1.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
2.
Gerhard von Scharnhorst
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Gerhard Johann David Waitz von Scharnhorst, was a Hanoverian-born general in Prussian service from 1801. As the first Chief of the Prussian General Staff, he was noted for his theories, his reforms of the Prussian army. In 1778 he received a commission into the Hanoverian service and he employed the intervals of regimental duty in further self-education and literary work. In 1783 he transferred to the artillery and received an appointment to the new school in Hanover. He also published in 1792 his Military Handbook for Use in the Field and his first military campaign took place in 1793 in the Netherlands, in which he served with distinction under the Duke of York. Shortly thereafter he received promotion to the rank of major and joined the staff of the Hanoverian contingent, after the Peace of Basel Scharnhorst returned to Hanover. He had by now become so well known to the armies of the allied states that he received invitations from several of them to transfer his services. The Prussian Military Academy employed him, almost as a matter of course, in important instructional work, for his services at Eylau he received the highest Prussian military order Pour le Mérite. It was apparent that Scharnhorsts skills exceeded those of a brilliant staff officer. Stein himself became a member of the commission and secured Scharnhorst free access to King Frederick William III by securing his appointment as aide-de-camp-general, but Napoleon quickly became suspicious, and Frederick William repeatedly had to suspend or cancel the reforms recommended. By slow and labored steps, Scharnhorst converted the professional army of Prussia, wrecked at Jena. Universal service was not secured until his death, but he laid down the principles, the organization of the Landwehr was begun. In 1809, the war between France and Austria roused premature hopes in the party, which the conqueror did not fail to note. In retirement he wrote and published a work on firearms, Über die Wirkung des Feuergewehrs, but the retreat from Moscow at last sounded the call to arms for the new national army of Prussia. Scharnhorst, recalled to the headquarters, refused a higher post but became Chief of Staff to Blücher, in whose vigour, energy. Russian Prince Wittgenstein was so impressed by Scharnhorst that he asked to him temporarily as his Chief of Staff. In the first battle, Lützen or Gross-Görschen, Prussia suffered defeat, the French failed to follow up, so this defeat was not complete. Shortly before his death he had received promotion to the rank of lieutenant-general, Frederick William III erected a statue in his memory, by Christian Daniel Rauch, in Berlin
3.
Battle of the North Cape
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The Battle of the North Cape was a Second World War naval battle which occurred on 26 December 1943, as part of the Arctic Campaign. The battle was the last between big-gun capital ships in the war between Britain and Germany, the British victory confirmed the massive strategic advantage held by the British, at least in surface units. It was also the second-to-last engagement between battleships, the last being the Battle of Surigao Strait in October 1944, operation Ostfront was an attempt by the German Kriegsmarine to intercept the expected Arctic convoys. In late December 1943, these would be the Russia-bound convoy JW 55B, on 22 December 1943, a Luftwaffe aircraft sighted JW 55B and commenced shadowing. Three days later, on 25 December, Scharnhorst with the Narvik-class destroyers Z29, Z30, Z33, Z34, also in the area was convoy RA 55A, returning to the United Kingdom from Russia. RA 55A consisted of 22 cargo ships, accompanied by an escort of two destroyers and four other vessels, and an ocean escort of six Home Fleet destroyers led by the destroyer HMS Milne. Escorting the convoys to Russia was the responsibility of the Home Fleet and its Commander-in-Chief, Fraser wished to neutralise Scharnhorst, a major threat to the convoys, and planned a confrontation over Christmas 1943 in which convoy JW 55B would be used to draw the enemy out. Fraser expected and hoped that Scharnhorst would attempt to attack JW 55B, convoy JW 55B had left Loch Ewe on 20 December, and by 23 December it was clear from intelligence reports that it had been sighted and was being shadowed by enemy aircraft. Fraser was anxious not to discourage Scharnhorst from leaving its base, Scharnhorst sailed from its base at Altenfjord on the evening of 25 December and set course for the convoys reported position as a south-westerly gale developed. The following day, in weather and heavy seas and with only minimal Luftwaffe reconnaissance to aid him. Thinking he had overshot the enemy, he detached his destroyers and he later ordered four of the destroyers with RA 55A, Matchless, Musketeer, Opportune and Virago, to detach and join him. The now unescorted Scharnhorst encountered Burnetts Force 1 shortly after 09,00, at a distance of nearly 13,000 yd, the British cruisers opened fire and Scharnhorst responded with her own salvoes. While no hits were scored on the cruisers, the German battleship was struck twice, with one shell destroying the radar controls, without radar, gunners aboard the German battleship were forced to aim at the enemys muzzle flashes. This was made difficult because two of the British cruisers were using a new flashless propellant, leaving Norfolk the relatively easier target. Bey, believing he had engaged a battleship, turned south in an attempt to himself from the pursuers. Once he had shaken off his pursuers, Bey turned northeast in an attempt to round them. Burnett, instead of giving chase in sea conditions that were limiting his cruisers speed to 24 kn, as fire was again exchanged, Scharnhorst scored hits on Norfolk, disabling a turret and her radar. Following this exchange, Bey decided to return to port, while he ordered the destroyers to attack the convoy at a position reported by a U-boat, the reported position was out of date and the destroyers missed the convoy
4.
Scharnhorst-class battleship
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The Scharnhorst class were the first capital ships, alternatively referred to as battlecruisers or battleships, built for Nazi Germanys Kriegsmarine after World War I. The class comprised two vessels, the lead ship Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and they marked the beginning of German naval rearmament after the Treaty of Versailles. The ships were armed with nine 28 cm SK C/34 guns in three turrets, though there were plans to replace these weapons with six 38 cm SK C/34 guns in twin turrets. The two ships were laid down in 1935, launched in late 1936, and commissioned into the German fleet by early 1939, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated together for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. The two ships participated in Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway, during operations off Norway, the two ships engaged the battlecruiser HMS Renown and sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious on 8 June 1940. In the engagement with Glorious, Scharnhorst achieved one of the naval gunfire hits in history. In early 1942, the two made a daylight dash up the English Channel from occupied France to Germany. In late 1942, Gneisenau was heavily damaged in an Allied air raid against Kiel, in early 1943, Scharnhorst joined the Bismarck-class Tirpitz in Norway to interdict Allied convoys to the Soviet Union. Scharnhorst and several destroyers sortied from Norway to attack a convoy, during the battle of North Cape, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Duke of York sank Scharnhorst. In the meantime, repair work on Gneisenau had begun, however, when Scharnhorst was sunk, work on her sister was abandoned. Instead, she was sunk as a blockship in Gotenhafen in 1945 and they were the first class of German ships to be officially classified by the Kriegsmarine as Schlachtschiff. Previous German battleships were classified as Linienschiffe, and Panzerschiffe and their adversary, the Royal Navy, rated them as battlecruisers though after the war classified them as battleships. Janes Fighting Ships 1940 lists both the Scharnhorst and Bismarck classes as Battleships Another adversary, the United States Navy, rated them as battleships, in English language reference works they are sometimes referred to as battleships and sometimes as battlecruisers. The Treaty of Versailles, which established the terms concluding World War I, the first design, completed in 1928, called for a 17,500 long tons battlecruiser armed with eight 30.5 cm guns in four twin gun turrets. In 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, he made clear to the command that he had no intention of building a large fleet to challenge British supremacy at sea. He was primarily concerned with the possibility of a war with France. To this end, he authorized two more ships—the D class—to augment the three Deutschland-class Panzerschiffe and these ships would displace 19,000 tons and have the same armament and speed as the Panzerschiffe, the extra tonnage would be taken up by increased protection. Hitler wanted to follow this course so he would not be seen as overtly flouting the Treaty of Versailles, to combat the German Panzerschiffe, the French built two small Dunkerque-class battleships in the early 1930s
5.
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
6.
Horsepower
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Horsepower is a unit of measurement of power. There are many different standards and types of horsepower, two common definitions being used today are the mechanical horsepower, which is approximately 746 watts, and the metric horsepower, which is approximately 735.5 watts. The term was adopted in the late 18th century by Scottish engineer James Watt to compare the output of engines with the power of draft horses. It was later expanded to include the power of other types of piston engines, as well as turbines, electric motors. The definition of the unit varied among geographical regions, most countries now use the SI unit watt for measurement of power. With the implementation of the EU Directive 80/181/EEC on January 1,2010, units called horsepower have differing definitions, The mechanical horsepower, also known as imperial horsepower equals approximately 745.7 watts. It was defined originally as exactly 550 foot-pounds per second [745.7 N. m/s), the metric horsepower equals approximately 735.5 watts. It was defined originally as 75 kgf-m per second is approximately equivalent to 735.5 watts, the Pferdestärke PS is a name for a group of similar power measurements used in Germany around the end of the 19th century, all of about one metric horsepower in size. The boiler horsepower equals 9809.5 watts and it was used for rating steam boilers and is equivalent to 34.5 pounds of water evaporated per hour at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. One horsepower for rating electric motors is equal to 746 watts, one horsepower for rating Continental European electric motors is equal to 735 watts. Continental European electric motors used to have dual ratings, one British Royal Automobile Club horsepower can equal a range of values based on estimates of several engine dimensions. It is one of the tax horsepower systems adopted around Europe, the development of the steam engine provided a reason to compare the output of horses with that of the engines that could replace them. He had previously agreed to take royalties of one third of the savings in coal from the older Newcomen steam engines and this royalty scheme did not work with customers who did not have existing steam engines but used horses instead. Watt determined that a horse could turn a mill wheel 144 times in an hour, the wheel was 12 feet in radius, therefore, the horse travelled 2.4 × 2π ×12 feet in one minute. Watt judged that the horse could pull with a force of 180 pounds-force. So, P = W t = F d t =180 l b f ×2.4 ×2 π ×12 f t 1 m i n =32,572 f t ⋅ l b f m i n. Watt defined and calculated the horsepower as 32,572 ft·lbf/min, Watt determined that a pony could lift an average 220 lbf 100 ft per minute over a four-hour working shift. Watt then judged a horse was 50% more powerful than a pony, engineering in History recounts that John Smeaton initially estimated that a horse could produce 22,916 foot-pounds per minute
7.
Kilowatt
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The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units defined as 1 joule per second and can be used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. Power has dimensions of M L2 T −3, when an objects velocity is held constant at one meter per second against constant opposing force of one newton the rate at which work is done is 1 watt. 1 W =1 V ⋅ A Two additional unit conversions for watt can be using the above equation. 1 W =1 V2 Ω =1 A2 ⋅ Ω Where ohm is the SI derived unit of electrical resistance, a person having a mass of 100 kilograms who climbs a 3-meter-high ladder in 5 seconds is doing work at a rate of about 600 watts. Mass times acceleration due to gravity times height divided by the time it takes to lift the object to the given height gives the rate of doing work or power. A laborer over the course of an 8-hour day can sustain an output of about 75 watts, higher power levels can be achieved for short intervals. The watt is named after the Scottish scientist James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, in 1960 the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures adopted it for the measurement of power into the International System of Units. For additional examples of magnitude for multiples and submultiples of the watt, technologically important powers that are measured in femtowatts are typically found in reference to radio and radar receivers. For example, meaningful FM tuner performance figures for sensitivity, quieting and these input levels are often stated in dBf. This is 0.2739 microvolt across a 75-ohm load or 0.5477 microvolt across a 300-ohm load, the picowatt is equal to one trillionth of a watt. Technologically important powers that are measured in picowatts are typically used in reference to radio and radar receivers, acoustics, the nanowatt is equal to one billionth of a watt. Important powers that are measured in nanowatts are also used in reference to radio. The microwatt is equal to one millionth of a watt, compact solar cells for devices such as calculators and watches are typically measured in microwatts. The milliwatt is equal to one thousandth of a watt, a typical laser pointer outputs about five milliwatts of light power, whereas a typical hearing aid for people uses less than one milliwatt. Audio signals and other electronic signal levels are measured in dBm. The kilowatt is equal to one thousand watts and this unit is typically used to express the output power of engines and the power of electric motors, tools, machines, and heaters. It is also a unit used to express the electromagnetic power output of broadcast radio. One kilowatt is equal to 1.34 horsepower
8.
Steam turbine
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A steam turbine is a device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884, in 1551, Taqi al-Din in Ottoman Egypt described a steam turbine with the practical application of rotating a spit. Steam turbines were described by the Italian Giovanni Branca and John Wilkins in England. The devices described by Taqi al-Din and Wilkins are today known as steam jacks, in 1672 an impulse steam turbine driven car was designed by Ferdinand Verbiest. A more modern version of car was produced some time in the late 18th century by an unknown German mechanic. The modern steam turbine was invented in 1884 by Sir Charles Parsons, the invention of Parsons steam turbine made cheap and plentiful electricity possible and revolutionized marine transport and naval warfare. Parsons design was a reaction type and his patent was licensed and the turbine scaled-up shortly after by an American, George Westinghouse. The Parsons turbine also turned out to be easy to scale up. Parsons had the satisfaction of seeing his invention adopted for all major world power stations, a number of other variations of turbines have been developed that work effectively with steam. The de Laval turbine accelerated the steam to full speed before running it against a turbine blade, De Lavals impulse turbine is simpler, less expensive and does not need to be pressure-proof. It can operate with any pressure of steam, but is less efficient. He taught at the École des mines de Saint-Étienne for a decade until 1897, one of the founders of the modern theory of steam and gas turbines was Aurel Stodola, a Slovak physicist and engineer and professor at the Swiss Polytechnical Institute in Zurich. His work Die Dampfturbinen und ihre Aussichten als Wärmekraftmaschinen was published in Berlin in 1903, a further book Dampf und Gas-Turbinen was published in 1922. It was used in John Brown-engined merchant ships and warships, including liners, the present-day manufacturing industry for steam turbines is dominated by Chinese power equipment makers. Other manufacturers with minor market share include Bhel, Siemens, Alstom, GE, Doosan Škoda Power, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan projects that manufacturing of steam turbines will become more consolidated by 2020 as Chinese power manufacturers win increasing business outside of China. There are several classifications for modern steam turbines, Turbine blades are of two basic types, blades and nozzles. Blades move entirely due to the impact of steam on them and this results in a steam velocity drop and essentially no pressure drop as steam moves through the blades. A turbine composed of alternating with fixed nozzles is called an impulse turbine, Curtis turbine, Rateau turbine
9.
Nautical mile
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A nautical mile is a unit of measurement defined as exactly 1852 meters. Historically, it was defined as one minute of latitude, which is equivalent to one sixtieth of a degree of latitude. Today it is an SI derived unit, being rounded to a number of meters. The derived unit of speed is the knot, defined as one mile per hour. The geographical mile is the length of one minute of longitude along the Equator, there is no internationally agreed symbol. M is used as the abbreviation for the mile by the International Hydrographic Organization and by the International Bureau of Weights. NM is used by the International Civil Aviation Organization, nm is used by the U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Nmi is used by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the word mile is from the Latin word for a thousand paces, mīlia. In 1617 the Dutch scientist Snell assessed the circumference of the Earth at 24,630 Roman miles, around that time British mathematician Edmund Gunter improved navigational tools including a new quadrant to determine latitude at sea. He reasoned that the lines of latitude could be used as the basis for a unit of measurement for distance, as one degree is 1/360 of a circle, one minute of arc is 1/21600 of a circle. These sexagesimal units originated in Babylonian astronomy, Gunter used Snells circumference to define a nautical mile as 6,080 feet, the length of one minute of arc at 48 degrees latitude.3 metres. Other countries measure the minute of arc at 45 degrees latitude, in 1929, the international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as 1,852 meters. Imperial units and United States customary units used a definition of the nautical mile based on the Clarke Spheroid, the United States nautical mile was defined as 6,080.20 feet based in the Mendenhall Order foot of 1893. It was abandoned in favour of the nautical mile in 1954.181 meters. It was abandoned in 1970 and, legally, references to the unit are now converted to 1,853 meters. Conversion of units Orders of magnitude
10.
28 cm SK C/34 naval gun
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The German 28 cm SK C/34 naval gun was a 283 mm 54. 5-caliber built-up gun designed in 1934 used on the Scharnhorst-class battleships. The previous 28 cm gun was the SK C/28 used on the Deutschland class, the Scharnhorst class received an improved version of the SK C/28 which had a longer barrel—the SK C/34. The 283 mm SK C/34 gun was relatively fast loading, compared with other armament of this size and it could deliver a shot every 17 seconds. The ballistic properties of the guns made them effective against the new French Dunkerque class, an improved version of the gun was planned to be mounted on the Netherlands Design 1047 battlecruisers, but the ships were never begun due to the start of the Second World War. Archived from the original on 23 March 2009, naval Weapons of World War Two
11.
15 cm SK C/28
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The 15 cm SK C/28 was a German, medium-caliber, naval gun used during the Second World War. It served as the armament for the Bismarck class and Scharnhorst-class battleships, Deutschland-class cruisers. It shared the earlier design with a loose barrel, jacket. LC/34 twin-gun mount was the most common mount for the gun in the Kriegsmarine and it was used as the secondary armament of the Bismarck-class and Scharnhorst-class battleships and was planned to equip the proposed H-class battleships. The mount weighed between 114–120 tonnes, depending on its thickness, the Scharnhorsts mounts had between 14–3 cm of armor while the Bismarcks had 10–2 cm. Maximum elevation was 40°, giving a range of 23,000 metres and maximum depression was -10°, each mount was designed for full 360° of traverse, but was limited to much less than that by the ships superstructure. Speed in train was a maximum of 9° per second, the fastest firing cycle was 7.5 seconds, or 8 rounds per minute. Ammunition was supplied by twin hoists between the guns, at the rear of the mount, the M-class cruiser was intended to use a lighter version of this mount with thinner armor that only weighed approximately 102 tonnes. This may have designated as the Drh, lC/40, but development ceased when the ships were canceled in 1939. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau also carried four single MPL C/35 mounts that weighed 26.71 tonnes with armor between 6–2 cm thick, each mount could depress -10° and elevate to 35°, this gave a maximum range of 22,000 metres. The MPL C/28 mount used in the Deutschland-class cruisers was virtually identical to the newer mount except its gun shield was smaller so it weighed only 24.83 tonnes, the Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers were going to carry eight twin-gun Dopp MPL C/36 casemate mountings. These weighed 47.6 tonnes and had an armored shield 30 millimetres thick, the mount elevated at a speed of 6° per second and trained at a rate of 8° per second. The Küsten-Marinepivotlafette was a successful mobile coast defense mount fitted with a gun shield. The gun traversed on a firing platform that allowed 360° of traverse. It could depress -7° and elevate to a maximum of 47°30, the gun on its carriage weighed 19,761 kilograms. It was towed via two two-axle trailers, one at each end, for travel the four lateral legs of the platform folded vertically. They were converted to Heer-standard percussion firing, most guns were replaced by 17 centimetres barrels as they became available, but one battery retained them through the beginning of the Battle of Kursk in July 1943. The SK C/28 used several different shells depending on its target, the 15 cm Sprgr L/4.6 KZ m Hb weighed 45.5 kg and had a muzzle velocity of 785 m/s
12.
10.5 cm FlaK 38
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The 10.5 cm FlaK38 was a German anti-aircraft gun used during World War II by the Luftwaffe. An improved version was introduced as the 10.5 cm FlaK39, the Flak 38 was introduced as a competitor to the 8.8 cm FlaK18. In this role it proved to be too heavy for use while having roughly similar performance as the 88 mm. The Flak 39 was a version, which replaced the electrical gun laying system with a mechanical one. The 10.5 cm SK C/33 was used by the Kriegsmarine, related to the Flak 38, it was installed on the Bismarck and Scharnhorst classes of battleships as well as the Deutschland- and Admiral Hipper-class cruisers. They were mounted in pairs on an electrically powered tri-axial mounting, intended to compensate for the motion of the ship, the mounting was not properly waterproofed as the mountings were open to the weather and sea swell, resulting in a high maintenance burden. 10.5 cm Flak 38,39, Multi-Purpose Gun German 10.5 cm/65 SK C/33 Gander, Terry, Chamberlain, Weapons of the Third Reich, An Encyclopedic Survey of All Small Arms, Artillery and Special Weapons of the German Land Forces 1939–1945. Hogg, Ian V. German Artillery of World War Two
13.
3.7 cm SK C/30
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The 3.7 cm SK C/30 was the German Kriegsmarines primary 3.7 cm anti-aircraft gun during the Second World War. It was superseded by the fully automatic 3.7 cm FlaK43 late in the war and its muzzle velocity was on the other hand far superior, which greatly eased the aiming. The SK C/30U gun was modified for use by submarines, All mountings were suitable for use against both air and soft surface targets. The Doppellafette C/30 was a mount with each gun in a separate cradle. It had a crew on the mount itself plus additional ammunition handlers. The mounting was manually traversed and elevated and was gyro-stabilized up to a limit of 19. 5° degrees to counteract the roll, most German ships, fleet torpedo boat or larger, carried at least one Dopp L C/30 mounting. The Einheitslafette C/34 was a gun mounted on a pedestal with a two-man crew. Some mounts were fitted with a 8 millimetres gun shield and it was used on the smaller Kriegsmarine ships like the Schnellboot. A number were used on land to supplement the anti-aircraft defenses of ports, the Ubts L C/39 submarine mount used the SK C/30U gun. It was a pedestal mount with a two-man crew, one of whom trained the gun with the shoulder stirrup. The SK C/30 used two types of tracer rounds. The 3.7 cm Br Sprgr Patr 40 L/4.1 Lh 37M was a round with an incendiary filling while the 3.7 cm Sprgr Patr 40 L/4.1 Lh 37 lacked the incendiary fill. Tracers were available in red, yellow or white and were marked on the shell by a band of the appropriate color. A complete round weighed 1.78 kilograms, naval Weapons of World War Two. Weapons of the Third Reich, An Encyclopedic Survey of All Small Arms, Artillery, hogg, Ian V. German Artillery of World War Two. Leichte und mittlere Artillerie auf deutschen Kriegsschiffen
14.
2 cm Flak 30/38/Flakvierling
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The Flak 30 and improved Flak 38 were 20 mm anti-aircraft guns used by various German forces throughout World War II. It was not only the primary German light anti-aircraft gun, and it was produced in a variety of models, notably the Flakvierling 38 which combined four Flak 38 autocannons onto a single carriage. The Germans fielded the unrelated early 2 cm Flak 28 just after World War I, the original Flak 30 design was developed from the Solothurn ST-5 as a project for the Kriegsmarine, which produced the 20 mm C/30. The gun fired the Long Solothurn, a 20 ×138 mm belted cartridge that had developed for the ST-5 and was one of the most powerful 20 mm rounds in existence. The C/30, featuring a length of 65 calibres, had a rate of about 120 rounds per minute. Disappointingly, it proved to have feeding problems and would often jam, nevertheless, the C/30 became the primary shipborne light AA weapon and equipped a large variety of German ships. Rheinmetall then started an adaptation of the C/30 for Army use, generally similar to the C/30, the main areas of development were the mount, which was fairly compact. Set-up could be accomplished by dropping the gun to the ground off its two-wheeled carriage, the result was a triangular base that allowed fire in all directions. But the main problem with the design remained unsolved, the rate of fire of 120 RPM was not particularly fast for a weapon of this calibre. Rheinmetall responded with the 2 cm Flak 38, which was similar but increased the rate of fire to 220 RPM. The Flak 38 was accepted as the standard Army gun in 1939, in order to provide airborne and mountain troops with AA capabilities, Mauser was contracted to produce a lighter version of the Flak 38, which they introduced as the 2 cm Gebirgsflak 38. It featured a dramatically simplified mount using a tripod that raised the gun off the ground. These changes reduced the weight of the gun to a mere 276.0 kg. Production started in 1941 and entered service in 1942, a wide variety of 20x138B ammunition was manufactured to be used in 2 cm Flak weapons, some of the more commonly used types are listed on the following table. Other kinds than in existence included numerous practice rounds and a number of different AP types, a high-velocity PzGr 40 round with a tungsten carbide core in an aluminium body existed in 20x138B caliber. This meant it could keep enemy aircraft under fire over longer time spans, the 20 mm weapons had always had weak development perspectives, often being reconfigured or redesigned just enough to allow the weapons to find use. Indeed, it came as a surprise when Rheinmetall introduced the 2 cm Flakvierling 38, the term Vierling literally translates to quadruplet and refers to the four 20 mm gun constituting the design. The Flakvierling weapon consisted of quad-mounted 2 cm Flak 38 AA guns with collapsing seats, folding handles, the mount had a triangular base with a jack at each leg for levelling the gun
15.
Torpedo tube
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A torpedo tube is a cylinder shaped device for launching torpedoes. There are two types of torpedo tube, underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships. Thus a submarine torpedo tube operates on the principle of an airlock, the diagram on the right illustrates the operation of a submarine torpedo tube. The diagram is somewhat simplified but does show the working of a torpedo launch. A torpedo tube has a number of interlocks for safety reasons. For example, an interlock prevents the door and muzzle door from opening at the same time. The submarine torpedo launch sequence is, in simplified form, Open the breech door in the torpedo room, load the torpedo into the tube. Hook up the connection and the torpedo power cable. Shut and lock the breech door, turn on power to the torpedo. A minimum amount of time is required for torpedo warmup, fire control programs are uploaded to the torpedo. This may be manually or automatically, from sea or from tanks. The tube must be vented during this process to allow for complete filling, Open the equalizing valve to equalize pressure in the tube with ambient sea pressure. If the tube is set up for Impulse Mode the slide valve will open with the muzzle door, if Swim Out Mode is selected, the slide valve remains closed. The slide valve allows water from the pump to enter the tube. Modern torpedoes have a safety mechanism that prevents activation of the torpedo unless the torpedo senses the required amount of G-force, the power cable is severed at launch. However, if a wire is used, it remains connected through a drum of wire in the tube. Torpedo propulsion systems vary but electric torpedoes swim out of the tube on their own and are of a smaller diameter,21 weapons with fuel-burning engines usually start outside of the tube. Once outside the tube the torpedo begins its run toward the target as programmed by the control system
16.
Belt armor
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Belt armor is a layer of heavy metal armor plated onto or within the outer hulls of warships, typically on battleships, battlecruisers and cruisers, and aircraft carriers. The belt armor is designed to prevent projectiles from penetrating to the heart of a warship, typically, the main armor belt covers the warship from its main deck down to some distance below the waterline. If, instead of forming the hull, the armor belt is built inside the hull, it is installed at a sloped angle for improved protection. Furthermore, the spaces around the main belt in some designs were filled with storage tanks that could contain fuel oil, seawater. The liquids in these tanks absorb or scatter much of the force of warheads. To deal with the leakage from the tanks and incoming seawater and this multilayer design is featured in the cross-sectional drawings of Tirpitz and King George V. In combat, a warship can be seriously damaged underwater not only by torpedoes, to improve protection against both shells and torpedoes, an air space can be added between the armor belt and the hull to increase the buoyancy of the warship. Some kinds of naval warships have belt armor thinner than actually necessary for protection against projectiles and this is common especially with battlecruisers, battleships, and aircraft carriers to reduce their weight, thus increasing their acceleration and speed. Another possible reason is to meet treaty restrictions on ship displacement, one such method is all-or-nothing armoring, where belt armor is stripped from areas deemed non-vital to the functioning of the ship in battle. Agility gained from such processes are an asset to offensive warships that seek to quickly bring their heavy striking power to the enemy. In carriers, the maneuverability is exploited when deploying and recovering aircraft, since planes take off and land most easily when flying into the wind, the aircraft carrier steams rapidly into the wind in both maneuvers, making take-off and landing safer and easier. S. Comparison of WW2 battleship armor schemes Torpedo belt Protected cruiser Armored cruiser
17.
Deck (ship)
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A deck is a permanent covering over a compartment or a hull of a ship. On a boat or ship, the primary or upper deck is the structure that forms the roof of the hull, strengthening it. Decks for some purposes have specific names, the main purpose of the upper or primary deck is structural, and only secondarily to provide weather-tightness and support people and equipment. The deck serves as the lid to the box girder which is the hull. It resists tension, compression, and racking forces, the decks scantling is usually the same as the topsides, or might be heavier if the deck is expected to carry heavier loads. The deck will be reinforced around deck fittings such as the capstan, cleats, on ships with more than one level, deck refers to the level itself. The actual floor surface is called the sole, the term refers to a structural member tying the ships frames or ribs together over the keel. In modern ships, the decks are usually numbered from the primary deck. So the first deck below the deck will be #2. Some merchant ships may alternatively designate decks below the deck, usually machinery spaces, by numbers. Ships may also call decks by common names, or may invent fanciful and romantic names for a deck or area of that specific ship. Equipment mounted on deck, such as the wheel, binnacle, fife rails. Eastern designs developed earlier, with efficient middle decks and minimalist fore, in vessels having more than one deck there are various naming conventions, numerically, alphabetically, etc. However, there are various common historical names and types of decks,01 level is the term used in naval services to refer to the deck above the main deck. The next higher decks are referred to as the 02 level, the 03 level, afterdeck an open deck area toward the stern-aft. Berth deck, A deck next below the gun deck, where the hammocks of the crew are slung, Boat deck, Especially on ships with sponsons, the deck area where lifeboats or the ships gig are stored. Boiler deck, The passenger deck above the vessels boilers, may also refer to the deck of a bridge. Flight deck, A deck from which aircraft take off or land, flush deck, Any continuous unbroken deck from stem to stern
18.
Gun turret
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A gun turret is a location from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility, and some cone of fire. Rotating gun turrets have the protection, the weapon, and its crew rotate, when this meaning of the word turret started being used at the beginning of the 1860s, turrets were normally cylindrical. Barbettes were an alternative to turrets, with a barbette the protection was fixed, in the 1890s, armoured hoods were added to barbettes, these rotated with the platform. By the early 20th Century, these hoods were known as turrets, modern warships have gun-mountings described as turrets, though the protection on them is limited to protection from the weather. They may be manned or remotely controlled and are most often protected to some degree, the protection provided by the turret may be against battle damage, the weather conditions, general environment in which the weapon or its crew will be operating. A small turret, or sub-turret set on top of a one, is called a cupola. The term cupola is used for a rotating turret that carries a sighting device rather than weaponry. Before the development of large-calibre, long-range guns in the mid-19th century, firepower was provided by a large number of guns, each of which could traverse only in a limited arc. Additionally casemate mounts had to be recessed into the side of a vessel to afford a wide arc of fire, designs for a rotating gun turret date back to the late 18th century. The Lady Nancy proved a success and Coles patenting his rotating turret design after the war. Coless aim was to create a ship with the greatest possible all round arc of fire, the Admiralty accepted the principle of the turret gun as a useful innovation, and incorporated it into other new designs. Coles submitted a design for a ship having ten domed turrets each housing two large guns, the design was rejected as impractical, although the Admiralty remained interested in turret ships and instructed its own designers to create better designs. Coles enlisted the support of Prince Albert, who wrote to the first Lord of the Admiralty, in January 1862, the Admiralty agreed to construct a ship, the HMS Prince Albert which had four turrets and a low freeboard, intended only for coastal defence. While Coles designed the turrets the ship was the responsibility of the chief Constructor Isaac Watts, another ship using Coles turret designs, HMS Royal Sovereign, was completed in August 1864. Its existing broadside guns were replaced with four turrets on a flat deck, early ships like the Royal Sovereign had little sea-keeping qualities being limited to coastal waters. Sir Edward James Reed, went on to design and build HMS Monarch, laid down in 1866 and completed in June 1869, it carried two turrets, although the inclusion of a forecastle and poop prevented the turret guns firing fore and aft. The gun turret was independently invented by the Swedish inventor John Ericsson in America, Ericsson designed the USS Monitor in 1861, its most prominent feature being a large cylindrical gun turret mounted amidships above the low-freeboard upper hull, also called the raft. This extended well past the sides of the lower, more traditionally shaped hull, a small armoured pilot house was fitted on the upper deck towards the bow, however, its position prevented Monitor from firing her guns straight forward
19.
Conning tower
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A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer can conn the vessel, i. e. give directions to the helmsman. It is usually located as high on the ship as practical, to give the conning team good visibility of the entirety of the ship itself and of ocean conditions, the verb “conn” probably stems from the verb “conduct” rather than from another plausible precedent, the verb “control”. On surface ships, the tower was a feature of all battleships. Located at the front end of the superstructure, the tower was a heavily armored cylinder. At all other times than during battles, the ship would be navigated from the bridge instead, conning towers were used by the French on their floating batteries at the Battle of Kinburn. They were then fitted to the first ironclad the French battleship La Gloire, the first Royal Navy conning tower appeared on HMS Warrior which had 3 inches of armour. The King George V class, in contrast to the Nelson class had comparatively light conning tower protection with 4.5 inch sides,3 inch front and rear, and 2 inch roof and deck. The RNs analysis of World War I combat revealed that command personnel were unlikely to utilize an armoured conning tower, older RN battleships that were reconstructed with new superstructures, had their heavily armoured conning towers removed and replaced with much lighter structures. These new conning towers were placed much higher in the ship. Even in the United States Navy, battleship captains and admirals preferred to use the unarmoured bridge positions during combat. The USN had mixed opinions of the tower, pointing out that its weight, high above the ships center of gravity. Beginning in the late 1930s, as radar surpassed visual sighting as the method of detecting other ships, battleships began reducing or eliminating the conning tower. By the end of World War II, US ships were designed with expanded weather bridges enclosing the armored conning towers. With the demise of battleships after World War II, along with the advent of missiles and nuclear weapons during the Cold War, modern warships no longer feature conning towers. It should not be confused with the control room, which was directly below it in the main pressure hull, or the bridge. As improvements in technology allowed the periscopes to be made longer it became unnecessary to raise the station above the main pressure hull. The USS Triton was the last American submarine to have a conning tower, the additional conning tower pressure hull was eliminated and its functions were added to the command and control center. Thus it is incorrect to refer to the sail of a submarine as a conning tower
20.
Arado Ar 196
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The Arado Ar 196 was a shipboard reconnaissance low-wing monoplane aircraft built by the German firm of Arado starting in 1936. The next year it was selected as the winner of a design contest, in 1933, the Kriegsmarine looked for a standardized shipboard reconnaissance aircraft. After a brief period, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium decided on the Heinkel He 60 biplane. This was one of a line of developments of a basic biplane airframe that appeared as a number of floatplanes, trainers, deliveries started in a matter of months. By 1935, it was found that the He 60s performance was lacking, the result was the He 114. The plane proved to have slightly better performance than the He 60. Rushed modifications resulted in a series of nine prototypes in an attempt to solve some of the problems, the Navy gave up, and the planes were eventually sold off to Romania, Spain and Sweden. In October 1936, the RLM asked for a He 114 replacement, the only stipulations were that it would use the BMW132, and they wanted prototypes in both twin-float and single-float configurations. Designs were received from Dornier, Gotha, Arado and Focke-Wulf, Heinkel declined to tender, contending that the He 114 could still be made to work. With the exception of the Arado low-wing monoplane design, all were conventional biplanes and that gave the Arado better performance than any of the others and the RLM ordered four prototypes. The RLM was also conservative by nature, so they also ordered two of the Focke-Wulf Fw 62 design as a backup. It quickly became clear that the Arado would work effectively, the Ar 196 prototypes were all delivered in summer 1937, V1 and V2 with twin floats as A models, and V3 and V4 on a single float as B models. Both versions demonstrated excellent water handling and there seemed to be little to one over the other. Since there was a possibility of the outrigger floats on the B models digging in. A single additional prototype, V5, was produced in November 1938 to test final changes,10 A-0s were delivered in November and December 1938, with a single 7.92 mm MG15 machine gun in the rear seat for defense. Five similarly equipped B-0s were also delivered to land-based squadrons and this was followed by 20 A-1 production models starting in June 1939, enough to equip the surface fleet. Starting in November, production switched to the heavier land-based A-2 model and it added shackles for two 50 kg bombs, two 20 mm MG FF cannons in the wings, and a 7.92 mm MG17 machine gun in the cowling. The A-4 replaced it in December 1940, strengthening the airframe, adding another radio, the apparently mis-numbered A-3, which had additional strengthening of the airframe, replaced the A-4
21.
Aircraft catapult
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An aircraft catapult is a device used to launch aircraft from ships, most commonly used on aircraft carriers, as a form of assisted take off. Different means have been used to propel the catapult, such as weight and derrick, gunpowder, flywheel, air pressure, hydraulic, and steam power. The U. S. Navy is developing the use of Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems with the construction of the Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier, aviation pioneer and Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Langley used a spring-operated catapult to launch his successful flying models and his failed aerodrome of 1903. Likewise the Wright Brothers beginning in 1904 used a weight and derrick styled catapult to assist their early aircraft with a takeoff in a limited distance, on 31 July 1912, Theodore Gordon Ellyson became the first person to be launched from a U. S. Navy catapult system. The Navy had been perfecting a compressed-air catapult system and mounted it on the Santee Dock in Annapolis, the first attempt nearly killed Lt. Ellyson when the plane left the ramp with its nose pointing upward and it caught a crosswind, pushing the plane into the water. Ellyson was able to escape from the wreckage unhurt, on 12 November 1912, Lt. Ellyson made history as the Navys first successful catapult launch, from a stationary coal barge. On 5 November 1915, LCDR Henry C, mustin made the first catapult launch from a ship underway. The US Navy experimented with other sources and models, including catapults that utilized gunpowder. On 14 December 1924, a Martin MO-1 observation plane flown by Lt. L. C, hayden was launched from USS Langley using a catapult powered by gunpowder. Following this launch, this method was used aboard both cruisers and battleships, up to and during World War II, most catapults were hydraulic. They were mostly used for experimental purposes, and their use was discontinued during the latter half of the war. Many naval vessels apart from aircraft carriers carried float planes, seaplanes or amphibians for reconnaissance and they were catapult-launched and landed on the sea alongside for recovery by crane. There were submarine aircraft carriers, and some Japanese submarines used them for offensive operations also, the first launch off a Royal Navy battlecruiser was from HMAS Australia on 8 March 1918. The aircraft carried were the Fairey Seafox or Supermarine Walrus, some like HMS Nelson did not use a catapult, and the aircraft was lowered onto the sea for takeoff. Some had their aircraft and catapult removed during WWII e. g. HMS Duke of York and these were used for convoy escort duties to drive off enemy reconnaissance bombers. CAM ships carried a Hawker Sea Hurricane, dubbed a Hurricat or Catafighter, ground-launched V-1s were typically propelled up an inclined launch ramp by an apparatus known as a Dampferzeuger. Following World War II, the Royal Navy was developing a new system for their fleet of carriers. Mitchell, RNV, recommended a system as an effective
22.
Capital ship
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The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships, they are generally the larger ships when compared to other warships in their respective fleet. A capital ship is generally a leading or a ship in a naval fleet. William S. Lind, in the book America Can Win, defines a capital ship as follows, These characteristics define a capital ship, if the ships are beaten. But if the rest of the navy is beaten, the ships can still operate. Another characteristic that defines capital ships is that their opponent is each other. The Mahanian doctrine was applied by the Imperial Japanese Navy, leading to its preventive move to attack Pearl Harbor. Four-deckers suffered in rough seas, and the lowest deck could seldom fire except in calm conditions, third rate,64 to 80 guns. Fourth rate,46 to 60 guns, frigates were ships of the fifth rate, sixth rates comprised small frigates and corvettes. Towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and into the late 19th century, some larger and this applied mainly to ships resulting from the dreadnought revolution, dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers. In the 20th century, especially in World Wars I and II, typical capital ships would be battleships, all of the above ships were close to 20,000 tons displacement or heavier, with large caliber guns and heavy armor protection. Heavy cruisers, despite being important ships, were not considered capital ships, an exception to the above in World War II was the Deutschland-class cruiser. The Alaska-class cruisers, despite being oversized heavy cruisers and not true battleships/battlecruisers, were considered by some to be capital ships. In regard to design, however, the Kirov is simply a supersized guided-missile cruiser with nuclear propulsion. It took until late 1942 for aircraft carriers to be considered capital ships. The U. S. Navy was forced to rely primarily on its aircraft carriers after the attack on Pearl Harbor sank or damaged eight of its Pacific-fleet battleships. In the 21st century, the carrier is the last remaining capital ship, with capability defined in decks available and aircraft per deck, rather than in guns. Despite their significance to modern fleets, the U. S. Navy has never named aircraft carriers after U. S. states as was the practice when battleships were considered capital ships. Instead, U. S. state names are applied to nuclear submarines while Aircraft Carriers are named after famous Navy personel and presidents, such as Chester W. Nimitz
23.
Battlecruiser
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The battlecruiser, or battle cruiser, was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. They were similar in size, cost, and armament to battleships, however, as more and more battlecruisers were built, they were increasingly used alongside the better-protected battleships. British battlecruisers in particular suffered heavy losses at Jutland, where their armour made them very vulnerable to large-caliber shells. Battlecruisers were put into action again during World War II, in the post–Cold War era, the Soviet Kirov class of large guided missile cruisers have also been termed battlecruisers. The battlecruiser was developed by the Royal Navy in the first years of the 20th century as an evolution of the armoured cruiser. The first armoured cruisers had been built in the 1870s, as an attempt to give protection to ships fulfilling the typical cruiser roles of patrol, trade protection. However, the results were satisfactory, as the weight of armour required for any meaningful protection usually meant that the ship became almost as slow as a battleship. As a result, navies preferred to build protected cruisers with an armoured deck protecting their engines, in the 1890s, technology began to change this balance. New Krupp steel armour meant that it was now possible to give a side armour which would protect it against the quick-firing guns of enemy battleships. In 1896–97 France and Russia, who were regarded as allies in the event of war, started to build large. In the event of a war between Britain and France or Russia, or both, these cruisers threatened to cause difficulties for the British Empires worldwide trade. Between 1899 and 1905, it completed or laid down seven classes of this type and this building program, in turn, prompted the French and Russians to increase their own construction. The Imperial German Navy began to build large armoured cruisers for use on their overseas stations, the cost of this cruiser arms race was significant. In the period 1889–96, the Royal Navy spent £7.3 million on new large cruisers, from 1897–1904, it spent £26.9 million. Many armoured cruisers of the new kind were just as large, the increasing size and power of the armoured cruiser led to suggestions in British naval circles that cruisers should displace battleships entirely. The battleships main advantage was its 12-inch heavy guns, and heavier armour designed to protect from shells of similar size, however, for a few years after 1900 it seemed that those advantages were of little practical value. The torpedo now had a range of 2,000 yards, however, at ranges of more than 2,000 yards it became increasingly unlikely that the heavy guns of a battleship would score any hits, as the heavy guns relied on primitive aiming techniques. The secondary batteries of 6-inch quick-firing guns, firing more plentiful shells, were likely to hit the enemy
24.
Kriegsmarine
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The Kriegsmarine was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire and the inter-war Reichsmarine, the Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches—along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe —of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany. The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly during German naval rearmament in the 1930s, Kriegsmarine ships were deployed to the waters around Spain during the Spanish Civil War, under the guise of enforcing non-intervention, but in reality supporting the Franco side of the war. In January 1939 Plan Z was ordered, calling for naval parity with the Royal Navy by 1944, however, when World War II broke out in September 1939, Plan Z was shelved in favour of building submarines and prioritizing land and air forces. The Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine was Adolf Hitler, who exercised his authority through the Oberkommando der Marine, the Kriegsmarines most famous ships were the U-boats, most of which were constructed after Plan Z was abandoned at the beginning of World War II. However, the adoption of convoy escorts, especially in the Atlantic, after the Second World War, the Kriegsmarines remaining ships were divided up amongst the Allied powers and were used for various purposes including minesweeping. Adolf Hitler was the Commander-in-Chief of all German armed forces, including the Kriegsmarine and his authority was exercised through the Oberkommando der Marine, or OKM, with a Commander-in-Chief, a Chief of Naval General Staff and a Chief of Naval Operations. The first Commander-in-Chief of the OKM was Erich Raeder who was the Commander-in-Chief of the Reichsmarine when it was renamed and reorganized in 1935, Raeder held the post until falling out with Hitler after the German failure in the Battle of the Barents Sea. He was replaced by Karl Dönitz on 30 January 1943 who held the command until he was appointed President of Germany upon Hitlers suicide in April 1945, hans-Georg von Friedeburg was then Commander-in-Chief of the OKM for the short period of time until Germany surrendered in May 1945. Subordinate to these were regional, squadron and temporary flotilla commands, regional commands covered significant naval regions and were themselves sub-divided, as necessary. They were commanded by a Generaladmiral or an Admiral, there was a Marineoberkommando for the Baltic Fleet, Nord, Nordsee, Norwegen, Ost/Ostsee, Süd and West. The Kriegsmarine used a form of encoding called Gradnetzmeldeverfahren to denote regions on a map, each squadron also had a command structure with its own Flag Officer. The commands were Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, Submarines, Torpedo Boats, Minesweepers, Reconnaissance Forces, Naval Security Forces, Big Guns and Hand Guns, major naval operations were commanded by a Flottenchef. The Flottenchef controlled a flotilla and organized its actions during the operation, the commands were, by their nature, temporary. As a result the German surface fleet was plagued by design flaws throughout the war, military aircraft were also banned, so Germany could have no naval aviation. Under the treaty Germany could only build new ships to replace old ones, All the ships allowed and personnel were taken over from the Kaiserliche Marine, renamed Reichsmarine. From the outset, Germany worked to circumvent the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. The launching of the first pocket battleship, Deutschland in 1931 was a step in the formation of a modern German fleet, modern destroyers and light cruisers were also built
25.
Lead ship
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The lead ship, name ship, or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to ships and larger civilian craft. Large ships are complicated internally and may take as much as five to ten years to construct, any changes or advances that are available when building a ship are likely to be included, so it is rare to have two that are identical. Constructing one ship is likely to reveal better ways of doing things. The second and later ships are often started before the first one is completed, launched and tested, the improvements will sometimes be retrofitted to the lead ship. Larger civilian craft, such as Sun Princess, the ship of the Sun-class cruise ships. The same custom is followed in fiction, the Constitution-class cruiser is the basis for the Enterprise of Star Trek. Example of a lead ship announcement from US Navy USS Pennsylvania BB-38
26.
German battleship Gneisenau
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Gneisenau was a German capital ship, alternatively described as a battleship and battlecruiser, of Nazi Germanys Kriegsmarine. She was the vessel of her class, which included one other ship. The ship was built at the Deutsche Werke dockyard in Kiel, she was laid down on 6 May 1935, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst operated together for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. During their first operation, the two ships sank the British auxiliary cruiser HMS Rawalpindi in a short battle, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst participated in Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway. During operations off Norway, the two ships engaged the battlecruiser HMS Renown and sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, Gneisenau was damaged in the action with Renown and later torpedoed by a British submarine, HMS Clyde, off Norway. After a successful raid in the Atlantic in 1941, Gneisenau and her sister put in at Brest, the two battleships were the subject of repeated bombing raids by the RAF, Gneisenau was hit several times during the raids, though she was ultimately repaired. In early 1942, the two made a daylight dash up the English Channel from occupied France to Germany. After reaching Kiel in early February, the ship went into drydock, the repairs necessitated by the damage were so time-consuming that it was determined to rebuild the ship to accommodate the 38 cm guns as originally intended. The 28 cm guns were removed and used as shore batteries, in 1943, Hitler ordered the cessation of conversion work, and on 27 March 1945, she was sunk as a blockship in Gotenhafen in German-occupied Poland. She was eventually broken up for scrap in 1951, Gneisenau was ordered as Ersatz Hessen as a replacement for the old pre-dreadnought Hessen, under the contract name E. The Deutsche Werke in Kiel was awarded the contract, where the keel was laid on 6 May 1935, the ship was launched on 8 December 1936, after which fitting-out work was begun. The ship was completed in May 1938 and commissioned for sea trials on the 21st, the trials revealed a dangerous tendency to ship considerable amounts of water in heavy seas. This caused flooding in the bow and damaged electrical systems in the gun turret. As a result, she went back to the dockyard for extensive modification of the bow, the original straight stem was replaced with a raised Atlantic bow. A diagonal cap was fitted to the stack to keep the main mast free of smoke. The modifications were completed by September 1939, by time the ship was finally fully operational. Gneisenau displaced 32,100 long tons as built and 38,100 long tons fully loaded, with a length of 234.9 m, a beam of 30 m and a maximum draft of 9.9 m. She was powered by three Germania geared steam turbines, which developed a total of 165,930 metric horsepower and her standard crew numbered 56 officers and 1,613 enlisted men, though during the war this was augmented up to 60 officers and 1,780 men
27.
Wilhelmshaven
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Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the side of the Jade Bight. Wilhelmshaven is the centre of the JadeBay business region, the adjacent Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park provides the basis for the major tourism industry in the region. The Siebethsburg castle, built before 1383, operated as a pirate stronghold, four centuries later, the Kingdom of Prussia planned a fleet and a harbour on the North Sea.13 square kilometres of its territory at the Jade Bight to Prussia. In 1869 King William I of Prussia founded the town as an exclave of the Province of Hanover, all the hinterland of the city remained as part of the Duchy of Oldenburg. A shipbuilding yard developed at Wilhelmshaven, the Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven, on 30 June 1934 the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was launched at Wilhelmshaven. In 1937 Wilhelmshaven and Rüstringen merged and the city, named Wilhelmshaven. In World War II, Allied bombing destroyed two thirds of the towns buildings, on 28 April 1945, the Canadian First Army captured Emden and Wilhelmshaven, Germany, and took the surrender of the entire garrison, including some 200 ships of the Kriegsmarine. The Poles remained as part of the occupation forces until 1947. During World War II Alter Banter Weg functioned as a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, in 1947 the city council decided to seek a new emblem for the city. Between 1947 and 1972 Wilhelmshaven was the home of PRINCE RUPERT SCHOOL, the school relocated to Rinteln in 1972. There is an association of former Wilhelmshaven pupils called The Wilhelmshaven Association. Wilhelmshaven is Germanys only deep-water port, and its largest naval base, the benefits of the deep shipping channel were already recognised at the end of the 1950s with the construction of the first oil tanker jetty. Wilhelmshaven has been the most important German import terminal for crude oil ever since, pipelines from here supply refineries in the Rhine-Ruhr region and Hamburg. Other major business operations followed, and constructed jetties for crude oil and oil products, coal, the JadeWeserPort – Container Terminal Wilhelmshaven and the development of the neighbouring Freight Village provide prospects for employment in areas such as logistics and distribution. Another element of the Wilhelmshaven energy hub programme is the chemical industry, the German defence forces together with the public sector, are the main pillars of the local employment market. The Jadestadion, the stadium of Regionalliga Nord club SV Wilhelmshaven Aquarium Wilhelmshaven, located on the Helgolandkai – a view of the oceans, the Botanischer Garten der Stadt Wilhelmshaven, a municipal botanical garden. UNESCO World Heritage Site Wadden Sea Visitor center, the large permanent interactive exhibition provides insight into the wadden sea environment
28.
38 cm SK C/34 naval gun
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The 38 cm SK C/34 naval gun was developed by Germany mid to late 1930s. It armed the Bismarck-class battleships and was planned as the armament of the O-class battlecruisers, six twin-gun mountings were also sold to the Soviet Union and it was planned to use them on the Kronshtadt-class battlecruisers, however they were never delivered. Spare guns were used as artillery in Denmark, Norway. One gun is currently on display at Møvig Fortress outside Kristiansand and it used the standard German naval system of ammunition where the base charge was held in a metallic cartridge case and supplemented by another charge in a silk bag. Almost 40 per-cent lighter, this shell could be fired with a reduced charge at 920 metres per second to 40 kilometres. With a full charge it reached 1,050 metres per second, the data given is according to Krupp datasheet 38 cm S. K. C/34 e WA52-453. This gun was mounted in pairs in the Drh. L, c/34e turret which allowed elevation from -5°30 to +30°. Each gun had a cradle, spaced 3.5 metres apart. In general the turret was powered, but the training gear, auxiliary elevation, auxiliary hoists. The turrets weighed 1,048 tonnes to 1,056 tonnes, rested on ball bearings on a 8.75 metres diameter track, could elevate 6° per second, the guns were loaded at +2. 5° and used a telescoping chain-operated rammer. According to German manuals the required permanent capacity for the equipment for ammunition was 2.5 shells per minute. During testing period at the Baltic Sea the AVKS Report states an output of the delivery system up to 3.125 shells per minute. Under battle conditions Bismarck averaged roughly one round per minute in her battle with HMS Hood, sixteen guns were used for the Bismarck and Tirpitz and six were ordered for the Gneisenau when it was to be re-armed in 1942. Six were intended for each of the O-class battlecruisers, but it is uncertain how many of these last were actually delivered, six mountings with twelve guns were sold to the Soviet Union who planned to use them on two Kronshtadt-class battlecruisers, but these were never delivered. Surplus guns were used as coast defense guns, Tirpitz fired her main battery against Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm aircraft in Operations Planet, Brawn, Tiger Claw, Mascot and Goodwood. In Operations Paravane, Obviate, and Catechism, Tirpitzs 38 cm fragmentation shells proved ineffective in countering the Royal Air Forces high-level bombers and these guns were modified with a larger chamber for coast defense duties to handle the increased amount of propellant used for the special long-range Siegfried shells. Gander and Chamberlain quote a weight of only 105.3 tonnes for these guns, an armored single mount, the Bettungsschiessgerüst C/39 was used by these guns. It had an elevation of 60° and could traverse up to 360°
29.
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
30.
HMS Rawalpindi
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HMS Rawalpindi was a British armed merchant cruiser that was sunk in a surface action against the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the first months of the Second World War. The ship started life as the 16,695 registered tons Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company ocean liner SS Rawalpindi, built by Harland and Wolff. She was launched on 26 March 1925 by Lady Birkenhead, the wife of F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead and she was named after the city of Rawalpindi, a British garrison town in what is now Pakistan. She could carry 307 First Class and 288 Second Class passengers, Rawalpindi was requisitioned by the Admiralty on 26 August 1939 and converted into an armed merchant cruiser by the addition of eight elderly 6 in guns and two 3 in guns. She was set to work from October 1939 in the Northern Patrol covering the area around Iceland, on 19 October in the Denmark Strait, Rawalpindi intercepted the German tanker Gonzenheim, which had left Buenos Aires on 14 September. The tanker was scuttled by her crew before a party could get on board. Rawalpindi was able to signal the German ships location back to base, despite being hopelessly outgunned, 60-year-old Captain Edward Coverley Kennedy RN of Rawalpindi decided to fight, rather than surrender as demanded by the Germans. He was heard to say We’ll fight them both, they’ll sink us, and that will be that, the German warships sank Rawalpindi within 40 minutes. She managed to score one hit on Scharnhorst, which caused minor splinter damage,238 men died on Rawalpindi, including Captain Kennedy. Thirty-seven men were rescued by the German ships, a further 11 were picked up by HMS Chitral, Captain Kennedy — the father of naval officer, broadcaster and author Ludovic Kennedy — was posthumously Mentioned in Dispatches. Crew members on Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were eligible for the High Seas Fleet Badge for participating in the sinking of Rawalpindi, Rawalpindi was one of the P&O R class liners from 1925 that had had much of their interiors designed by Lord Inchcapes daughter Elsie Mackay. Her sister ships SS Ranchi, Ranpura and Rajputana were also converted into armed merchant cruisers, Rajputana was torpedoed by the German submarine U-108 in the Denmark Strait and sunk on 13 April 1941. SS Rawalpindi at Clyde-built database Against all odds - HMS Rawalpindi Allied Armed Merchant Cruisers of WW2 Scharnhorst - The History The role of HMS Jervis Bay in the fate of the Rawalpindi
31.
HMS Renown (1916)
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HMS Renown was the lead ship of her class of battlecruisers of the Royal Navy built during the First World War. She was originally laid down as a version of the Revenge-class battleships. Her construction was suspended on the outbreak of war on the grounds she would not be ready in a timely manner, Admiral Lord Fisher, upon becoming First Sea Lord, gained approval to restart her construction as a battlecruiser that could be built and enter service quickly. They did not quite meet that goal, but the ship was delivered a few months after the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Renown, and her sister HMS Repulse, were the worlds fastest capital ships upon completion, the ship frequently conveyed royalty on their foreign tours and served as flagship of the Battlecruiser Squadron when Hood was refitting. She spent much of 1940 and 1941 assigned to Force H at Gibraltar, escorting convoys, Renown was briefly assigned to the Home Fleet and provided cover to several Arctic convoys in early 1942. The ship returned to the Home Fleet in early 1945 and was refitted before being placed in reserve after the end of the war, Renown was sold for scrap in 1948. Admiral Lord Fisher first presented his requirements for the new ships to the Director of Naval Construction on 18 December 1914, within a few days, however, Fisher increased the number of guns to six and added two torpedo tubes. Minor revisions in the estimate were made until 26 December. During the following week the DNCs department examined the material delivered for the two battleships and decided what could be used in the new design. Renown had a length of 794 feet 1.5 inches, a beam of 90 feet 1.75 inches. She displaced 27,320 long tons at load and 32,220 long tons at deep load. Her Brown-Curtis direct-drive steam turbines were designed to produce 112,000 shaft horsepower, however, during trials in 1916, Renowns turbines provided 126,000 shp, allowing her to reach a speed of 32.58 knots. The ship normally carried 1,000 long tons of fuel oil, at full capacity, she could steam at a speed of 18 knots for 4,000 nautical miles. The ship mounted six 42-calibre BL 15-inch Mk I guns in three twin hydraulically powered turrets, designated A, B, and Y from front to rear and her secondary armament consisted of 17 BL 4-inch Mark IX guns, fitted in five triple and two single mounts. Renown mounted a pair of QF3 inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns mounted on the deck abreast the rear funnel. She mounted two submerged tubes for 21-inch torpedoes, one on each side forward of A barbette, Renowns waterline belt of Krupp cemented armour measured 6 inches thick amidships. Her gun turrets were 7–9 inches thick with roofs were 4.25 inches thick, as designed the high-tensile-steel decks ranged from 0.75 to 1.5 inches in thickness
32.
Aircraft carrier
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An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project air power worldwide without depending on local bases for staging aircraft operations. Aircraft carriers are expensive to build and are critical assets, there is no single definition of an aircraft carrier, and modern navies use several variants of the type. These variants are sometimes categorized as sub-types of aircraft carriers, Aircraft carriers may be classified according to the type of aircraft they carry and their operational assignments. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, former head of the Royal Navy, has said, To put it simply, as of April 2017, there are 37 active aircraft carriers in the world within twelve navies. The United States Navy has 10 large nuclear-powered fleet carriers, the largest carriers in the world, the Royal Navy of Great Britain is building two 280-m / 920-ft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, and the Prince of Wales scheduled to go into service in 2020-2023. These are the largest carriers capable of fast speeds, by comparison, escort carriers were developed to provide defense for convoys of ships. They were smaller and slower with lower numbers of aircraft carried, most were built from mercantile hulls or, in the case of merchant aircraft carriers, were bulk cargo ships with a flight deck added on top. Light aircraft carriers were fast enough to operate with the main fleet, three nations currently operate carriers of this type, ten by the United States, and one each by France and Brazil for a total of twelve in service. Short take-off but arrested-recovery, these carriers are generally limited to carrying lighter fixed-wing aircraft with more limited payloads, currently, Russia, China, and India possess commissioned carriers of this type. Short take-off vertical-landing, limited to carrying STOVL aircraft and this type of aircraft carrier is currently in service with Italy. Some also count the nine US amphibious assault ships in their secondary light carrier role boosting the total to thirteen. Helicopter carrier, Helicopter carriers have an appearance to other aircraft carriers. Some are designed for addition of, or may include, a ski jump ramp allowing for STOVL operations or may have a ski jump installed before retirement of STOVL aircraft. In the past, some conventional carriers were converted and called commando carriers by the Royal Navy, some helicopter carriers with a resistant flight surface can operate STOVL jets. Currently the majority of carriers, but not all, are classified as amphibious assault ships. The US has nine of this type, France and Japan three, Australia two, the UK one, the Republic of Korea one and Spain one, the US and Spains amphibious assault ships operate STOVL jets in normal deployment. Supercarrier Fleet carrier Light aircraft carrier Escort carrier Several systems of identification symbol for aircraft carriers, two months later, on 18 January 1911, Ely landed his Curtiss pusher airplane on a platform on the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay
33.
HMS Glorious
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HMS Glorious was the second of the three Courageous-class battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by the First Sea Lord, Lord Fisher, Glorious was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later, Glorious was paid off after the war, but was rebuilt as an aircraft carrier during the late 1920s. She could carry 30 per cent more aircraft than her half-sister Furious which had a similar tonnage, after re-commissioning in 1930, she spent most of her career operating in the Mediterranean Sea. She was recalled home in April 1940 to support operations in Norway, while evacuating British aircraft from Norway in June, the ship was sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the North Sea with the loss of over 1,200 lives. He justified their existence by claiming he needed fast, shallow-draught ships for his Baltic Project, Glorious had an overall length of 786 feet 9 inches, a beam of 81 feet, and a draught of 25 feet 10 inches at deep load. She displaced 19,180 long tons at load and 22,560 long tons at deep load, Glorious and her sisters were the first large warships in the Royal Navy to have geared steam turbines. The Parsons turbines were powered by eighteen Yarrow boilers, during the ships abbreviated sea trials, she reached 31.42 knots. The ship was designed to normally carry 750 long tons of fuel oil, at full capacity, she could steam for an estimated 6,000 nautical miles at 20 knots. Glorious carried four BL 15-inch Mark I guns in two turrets, one each fore and aft. Her secondary armament was 18 BL 4-inch Mark IX guns mounted in six triple mounts and these mounts had the three breeches too close together and the 23 loaders tended to interfere with one another. This negated the mounts intended high rate of fire against torpedo boats, a pair of QF 3-inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns were fitted abreast of the mainmast on Glorious. She mounted two submerged tubes for 21-inch torpedoes and 10 torpedoes were carried, Glorious keel was laid down on 1 May 1915 by Harland and Wolff at their Belfast shipyard. She was launched on 20 April 1916 and completed on 14 October at a cost of £1,967,223, Glorious did not suffer similar damage and did not receive her stiffening until 1918. Upon commissioning, Courageous served with the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet, after most of the 1st Cruiser Squadron was sunk at the Battle of Jutland, the squadron was re-formed with Courageous and Glorious. Glorious received six twin-tube torpedo mounts in mid-1917, one mount on each side of the mainmast on the upper deck, on 16 October 1917 the Admiralty received word of German ship movements, possibly indicating some sort of raid. Admiral Beatty, commander of the Grand Fleet, ordered most of his cruisers and destroyers to sea in an effort to locate the enemy ships. Courageous and Glorious were not initially ordered to sea, but were sent to reinforce the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron patrolling the central part of the North Sea later that day
34.
HMS Acasta (H09)
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HMS Acasta, the third ship to bear that name, launched in 1929, was an A-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy. She served in the Second World War and was sunk on 8 June 1940 in action against the German warships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Glorious and her other escort — Ardent — were also sunk. Acasta proved to be an opponent for the larger German ships, laying smoke to hide Glorious and making repeated torpedo. She scored several gun hits and one hit on Scharnhorst. The damage to the German vessels inflicted by Ardent and Acasta caused them to retire to Trondheim, although many of her crew survived to abandon the ship, communication errors meant the British were initially unaware of the sinking. In the end, there was only a single survivor from Acasta, estimates place the number of sailors from Ardent, Acasta, the single survivor from Acasta, Ldg. Seaman Cyril Carter, was rescued by the Norwegian steam merchant Borgund which also saved 38 men from one of Glorious lifeboats, all 39 men saved by Borgund were set ashore at Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands on 14 June. Ships of the Royal Navy, The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy, amazon to Ivanhoe, British Standard Destroyers of the 1930s. British Destroyers From Earliest Days to the Second World War, the Battle for Norway, April – June 1940. The German Invasion of Norway, April 1940, destroyer Weapons of World War 2. British & Empire Warships of the Second World War, chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945, The Naval History of World War Two. Whitley, M. J. Destroyers of World War Two, Ships Before, At and After Dunkirk. HMS Acasta - Site dedicated to remembering those who served aboard HMS Acasta H09, Scharnhorst - The History - an excellent summary of the battle leading to Acastas sinking. Scharnhorst - Operation Juno - technical specs and pictures of HMS Acasta, glarac Association - remembering those lost with HMS Acasta, with complete CWGC casualty list
35.
HMS Ardent (H41)
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HMS Ardent was an A-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. HMS Ardent was ordered on 6 March 1928 from the yards of Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Greenock and she was laid down on 30 July 1928 and was launched a year later on 26 June 1929. She was commissioned on 14 April 1930, after carrying out acceptance trials throughout March 1930, she was assigned on 23 March to operate with the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla, with the Mediterranean Fleet. Whilst working up, her No.4 gun mounting was found to be defective, the repairs were not completed until May, and she did not sail for her new station at Malta until 19 May. Ardent was deployed throughout June to September 1930, carrying out exercises, by October, however, her continued deployment was in question due to the recurrence of a number of defects. She put into the Royal Dockyard at Malta on 31 October to undergo repairs and she was not taken in hand for a survey until 1 December. By January 1931, her complement was reduced in anticipation of a programme of repairs. During this time, she was paid off and reduced to the reserve, with the completion of repairs, Ardent was nominated to be recommissioned and to subsequently rejoin the 3rd Flotilla. She was recommissioned on 4 November, and after a period of working up rejoined the flotilla in December, 1932-1933 was spent carrying out Fleet Exercises and Visits Programmes as well as Flotilla exercises and independent visits. She also took part in combined exercises with the Home Fleet at Gibraltar each year in Spring, Ardent returned to the UK in January 1934 to undergo another refit. She was paid off in February and subsequently recommissioned to rejoin the flotilla and she spent March–July 1934 working up and on duties in home waters, before taking passage to Malta to rejoin the flotilla. The rest of the year was spent in the Mediterranean, in deployments,1935 was much the same, with a brief visit to the Coronation Review at Spithead in June with the Mediterranean Fleet. On 8 September, Ardent and other ships of the flotilla were deployed on non-intervention patrols off the Spanish coast and she returned to Malta on 17 October. After carrying out a few exercises off Malta, Ardent resumed her Spanish patrols, including providing humanitarian aid to refugees and these activities would keep her occupied throughout December and into 1937. In January–February 1937, she was deployed as the Senior Naval Officer’s ship at Barcelona, in March, Ardent returned to the UK, and on 14 March was taken in hand at Sheerness for a long refit. The refit lasted until March 1938, and included the installation of anti-submarine detection equipment, after the refit had been completed Ardent was nominated to serve with the Devonport Local Flotilla, along with her sister destroyers Codrington and Achates, along with the older destroyer Broke. After post refit trials in April, Ardent was recommissioned with a complement to serve with the Plymouth Command. She served with this command as a training and emergency destroyer and she was also prepared for war service
36.
Channel Dash
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The Channel Dash or Unternehmen Zerberus was a German naval operation during World War II. In late 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered Oberkommando der Marine, to plan an operation to return the ships to German bases, the short route up the English Channel was preferred to a detour around the British Isles, to benefit from surprise and from air cover by the Luftwaffe. The concentration of British ships in southern waters was inhibited by a need to keep ships at Scapa Flow in Scotland, in case of a sortie by the German battleship Tirpitz from Norway. On 11 February 1942, the Kriegsmarine ships left Brest at 9,14 p. m. and escaped detection for more than twelve hours, approaching the Strait of Dover without discovery. The Luftwaffe conducted Unternehmen Donnerkeil to provide air cover and as the ships neared Dover, the RAF, the Fleet Air Arm, Navy and coastal artillery operations were costly failures but Scharnhorst and Gneisenau hit mines in the North Sea and were damaged. By 13 February, the ships had reached German ports and Winston Churchill ordered an inquiry into the debacle, on 23 February, Prinz Eugen was torpedoed off Norway, repaired and spent the rest of the war in the Baltic. Gneisenau went into a dry dock and was bombed on the night of 26/27 February, never to sail again, German commerce raiding against British north Atlantic convoys was made easier by the capture of Norway and France in 1939 and 1940. An abortive sortie by the cruiser Admiral Hipper ended at Brest, at the west end of the Brittany peninsula, on 27 December 1940. The British reformed 19 Group for Coastal Command in January 1941, from 10 January to mid-April 1941, Bomber Command dropped 829 long tons of bombs on the ships in Brest harbour. Winston Churchill issued the Battle of the Atlantic directive on 9 March, Gneisenau was hit by a bomb which failed to explode and was moved from dry dock to the outer harbour, where it was photographed by a PRU Spitfire on 5 April. Bristol Beaufort torpedo bombers attacked at dawn next day, one found the harbour through the haze. The ship was docked again and on the night of 10/11 April, Bomber Command achieved four hits, along with the mines dropped in the vicinity, the ships were not available for Unternehmen Rheinübung, in which the battleship Bismarck was sunk in the north Atlantic. The Hipper-class cruiser Prinz Eugen survived and arrived at Brest on 1 June, the sailing on 21 July of Scharnhorst to La Pallice, the deep-water port of La Rochelle, down the French coast, forestalled an attempt by Bomber Command to attack the ships in Brest by surprise. Scharnhorst was attacked by six Stirling bombers on the evening of 23 July, about six German fighters intervened, the attack on Brest took place in daylight on 24 July with a loss of 13 bombers and La Pallice was bombed again by 15 Handley Page Halifaxes. One bomber failed to find La Pallice and the rest were met by 12–18 Bf 109s and anti-aircraft fire, hit all 14 Halifaxes, five bombers were shot down, five were seriously damaged and Scharnhorst was hit five times. While returning to Brest containing 3,000 long tons of seawater, for the next two months, Bomber Command made frequent small attacks, then 56 bombers attacked on the night of 3/4 September, followed by 120 bombers on the night of 13/14 September. Frequent small attacks were resumed and about 1,000 sorties were made from July to December, at the start of the month, the Brest Group was made the Bomber Command priority again and from 11 December, bombing and minelaying took place nightly. Gneisenau was lightly damaged and dock gates were smashed, stranding Scharnhorst for a month, big attacks continued all month and another day raid by Halifaxes was made on 30 December
37.
English Channel
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The English Channel, also called simply the Channel, is the body of water that separates southern England from northern France, and links the southern part of the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 560 km long and varies in width from 240 km at its widest to 33.3 km in the Strait of Dover and it is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some 75,000 km2. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the English Channel as follows, a line joining Isle Vierge to Lands End. The southwestern limit of the North Sea, the IHO defines the southwestern limit of the North Sea as a line joining the Walde Lighthouse and Leathercoat Point. The Walde Lighthouse is 6 km east of Calais, and Leathercoat Point is at the end of St Margarets Bay. The Strait of Dover, at the Channels eastern end, is its narrowest point and it is relatively shallow, with an average depth of about 120 m at its widest part, reducing to a depth of about 45 m between Dover and Calais. Eastwards from there the adjoining North Sea reduces to about 26 m in the Broad Fourteens where it lies over the watershed of the land bridge between East Anglia and the Low Countries. It reaches a depth of 180 m in the submerged valley of Hurds Deep,48 km west-northwest of Guernsey. The eastern region along the French coast between Cherbourg and the mouth of the Seine river at Le Havre is frequently referred to as the Bay of the Seine. There are several islands in the Channel, the most notable being the Isle of Wight off the English coast. The coastline, particularly on the French shore, is indented, several small islands close to the coastline, including Chausey. The Cotentin Peninsula in France juts out into the Channel, whilst on the English side there is a parallel channel known as the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. The Celtic Sea is to the west of the Channel, the time difference of about six hours between high water at the eastern and western limits of the Channel is indicative of the tidal range being amplified further by resonance. It was never defined as a border and the names were more or less descriptive. It was not considered as the property of a nation, strangely, before the development of the modern nations, British scholars very often referred to it as Gaulish and the French one as British or English. The name English Channel has been used since the early 18th century. In modern Dutch, however, it is known as Het Kanaal, later, it has also been known as the British Channel or the British Sea having been called the Oceanus Britannicus by the 2nd-century geographer Ptolemy. The same name is used on an Italian map of about 1450, the Anglo-Saxon texts often call it Sūð-sǣ as opposed to Norð-sǣ
38.
Bismarck-class battleship
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The Bismarck class was a pair of battleships built for Nazi Germanys Kriegsmarine shortly before the outbreak of World War II. The ships were the largest warships built for the Kriegsmarine, Bismarck was laid down in July 1936 and completed in September 1940, while her sister Tirpitzs keel was laid in October 1936 and work finished in February 1941. Both ships had short service careers, Bismarck conducted only one operation, Operation Rheinübung, a sortie into the North Atlantic to raid supply convoys sent from North America to Great Britain. During the operation, she destroyed the British battlecruiser HMS Hood, Bismarck was defeated and sunk in a final engagement after a three-day chase by the Royal Navy. Disagreements over the cause of the sinking persist with chiefly British sources claiming responsibility for the sinking of the ship, evidence reviewed by Robert Ballard and James Cameron indicates that her loss was most likely due to scuttling as originally claimed by her surviving crew-members. Tirpitzs career was less dramatic, she was sent to Norwegian waters in 1942 and she was repeatedly attacked by the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. In 1944, Lancaster bombers hit the ship with three Tallboy bombs, which caused internal damage and capsized the battleship. Tirpitz was broken up for scrap between 1948 and 1957, a series of conceptual designs was begun in 1932 to determine the ideal characteristics of a battleship built to the 35,000 long tons limit of the Washington Naval Treaty. These early studies determined that the ship should be armed with eight 33 cm guns, have a top speed of 30 knots, the design work for what became the Bismarck class was begun in 1933 and continued until 1936. In June 1935, Germany signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which allowed Germany to build battleships at a ratio of 35 percent to the tonnage of the Royal Navy. It also made Germany party to the treaty system begun at the Washington Conference. At the time, France, which had begun a program of expansion, was viewed as the most likely threat. As a result, Bismarck and Tirpitz were intended to counter the new French battleships being built at the time, a series of questions needed to be answered during the design process, including the calibre of the main battery, the propulsion system, and armour protection. The deciding factor for the adoption of 38 cm guns for Bismarck and it was decided that four twin turrets would provide the best solution to distribution of the main battery, as it would provide equal firepower forward and aft, as well as simplify fire control. This arrangement was similar to the last German battleships of the Imperial period, very thick vertical belt armour was adopted, along with heavy upper-citadel armour plating and extensive splinter protection in the bow and stern of the ships. The displacement of Bismarck and Tirpitz were limited by the capabilities of existing infrastructure in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. On 11 February 1937, the Construction Office informed Generaladmiral Erich Raeder that the ships could not displace more than 42,000 long tons due to harbour constraints, the office also expressed a preference for building a third vessel and remaining within the 35, 000-ton treaty limit. Japan refused to sign the new treaty, and so on 1 April 1937 an escalator clause permitting treaty signatories to build ships up to a limit of 45,000 long tons went into effect
39.
German battleship Tirpitz
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Tirpitz was the second of two Bismarck-class battleships built for Nazi Germanys Kriegsmarine during World War II. Work was completed in February 1941, when she was commissioned into the German fleet, like her sister ship Bismarck, Tirpitz was armed with a main battery of eight 38-centimetre guns in four twin turrets. After a series of wartime modifications she was 2,000 tonnes heavier than Bismarck, after completing sea trials in early 1941, Tirpitz briefly served as the centrepiece of the Baltic Fleet, which was intended to prevent a possible break-out attempt by the Soviet Baltic Fleet. In early 1942, the sailed to Norway to act as a deterrent against an Allied invasion. While stationed in Norway, Tirpitz was also intended to be used to intercept Allied convoys to the Soviet Union and this was the only feasible role for her, since the St Nazaire Raid had made operations against the Atlantic convoy lanes too risky. Tirpitz acted as a fleet in being, forcing the British Royal Navy to retain significant naval forces in the area to contain the battleship. In September 1943, Tirpitz, along with the battleship Scharnhorst, bombarded Allied positions on Spitzbergen, shortly thereafter, the ship was damaged in an attack by British mini-submarines and subsequently subjected to a series of large-scale air raids. On 12 November 1944, British Lancaster bombers equipped with 12, a deck fire spread to the ammunition magazine for one of the main battery turrets, which caused a large explosion. Figures for the number of men killed in the range from 950 to 1,204. Between 1948 and 1957 the wreck was broken up by a joint Norwegian and German salvage operation, Tirpitz was ordered as Ersatz Schleswig-Holstein as a replacement for the old pre-dreadnought Schleswig-Holstein, under the contract name G. The Kriegsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven was awarded the contract, where the keel was laid on 20 October 1936, the hull was launched on 1 April 1939, during the elaborate ceremonies, the ship was christened by the daughter of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the ships namesake. Adolf von Trotha, an admiral in the Imperial German Navy, spoke at the ships launching. Fitting-out work followed her launch, and was completed by February 1941, British bombers repeatedly attacked the harbour in which the ship was being built, no bombs struck Tirpitz, but the attacks did slow construction work. Tirpitz was commissioned into the fleet on 25 February for sea trials, Tirpitz displaced 42,900 t as built and 52,600 tonnes fully loaded, with a length of 251 m, a beam of 36 m and a maximum draft of 10.60 m. Her standard crew numbered 103 officers and 1,962 enlisted men, as built, Tirpitz was equipped with Model 23 search radars mounted on the forward, foretop, and rear rangefinders. These were later replaced with Model 27 and then Model 26 radars, a Model 30 radar, known as the Hohentwiel, was mounted in 1944 in her topmast, and a Model 213 Würzburg fire-control radar was added on her stern 10.5 cm Flak rangefinders. She was armed with eight 38 cm SK C/34 L/52 guns arranged in four gun turrets. Her secondary armament consisted of twelve 15 cm L/55 guns, sixteen 10.5 cm L/65 and sixteen 3.7 cm L/83, the number of 2 cm guns was eventually increased to 58
40.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
41.
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
42.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
43.
HMS Duke of York (17)
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HMS Duke of York was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy. In mid-December 1941, Duke of York transported Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the United States to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Between March and September 1942 Duke of York was involved with convoy escort duties, in October 1942, Duke of York was involved in the Allied invasion of North Africa, but saw little action as her role only required her to protect the accompanying aircraft carriers. HMS Duke of York stopped the Portuguese vessel Gil Eannes on 1 November 1942, the British had picked up radio traffic indicating naval espionage, possibly compromising the secrecy of the upcoming Operation Torch. The attack sank four merchant ships and badly damaged a further seven, on 26 December 1943 Duke of York was part of a task force which encountered the German battleship Scharnhorst off the North Cape of Norway. After the war, Duke of York remained active until she was laid up in November 1951 and she was eventually scrapped in 1957. In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race developing between Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. This treaty limited the number of each nation was allowed to build. As a result, the Admiralty ordered the construction of a new battleship class, Duke of York was the third ship in the King George V class, and was laid down at John Brown & Companys shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland, on 5 May 1937. Ironically, the title of Duke of York was in abeyance at that time, the battleship was launched on 28 February 1940, and was completed on 4 November 1941. After this, the joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. Duke of York displaced 36,727 long tons as built and 42,076 long tons fully loaded, the ship had an overall length of 700 feet, a beam of 103 feet and a draught of 29 feet. Her designed metacentric height was 6 feet 1 inch at normal load and 8 feet 1 inch at deep load and she was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts. Steam was provided by eight Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers which normally delivered 100,000 shaft horsepower and this gave Duke of York a top speed of 28 knots. The ship carried 3,700 long tons of fuel oil and she also carried 183 long tons of diesel oil,256 long tons of reserve feed water and 430 long tons of freshwater. At full speed Duke of York had a range of 3,100 nautical miles at 27 knots. Duke of York mounted 10 BL 14-inch Mk VII guns, which were mounted in one Mark II twin turret forward, the guns could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees, while their training arcs varied. Turret A was able to traverse 286 degrees, while turrets B and Y could both move through 270 degrees, hydraulic drives were used in the training and elevating process, achieving rates of two and eight degrees per second, respectively
44.
Pre-dreadnought battleship
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Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late 1880s and 1905, before the launch of HMS Dreadnought. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s and they were powered by coal-fuelled triple-expansion steam engines. The similarity in appearance of battleships in the 1890s was underlined by the number of ships being built. The decisive clash of pre-dreadnought fleets was between the Imperial Russian Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Battle of Tsushima on 27 May 1905 and these battleships were abruptly made obsolete by the arrival of HMS Dreadnought in 1906. Dreadnought followed the trend in design to heavier, longer-ranged guns by adopting an all-big-gun armament scheme of ten 12-inch guns. Her innovative steam turbine engines also made her faster, the pre-dreadnought developed from the ironclad battleship. The first ironclads — the French Gloire and HMS Warrior — looked much like sailing frigates, only eight years later HMVS Cerberus, the first breastwork monitor, was launched. Only three years later followed HMS Devastation, a turreted ironclad which more resembled a pre-dreadnought than previous, each ship lacked masts and carried four heavy guns in two turrets fore and aft. Navies worldwide continued to build masted, turretless battleships which had sufficient freeboard and were enough to fight on the high seas. The distinction between battleship and cruising battleship became blurred with the Admiral class, ordered in 1880. These ships reflected developments in design, being protected by iron-and-steel compound armour rather than wrought iron. Equipped with breech-loading guns of between 12-inch and 16 ¼-inch calibre, the Admirals continued the trend of ironclad warships towards gigantic weapons, the guns were mounted in open barbettes to save weight. Some historians see these ships as a step towards pre-dreadnoughts, others view them as a confused. The subsequent Royal Sovereign class of 1889 retained barbettes but were armed with 13. 5-inch guns. Just as importantly, the Royal Sovereigns had a higher freeboard, the pre-dreadnought design reached maturity in 1895 with the Majestic class. These ships were built and armoured entirely of steel, and their guns were mounted in fully enclosed barbettes and they also adopted a 12-inch main gun, which, due to advances in casting and propellant, was lighter and more powerful than the previous guns of larger calibre. The Majestics provided the model for building in the Royal Navy. Pre-dreadnoughts carried guns of different calibres, for different roles in ship-to-ship combat
45.
Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As dictator of the German Reich, he initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust, Hitler was born in Austria, then part of Austria-Hungary, and raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I and he joined the German Workers Party, the precursor of the NSDAP, in 1919 and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923 he attempted a coup in Munich to seize power, the failed coup resulted in Hitlers imprisonment, during which he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf. Hitler frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy, by 1933, the Nazi Party was the largest elected party in the German Reichstag, which led to Hitlers appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain, Hitler sought Lebensraum for the German people in Eastern Europe. His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting in British, in June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941 German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe, failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time lover, on 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two killed themselves to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians, in addition,29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of World War II. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare, Hitlers father Alois Hitler Sr. was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, in 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Aloiss mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedlers brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, in 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Aloiss father. Alois then assumed the surname Hitler, also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, the Hitler surname is probably based on one who lives in a hut. Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Aloiss mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the familys 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois. No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenbergers existence, Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary, close to the border with the German Empire. He was one of six born to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl
Nazi Germany
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