1.
Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company
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The Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Limited was a Scottish shipbuilding company in the Govan area on the Clyde in Glasgow. Fairfields, as it is known, was a major warship builder, turning out many vessels for the Royal Navy and other navies through the First World War. It also built many transatlantic liners, including record breaking ships for the Cunard Line and Canadian Pacific, such as the Blue Riband winning sisters RMS Campania, at the other end of the scale Fairfields built fast cross channel mail steamers and ferries for locations around the world. These included ships for the Bosphorus crossing in Istanbul and some of the ships used by Thomas Cook for developing tourism on the River Nile. Charles Randolph, who trading as a millwright, founded the business as Randolph & Elliott by building engines. John Elder joined the business in 1852 and it diversified into shipbuilding as Randolph, Elder and Company. The first ship was built in 1861 as No 14, the shipyards imposing red sandstone Drawing Offices were designed by John Keppie of Honeyman and Keppie, with help from a young Charles Rennie Macintosh, and built 1889–91. The sculpted figures flanking the entrance are by James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, John Carmichael was manager of the Fairfield yard in 1894. He had been born in Govan in 1858 and had entered Fairfield as an apprentice in 1873, when his apprenticeship was completed seven years later, Sir William Pearce made him head draughtsman, and later he was promoted to assistant manager. Alexander Cleghorn FRSE became the Fairfield manager in 1909, the company also established the Coventry Ordnance Works joint venture with Yarrow Shipbuilders and others in 1905. The Fairfield Titan was built for the yard in 1911 by Sir William Arrol & Co. with a lift capacity of 200 tons. It was acknowledged for years as the largest crane in the World. It was employed in lifting the engines and boilers aboard ships in the fitting out basin, the crane was a Category B listed building but was demolished in 2007 in yard modernisation works. In 1919 the company part of the Northumberland Shipbuilding Company. In 1921 Alexander Kennedy was knighted, the Fairfield West yard site was later used by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1944 to build four landing craft. The works later specialised in assembling bridges and other major structures, in the 1950s the yard underwent a major £4 million modernisation programme which was implemented slowly over a period of ten years to minimise disruption to the yard. In 1963, the Fairfield engine building division merged with another Lithgow subsidiary, David Rowan & Company, Fairfields Chepstow works was sold to the Mabey Group in 1966. The era of the Fairfield experiment was captured by Sean Connery in his documentary The Bowler, then in 1968 the company was made part of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, which collapsed in 1971 when a strike and work-in received national press attention
2.
Queen Elizabeth-class battleship
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The Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were a class of five super-dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy commissioned in 1915–16. The lead ship was named after Elizabeth I of England, as such, the Queen Elizabeths are generally considered the first fast battleships. The Queen Elizabeths were the first battleships to be armed with 15-inch guns and they saw much service in both world wars. HMS Barham was lost to U-boat attack in 1941, but the others survived the wars and were scrapped in the late 1940s. Following the success of the 13. 5-inch 45 calibre gun, the move to the larger gun was accelerated by one or two years by the intervention of Winston Churchill, now at the Admiralty. Rather than waiting for prototype guns, the design was optimised on paper for the new weapon. In making this decision, the Admiralty ran a considerable risk, the initial intention was that the new battleships would have the same configuration as the preceding Iron Duke class, with five twin turrets and the then-standard speed of 21 knots. The original 1912 programme envisaged three battleships and a battlecruiser, possibly an improved version of HMS Tiger named Leopard. However, given the speed of the new ships, envisaged as 25 knots, it was decided that the battlecruiser would not be needed, when the Federation of Malay States offered to fund a further capital ship, it was decided to add a fifth unit to the class. The Director of Naval Construction advised that the concept would be only if the ships were powered solely by oil. Previous classes, including those still in construction, used fuel oil, however, the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, undertook to guarantee a supply of oil in wartime, thereby allowing the programme to proceed. The oil eventually was guaranteed by the negotiation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Convention, a further ship was authorised in 1914 and would have been named Agincourt. This design would have kept the Queen Elizabeth armament, but substituted thinner armour in order to gain a 28-knot top speed, whatever the case, Agincourt was cancelled at the outbreak of war in 1914. In some respects, the ships did not quite fulfill their extremely demanding requirement and they were seriously overweight, as a result of which the draught was excessive and they were unable to reach the planned top speed of 25 knots. Despite these problems, most of which were mitigated in service, the savings in weight, cost and manpower made possible by oil fuel only were convincingly demonstrated, as were the benefits of concentrating a heavier armament into fewer mountings. The class was followed by the Revenge class, which took the Queen Elizabeth configuration, out of the class of four ships, only HMS Hood was completed. Armour protection was modified from the previous Iron Duke class, with a thicker belt, the scale of deck armour was less generous, though typical of contemporary practice. However, four of the ships survived a pounding at the Battle of Jutland while serving as the 5th Battle Squadron
3.
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
4.
Displacement (ship)
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The displacement or displacement tonnage of a ship is the ships weight. The name reflects the fact that it is measured indirectly, by first calculating the volume of water displaced by the ship, by Archimedes principle, this is also the weight of the ship. Displacement should not be confused with other measurements of volume or capacity typically used for vessels such as net tonnage, gross tonnage. The process of determining a vessels displacement begins with measuring its draft This is accomplished by means of its draft marks, a merchant vessel has three matching sets, one mark each on the port and starboard sides forward, midships, and astern. These marks allow a ships displacement to be determined to an accuracy of 0. 5%, the draft observed at each set of marks is averaged to find a mean draft. The ships hydrostatic tables show the corresponding volume displaced, to calculate the weight of the displaced water, it is necessary to know its density. Seawater is more dense than water, so a ship will ride higher in salt water than in fresh. The density of water varies with temperature. Devices akin to slide rules have been available since the 1950s to aid in these calculations and it is done today with computers. Displacement is usually measured in units of tonnes or long tons and these bring the ship down to its load draft, colloquially known as the waterline. Full load displacement and loaded displacement have almost identical definitions, full load is defined as the displacement of a vessel when floating at its greatest allowable draft as established by classification societies. Warships have arbitrary full load condition established, deep load condition means full ammunition and stores, with most available fuel capacity used. Light displacement is defined as the weight of the ship excluding cargo, fuel, water, ballast, stores, passengers, crew, normal displacement is the ships displacement with all outfit, and two-thirds supply of stores, ammunition, etc. on board. Standard displacement, also known as Washington displacement, is a term defined by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Naval architecture Hull Hydrodynamics Tonnage Dear, I. C. B, oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. George, William E. Stability & Trim for the Ships Officer, turpin, Edward A. McEwen, William A. Trim and Stability Information for Drydocking Calculations, conference on the Limitation of Armament,1922. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States,1922, proceedings of the United States Naval Institute
5.
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
6.
Yarrow boiler
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Yarrow boilers are an important class of high-pressure water-tube boilers. They were developed by Yarrow & Co, shipbuilders and Engineers and were widely used on ships, particularly warships. The Yarrow boiler design is characteristic of the boiler, two banks of straight water-tubes are arranged in a triangular row with a single furnace between them. A single steam drum is mounted at the top between them, with water drums at the base of each bank. Circulation, both upwards and downwards, occurs within this same tube bank, the Yarrows distinctive features were the use of straight tubes and also circulation in both directions taking place entirely within the tube bank, rather than using external downcomers. Early use of the water-tube boiler within the Royal Navy was controversial at times and these first boilers, such as the Belleville and Niclausse, were large-tube designs, with simple straight tubes of around 4 diameter, at a shallow angle to the horizontal. These tubes were jointed into cast iron headers and gave much trouble with leakage at these joints, at the time, an assumption was that thermal expansion in these straight tubes was straining the joints. These boilers were also large, and although fitted to many pre-dreadnought battleships, could not be fitted to the torpedo boats. To provide a lighter boiler for smaller vessels, the Express types were developed and these used smaller water-tubes of around 2 diameter, giving a greater ratio of heating area to volume. Most of these were of the pattern, particularly of the Du Temple. This gave a more vertical arrangement of the water-tubes, thus encouraging thermosyphon circulation in these narrow tubes. The previous problems of tube expansion were still a concern and so the tubes were either curved, or even convoluted into hairpins and S shapes. Alfred Yarrow developed his boiler as a response to others that had already developed water-tube boilers and this was a long process based on theoretical experiment rather than evolution of practical boilers. Work began in 1877 and the first commercial boiler was not supplied until 10 years later, despite this long gestation, the boilers origins appear to have been most direct. Already expressed two of the three basic design principles. Early water-tube designers had been concerned with the expansion of the tubes when heated. Efforts were made to them to expand freely, particularly so that those closest to the furnace might expand relatively more than those further away. Typically this was done by arranging the tubes in large looping curves and these had difficulties in manufacturing and required support in use
7.
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
8.
Knot (unit)
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The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour, approximately 1.151 mph. The ISO Standard symbol for the knot is kn, the same symbol is preferred by the IEEE, kt is also common. The knot is a unit that is accepted for use with the SI. Etymologically, the term derives from counting the number of knots in the line that unspooled from the reel of a log in a specific time. 1 international knot =1 nautical mile per hour,1.852 kilometres per hour,0.514 metres per second,1.151 miles per hour,20.254 inches per second,1852 m is the length of the internationally agreed nautical mile. The US adopted the definition in 1954, having previously used the US nautical mile. The UK adopted the international nautical mile definition in 1970, having used the UK Admiralty nautical mile. The speeds of vessels relative to the fluids in which they travel are measured in knots, for consistency, the speeds of navigational fluids are also measured in knots. Thus, speed over the ground and rate of progress towards a distant point are given in knots. Until the mid-19th century, vessel speed at sea was measured using a chip log, the chip log was cast over the stern of the moving vessel and the line allowed to pay out. Knots placed at a distance of 8 fathoms -47 feet 3 inches from each other, passed through a sailors fingers, the knot count would be reported and used in the sailing masters dead reckoning and navigation. This method gives a value for the knot of 20.25 in/s, the difference from the modern definition is less than 0. 02%. On a chart of the North Atlantic, the scale varies by a factor of two from Florida to Greenland, a single graphic scale, of the sort on many maps, would therefore be useless on such a chart. Recent British Admiralty charts have a latitude scale down the middle to make this even easier, speed is sometimes incorrectly expressed as knots per hour, which is in fact a measure of acceleration. Prior to 1969, airworthiness standards for aircraft in the United States Federal Aviation Regulations specified that distances were to be in statute miles. In 1969, these standards were amended to specify that distances were to be in nautical miles. At 11000 m, an airspeed of 300 kn may correspond to a true airspeed of 500 kn in standard conditions. Beaufort scale Hull speed, which deals with theoretical estimates of maximum speed of displacement hulls Knot count Knotted cord Metre per second Orders of magnitude Rope Kemp
9.
BL 15 inch Mk I naval gun
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The BL15 inch Mark I succeeded the 13. 5-inch gun. It was the first British 15 inch gun design and the most widely used and longest lasting of any British designs and it was deployed on capital ships from 1915 until 1959, and was a key Royal Navy gun in both World Wars. This gun was a version of the successful BL13. The normal slow and cautious prototype and testing stages of a new development were bypassed. Despite its hurried development process, the gun met all expectations and was a competitive battleship main armament throughout both World Wars, the barrel was 42 calibres long and was referred to as 15 inch/42. This wire-wound gun fired a 1938 lb Mk XVIIB shell at a velocity of 2,458 ft/s. The battlecruiser HMS Hood had its Mk I guns in a unique mounting, incorporating experience from the Battle of Jutland, the Mk II mounting had a maximum elevation of 30°, thus increasing the maximum range. In the 1930s a modification of the Mk I mounting, designated the Mk I, was introduced for use in capital ships that were completely reconstructed. The Mk I mounting also increased the elevation from 20° to 30°. Maximum range in shipboard mountings was 33,550 yards, coastal artillery mountings with higher elevations could reach 44,150 yards. The firing life of a 15 inch gun was approximately 335 full charge firings using standard charges, after which it had to be re-lined. The BL15 inch Mark I gun proved its effectiveness at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, scoring hits out to 19,500 yards, in World War II the gun was responsible for the longest range shell-hit ever scored by one battleship on another in combat. At the Battle of Calabria on 9 July 1940, HMS Warspite gained a hit on the Italian battleship Giulio Cesare with her first salvo at 26,400 yards. These guns were used on several classes of battleships from 1915 until HMS Vanguard, five guns were mounted in Singapore at Johore battery and Buona Vista Battery in the 1930s. 186 guns were manufactured between 1912 and 1918 and they were removed from ships, refurbished, and rotated back into other ships over their lifetime. Elswick Ordnance Company, Elswick, Newcastle,34 Armstrong Whitworth, Openshaw, the Museum of Naval Firepower, Gosport, UK on YouTube Terry Gander, Twentieth century British coast defence guns
10.
BL 6 inch Mk XII naval gun
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This was a high-velocity naval gun consisting of inner A tube, A tube, wound with successive layers of steel wire, with a jacket over the wire. Ordinary Seaman John Henry Carless was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for heroism in serving his gun on HMS Caledon during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight on 17 November 1917. This gun generated a higher pressure in the chamber on firing compared to preceding 6-inch guns such as Mk VII and this necessitated use of special shells capable of withstanding a pressure of 20 tons per square inch on firing, which had Q suffixed to the name. World War I shells were marked A. Q. denoting special 4 C. R. H. List of naval guns 15 cm SK L/45 German equivalent On monitor HMS M33 at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, UK A gun from HMAS Adelaide at HMAS Cerberus naval base, Victoria, Australia Campbell, British Naval Guns, 1880–1945, No.12. Handbook For The 6-inch Breech Loading Mark XII, tony DiGiulian, British 6/45 BL Mark XII and Mark XX
11.
QF 3-inch 20 cwt
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The QF3 inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft gun became the standard anti-aircraft gun used in the home defence of the United Kingdom against German airships and bombers and on the Western Front in World War I. It was also common on British warships in World War I,20 cwt referred to the weight of the barrel and breech, to differentiate it from other 3 inch guns. The gun was based on a prewar Vickers naval 3-inch QF gun with modifications specified by the War Office in 1914 and these included the introduction of a vertical sliding breech-block to allow semi-automatic operation. When the gun recoiled and ran forward after firing, the motion also opened the breech, ejected the empty cartridge case and held the breech open ready to reload, when the gunner loaded the next round, the block closed and the gun fired. The early 12. 5-pound shrapnel shell at 2,500 ft/s caused excessive wear and was unstable in flight. The 1916 16-pound shell at 2,000 ft/s proved ballistically superior and was suited to a high explosive filling. The Mark I* had different rifling, the Mark II lost the semi-automatic action. Routledge quotes a rate of fire of 16-18 rounds per minute and this would appear to be the effective rate of fire found to be sustainable in action. 8 more Mks followed between the World Wars, by 1934 the rocking-bar deflection sights had been replaced by Magslip receiver dials which received input from the Predictor, with the layers matching pointers instead of tracking the target. Predictor No.1 was supplemented from 1937 by Predictor No,2, based on a US Sperry AAA Computer M3A3. This was faster and could track targets at 400 mph at heights of 25,000 ft, the 3 inch 20 cwt gun was superseded by the QF3.7 inch AA gun from 1938 onwards, but numbers of various Marks remained in service throughout World War II. In Naval use it was being replaced in the 1920s by the QF4 inch Mk V on HA mounting, Britain entered World War I with no anti-aircraft artillery. When war broke out and Germany occupied Belgium and North-east France, as a result, a search for suitable anti-aircraft guns began. It was from then onwards operated by Royal Garrison Artillery crews, with drivers, however, the Mobile Anti-Aircraft Brigade based at Kenwood Barracks in London, continued to be manned by the RNVR, although under the operational control of the Army. The 3 inch 20 cwt with its powerful and stable in flight 16 lb shell and fairly high altitude was well suited to defending the United Kingdom against high-altitude Zeppelins and bombers. The 16 pound shell took 9.2 seconds to reach 5,000 ft at 25° from horizontal,13.7 seconds to reach 10,000 ft at 40°,18.8 seconds to reach 15,000 at 55°. This means that the gun team had to calculate where the target would be 9 –18 seconds ahead, determine the deflection and set the fuze length, load, aim. British time fuzes, required for airburst shooting, were powder burning, however, the powder burning rate changed as air pressure reduced, making them erratic for the new vertical shooting
12.
Anti-aircraft warfare
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Anti-aircraft warfare or counter-air defence is defined by NATO as all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action. They include ground-and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and it may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries the main effort has tended to be homeland defence, NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight, a surface-based air defence capability can also be deployed offensively to deny the use of airspace to an opponent. Until the 1950s, guns firing ballistic munitions ranging from 20 mm to 150 mm were the weapons, guided missiles then became dominant. The term air defence was probably first used by Britain when Air Defence of Great Britain was created as a Royal Air Force command in 1925. However, arrangements in the UK were also called anti-aircraft, abbreviated as AA, after the First World War it was sometimes prefixed by Light or Heavy to classify a type of gun or unit. Nicknames for anti-aircraft guns include AA, AAA or triple-A, an abbreviation of anti-aircraft artillery, ack-ack, NATO defines anti-aircraft warfare as measures taken to defend a maritime force against attacks by airborne weapons launched from aircraft, ships, submarines and land-based sites. In some armies the term All-Arms Air Defence is used for air defence by nonspecialist troops, other terms from the late 20th century include GBAD with related terms SHORAD and MANPADS. Anti-aircraft missiles are variously called surface-to-air missile, abbreviated and pronounced SAM, non-English terms for air defence include the German FlaK, whence English flak, and the Russian term Protivovozdushnaya oborona, a literal translation of anti-air defence, abbreviated as PVO. In Russian the AA systems are called zenitnye systems, in French, air defence is called DCA. The maximum distance at which a gun or missile can engage an aircraft is an important figure, however, many different definitions are used but unless the same definition is used, performance of different guns or missiles cannot be compared. For AA guns only the part of the trajectory can be usefully used. By the late 1930s the British definition was that height at which an approaching target at 400 mph can be engaged for 20 seconds before the gun reaches 70 degrees elevation. However, effective ceiling for heavy AA guns was affected by nonballistic factors, The maximum running time of the fuse, the capability of fire control instruments to determine target height at long range. The essence of air defence is to detect aircraft and destroy them. The critical issue is to hit a target moving in three-dimensional space, Air defence evolution covered the areas of sensors and technical fire control, weapons, and command and control. At the start of the 20th century these were very primitive or non-existent
13.
British 21 inch torpedo
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There have been several British 21-inch diameter torpedoes used by the Royal Navy since their first development just before the First World War. The 21-inch was the largest size of torpedo in use in the RN. They were used by ships and submarines rather than aircraft which used smaller 18 inch torpedoes. The first British 21 inch torpedo came in two lengths Short at 17 ft 10.5 in, and Long at 23 ft 1.25 in, the explosive charge was 200 lb of gun cotton increased later to 225 lb. The Mark II, chiefly used by destroyers, entered service in 1914, apart from some older British ships, it was used with the old US Town-class destroyers provided to the UK during the early part of the Second World War. The running speed was reduced from 45 knots for better reliability, the Mark II*, an improved Mark II was used by battleships and battlecruisers. A wet heater design, it could run for 4.1 km at 45 knots From 1912, used by destroyers, in the Second World War they were carried on HMS Hood. The Mark V was used by the A and B-class destroyers and, with modification, the Mark VII was issued for use on the British heavy cruisers, i. e. cruisers with 8-inch guns. Designed in the mid-1920s the County-class cruisers were built at the time in the post Washington Naval Treaty period. The power came from the use of enriched air, though torpedo stocks were converted to run on normal air at the start of the Second World War. It was used from 1927 on submarines of the O class onwards, the principal World War II version was the improved Mark VIII**,3,732 being fired by September 1944. The torpedo was still in service with the Royal Navy as late as 1983, the Mark VIII** was used in two particularly notable incidents, - On 9 February 1945 the Royal Navy submarine HMS Venturer sank the German submarine U-864 with four Mark VIII** torpedoes. This is the only intentional sinking of one submarine by another while both were submerged. On 2 May 1982 the Royal Navy submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano with three Mark VIII** torpedoes during the Falklands War and this is the only sinking of a surface ship by a nuclear-powered submarine in wartime. First appeared in 1930 and was improved by 1939. Used on Leander and later cruisers, A and later destroyer classes, also replaced the old Mark VII in some 8 cruisers during the war. From 1939, used by submarines, motor boats and destroyers. Electric battery powered torpedo with a 322 kg TNT warhead, entering service during the Second World War it was used by destroyers
14.
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
15.
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
16.
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
17.
Barbette
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Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships. In recent naval usage, a barbette is a circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protection that led to the pre-dreadnought. The former gives better angles of fire but less protection than the latter, the disappearing gun was a variation on the barbette gun, it consisted of a heavy gun on a carriage that would retract behind a parapet or into a gunpit for reloading. They were primarily used in coastal defences, but saw use in a handful of warships. The term is used for certain aircraft gun mounts. By the late 1880s, all three systems were replaced with a hybrid system that combined the benefits of both types. The heavily-armored vertical tube that supported the new gun mount was referred to as a barbette, american authors generally refer to such mounts simply as tail guns or tail gun turrets. The use of barbette mountings originated in ground fortifications, the term originally referred to a raised platform on a rampart for one or more guns, enabling them to be fired over a parapet. This gave rise to the phrase en barbette, which referred to a gun placed to fire over a parapet, rather than through an embrasure, while an en barbette emplacement offered wider arcs of fire, it also exposed the guns crew to greater danger from hostile fire. In addition, since the position would be higher than a casemate position—that is. Fortifications in the 19th century typically employed both casemate and barbette emplacements, the type was usually used for coastal defence guns. Later heavy coastal guns were protected in hybrid installation, with wide casemate with cantilevered overhead cover partially covering a barbette mount. Following the introduction of ironclad warships in the early 1860s, naval designers grappled with the problem of mounting guns in the most efficient way possible. The first generation of ironclads employed the same arrangement as the old ship of the line. This was particularly important to designers, since the tactic of ramming was revived following its successful employment at the decisive Austrian victory at the Battle of Lissa in 1866, ramming required a ship to steam directly at its opponent, which greatly increased the importance of end-on fire. Designers such as Cowper Phipps Coles and John Ericsson designed the first gun turrets in the 1860s, in the 1870s, designers began to experiment with an en barbette type of mounting. The barbette was a fixed armoured enclosure protecting the gun, the barbette could take the form of a circular or elongated ring of armour around the rotating gun mount over which the guns fired
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.
Dual-purpose gun
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A dual-purpose gun is a naval artillery mounting designed to engage both surface and air targets. The light A/A was dispersed throughout the ship and included both automatic cannons and heavy machine guns and they discarded the dedicated, anti-ship secondary batteries altogether, because a battle-line fleet would be screened against cruiser and destroyers most of the time. Rather, they replaced them with turret-mounted dual-purpose guns that could be used against both aircraft and ships and this arrangement was seen as more efficient, and was deemed adequate to meet anti-surface and anti-aircraft needs under most circumstances. Both navies were concerned of close-range torpedo attacks from enemy destroyers and torpedo boats, the French Navy used a mixed-calibre system, as well, but their secondary battery was dual-purpose. This tended to complicate ammunition supplies and render certain armament useless in some situations, dual-purpose guns are designed as a compromise between the heavy main armament of a surface combatant and dedicated anti-aircraft guns. Usually of a caliber, the gun is heavy enough to prove useful against surface targets including ships, surfaced submarines. For example, a Royal Navy battleship of the King George V class had sixteen QF Mark I5. 25-inch guns that could engage enemy ships or high level aircraft. Not all dual-purpose guns have high elevation, the determining factor was whether or not the mounting was provided with an anti-aircraft fire control system and a method for setting the time fuze in the A. A. warhead, fired by the gun. Starting with the Tribal class, the Royal Navy introduced a series of classes that had dual-purpose guns. XIX and later mountings limited to 40,50 or 55 degrees elevation, however, the guns were controlled by an A. A. fire control system, fire control and no on-mount fuze setters. Admiral Sir Philip Vian describes the use of 4, there was too little sea-room for full freedom of manoeuvre, and the aircrafts approach was screened by the rock walls. Junkers attacks persisted to the end, but the fire of the destroyers, not a ship received a direct hit, though some were damaged by the splinters from near misses. Dual-purpose guns, often abbreviated to DP guns, were designed as a secondary armament for large surface ships such as cruisers. Most DP mounted guns have calibers in the range from three to five inches, in British service the term HA/LA for High Angle/Low Angle was used
21.
QF 2-pounder naval gun
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The 2-pounder gun, officially designated the QF 2-pounder and universally known as the pom-pom, was a 40-millimetre British autocannon, used as an anti-aircraft gun by the Royal Navy. The name came from the sound that the original models make when firing. This QF 2-pounder was not the gun as the Ordnance QF2 pounder, used by the British Army as an anti-tank gun. The first gun to be called a pom-pom was the 37 mm Nordenfelt-Maxim or QF 1-pounder introduced during the Second Boer War and it fired a shell one pound in weight accurately over a distance of 3,000 yd. The barrel was water-cooled, and the shells were belt-fed from a 25-round fabric belt, the Boers used them against the British, who, seeing their utility, had the design copied by Vickers, who were already producing Maxim guns. During the First World War, it was used in the trenches of the Western Front against aircraft, the first naval pom-pom was the QF1. 5-pdr Mark I, a piece with a calibre of 37 mm and a barrel 43 calibres long. This was trialed in the Arethusa-class light cruisers HMS Arethusa and Undaunted, but did not enter service, being replaced instead by a larger weapon. The QF 2-pounder Mark II was essentially a version of the QF1 pounder Maxim gun produced by Vickers. It was a 40 mm calibre gun with a water-cooled barrel and it was ordered in 1915 by the Royal Navy as an anti-aircraft weapon for ships of cruiser size and below. The original models fired from hand-loaded fabric belts, although these were replaced by steel-link belts. This scaling-up process was not entirely successful, as it left the mechanism rather light, in 1918, one example of this weapon was experimentally mounted on the upper envelope of His Majestys Airship 23r. Surviving weapons were out of storage to see service in World War II, mainly on board ships such as naval trawlers, Motor Boats. It was used almost exclusively in the single-barrel, unpowered pedestal mountings P Mark II except for a number of weapons on the mounting Mark XV. These were too heavy to be of any use at sea, calibre,40 mm L/39 Total length,96 inches. Length of bore,62 inches Rifling, Polygroove, plain section,54.84 inches, Weight of gun & breech assembly,527 lb Shell Weight,2 lb. HE. Rate of Fire,200 rpm Effective Range,1,200 yd Muzzle Velocity,1920 ft/s Some 7,000 guns were made, the gun was also used by the Japanese as the 40 mm/62 HI Shiki. The Royal Navy had identified the need for a rapid-firing, multi-barrelled close-range anti-aircraft weapon at an early stage. Design work for such a weapon began in 1923 based on the earlier Mark II, lack of funding led to a convoluted and drawn-out design and trials history, and it was not until 1930 that these weapons began to enter service
22.
Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
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The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons, based on an original German 20 mm Becker design that appeared very early in World War I. It was widely produced by Oerlikon Contraves and others, with various models employed by both Allied and Axis forces during World War II, and many still in use today. During World War I, the German Reinhold Becker developed a 20 mm caliber cannon and this used a 20x70 RB cartridge and had a cyclic rate of fire of 300 rpm. It was used on a scale as an aircraft gun on Luftstreitkräfte warplanes. Because the Treaty of Versailles banned further production of weapons in Germany. SEMAG continued development of the weapon, and in 1924 had produced the SEMAG L, the Oerlikon firm, named after the Zürich suburb where it was based, then acquired all rights to the weapon, plus the manufacturing equipment and the employees of SEMAG. In 1927 the Oerlikon S was added to the product line. This fired a larger cartridge to achieve a muzzle velocity of 830 m/s, at the cost of increased weight. The purpose of development was to improve the performance of the gun as an anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapon. An improved version known as the 1S followed in 1930, three sizes of gun with their different ammunition and barrel length, but very similar mechanisms, continued to be developed in parallel. In 1930 Oerlikon reconsidered the application of its gun in aircraft and introduced the AF and AL, designed to be used in flexible mounts, the 15-round box magazine used by earlier versions of the gun was replaced by drum magazine holding 15 or 30 rounds. In 1935 it made an important step by introducing a series of guns designed to be mounted in or on the wings of fighter aircraft, designated with FF for Flügelfest meaning wing-mounted, these weapons were again available in the three sizes, with designations FF, FFL and FFS. The FF fired a larger cartridge than the AF, 20x72RB. The FF weighed 24 kg and achieved a velocity of 550 to 600 m/s with a rate of fire of 520 rpm. The FFL of 30 kg fired a projectile at a velocity of 675 m/s with a rate of fire of 500 rpm. And the FFS, which weighed 39 kg, delivered a high velocity of 830 m/s at a rate of fire of 470 rpm. Apart from changes to the design of the guns for wing-mounting and remote control, for the FF series drum sizes of 45,60,75 and 100 rounds were available, but most users chose the 60-round drum. The 1930s were a period of global re-armament, and a number of foreign firms took licenses for the Oerlikon family of aircraft cannon
23.
Vickers .50 machine gun
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The Vickers.50 machine gun, also known as the Vickers.50 was basically similar to the.303 inches Vickers machine gun but scaled up to use a larger-calibre 0. 5-inch round. It saw some use in tanks and other fighting vehicles, but was more commonly used as a close-in anti-aircraft weapon on Royal Navy and allied ships. The Vickers fired UK12. 7×81mm 50-calibre ammunition, not the better known US12. 7×99mm, Mark I was the development model. Mark II entered service in 1933 and was mounted in some British tanks, marks IV and V were improved versions and were also used mounted on trucks in the North Africa Campaign. It was superseded for use in armoured fighting vehicles during World War II by the 15 mm Besa, Mark III was a naval version used as an anti-aircraft weapon, mostly by the Royal Navy and allied navies in World War II, typically in mountings of 4 guns. It proved insufficiently powerful in the short-range anti-aircraft role against modern aircraft and was superseded during World War II by the Oerlikon 20 mm cannon. The naval quad mount featured a 200-round magazine per barrel, which wrapped the ammunition belt around the magazine drum, the four-barrel mounting had its guns adjusted to provide a spread of fire, amounting to 60 feet wide and 50 feet high at 1,000 yards. Vickers claimed that it could fire all 800 rounds in 20 seconds, during the Second World War it was also mounted on power-operated turrets in smaller craft such as Motor Gun Boats and Motor Torpedo Boats. Browning M2 Pom-pom The Vickers Machine Gun Tony DiGiulian, British 0. 50/62 Mark III Anthony G Williams, THE.5 VICKERS GUNS AND AMMUNITION
24.
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
25.
Battle of Jutland
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The battle unfolded in extensive maneuvering and three main engagements, from 31 May to 1 June 1916, off the North Sea coast of Denmarks Jutland Peninsula. It was the largest naval battle in that war and the only full-scale clash of battleships, Jutland was the third fleet action between steel battleships, following the smaller but more decisive battles of the Yellow Sea and Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War. Jutland was the last major battle fought primarily by battleships in world history, germanys High Seas Fleet intended to lure out, trap, and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, as the German naval force was insufficient to openly engage the entire British fleet. This formed part of a strategy to break the British blockade of Germany. Meanwhile, Great Britains Royal Navy pursued a strategy of engaging and destroying the High Seas Fleet, thereby keeping German naval forces contained and away from Britain and they stationed submarines in advance across the likely routes of the British ships. The German plan had been delayed, causing problems for their submarines. On the afternoon of 31 May, Beatty encountered Hippers battlecruiser force long before the Germans had expected, in a running battle, Hipper successfully drew the British vanguard into the path of the High Seas Fleet. Fourteen British and eleven German ships sank, with loss of life. The British lost more ships and twice as many sailors but succeeded in containing the German fleet, however, the British press criticised the Grand Fleets failure to force a decisive outcome, while Scheers plan of destroying a substantial portion of the British fleet also failed. Finally, the British strategy of denying Germany access to both the United Kingdom and the Atlantic did succeed, which was the British long-term goal, subsequent reviews commissioned by the Royal Navy generated strong disagreement between supporters of Jellicoe and Beatty concerning the two admirals performance in the battle. Debate over their performance and the significance of the battle continues to this day, with 16 dreadnought-type battleships, compared with the Royal Navys 28, the German High Seas Fleet stood little chance of winning a head-to-head clash. The Germans therefore adopted a divide-and-conquer strategy, in January 1916, Admiral von Pohl, commander of the German fleet, fell ill. He was replaced by Scheer, who believed that the fleet had used too defensively, had better ships and men than the British. On 25 April 1916, a decision was made by the German admiralty to halt indiscriminate attacks by submarine on merchant shipping and this followed protests from neutral countries, notably the United States, that their nationals had been the victims of attacks. Instead, he set about deploying the submarine fleet against military vessels and it was hoped that, following a successful German submarine attack, fast British escorts, such as destroyers, would be tied down by anti-submarine operations. If the Germans could catch the British in the expected locations, the hope was that Scheer would thus be able to ambush a section of the British fleet and destroy it. A plan was devised to station submarines offshore from British naval bases, the battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz had been damaged in a previous engagement, but was due to be repaired by mid May, so an operation was scheduled for 17 May 1916. At the start of May, difficulties with condensers were discovered on ships of the battleship squadron
26.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
27.
Grand Fleet
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The Grand Fleet was the main fleet of the British Royal Navy during the First World War. It was formed in August 1914 from the First Fleet and elements of the Second Fleet of the Home Fleets and it was initially commanded by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. He was succeeded by Admiral Sir David Beatty in December 1916, in April 1919 the Grand Fleet was disbanded, with much of its strength forming a new Atlantic Fleet. Not all the Grand Fleet was available to put to sea at any one time, because ships required maintenance and repairs. For a list of the ships that were part of the Grand Fleet at the time of the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, the order of battle of the Grand Fleet at the end of the war appears in Naval order of 24 October 1918. After the United States entered the war, United States Battleship Division Nine was attached to the Grand Fleet as the Sixth Battle Squadron, adding four, British Admirals of the Fleet 1734–1995, A Biographical Dictionary. U. S. Battleship Operations in World War I, the Grand Fleet Royal Navy History
28.
Action of 19 August 1916
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The lesson of Jutland for Germany had been the vital need for reconnaissance, to avoid the unexpected arrival of the British Grand Fleet during a raid. On this occasion four Zeppelins were deployed to scout the North Sea between Scotland and Norway for signs of British ships and four more scouted immediately ahead of German ships, twenty-four German submarines participated off the English coast, in the southern North Sea and off the Dogger Bank. It was decided that the raid should follow the pattern of ones, with the battlecruisers carrying out a dawn artillery bombardment of an English town. Only two battlecruisers were still serviceable after Jutland, Moltke and Von der Tann, so the force was bolstered by three battleships, Bayern, Markgraf and Grosser Kurfürst. The remainder of the High Seas Fleet, comprising 16 dreadnought battleships, was to carry out close support 20 miles behind, the fleet set sail at 9,00 p. m. on 18 August from the Jade river. Information about the raid was obtained by British Intelligence in Room 40 through intercepted and decoded radio messages. In his absence, Admiral Cecil Burney took the fleet to sea on the afternoon of 18 August, vice-Admiral David Beatty left the Firth of Forth with his squadron of six battlecruisers to meet the main fleet in the Long Forties. The Harwich Force of 20 destroyers and 5 light cruisers commanded by Commodore Tyrwhitt was ordered out, the battlecruisers together with the 5th Battle Squadron of five fast battleships were stationed 30 miles ahead of the main fleet to scout for the enemy. m. Jellicoe received information from the Admiralty that one hour earlier the enemy had been 200 miles to his south east, however, the loss of the cruiser caused him to first head north for fear of endangering his other ships. No torpedo tracks or submarines had been seen, so it was whether the cause had been a submarine or entering an unknown minefield. He did not resume a south-easterly course until 9,00 a. m. when William Goodenough, commanding the light cruisers, advised that the cause had been a submarine attack. Further information from the admiralty indicated that the battlecruisers would be within 40 miles of the main German fleet by 2,00 p. m. weather conditions were good, and there was still plenty of time still for a fleet engagement before dark. Unfortunately for the British, the Zeppelin L13 sighted the Harwich force approximately 75 miles east-north-east of Cromer, mistakenly identifying the cruisers as battleships. This was precisely the sort of target Scheer was seeking, so he changed course at 12,15 p. m. also to the south-east and away from the approaching British fleet. No further reports were received from zeppelins about the British fleet, Scheer turned for home at 2,35 p. m. abandoning his potential target. By 4,00 p. m. Jellicoe had been advised that Scheer had abandoned the operation, by 5,45 p. m. the Harwich force had sighted German ships but was too far behind for any prospect of an attack before nightfall so abandoned the chase. The British submarine HMS E23 managed to hit the German battleship SMS Westfalen at 5,05 a. m. on 19 August and this was the last occasion on which the German fleet travelled so far west into the North Sea. Scheer was unimpressed by the efficiency of the Zeppelin reconnaissance, only three Zeppelins had spotted anything and from seven reports four had been wrong
29.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
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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
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Squadron (naval)
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A squadron, or naval squadron, is a significant group of warships which is nonetheless considered too small to be designated a fleet. A squadron is typically a part of a fleet, groups of small warships, or small groups of major warships, might instead be designated flotillas by some navies according to their terminology. Since the size of a naval squadron varies greatly, the associated with command of a squadron also varies greatly. Before 1864 the entire fleet of the Royal Navy was divided into three squadrons, the red, the white, and the blue, each Royal Navy squadron alone was more powerful than most national navies. Today, a squadron might number three to ten vessels, which might be major warships, transport ships, submarines, or small craft in a task force or a fleet. A squadron may be composed of one type of ship of various types tasked with a specific mission such as patrol, blockade. In the United States Navy, the squadron has always been used for formations of destroyers. A large squadron will sometimes be divided into two or more divisions, each of which might be commanded by a subordinate captain, like a fleet, a squadron is usually, but not necessarily, a permanent formation. There are several types of squadron, Independent squadrons, in effect, these are formations that are too small to be called a fleet. Independent squadrons may be assigned to and named after an ocean or sea. In the Age of Sail, fleets were divided into van, centre, a temporary detachment from a fleet would also be called a squadron. U. S. Navy squadron types have included Battleship Squadrons, Cruiser Squadrons, Destroyer Squadrons, Escort Squadrons, Transport Squadrons, in modern navies, squadrons have tended to become administrative units. Most navies began to abandon the squadron as a tactical formation during the Second World War, as warships have grown larger, the term squadron has gradually replaced the term flotilla for formations of destroyers, frigates and submarines in many navies
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Battleline
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In naval warfare, the line of battle is a tactic in which a naval fleet of ships forms a line end to end. Its first use is disputed, variously claimed for dates ranging from 1502 to 1652, therefore, in a given period, the fleet can fire more shots. Another advantage is that a movement of the line in relation to some part of the enemy fleet allows for a systematic concentration of fire on that part. The other fleet can avoid this by maneuvering in a line itself, with a typical for sea battle since 1675. A ship powerful enough to stand in the line of battle came to be called a ship of the line or line of battle ship, the first recorded mention of the use of a line of battle tactic is attested from 1500. The Instructions provided in 1500 by King Manuel I of Portugal to the commander of a fleet dispatched to the Indian Ocean suggests its use predated the written instructions. Portuguese fleets overseas deployed in line ahead, firing one broadside and then putting about in order to return and discharge the other and he recommended the single line ahead as the ideal combat formation. A line-of-battle tactic had been used by the Fourth Portuguese India Armada in the Battle of Calicut, under Vasco da Gama in 1502, near Malabar against a Muslim fleet. Another early, but different form of strategy, was used in 1507 by Afonso de Albuquerque at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. He then proceeded to capture Ormuz, while it is well documented that Maarten Tromp first used it in the Action of 18 September 1639, some have disputed this. One of the first precise written instructions in any language adopting the formation were contained in the English Navys Fighting Instructions, written by Admiral Robert Blake and published in 1653. Individual captains on both sides of the First Anglo-Dutch War appear to have experimented with the technique in 1652, from the mid-16th century the cannon gradually became the most important weapon in naval warfare, replacing boarding actions as the decisive factor in combat. At the same time, the tendency in the design of galleons was for longer ships with lower castles. These newer warships could mount more cannons along the sides of their decks, until the mid-17th century, the tactics of a fleet were often to charge the enemy, firing bow chaser cannon, which did not deploy the broadside to its best effect. These new vessels required new tactics, and since, almost all the artillery is found upon the sides of a ship of war, hence it is the beam that must necessarily and always be turned toward the enemy. On the other hand, it is necessary that the sight of the latter must never be interrupted by a friendly ship, only one formation allows the ships of the same fleet to satisfy fully these conditions. That formation is the line ahead and this line, therefore, is imposed as the only order of battle, and consequently as the basis of all fleet tactics. The line-of-battle tactic favored very large ships that could sail steadily and these officers were better able to manage and communicate between the ships they commanded than the merchant crews that often comprised large parts of a navys force
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Length overall
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Length overall, often abbreviated as is the maximum length of a vessels hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship and it is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and is also used for calculating the cost of a marina berth. LOA is usually measured on the hull alone, for sailing ships, this may exclude the bowsprit and other fittings added to the hull. This is how some racing boats and tall ships use the term LOA, however, other sources may include bowsprits in LOA. Sparred length, Total length including bowsprit, Mooring length and LOA including bowsprit are other expressions that might indicate the length of a sailing ship. Often used to distinguish between the length of a vessel including projections from the length of the hull itself, the Length on Deck or LOD is often reported and this is especially useful for smaller sailing vessels, as their LOA can be significantly different from their LOD. In ISO8666 for small boats, there is a definition of LOH and this may be shorter than a vessels LOA, because it excludes other parts attached to the hull, such as bowsprits. Another measure of length is LWL which is useful in assessing a vessels performance. In some cases LWL can be shorter than LOA. Overall length in cartridges The National Register of Historic Vessels Length between perpendiculars Hayler, William B, keever, John M. American Merchant Seamans Manual. Turpin, Edward A. McEwen, William A
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Beam (nautical)
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The beam of a ship is its width at the widest point as measured at the ships nominal waterline. The beam is a bearing projected at right-angles from the fore and aft line, Beam may also be used to define the maximum width of a ships hull, or maximum width plus superstructure overhangs. Typical length-to-beam ratios for small sailboats are from 2,1 to 5,1, large ships have widely varying beam ratios, some as large as 20,1. Rowing shells designed for racing may have length to beam ratios as high as 30,1. The beam of many vessels can be calculated using the following formula. Some examples, For a standard 27 ft yacht, the root of 27 is 3,3 squared is 9 plus 1 =10. The beam of many 27 ft monohulls is 10 ft, for a Volvo Open 70 yacht,70.5 to the power of 2/3 =17 plus 1 =18. The beam is often around 18 ft, for a 741 ft long ship, the cube root is 9, and 9 squared is 81, plus 1. The beam will usually be around 82 ft, e. g. Seawaymax, as catamarans have more than one hull, there is a different beam calculation for this kind of vessel. BOC stands for Beam On Centerline and this term in typically used in conjunction with LOA. The ratio of LOA/BOC is used to estimate the stability of multihull vessels, the lower the ratio the greater the boats stability. The BOC for vessels is measured as follows, For a catamaran, carlin – similar to a beam, except running in a fore and aft direction. Keever, John M. American Merchant Seamans Manual, turpin, Edward A. McEwen, William A
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Draft (hull)
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Draft determines the minimum depth of water a ship or boat can safely navigate. The draft can also be used to determine the weight of the cargo on board by calculating the displacement of water. A table made by the shows the water displacement for each draft. The density of the water and the content of the bunkers has to be taken into account. The closely related term trim is defined as the difference between the forward and aft drafts, the draft aft is measured in the perpendicular of the stern. The draft forward is measured in the perpendicular of the bow, the scale may use traditional English units or metric units. If the English system is used, the bottom of each marking is the draft in feet, in metric marking schemes, the bottom of each draft mark is the draft in decimeters and each mark is one decimeter high. Larger ships try to maintain a water draft when they are light, in order to make a better sea crossing. In order to achieve this they use sailing ballasts to stabilize the ship, the water draft of a large ship has little direct link with its stability because stability depends solely on the respective positions of the metacenter of the hull and the center of gravity. It is also however, that a light ship has quite high stability which can lead to implying too much rolling of the ship. A fully laden ship can have either a strong or weak stability, the draft of ships can be increased when the ship is in motion in shallow water, a phenomenon known as squat. Draft is a significant factor limiting navigable waterways, especially for large vessels, of course this includes many shallow coastal waters and reefs, but also some major shipping lanes. Panamax class ships—the largest ships able to transit the Panama Canal—do have a limit but are usually limited by beam, or sometimes length overall. However, in the much wider Suez Canal, the factor for Suezmax ships is draft. Some supertankers are able to transit the Suez Canal when unladen or partially laden, canals are not the only draft-limited shipping lanes. A Malaccamax ship has the deepest draft able to transit the very busy, there are only a few ships of this size. A small draft allows pleasure boats to navigate through shallower water and this makes it possible for these boats to access smaller ports, to travel along rivers and even to beach the boat. A large draft ensures a level of stability in strong wind
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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
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Naval rating
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A naval rating is an enlisted member of a countrys navy, subordinate to warrant officers and officers hence not conferred by commission or warrant. Historically the term also applied to ships, denoting their combat strength by the number. It is analogous to the rank as used, for example. However, the rank should not be used in lieu of rate when referring to U. S. naval enlisted personnel. A rating refers to the occupational specialty, combined with their paygrade. Navy personnel in pay grades E-1 to E-3 may not have a rate and are classed into one of five groups. Petty Officers and Chief Petty Officers are sometimes referred to by a combination of rate, for example, a Petty Officer Second Class with the rating of Gunners Mate may be addressed as Gunners Mate Second Class. Similarly, a Chief Petty Officer with the rating of Quartermaster is referred to in formal occasions as Chief Quartermaster, on less formal occasions, however, senior enlisted personnel are referred to simply as Chief, Senior Chief, or Master Chief, as applicable. Rate badges consist of insignia that indicate the rate and rating. Within these a number of further specializations are available such as aviation electrician, royal Navy ratings rank insignia Enlisted rank Military Occupational Specialty Ordinary seaman Able seaman Baker, Ernest A. The New English Dictionary, Odhams Press, London,1932, the Blue Jackets Manual Centennial Edition, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland,2002
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Superfiring
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This configuration meant that both forward or aft turrets could fire at any target within their sector, even when the target was in the same vertical plane as the turrets. The history of surface warships follow generic labels as battleships. The era of technical evolution occurred roughly from 1900 to 1945, part of the technical evolution was driven by the need to compress as much large-gun firepower into the smallest space possible. In early designs, the turrets were all located on the same plane firing to one side or the other. In firing ahead or to the rear, usually only the forward-most or rearmost turret could fire, an early concern was that the pressure and shock from the higher turret would damage the lower one when firing over the top. United States Navy tests using the monitor USS Florida as the testbed, proved that superfiring was safe, the result was the design for the first South Carolina-class battleship. The first ship with superfiring artillery, was the French battleship Henri IV, superfiring was not limited to only two turrets, for example the Atlanta-class of light cruiser, which were developed and built for service in World War II. These ships utilized a triple-overlap system both forward and astern, their armament of dual-mount 5/38 cal dual-purpose main armament having an unobstructed arc of fire
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Superstructure
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A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of structures such as buildings, bridges. The word superstructure is a combination of the Latin prefix, super with the Latin stem word, in order to improve the response during earthquakes of buildings and bridges, the superstructure might be separated from its foundation by various civil engineering mechanisms or machinery. All together, these implement the system of protection called base isolation. As stated above, superstructure consists of the parts of the ship or a boat, including sailboats, fishing boats, passenger ships, and submarines and this does not usually include its masts or any armament turrets. Note that in times, turrets do not always carry naval artillery. The size of a watercrafts superstructure can have implications in the performance of ships and boats, since these structures can alter their structural rigidity, their displacements. These can be detrimental to any vessels performance if they are taken into consideration incorrectly, the height and the weight of superstructure on board a ship or a boat also affects the amount of freeboard that such a vessel requires along its sides, down to her waterline. In broad terms, the more and heavier superstructure that a ship possesses, on a bridge, the portion of the structure that is the span and directly receives the live load is referred to as the superstructure. In contrast, the abutment, piers, and other structures are called the substructure
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Casemate
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A casemate, sometimes erroneously rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. Originally, the referred to a vaulted chamber in a fortress. In armoured fighting vehicles that do not have a turret for the main gun, the word comes from the Italian casamatta, the etymology of which is uncertain. Others think that it comes from the Arabic word kasaba, transliterated to kasbah, menagio speculated that it came from the Greek word for pit, khasma, the plural of which is khasmata. Hensleigh Wedgwood thought that it came from the Spanish casa and matar, others take matto in its archaic Italian meaning of dark, equivalent to the English matt, as in opaque, making a casamatta a dark house. Casematte were also used as prisons, making use of their lack of light to add to the punishment. This explanation seems to be the most agreed upon, a casemate was originally a vaulted chamber usually constructed underneath the rampart. It was intended to be impenetrable and could be used for sheltering troops or stores, with the addition of an embrasure through the scarp face of the rampart, it could be used as a protected gun position. In the early 19th century, French military engineer Baron Haxo designed a free-standing casemate that could be built on the top of the rampart, casemates built in concrete were used in the Second World War to protect coastal artillery from air attack. In warship design the term casemate has been used in a number of ways, the most famous naval battle of the war was the duel at Hampton Roads between the Union turretted ironclad USS Monitor and the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia. Casemate ship was a term for central battery ship or center battery ship. The casemate was a box that extended the full width of the ship protecting many guns. The armoured sides of the box were the sides of hull of the ship, there was an armoured bulkhead at the front and rear of the casemate, and a thick deck protecting the top. The lower edge of the casemate sat on top of ships belt armour, some ships, such as the Alexandra, had a two-storey casemate. A casemate was a room in the side of a warship. A typical casemate held a 6-in gun, and had a 6 front plate, with armour plates on the sides and rear, with a protected top and floor. Casemates were similar in size to turrets, ships carrying them had them in pairs, the first battleships to carry them were the British Royal Sovereign class laid down in 1889. They were adopted as a result of live-firing trials against HMS Resistance in 1888, the use of casemates enabled the 6-in guns to be dispersed, so that a single hit would not knock out all of them
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Broadside
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A broadside is the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their coordinated fire in naval warfare. From the 16th century until the decades of the steamship. Firing all guns on one side of the ship known as a broadside. The cannons of 18th century men of war were accurate only at short range and these wooden ships sailed closer and closer towards each other until cannon fire would be effective. Each tried to be the first to fire a broadside, often giving one party a decisive headstart in the battle when it crippled the other ship. Since ancient times, war at sea had been much like on land, with melee weapons and bows and arrows. Though the introduction of guns was a significant change, it slowly changed the dynamics of ship-to-ship combat. The first guns on ships were small wrought-iron pieces mounted on the decks and in the fighting tops. They were designed to injure, kill or simply stun, shock, as guns were made more durable to withstand stronger gunpowder charges, they increased their potential to inflict critical damage to the vessel rather than just its crew. Since these guns were heavier than the earlier anti-personnel weapons, they had to be placed lower in the ships. In Northern Europe the technique of building ships with clinker planking made it difficult to cut ports in the hull, the solution was the gradual adoption of carvel-built ships that relied on an internal skeleton structure to bear the weight of the ship. The development of propulsion during the 15th century from single-masted, square-rigged cogs to three-masted carracks with a mix of square, gunports cut in the hull of ships had been introduced as early as 1501. Initially, the gunports were used to mount heavy so-called stern chasers pointing aft and this made possible coordinated volleys from all the guns on one side of a ship for the first time in history, at least in theory. Guns in the 16th century were considered to be in fixed positions and were intended to be fired independently rather than in concerted volleys. It was not until the 1590s that the word broadside in English was commonly used to refer to gunfire from the side of a rather than the ships side itself. This is calculated by multiplying the weight of the ships main armament shells times the number of barrels that can be brought to bear. If some turrets are incapable of firing to either side of the vessel, for example, the American Iowa-class battleships carried a main armament of nine 16-inch main guns in turrets which could all be trained to a single broadside. Each 16-inch shell weighed 2,700 pounds, which multiplied by nine equals a total of 24,300 pounds
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Glossary of nautical terms
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This is a partial glossary of nautical terms, some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. See also Wiktionarys nautical terms, Category, Nautical terms, See the Further reading section for additional words and references. A & AS Alterations and additions to the structure, rigging, abaft Toward the stern, relative to some object. Abaft the beam Further aft than the beam, a bearing of greater than 90 degrees from the bow. That would describe an object lying 22.5 degrees toward the rear of the ship, as measured clockwise from a line from the right side, center, of the ship. An imperative to leave the vessel immediately, usually in the face of some imminent overwhelming danger and it is an order issued by the Master or a delegated person in command. Abeam On the beam, a bearing at right angles to the ships keel. A merchant seaman qualified to perform all duties, or a junior rank in some navies. Aboard On or in a vessel, about To go about is to change the course of a ship by tacking. Ready about, or boutship, is the order to prepare for tacking, above board On or above the deck, in plain view, not hiding anything. Pirates would secret their crews below decks, thereby creating the impression that an encounter with another ship was a casual matter of chance. Above-water hull The hull section of a vessel above the waterline, absentee pennant Special pennant flown to indicate absence of commanding officer, admiral, his chief of staff, or officer whose flag is flying. Absolute bearing The bearing of an object in relation to north, either true bearing, using the geographical or true north, or magnetic bearing, using magnetic north. See also bearing and relative bearing, accommodation ladder A portable flight of steps down a ships side. Accommodation ship A ship or hulk used as housing, generally there is a lack of quarters available ashore. An operational ship can be used, but more commonly a hulk modified for accommodation is used, Act of Pardon or Act of Grace A letter from a state or power authorising action by a privateer. Admiral Senior naval officer of Flag rank, in ascending order of seniority, Rear Admiral, Vice Admiral, Admiral and Admiral of the Fleet. A high naval authority in charge of a states Navy or a territorial component
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Forecastle
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Forecastle refers to the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or the forward part of a ship with the sailors living quarters. Related to the meaning is the phrase before the mast which denotes anything related to ordinary sailors. The syncope of the word, focsle or focsle, is common among nautical terms, the positioning of the apostrophes represents silent letters, thus focsle. In medieval shipbuilding, a ship of war was usually equipped with a tall and it served as a platform for archers to shoot down on enemy ships, or as a defensive stronghold if the ship were boarded. A similar but usually much larger structure, called the aftcastle, was at the aft end of the ship, having such tall upper works on the ship was detrimental to sailing performance. Sailors stationed on the forecastle, or forecastle men, were responsible for handling the headsails, in the Royal Navy of the 17th and 18th centuries, these roles were reserved for older seamen who lacked the agility to go aloft or take other more strenuous duties aboard. By the end of the 19th century, raised forecastle had become a feature on warships again, in an attempt to keep forward gun positions from getting unacceptably wet on heavy seas. In addition the forecastle may provide additional crews quarters as in the past, a disadvantage of such a design is the structural weakness at the forecastle break relative to a flush deck structure. Media related to Forecastles at Wikimedia Commons
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Funnel (ship)
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A funnel is the smokestack or chimney on a ship used to expel boiler steam and smoke or engine exhaust. They are also referred to as stacks. In steam ships the funnels also served to help induce a convection draught through the boilers, since the introduction of steam-power to ships in the 19th century, the funnel has been a distinctive feature of the silhouette of a vessel, and used for recognition purposes. The required funnel cross-sectional area is determined by the volume of exhaust gases produced by the propulsion plant, often this area is too great for a single funnel. Early steam vessels needed multiple funnels, but as efficiency increased new machinery needed fewer funnels, merchant shipping companies were quick to recognise the publicity value of distinctive funnels, both in terms of shape, number of funnels, and the colours they were painted. Each company would have their own colours, which were often used in publicity material as well as for recognition. Some companies became so associated with their funnel colours that their nickname became a de facto company name. For example, the line actually registered as Alfred Holt & Company was more widely known as the Blue Funnel Line. The Southampton, Isle of Wight and South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Company has traded under the name Red Funnel for most of its 150+ year history, sometimes the shape of the funnel is used as distinguishing feature rather than just the colour. Cunard fitted ships of its Saxonia class with streamlined round tops to the funnels, there was a trend for designer funnels on liners in the 1960s as fashion and aerodynamic advances combined to offer designers more options that the traditional cylindrical smokestack. In the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century the number of funnels became associated with speed, for this reason a number of the great liners carried additional false funnels that they did not need. In most cases the false funnel was the aftermost of the funnels, for example, the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 was built with very distinctive wind-scoops at the base of her funnel. A mack is a stack and mast, as fitted to some classes of 20th century warships. Although they can reduce top-weight, they have not gained popularity due to the problem of exhaust smoke fouling of electrical aerials
45.
Gun shield
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A gun shield is a flat piece of armor designed to be mounted on a crew-served weapon such as a machine gun or artillery piece, or, more rarely, to be used with an assault rifle. Some mounted machine guns and artillery pieces are equipped with armor plates to protect the gunners from sniper fire. Salvaged metal plates can sometimes service as improvised gun shields, in the Vietnam War crews of armored fighting vehicles, Gun shields fell out of widespread use after the Vietnam war, but they have seen a resurgence in popularity during the 1990s. Israeli military analysts began urging the use of gun shields, pointing to the risk to soldiers exposed to fire from automatic weapons. In particular, it was noted that many casualties were hit in areas not protected by body armor or a helmet, the U. S. began using gun shields during the 2000s-era wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ballistic shield Gun mantlet Hillbilly armor
46.
Quick-firing gun
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A quick-firing gun is an artillery piece, typically a gun or howitzer, which has several characteristics which taken together mean the weapon can fire at a fast rate. Quick-firing was introduced worldwide in the 1880s and early 1890s and had a impact on war both on land and at sea. The Royal Navy advertised for a quick firing gun in 1881 and this rate of fire became increasingly important with the development of the first practical torpedoes and torpedo boats, which posed an extreme threat to the Royal Navys maritime predominance. The first quick-firing light gun was the 1-inch Nordenfelt gun, built in Britain from 1880, the gun fired a solid steel bullet with hardened tip and brass jacket. The gun was used in one, two and four-barrel versions, the ammunition was fed by gravity from a hopper above the breech subdivided into separate columns for each barrel. The gunner loaded and fired the multiple barrels by moving a lever on the side of the gun forward. The French firm Hotchkiss produced the QF3 pounder as a light 47-mm naval gun from 1886, the gun was ideal for defending against small fast vessels such as torpedo boats and was immediately adopted by the RN as the Ordnance QF3 pounder Hotchkiss. It was built under licence by Elswick Ordnance Company, the Royal Navy introduced the QF4. 7-inch in HMS Sharpshooter in 1889, and the QF 6-inch MK1 in HMS Royal Sovereign, launched 1891. Other navies followed suit, the French navy installed quick-firing weapons on its ships completed in 1894-5, quick-firing guns were a key characteristic of the pre-dreadnought battleship, the dominant design of the 1890s. The quick-firing guns, while unable to penetrate armour, were intended to destroy the superstructure of an opposing battleship, start fires. An early quick-firing field gun was created by Vladimir Baranovsky in 1872-5 which was adopted by the Russian military in 1882. On land, quick-firing field guns were first adopted by the French Army, other nations were quick to copy the quick-firing technology. The QF4. 7-inch Gun Mk I–IV was initially manufactured for naval use, British forces in the Second Boer War were initially outgunned by the long range Boer artillery. Scott then improvised a travelling carriage for 4.7 inch guns removed from their usual static coastal or ship mountings to provide the army with a field gun. These improvised carriages lacked recoil buffers and hence in action drag shoes and they were manned by Royal Navy crews and required up to 32 oxen to move. The first war in which quick-firing artillery was widespread was the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, the quick-firing howitzer offered the potential for practical indirect fire. Traditional howitzers had been employed to engage targets outside their line of fire, quick-firing weapons were capable of a heavy indirect bombardment, and this was the main mode of their employment during the 20th century. The characteristics of an artillery piece are, Buffers to limit recoil
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Fire-control system
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A fire-control system is a number of components working together, usually a gun data computer, a director, and radar, which is designed to assist a weapon system in hitting its target. It performs the task as a human gunner firing a weapon. The best known United States device was the Norden bombsight, simple systems, known as lead computing sights also made their appearance inside aircraft late in the war as gyro gunsights. These devices used a gyroscope to measure turn rates, and moved the gunsights aim-point to take this into account, the only manual input to the sight was the target distance, which was typically handled by dialing in the size of the targets wing span at some known range. Small radar units were added in the period to automate even this input. By the start of the Vietnam War, a new computerized bombing predictor, called the Low Altitude Bombing System, the key advantage is that the weapon can be released accurately even when the plane is maneuvering. Most bombsights until this time required that the plane maintain a constant attitude, the LABS system was originally designed to facilitate a tactic called toss bombing, to allow the aircraft to remain out of range of a weapons blast radius. The principle of calculating the point, however, was eventually integrated into the fire control computers of later bombers and strike aircraft, allowing level, dive. In addition, as the control computer became integrated with ordnance systems. By the start of World War II, aircraft altitude performance had increased so much that anti-aircraft guns had similar predictive problems, the main difference between these systems and the ones on ships was size and speed. The USN Mk 37 system made similar assumptions except that it could predict assuming a constant rate of altitude change. The Kerrison Predictor is an example of a system that was built to solve laying in real time, simply by pointing the director at the target and then aiming the gun at a pointer it directed. It was also designed to be small and light, in order to allow it to be easily moved along with the guns it served. The radar-based M-9/SCR-584 Anti-Aircraft System was used to air defense artillery since 1943. In combination with the VT proximity fuze, this system accomplished the feat of shooting down V-1 cruise missiles with less than 100 shells per plane. This system was instrumental in the defense of London and Antwerp against the V-1, although listed in Land based fire control section anti-aircraft fire control systems can also be found on naval and aircraft systems. In the United States, Coast Artillery fire control systems began to be developed at the end of the 19th Century, early systems made use of multiple observation or base end stations to find and track targets attacking American harbors. Fire control in the Coast Artillery became more and more sophisticated in terms of correcting firing data for such factors as weather conditions, provisions were also made for adjusting firing data for the observed fall of shells
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