokeless powder, dynamite in 1867, World War I saw the adoption of TNT trinitrotoluene in artillery shells. World War II saw a use of new explosives. In turn, these have largely replaced by more powerful explosives such as C-4. However, C-4 and PETN react with metal and catch fire easily, yet unlike TNT, C-4 and PETN are waterproof, the largest commercial application of explosives is mining. In Materials Science and Engineering, explosives are used in cladding, a thin plate of some material is placed atop a thick layer of a different material, both layers typically of metal. Atop the thin layer is placed an explosive, at one end of the layer of explosive, the explosion is initiated. The two metallic layers are forced together at high speed and with great force, the explosion spreads from the initiation site throughout the explosive. Ideally, this produces a metallurgical bond between the two layers and it is possible that some fraction of the surface material from either layer eventually gets ejected when the end of material is reached. Hence, the mass of the now welded bilayer, may be less than the sum of the masses of the two initial layers, there are applications where a shock wave, and electrostatics, can result in high velocity projectiles. Thus, explosives are substances that contain an amount of energy stored in chemical bonds. Consequently, most commercial explosives are compounds containing -NO2, -ONO2 and -NHNO2 groups that
16.
French battleship Courbet (1911)
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Courbet was the lead ship of her class, the first dreadnoughts built for the French Navy. She was completed before World War I and named in honour of Admiral Amédée Courbet and she spent the war in the Mediterranean, helping to sink the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser Zenta in August 1914. She spent the rest of the war providing cover for the Otranto Barrage that blockaded the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea. Although upgraded several times before World War II, she was not deemed to be a first-class battleship, upon the German invasion of France, beginning on 10 May 1940, Courbet was hastily rearmed. She supported Allied troops in the defence of Cherbourg during June, as part of Operation Catapult, she was seized in Portsmouth by British forces on 3 July and was turned over to the Free French a week later. She was used as a patrol vessel depot ship and a ship there until 31 March 1941 when she was disarmed and hulked. Her engines and boilers were removed in 1944 to prepare her for use as a breakwater during the Normandy landings in June 1944 and she was scrapped where she lay after the war. Courbet was 166 metres long overall and she had a beam of 27 metres and at full load a draft of 9.04 metres at the bow. She displaced 23,475 tonnes at load and 25,579 tonnes at full load. She proved to be wet in service as she was bow-heavy because of the superimposed turrets forward. Courbet had four propeller shafts powered by four Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, twenty-four Niclausse boilers provided steam for her turbines. These boilers were coal-burning with auxiliary oil sprayers and she had a designed speed of 21 knots, although she reached 22 knots during trials. She carried up to 2,700 long tons of coal and 906 long tons of oil and could steam for 4,200 nautical miles at a speed of 10 knots. Courbets main armament consisted of twelve 305-millimetre Mle 1910 45-calibre guns mounted in six gun turrets. For anti-torpedo boat defence she carried twenty-two 138-millimetre Mle 1910 guns, four 47-millimetre Modèle 1902 Hotchkiss guns were fitted, two on each beam. She was also armed with four 450-millimetre submerged Modèle 1909 torpedo tubes with twelve torpedoes, Courbets waterline armoured belt extended well below the waterline as the French were concerned about protection from underwater hits. Her main armour was also thinner than that of her British or German counterparts and it was 270 mm thick between the fore and aft turrets and tapered to 180 mm towards the bow and stern. It extended 2.4 m below the normal waterline, above the main belt was another belt,180 mm thick, that covered the sides, and the secondary armament, up to the forecastle deck,4.5 m deep, between the fore and aft turrets
17.
French battleship Paris
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Paris was the third ship of the Courbet-class battleships, the first dreadnoughts built for the French Navy. She was completed before World War I as part of the 1911 naval building programme and she spent the war in the Mediterranean, spending most of 1914 providing gunfire support for the Montenegrin Army until her sister ship Jean Bart was torpedoed by the submarine U-12 on 21 December. She spent the rest of the war providing cover for the Otranto Barrage that blockaded the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea, Paris supported French and Spanish troops in 1925 during the Third Rif War before becoming a school ship in 1931. She was modernized in three separate refits between the even though she was not deemed to be a first-class battleship. She remained in that role until the Battle of France, which began on 10 May 1940 and she supported Allied troops in the defence of Le Havre during June until she was damaged by a German bomb, but she took refuge later that month in England. As part of Operation Catapult, she was seized in Plymouth by British forces on 3 July and she was used as a depot ship and barracks ship there by the Royal and Polish Navies for the rest of the war. Returned to the French in July 1945 she was towed to Brest the following month, Paris was 166 metres long overall. She had a beam of 27 metres and at full load a draft of 9.04 metres at the bow and she displaced 23,475 tonnes at standard load and 25,579 tonnes at full load. She proved to be wet in service as she was bow-heavy because her superimposed turrets were close to the bow. Paris had four powered by four Parsons direct-drive steam turbines which were rated at 28,000 shaft horsepower. Twenty-four Belleville water-tube boilers provided steam for her turbines and these boilers were coal-burning with auxiliary oil sprayers. She had a speed of 21 knots. She carried up to 2,700 long tons of coal and 906 long tons of oil and could steam for 4,200 nautical miles at a speed of 10 knots. Pariss main armament consisted of twelve 305-millimetre Mle 1910 45-calibre guns were mounted in six gun turrets. For anti-torpedo boat defence she carried twenty-two 138-millimetre Mle 1910 guns, four 47-millimetre Modèle 1902 Hotchkiss guns were fitted, two on each beam. She was also armed with four 450-millimetre submerged Modèle 1909 torpedo tubes with twelve torpedoes, pariss waterline armoured belt extended well below the waterline as the French were concerned about protection from underwater hits. Her main armour was also thinner than that of her British or German counterparts and it was 270 millimetres thick between the fore and aft turrets and tapered to 180 mm towards the bow and stern. It extended 2.4 metres below the normal waterline, above the main belt was another belt,180 mm thick, that covered the sides, and the secondary armament, up to the forecastle deck,4.5 metres deep, between the fore and aft turrets
18.
BL 5.5 inch Mark I naval gun
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The Breech Loading 5.5 inch Mk I was a naval gun used by the British Royal Navy during both World Wars. This weapon was developed by Coventry Ordnance Works in 1913 and offered to the Greek Navy as main armament for two new building at Cammell Laird. On the outbreak Of World War I the two ships were purchased by Britain as HMS Chester and HMS Birkenhead. The RN was happy with the performance of the gun as it was lighter than the standard 6 inch gun. It therefore had a rate of fire with little loss in hitting power. The British ordered more guns as armament for HMS Furious. A total of 81 guns were made and were used on the ships, HMS Chester, HMS Birkenhead, HMS Furious, HMS Hood. Guns removed from Chester, Birkenhead and Furious were used to arm Armed Merchant Cruisers, HMS Laurentic - Armed Merchant cruiser, in 1940, the 5.5 inch guns were removed from HMS Hood in a refit. Two were installed in Hood Battery on Ascension Island and remain there today, a pair were installed in specially built casemates on the roof of Coalhouse Fort in Essex, overlooking the Thames. Guns from the Hood also went to Bognor Regis, Pevensey, North Foreland, Dover, boy Seaman First Class Jack Cornwell was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for heroism in serving his gun on HMS Chester during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. The gun served by Jack Cornwell VC is preserved in the Imperial War Museum in London. 5/50 BL Mark I Campbell, naval Weapons of World War Two
19.
14 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval gun
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The 14 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval gun was a Japanese low-angle weapon introduced during World War I. It served as the armament in a number of Japanese dreadnoughts and as the main armament in light cruisers. It was also the most common Japanese coast-defense gun during World War II, third year type refers to the Welin breech block on this gun. Breech-block design began in 1914, the year of the Taishō period. This breech-block design was used on Japanese 40 cm,20 cm,15.5 cm,12.7 cm. This gun was not mounted aboard submarines, submarine cruisers used the shorter-barreled 14 cm/40 11th Year Type naval gun. BL5.5 inch Mark I naval gun, British equivalent Canon de 138 mm Modèle 1910 Naval gun, French equivalent Campbell, Naval Weapons of World War II. 14 cm/50 3rd Year Type on navweaps. com
20.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
21.
Battleship
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A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the battleship was the most powerful type of warship, the word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a contraction of the phrase line-of-battle ship, the dominant wooden warship during the Age of Sail. The term came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design, subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought, were referred to as dreadnoughts. Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, the launch of Dreadnought in 1906 commenced a new naval arms race. Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in the war, the Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships, though technical innovation in battleship design continued. The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during their heyday, there were few of the decisive fleet battles that battleship proponents expected, and used to justify the vast resources spent on building battlefleets. Battleships were retained by the United States Navy into the Cold War for fire support purposes before being stricken from the U. S. Naval Vessel Register in the 2000s. A ship of the line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing ship which mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore guns, from 1794, the alternative term line of battle ship was contracted to battle ship or battleship. The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant a sail battleship could wreck any wooden enemy, holing her hull, knocking down masts, wrecking her rigging, and killing her crew. However, the range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards. The first major change to the ship of the concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. Steam power was introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft. The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850—the first true steam battleship, Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots, regardless of the wind condition. This was a decisive advantage in a naval engagement. The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships, the adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad, powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells. In the Crimean War, six ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853
22.
Cruiser
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A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundred years, and has had different meanings throughout this period. In the middle of the 19th century, cruiser came to be a classification for the intended for cruising distant waters, commerce raiding. Cruisers came in a variety of sizes, from the medium-sized protected cruiser to large armored cruisers that were nearly as big as a pre-dreadnought battleship. With the advent of the battleship before World War I. The very large battlecruisers of the World War I era that succeeded armored cruisers were now classified, along with dreadnought battleships, in the later 20th century, the obsolescence of the battleship left the cruiser as the largest and most powerful surface combatant after the aircraft carrier. The role of the cruiser varied according to ship and navy, often including air defense, during the Cold War, the Soviet Navys cruisers had heavy anti-ship missile armament designed to sink NATO carrier task forces via saturation attack. The U. S. Adams guided-missile destroyers tasked with the air defense role. Indeed, the newest U. S. Navy destroyers are more heavily-armed than some of the cruisers that they succeeded, currently only three nations operate cruisers, the United States, Russia, and Peru. The term cruiser or cruizer was first commonly used in the 17th century to refer to an independent warship, Cruiser meant the purpose or mission of a ship, rather than a category of vessel. However, the term was used to mean a smaller, faster warship suitable for such a role. The Dutch navy was noted for its cruisers in the 17th century, while the Royal Navy—and later French and Spanish navies—subsequently caught up in terms of their numbers, during the 18th century the frigate became the preeminent type of cruiser. A frigate was a small, fast, long range, lightly armed ship used for scouting, carrying dispatches, the other principal type of cruiser was the sloop, but many other miscellaneous types of ship were used as well. During the 19th century, navies began to use steam power for their fleets, the 1840s saw the construction of experimental steam-powered frigates and sloops. By the middle of the 1850s, the British and U. S. Navies were both building steam frigates with very long hulls and a gun armament, for instance USS Merrimack or Mersey. The 1860s saw the introduction of the ironclad, the first ironclads were frigates, in the sense of having one gun deck, however, they were also clearly the most powerful ships in the navy, and were principally to serve in the line of battle. In spite of their speed, they would have been wasted in a cruising role. The French constructed a number of smaller ironclads for overseas cruising duties, starting with the Belliqueuse and these station ironclads were the beginning of the development of the armored cruisers, a type of ironclad specifically for the traditional cruiser missions of fast, independent raiding and patrol
23.
Destroyer
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Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended ocean operations, typically a number of destroyers and a single destroyer tender operated together. After the war, the advent of the missile allowed destroyers to take on the surface combatant roles previously filled by battleships. This resulted in larger and more powerful guided missile destroyers more capable of independent operation, the emergence and development of the destroyer was related to the invention of the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s. A navy now had the potential to destroy an enemy battle fleet using steam launches to launch torpedoes. Fast boats armed with torpedoes were built and called torpedo boats, the first seagoing vessel designed to fire the self-propelled Whitehead torpedo was the 33-ton HMS Lightning in 1876. She was armed with two drop collars to launch these weapons, these were replaced in 1879 by a torpedo tube in the bow. By the 1880s, the type had evolved into small ships of 50–100 tons, in response to this new threat, more heavily gunned picket boats called catchers were built which were used to escort the battle fleet at sea. The anti-torpedo boat origin of this type of ship is retained in its name in other languages, including French, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Greek, Dutch and, up until the Second World War, Polish. At that time, and even into World War I, the function of destroyers was to protect their own battle fleet from enemy torpedo attacks. The task of escorting merchant convoys was still in the future, an important development came with the construction of HMS Swift in 1884, later redesignated TB81. This was a torpedo boat with four 47 mm quick-firing guns. At 23.75 knots, while still not fast enough to engage torpedo boats reliably. Another forerunner of the torpedo boat destroyer was the Japanese torpedo boat Kotaka, designed to Japanese specifications and ordered from the London Yarrow shipyards in 1885, she was transported in parts to Japan, where she was assembled and launched in 1887. The 165-foot long vessel was armed with four 1-pounder quick-firing guns and six torpedo tubes, reached 19 knots, in her trials in 1889, Kotaka demonstrated that she could exceed the role of coastal defense, and was capable of accompanying larger warships on the high seas. The Yarrow shipyards, builder of the parts for the Kotaka, the first vessel designed for the explicit purpose of hunting and destroying torpedo boats was the torpedo gunboat. Essentially very small cruisers, torpedo gunboats were equipped with torpedo tubes, by the end of the 1890s torpedo gunboats were made obsolete by their more successful contemporaries, the torpedo boat destroyers, which were much faster. The first example of this was HMS Rattlesnake, designed by Nathaniel Barnaby in 1885, the gunboat was armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats. Exactly 200 feet long and 23 feet in beam, she displaced 550 tons, built of steel, Rattlesnake was un-armoured with the exception of a 3⁄4-inch protective deck
24.
Aviso
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An aviso was originally a kind of dispatch boat or advice boat. The term was adopted by the French and Portuguese navies to classify their medium-sized warships designed for colonial service. The term continued to be used in the French Navy to classify the DEstienne dOrves-class patrol frigates until 2012 and it is similar to the modern use of sloop in other countries. The Dictionnaire de la Marine Française 1788 –1792 describes avisos as small boats designed to carry orders or dispatches and this use became obsolete with the development of means of communicating detailed information at a distance. French World War I avisos, used also during World War II, had displacement 300-700 tons, speeds of 13-20 knots, colonial avisos, such as the Bougainville-class aviso intended for overseas service, were larger. The Portuguese Navy used avisos to operate in the waters of the Portuguese Empire, the Portuguese built 1st rate avisos of 2,400 tons and 2nd rate avisos of 1,200 to 1,700 tons. In 1932, the Portuguese Flower-class sloops were classified as 2nd rate avisos. The term is now used to include combat-capable ships larger than patrol boats and they typically have roles in anti-submarine warfare and coastal defence. In NATO classification they are recognized as corvettes. The Argentine Navy has several ships classified as avisos, ARA Alférez Sobral, an 800-ton aviso used for non-combat tasks, built as a US Navy fleet tug, was attacked and damaged during the 1982 Falklands War
25.
QF 6-pounder Hotchkiss
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The QF6 pounder Hotchkiss was a light 2.24 inch naval gun and coast defence gun of the late 19th century used by many countries, and was adapted for use in the early British tanks in World War I. The UK adopted a 40-calibre version as Ordnance QF Hotchkiss 6 pounder gun Mk I and it was manufactured under licence by the Elswick Ordnance Company. They were originally mounted for use against the new torpedo boats which started to service in the late 1870s. The original 1885 Mk I lacked a recoil system, the Mk II of 1890 introduced a recoil system, with a pair of recoil/recuperator cylinders. During World War I the navy required many more guns and a version with a barrel was developed to simplify manufacture. Initially these guns were allowed to be fired with a special lower charge. After World War I the gun was considered obsolete for combat use, of the 3,984 produced it was estimated that 1,640 still existed in 1939. With the onset of World War II the remaining guns were rushed back into service for anti-submarine defense, E-boat defense, New non-recoil Mk VI, Mk VI* and Mk VI** mountings were built with elevations between -10° to +70°. These mountings were used on models of the Fairmile D Motor Gunboats, Motor Launchs. Some of which were not re-armed with the modern auto-loading 6 pdr Mk IIA until late 1944, the gun was used to equip Male versions of the early British tanks, Mk I - Mk III. In 1916 the British Army having no experience in fighting tanks was faced with the difficulty of quickly providing a new class of weapon. The existing Hotchkiss 6 pounder naval gun appeared to most closely meet the need, a single gun was mounted in each sponson, i. e.2 per Male tank, able to fire forwards or to the side. The British chose to shorten the gun rather than change its location, the history of the Hotchkiss six pounder in United States Navy and Army service is a complex story. It was used in conjunction with another design, its primary rival being the Driggs-Schroeder six pounder. Oddly, one shipbuilding and naval supply company, Cramp & Sons, had a license to both the Hotchkiss and Driggs-Schroeder and sold both to the Navy in parallel. However, the purchases by the Navy were in small lots each year. Both Hotchkiss and Driggs-Schroeder guns used the same ammunition and eventually the Navy made certain that the ammunition for both was identical, there is no question that the Driggs-Schroeders were predominant in the new protected and armored cruisers that were being commissioned by 1895. However, USS Texas, a second class battleship commissioned in 1895, carried a mixed six pounder complement of ten Driggs-Schroeders, USS Maine, an armored cruiser, exclusively carried Driggs-Schroeder six pounders although it had a mixed one pounder battery of both Driggs-Schroeder and Hotchkiss
26.
Submarine
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A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability, the term most commonly refers to a large, crewed vessel. It is also used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and robots, as well as medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine. The noun submarine evolved as a form of submarine boat, by naval tradition, submarines are usually referred to as boats rather than as ships. Although experimental submarines had been built before, submarine design took off during the 19th century, Submarines were first widely used during World War I, and now figure in many navies large and small. Civilian uses for submarines include marine science, salvage, exploration and facility inspection, Submarines can also be modified to perform more specialized functions such as search-and-rescue missions or undersea cable repair. Submarines are also used in tourism, and for undersea archaeology, most large submarines consist of a cylindrical body with hemispherical ends and a vertical structure, usually located amidships, which houses communications and sensing devices as well as periscopes. In modern submarines, this structure is the sail in American usage, a conning tower was a feature of earlier designs, a separate pressure hull above the main body of the boat that allowed the use of shorter periscopes. There is a propeller at the rear, and various hydrodynamic control fins, smaller, deep-diving and specialty submarines may deviate significantly from this traditional layout. Submarines use diving planes and also change the amount of water, Submarines have one of the widest ranges of types and capabilities of any vessel. Submarines can work at greater depths than are survivable or practical for human divers, modern deep-diving submarines derive from the bathyscaphe, which in turn evolved from the diving bell. In 1578, the English mathematician William Bourne recorded in his book Inventions or Devises one of the first plans for an underwater navigation vehicle and its unclear whether he ever carried out his idea. The first submersible of whose construction there exists reliable information was designed and built in 1620 by Cornelis Drebbel and it was propelled by means of oars. By the mid-18th century, over a dozen patents for submarines/submersible boats had been granted in England, in 1747, Nathaniel Symons patented and built the first known working example of the use of a ballast tank for submersion. His design used leather bags that could fill with water to submerge the craft, a mechanism was used to twist the water out of the bags and cause the boat to resurface. In 1749, the Gentlemens Magazine reported that a design had initially been proposed by Giovanni Borelli in 1680. By this point of development, further improvement in design stagnated for over a century, until new industrial technologies for propulsion. The first military submarine was the Turtle, a hand-powered acorn-shaped device designed by the American David Bushnell to accommodate a single person and it was the first verified submarine capable of independent underwater operation and movement, and the first to use screws for propulsion
27.
Anti-aircraft warfare
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Anti-aircraft warfare or counter-air defence is defined by NATO as all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action. They include ground-and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and it may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries the main effort has tended to be homeland defence, NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight, a surface-based air defence capability can also be deployed offensively to deny the use of airspace to an opponent. Until the 1950s, guns firing ballistic munitions ranging from 20 mm to 150 mm were the weapons, guided missiles then became dominant. The term air defence was probably first used by Britain when Air Defence of Great Britain was created as a Royal Air Force command in 1925. However, arrangements in the UK were also called anti-aircraft, abbreviated as AA, after the First World War it was sometimes prefixed by Light or Heavy to classify a type of gun or unit. Nicknames for anti-aircraft guns include AA, AAA or triple-A, an abbreviation of anti-aircraft artillery, ack-ack, NATO defines anti-aircraft warfare as measures taken to defend a maritime force against attacks by airborne weapons launched from aircraft, ships, submarines and land-based sites. In some armies the term All-Arms Air Defence is used for air defence by nonspecialist troops, other terms from the late 20th century include GBAD with related terms SHORAD and MANPADS. Anti-aircraft missiles are variously called surface-to-air missile, abbreviated and pronounced SAM, non-English terms for air defence include the German FlaK, whence English flak, and the Russian term Protivovozdushnaya oborona, a literal translation of anti-air defence, abbreviated as PVO. In Russian the AA systems are called zenitnye systems, in French, air defence is called DCA. The maximum distance at which a gun or missile can engage an aircraft is an important figure, however, many different definitions are used but unless the same definition is used, performance of different guns or missiles cannot be compared. For AA guns only the part of the trajectory can be usefully used. By the late 1930s the British definition was that height at which an approaching target at 400 mph can be engaged for 20 seconds before the gun reaches 70 degrees elevation. However, effective ceiling for heavy AA guns was affected by nonballistic factors, The maximum running time of the fuse, the capability of fire control instruments to determine target height at long range. The essence of air defence is to detect aircraft and destroy them. The critical issue is to hit a target moving in three-dimensional space, Air defence evolution covered the areas of sensors and technical fire control, weapons, and command and control. At the start of the 20th century these were very primitive or non-existent
28.
Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun
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The Mle 1914 Hotchkiss machine gun chambered for the 8mm Lebel cartridge became the standard machine gun of the French Army during World War I. It was manufactured by the French arms company Hotchkiss et Cie, the gas-actuated Hotchkiss system was first formulated in 1895 by Odkolek von Ujezda and improved into its final form by Hotchkiss armament engineers Laurence Benét and Henri Mercié. The Mle 1914 was the last version of a series of nearly identical Hotchkiss designs, the Mle 1897, Mle 1900, the Hotchkiss Mle 1914 became the French infantry standard in late 1917, replacing the unreliable St. Étienne Mle 1907. The American Expeditionary Forces in France also purchased 7,000 Mle 1914 Hotchkiss machine guns in 8mm Lebel, Hotchkiss heavy machine guns, some being of earlier types, were also used in combat by Japan, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, Brazil and Poland. The Hotchkiss machine gun, a sturdy and reliable weapon, remained in service with the French army until the early 1940s. By the end of 1918,47,000 Hotchkiss machine guns had already delivered to the French army alone. If one includes all the sales, the grand total of all Hotchkiss machine guns sold by the manufacturer in various calibers is well in excess of 100,000 units. The Hotchkiss was based on a design by Captain Baron Adolf Odkolek von Ujezda of Vienna, the patents had been purchased in 1893 by the firm of Benjamin Hotchkiss, based in Saint-Denis, near Paris. After trials that began in 1895, development issues were resolved leading to the purchase of the Hotchkiss gun by the French Military in 1897. In 1898 an export model was offered for international sales by Hotchkiss. With some useful changes, such as the addition of five cooling radiator rings on the barrel, the basic design led to the M1900. In the meantime adoption of the St. Étienne Mle 1907 to equip the infantry went through in 1908, nevertheless, Hotchkiss machine guns were also purchased by the French military for use in overseas colonies and by mountain troops in the Alps. By the 1916, during World War I, French line infantry, still equipped with the unsatisfactory Saint-Etienne and it got its wish and French infantry divisions became progressively outfitted with the Hotchkiss gun in late 1917 and early 1918. The Hotchkiss machine gun was gas actuated and air-cooled, in contrast to the Maxim gun which was operated and water-cooled. The Hotchkiss machine gun barrel features five large annular rings which materially assisted natural cooling, the gas cylinder under the barrel features a regulator piston which can be adjusted to the normal rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute. The Hotchkiss machine gun itself has only 32 parts including four coil springs, all parts of the gun are constructed in such a manner that it is impossible to assemble them improperly. The Hotchkiss fired from a bolt, like almost all modern machine guns in order to avoid cook-offs. Although the Hotchkiss machine gun was easy to feed continuously with a three-man team, each empty feed strip was ejected automatically after its last round had been fired, leaving the bolt open in the rear position
French Navy