1.
Flotilla (video game)
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Flotilla is a 2010 turn-based strategy space combat video game developed by Brendon Chungs studio, Blendo Games. The game was released in March 2010 on Steam for Microsoft Windows, Flotilla was designed with Microsofts XNA tools, and its development was influenced by animals as well as board games such as Axis and Allies and Arkham Horror. The game takes the player in an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy, Chung began developing Flotilla immediately after the closure of Pandemic Studios, where he had worked as a designer. The new game used assets imported from Chungs early space combat prototype, Flotilla incorporates several pieces of classical music in its score, such as Chopins Raindrop prelude. It received mixed reviews from video game media outlets, scoring 72 out of 100 on review aggregate website Metacritic, Flotilla is a three-dimensional simultaneous turn-based strategy space combat video game set in a randomly generated galaxy. The player and computer-controlled opponents issue orders to their ships, which are carried in a simultaneous, the game then freezes, and the player and opponents issue new orders to their ships, which are again performed for 30 seconds. This process repeats until one party is defeated, orders are separated into three groups, attack move, flank move and focus fire. At the beginning of the game, the player is given two ships to control, but more become available as the game continues. Ships may be rotated arbitrarily in any direction, the single-player mode is an adventure that can be played an indefinite number of times. These adventures have a duration of around 30 minutes, the character dies at the end of each adventure and the player is given the option to play again. A hardcore mode, which removes the solo modes standard 30-minute time limit, was added to the game. Each time the player starts a new adventure, a new galaxy is randomly generated and filled with planets, the player may take a short tutorial before beginning the adventure. Each planet offers a possible quest or challenge to the player, challenges are tactical battles in which the player must fight against a variety of enemies. However, ships can only be harmed from behind or below, upon succeeding, a new chapter is added to the players characters story, and the player is rewarded with ship upgrades. These upgrades are used to ships with improvements, such as increased firing speed or heavier rear armor. The upgrades available to the player upon finishing each encounter with an enemy can vary, Flotilla has cooperative and split-screen multiplayer modes that can be played with an additional Xbox 360 controller. Flotilla was developed by Brendon Chungs video game studio, Blendo Games, Chung, who worked as a level designer for Pandemic Studios, previously contributed to the development of Full Spectrum Warrior and Lord of the Rings, Conquest. Chung started coding Flotilla in 2009 after Electronic Arts closed Pandemic Studios and he was excited at the time of the studios closure, and stated that there was adrenaline pumping through my veins
2.
Frigate
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A frigate /ˈfrɪɡᵻt/ is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries. In the 17th century, this term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability and these could be warships carrying their principal batteries of carriage-mounted guns on a single deck or on two decks. The term was used for ships too small to stand in the line of battle. In the late 19th century, the frigate was a type of ironclad warship that for a time was the most powerful type of vessel afloat. The term frigate was used because such ships still mounted their principal armaments on a continuous upper deck. Ship classes dubbed frigates have more closely resembled corvettes, destroyers, cruisers. The rank frigate captain derives from the name of type of ship. The term frigate originated in the Mediterranean in the late 15th century, referring to a lighter galleass type ship with oars, sails and a light armament, built for speed and maneuverability. The etymology of the word is unknown, although it may have originated as a corruption of aphractus, aphractus was, in turn, derived from the Ancient Greek phrase ἄφρακτος ναῦς, or undefended ship. In 1583, during the Eighty Years War, Habsburg Spain recovered the Southern Netherlands from the rebellious Dutch and this soon led to the occupied ports being used as bases for privateers, the Dunkirkers, to attack the shipping of the Dutch and their allies. To achieve this they developed small, maneuverable, sailing vessels that came to be referred to as frigates, in French, the term frigate became a verb, meaning to build long and low, and an adjective, adding further confusion. Even the huge English Sovereign of the Seas could be described as a frigate by a contemporary after her upper decks were reduced in 1651. The navy of the Dutch Republic was the first navy to build the larger ocean-going frigates, the first two tasks required speed, shallowness of draft for the shallow waters around the Netherlands, and the ability to carry sufficient supplies to maintain a blockade. The third task required heavy armament, sufficient to fight against the Spanish fleet, the first of these larger battle-capable frigates were built around 1600 at Hoorn in Holland. The effectiveness of the Dutch frigates became most visible in the Battle of the Downs in 1639, encouraging most other navies, especially the English, to adopt similar designs. The fleets built by the Commonwealth of England in the 1650s generally consisted of ships described as frigates, the largest of which were two-decker great frigates of the third rate. Carrying 60 guns, these vessels were as big and capable as great ships of the time, however, most other frigates at the time were used as cruisers, independent fast ships. The term frigate implied a long hull design, which relates directly to speed and also, in turn, in Danish, the word fregat is often applied to warships carrying as few as 16 guns, such as HMS Falcon which the British classified as a sloop
3.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
4.
Naval fleet
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A fleet or naval fleet is a large formation of warships, which is controlled by one leader and the largest formation in any navy. A fleet at sea is the equivalent of an army on land. Fleets are usually, but not necessarily, permanent formations and are assigned to a particular ocean or sea. Most fleets are named after that ocean or sea, but the convention in the United States Navy is to use numbers. A fleet is normally commanded by an admiral, who is also a commander in chief. Most fleets are divided into squadrons, each under a subordinate admiral. Those squadrons in turn are divided into divisions. In the age of sail, fleets were divided into van, centre and rear squadrons, in more modern times, the squadrons are typically composed of homogeneous groups of the same class of warship, such as battleships or cruisers. Since many smaller navies only contain a single fleet, the term the fleet is often synonymous with the navy, multinational fleets are not uncommon in naval history. For example, several nations made up the Holy League fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, in modern times, NATO has formed standing combined fleets and operations from several national navies such as Operation Active Endeavour. Modern fleets combine surface warships, submarines, support ships and ship-based aircraft to conduct operations at sea. Generally understood to be the water, or oceanic, green water or littoral versus the brown water or coastal/riverine forces. The fleets of larger navies are usually divided into smaller numbered or named fleets based on geographic operating areas or on administrative groupings of same type ships, modern fleets are usually administrative units. Typically, individual task forces are formed to conduct specific operations, list of fleets Media related to Fleets at Wikimedia Commons
5.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
6.
Warship
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A warship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to damage and are usually faster. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries weapons, ammunition. Warships usually belong to a navy, though they have also operated by individuals, cooperatives. In wartime, the distinction between warships and merchant ships is often blurred, in war, merchant ships are often armed and used as auxiliary warships, such as the Q-ships of the First World War and the armed merchant cruisers of the Second World War. Until the 17th century it was common for merchant ships to be pressed into naval service, until the threat of piracy subsided in the 19th century, it was normal practice to arm larger merchant ships such as galleons. Warships have also often used as troop carriers or supply ships. The development of catapults in the 4th century BC and the subsequent refinement of technology enabled the first fleets of artillery-equipped warships by the Hellenistic age. During late antiquity, ramming fell out of use and the galley tactics against other ships used during the Middle Ages until the late 16th century focused on boarding. Naval artillery was redeveloped in the 14th century, but cannon did not become common at sea until the guns were capable of being reloaded quickly enough to be reused in the same battle. The size of a required to carry a large number of cannons made oar-based propulsion impossible. The sailing man-of-war emerged during the 16th century, by the middle of the 17th century, warships were carrying increasing numbers of cannon on their broadsides and tactics evolved to bring each ships firepower to bear in a line of battle. The man-of-war now evolved into the ship of the line, in the 18th century, the frigate and sloop-of-war – too small to stand in the line of battle – evolved to convoy trade, scout for enemy ships and blockade enemy coasts. During the 19th century a revolution took place in the means of propulsion, naval armament. Marine steam engines were introduced, at first as an auxiliary force, the Crimean War gave a great stimulus to the development of guns. The introduction of explosive shells soon led to the introduction of iron, the first ironclad warships, the French Gloire and British Warrior, made wooden vessels obsolete. Metal soon entirely replaced wood as the material for warship construction
7.
Ship class
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A ship class is a group of ships of a similar design. This is distinct from a type, which might reflect a similarity of tonnage or intended use. For example, USS Carl Vinson is an aircraft carrier of the Nimitz class. In the course of building a class of ships, design changes might be implemented, in such a case, the ships of different design might not be considered of the same class, each variation would either be its own class, or a subclass of the original class. If ships are built of a class whose production had been discontinued, ships in a class often have names linked by a common factor, e. g. Trafalgar-class submarines names all begin with T, and Ticonderoga-class cruisers are named after American battles. Ships of the class may be referred to as sister ships. The name of a ship class is most commonly the name of the lead ship. However, other systems can be used without confusion or conflict, a descriptive name may be used, for example it was decided to group destroyers made to the same design as HMS Tomahawk, all named after weapons, as the Weapon rather than Tomahawk class. In European navies a class is named after the first ship commissioned regardless of when she was ordered or laid down, the West German Navy used a three-digit type number for every class in service or in advanced project state. Modified versions were identified by a letter suffix. After the reunification of Germany the German Navy kept the system, informally, classes are also traditionally named after their lead ships. The Indonesian Navy has a naming for its ships. Moreover, the type and missions can be identified by the first number on the ships three-digit hull number, which is placed on the front bows. That project sometimes, but not always, had a metaphorical name, in addition, the ships of the class would be numbered, and that number prefixed by a letter indicating the role of that type of vessel. For example, Project 641 had no name, though NATO referred to its members as Foxtrot-class submarines. The British Royal Navy has used methods of naming classes. For instance, the Amphion class is known as the A class. Most destroyer classes were known by the letter used in naming the vessels, e. g. V
8.
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
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