South Korea
South Korea the Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and lying to the east of the Asian mainland. The name Korea is derived from Goguryeo, one of the great powers in East Asia during its time, ruling most of the Korean Peninsula, parts of the Russian Far East and Inner Mongolia, under Gwanggaeto the Great. South Korea has a predominantly mountainous terrain, it comprises an estimated 51.4 million residents distributed over 100,363 km2. Its capital and largest city is Seoul, with a population of around 10 million. Archaeology indicates that the Korean Peninsula was inhabited by early humans starting from the Lower Paleolithic period; the history of Korea begins with the foundation of Gojoseon in 2333 BCE by the mythic king Dangun, but no archaeological evidence and writing was found from this period. The Gija Joseon was purportedly founded in 11th century BCE, its existence and role has been controversial in the modern era; the written historical record on Gojoseon was first mentioned in Chinese records in the early 7th century BCE.
Following the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea under Unified Silla in CE 668, Korea was subsequently ruled by the Goryeo dynasty and the Joseon dynasty. It was annexed by the Empire of Japan in 1910. At the end of World War II, Korea was divided into Soviet and U. S. zones of occupations. A separate election was held in the U. S. zone in 1948 which led to the creation of the Republic of Korea, while the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the Soviet zone. The United Nations at the time passed a resolution declaring the ROK to be the only lawful government in Korea; the Korean War began in June 1950. The war lasted three years and involved the U. S. China, the Soviet Union and several other nations; the border between the two nations remains the most fortified in the world. Under long-time military leader Park Chung-hee, the South Korean economy grew and the country was transformed into a G-20 major economy. Military rule ended in 1987, the country is now a presidential republic consisting of 17 administrative divisions.
South Korea is a developed country and a high-income economy, with a "very high" Human Development Index, ranking 22nd in the world. The country is considered a regional power and is the world's 11th largest economy by nominal GDP and the 12th largest by PPP as of 2010. South Korea is a global leader in the industrial and technological sectors, being the world's 5th largest exporter and 8th largest importer, its export-driven economy focuses production on electronics, ships, machinery and robotics. South Korea is a member of the ASEAN Plus mechanism, the United Nations, Uniting for Consensus, G20, the WTO and OECD and is a founding member of APEC and the East Asia Summit; the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a shortened form of its name; the 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, thus inherited its name, pronounced by the visiting Persian merchants as "Korea". The modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Company's Hendrick Hamel.
Despite the coexistence of the spellings Corea and Korea in 19th century publications, some Koreans believe that Imperial Japan, around the time of the Japanese occupation, intentionally standardised the spelling on Korea, making Japan appear first alphabetically. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the official name for the entire territory, though it was not universally accepted; the new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon. In 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk; the name Daehan, which means "Great Han" derives from Samhan, referring to the Three Kingdoms of Korea, not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula. However, the name Joseon was still used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted. There were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.
Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the legal English name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, the informal term South Korea was coined, becoming common in the Western world. While South Koreans use Han to refer to the entire country, North Koreans and ethnic Koreans living in China and Japan use the term Joseon as the name of the country; the Korean name "Daehan Minguk" is sometimes used by South Koreans as a metonym to refer to the Korean ethnicity as a whole, rather than just the South Korean state. The history of Korea begins with the founding of Joseon in 2333 BCE by Dangun, according to Korea's foundation mythology. Gojoseon expanded until it controlled parts of Manchuria. Gija Joseon was purportedly founded in the 12th century BC, but its existence and role have been controversial in the modern era. In 108 BCE, the Han dynasty defeated Wiman Joseon and installed four commanderies in the n
M61 Vulcan
The M61 Vulcan is a hydraulically, electrically or pneumatically driven, six-barrel, air-cooled, electrically fired Gatling-style rotary cannon which fires 20 mm rounds at an high rate. The M61 and its derivatives have been the principal cannon armament of United States military fixed-wing aircraft for fifty years; the M61 was produced by General Electric. After several mergers and acquisitions, it is produced by General Dynamics. At the end of World War II, the United States Army Air Forces began to consider new directions for future military aircraft guns; the higher speeds of jet-powered fighter aircraft meant that achieving an effective number of hits would be difficult without a much higher volume of fire. While captured German designs showed the potential of the single-barrel revolver cannon, the practical rate of fire of such a design was still limited by ammunition feed and barrel wear concerns; the Army wanted something better, combining high rate of fire with exceptional reliability.
In 1947, the Air Force became a separate branch of the military. The new Air Force made a request for a new aircraft gun. A lesson of World War II air combat was that German and Japanese fighters could attack American aircraft from long range with their cannon main armament. American fighters with.50 cal main armament, such as the P-51 and P-47, had to be close to the enemy in order to hit and damage enemy aircraft. The 20mm Hispano cannon carried by the P-38 and P-61, while formidable against propeller-driven planes, had a low rate of fire in the age of jets, while other cannons were notoriously unreliable. In response to this requirement, the Armament Division of General Electric resurrected an old idea: the multi-barrel Gatling gun; the original Gatling gun had fallen out of favor because of the need for an external power source to rotate the barrel assembly, but the new generation of turbojet-powered fighters offered sufficient electric power to operate the gun, electric operation was more reliable than gas-operated reloading.
With multiple barrels, the rate of fire per barrel could be lower than a single-barrel revolver cannon while providing a greater overall rate of fire. The idea of powering a Gatling gun from an external electric power source was not a novel idea at the end of World War II, as Richard Jordan Gatling himself had done just that with a patent he filed in 1893, with the similar, but powered either by the aircraft engine or an electric motor, 12-barreled Fokker-Leimberger aircraft rotary machine gun under development during World War I by the German Empire. In 1946, the Army issued General Electric a contract for "Project Vulcan", a six-barrel weapon capable of firing 7,200 rounds per minute. Although European designers were moving towards heavier 30 mm weapons for better hitting power, the U. S. concentrated on a powerful 0.60-inch cartridge designed for a pre-war anti-tank rifle, expecting that the cartridge's high muzzle velocity would be beneficial for improving hit ratios on high speed targets.
The first GE prototypes of the 0.60-inch caliber T45 were ground-fired in 1949. By the early 1950s, the USAF decided that high velocity alone might not be sufficient to ensure target destruction and tested 20 mm and 27 mm alternatives based on the 0.60-inch caliber cartridge. These variants of the T45 were known as the T171 and T150 and were first tested in 1952; the standard 20×102 mm cartridge was determined to have the desired balance of projectile/explosive mass and muzzle velocity, resulting in an optimum balance of range and kinetic energy on target. The development of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter revealed that the T171 Vulcan suffered problems with its linked ammunition, being prone to misfeed and presenting a foreign object damage hazard with discarded links. A linkless ammunition feed system was developed for the upgraded M61A1, which subsequently became the standard cannon armament of U. S. fighters. In 1993, General Electric sold its aerospace division, including GE Armament Systems along with the design and production tooling for the M61 and GE's other rotary cannon, to Martin Marietta.
After Martin's merger with Lockheed, the rotary cannon became the responsibility of Lockheed Martin Armament Systems. Lockheed Martin Armament Systems was acquired by General Dynamics, who produce the M61 and its variants; each of the cannon's six barrels fires once in turn during each revolution of the barrel cluster. The multiple barrels provide both a high rate of fire—around 100 rounds per second—and contribute to prolonged weapon life by minimizing barrel erosion and heat generation. Mean time between jams or failures is in excess of 10,000 rounds, making it an reliable weapon; the success of the Vulcan Project and its subsequent progeny, the very-high-speed Gatling gun, has led to guns of the same configuration being referred to as "Vulcan cannon", which can sometimes confuse nomenclature on the subject. Most aircraft versions of the M61 are electrically primed; the gun rotor, barrel assembly and ammunition feed system are rotated by a hydraulic drive motor through a system of flexible drive shafts.
The round is fired by an electric priming system where an electric current from a firing lead passes through the firing pin to the primer as each round is rotated into the firing position. The self-powered version, the GAU-4, is gas-operated, tapping gun gas from three of the six barrels to operate the gun gas driven mechanism; the self-powered Vulcan weighs about 10 pounds more than its
Hydraulic machinery
Hydraulic machines are machinery and tools that use liquid fluid power to do simple work, operated by the use of hydraulics, where a liquid is the powering medium. In heavy equipment and other types of machine, hydraulic fluid is transmitted throughout the machine to various hydraulic motors and hydraulic cylinders and becomes pressurised according to the resistance present; the fluid is controlled directly or automatically by control valves and distributed through hoses and tubes. The popularity of hydraulic machinery is due to the large amount of power that can be transferred through small tubes and flexible hoses, the high power density and wide array of actuators that can make use of this power. Hydraulic systems use liquid fluid power to do simple work, operated by the use of hydraulics, where a liquid is the powering medium. Heavy equipment is a common example. In this type of machine, hydraulic fluid is transmitted throughout the machine to various hydraulic motors and hydraulic cylinders and becomes pressurized according to the resistance present.
The fluid is controlled directly or automatically by control valves and distributed through hoses and tubes. Hydraulic systems, like pneumatic systems, are based on Pascal’s law which states that any pressure applied to a fluid inside a closed system will transmit that pressure everywhere and in all directions. A hydraulic system uses an incompressible liquid as its fluid, rather than a compressible gas. Joseph Bramah patented the hydraulic press in 1795. While working at Bramah's shop, Henry Maudslay suggested a cup leather packing; because it produced superior results, the hydraulic press displaced the steam hammer from metal forging. To supply small scale power, impractical for individual steam engines, central station hydraulic systems were developed. Hydraulic power was used to operate cranes and other machinery in British ports and elsewhere in Europe; the largest hydraulic system was in London. Hydraulic power was used extensively in Bessemer steel production. Hydraulic power was used for elevators, to operate canal locks and rotating sections of bridges.
Some of these systems remained in use well into the twentieth century. Harry Franklin Vickers was called the "Father of Industrial Hydraulics" by ASME; the popularity of hydraulic machinery is due to the large amount of power that can be transferred through small tubes and flexible hoses, the high power density and wide array of actuators that can make use of this power. A fundamental feature of hydraulic systems is the ability to apply force or torque multiplication in an easy way, independent of the distance between the input and output, without the need for mechanical gears or levers, either by altering the effective areas in two connected cylinders or the effective displacement between a pump and motor. In normal cases, hydraulic ratios are combined with a mechanical force or torque ratio for optimum machine designs such as boom movements and trackdrives for an excavator. ExamplesTwo hydraulic cylinders interconnected Cylinder C1 is one inch in radius, cylinder C2 is ten inches in radius.
If the force exerted on C1 is 10 lbf, the force exerted by C2 is 1000 lbf because C2 is a hundred times larger in area as C1. The downside to this is; the most common use for this is the classical hydraulic jack where a pumping cylinder with a small diameter is connected to the lifting cylinder with a large diameter. Pump and motor If a hydraulic rotary pump with the displacement 10 cc/rev is connected to a hydraulic rotary motor with 100 cc/rev, the shaft torque required to drive the pump is one tenth of the torque available at the motor shaft, but the shaft speed for the motor is only one tenth of the pump shaft speed; this combination is the same type of force multiplication as the cylinder example, just that the linear force in this case is a rotary force, defined as torque. Both these examples are referred to as a hydraulic transmission or hydrostatic transmission involving a certain hydraulic "gear ratio". For the hydraulic fluid to do work, it must flow to the actuator and/or motors return to a reservoir.
The fluid is filtered and re-pumped. The path taken by hydraulic fluid is called a hydraulic circuit. Open center circuits use pumps; the flow is returned to tank through the control valve's open center. Otherwise, if the control valve is actuated it routes fluid to and from an tank; the fluid's pressure will rise to meet any resistance. If the pressure rises too high, fluid returns to tank through a pressure relief valve. Multiple control valves may be stacked in series; this type of circuit can use constant displacement pumps. Closed center circuits supply full pressure to the control valves, whether any valves are actuated or not; the pumps vary their flow rate, pumping little hydraulic fluid until the operator actuates a valve. The valve's spool therefore doesn't need an open center return path to tank. Multiple valves can be connected in a parallel arrangement and system pressure is equal for all valves. Open-loop: Pump-inlet and motor-return are connected to the hydraulic tank; the term loop applies to feedback.
Open center circuits use pumps. The flow is returned to the tank through the control valve's open center.
Cartridge (firearms)
A cartridge is a type of pre-assembled firearm ammunition packaging a projectile, a propellant substance and an ignition device within a metallic, paper or plastic case, made to fit within the barrel chamber of a breechloading gun, for the practical purpose of convenient transportation and handling during shooting. Although in popular usage the term "bullet" is used to refer to a complete cartridge, it is used only to refer to the projectile. Cartridges can be categorized by the type of their primers — a small charge of an impact- or electric-sensitive chemical mixture, located at the center of the case head, inside the rim of the case base, in a sideway projection, shaped like a pin or a lip, or in a small nipple-like bulge at the case base. Military and commercial producers continue to pursue the goal of caseless ammunition; some artillery ammunition uses the same cartridge concept. In other cases, the artillery shell is separate from the propellant charge. A cartridge without a projectile is called a blank.
One, inert is called a dummy. One that failed to ignite and shoot off the projectile is called a dud, one that ignited but failed to sufficiently push the projectile out of the barrel is called a squib; the primary purpose is to be a handy all-in-one for a shot. In modern, automatic weapons, it provides the energy to move the parts of the gun which make it fire repeatedly. Many weapons were designed to make use of a available cartridge, or a new one with new qualities; the cartridge case seals a firing chamber in all directions excepting the bore. A firing pin ignites it; the primer compound deflagrates, it does not detonate. A jet of burning gas from the primer ignites the propellant. Gases from the burning powder expand the case to seal it against the chamber wall; these propellant gases push on the bullet base. In response to this pressure, the bullet will move in the path of least resistance, down the bore of the barrel. After the bullet leaves the barrel, the chamber pressure drops to atmospheric pressure.
The case, elastically expanded by chamber pressure, contracts slightly. This eases removal of the case from the chamber. To manufacture brass for cartidges, a sheet of brass is punched into disks; these disks go through a series of punches and dies and are annealed and washed before moving to the next series of dies. Making bullets involves simular type of maching as for making brass cases; the projectile can be made of anything. Lead is a material of choice because of high density, ductility; the propellant was long gunpowder, still in use, but superseded by better compositions, generically called Smokeless powder. Early primer was fine gunpowder poured into a pan or tube where it could be ignited by some external source of ignition such as a fuse or a spark. Modern primers are shock sensitive chemicals enclosed in a small capsule, ignited by percussion. In some instance ignition is electricity-primed, there may be no primer at all in such design; the case is made of brass because it is resistant to corrosion.
A brass case head can be work-hardened to withstand the high pressures of cartridges, allow for manipulation via extraction and ejection without tearing the metal. The neck and body portion of a brass case is annealed to make the case ductile enough to allow reforming so that it can be reloaded many times. Steel is used in some plinking ammunition, as well as in some military ammunition. Steel is less expensive than brass. Military forces consider small arms cartridge cases to be disposable, one-time-use devices. However, case weight affects how much ammunition a soldier can carry, so the lighter steel cases do have a military advantage. Conversely, steel is more susceptible to contamination and damage so all such cases are varnished or otherwise sealed against the elements. One downside caused by the increased strength of steel in the neck of these cases is that propellant gas can blow back past the neck and into the chamber. Constituents of these gases condense on the chamber wall; this solid propellant residue can make extraction of fired cases difficult.
This is less of a problem for small arms of the former Warsaw Pact nations, which were designed with much larger chamber tolerances than NATO weapons. Aluminum cased; these are not reloaded as aluminum fatigues during firing and resizing. Some calibers have non-standard primer sizes to discourage reloaders from attempting to reuse these cases. Plastic cases are used in shotgun shells and some manufacturers offer polymer centerfire cartridges. Paper had been used in the earliest cartridges. Critical cartridge specifications include neck size, bullet weight and caliber, maximum pressure, overall length, case body diameter and taper, shoulder design, rim type, etc. Ever
Armoured warfare
Armoured warfare, mechanised warfare or tank warfare is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a major component of modern methods of war; the premise of armoured warfare rests on the ability of troops to penetrate conventional defensive lines through use of manoeuvre by armoured units. Much of the application of armoured warfare depends on the use of tanks and related vehicles used by other supporting arms such as infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery, other combat vehicles, as well as mounted combat engineers and other support units; the doctrine of armoured warfare was developed to break the static nature of World War I trench warfare on the Western Front, return to the 19th century school of thought that advocated manoeuvre and "decisive battle" outcomes in military strategy. Modern armoured warfare began during the First World War with the need to break the tactical and strategic stalemates forced on commanders on the Western Front by the effectiveness of entrenched defensive infantry armed with machine guns—known as trench warfare.
Under these conditions, any sort of advance was very slow and caused massive casualties. The development of the tank was motivated by the need to return manoeuvre to warfare, the only practical way to do so was to provide caterpillar traction to guns allowing them to overcome trenches while at the same time offering them armour protection against small arms fire as they were moving. Tanks were first developed in Britain and France in 1915, as a way of navigating the barbed wire and other obstacles of no-man's land while remaining protected from machine-gun fire. British Mark I tanks first went to action at the Somme, on 15 September 1916, but did not manage to break the deadlock of trench warfare; the first French employment of tanks, on 16 April 1917, using the Schneider CA, was a failure. In the Battle of Cambrai British tanks were more successful, broke a German trenchline system, the Hindenburg Line. Despite the unpromising beginnings, the military and political leadership in both Britain and France during 1917 backed large investments into armoured vehicle production.
This led to a sharp increase in the number of available tanks for 1918. The German Empire to the contrary, produced only a few tanks, late in the war. Twenty German A7V tanks were produced during the entire conflict, compared to over 4,400 French and over 2,500 British tanks of various kinds. Nonetheless, World War I saw the first tank-versus-tank battle, during the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux in April 1918, when a group of three German A7V tanks engaged a group of three British Mark IV tanks they accidentally met. After the final German Spring Offensives of 1918, Entente tanks were used in mass at the Battle of Soissons and Battle of Amiens, which ended the stalemate imposed by trench warfare on the Western Front, thus ended the war. Tactically, the deployment of armour during the war was typified by a strong emphasis on direct infantry support; the tank's main tasks were seen as crushing barbed wire and destroying machine-gun nests, facilitating the advance of foot soldiers. Theoretical debate focused on the question whether a "swarm" of light tanks should be used for this or a limited number of potent heavy vehicles.
Though in the Battle of Cambrai a large concentration of British heavy tanks effected a breakthrough, it was not exploited by armour. The manoeuvrability of the tank should at least in theory regain armies the ability to flank enemy lines. In practice, tank warfare during most of World War I was hampered by the technical immaturity of the new weapon system causing mechanical failure, limited numbers, general underutilisation, a low speed and a short range. Strategic use of tanks was slow to develop during and after World War I due to these technical limitations but due to the prestige role traditionally accorded to horse-mounted cavalry. An exception, on paper, was the Plan 1919 of Colonel John Fuller, who envisaged using the expected vast increase in armour production during 1919 to execute deep strategic penetrations by mechanised forces consisting of tanks and infantry carried by lorries, supported by aeroplanes, to paralyse the enemy command structure. Following the First World War, the technical and doctrinal aspects of armoured warfare became more sophisticated and diverged into multiple schools of doctrinal thought.
During the 1920s, only few tanks were produced. There were however, important technical developments. Various British and French commanders who had contributed to the origin of the tank, such as Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne, B. H. Liddell Hart and J. F. C. Fuller, theorised about a possible future use of independent armoured forces, containing a large concentration of tanks, to execute deep strategic penetrations. Liddell Hart wrote many books about the subject propagating Fuller's theories; such doctrines were faced with the reality that during the 1920s the armoured vehicles, as early road transport in general, were unreliable, could not be used in sustained operations. Mainstream thought on the subject was more conservative and tried to integrate armoured vehicles into the existing infantry and cavalry organisation and tactics. Technical development focussed on the improvement of the suspension system and engine, to create vehicles that were faster, more reliable and had a better range than their WW I predecessors.
To save weight, such designs had thin armour plating and this inspired fitting small-calibre high-velocity guns in turrets, giving tanks a good antitank capacity. Both France and Britain built specialised infantry tanks, more armoured to provide infantry
Belgium
Belgium the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, the North Sea to the northwest, it has a population of more than 11.4 million. The capital and largest city is Brussels; the sovereign state is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organisation is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds, it is divided into three autonomous regions: Flanders in the north, Wallonia in the south, the Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels is the smallest and most densely populated region, as well as the richest region in terms of GDP per capita. Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups or Communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 59 percent of the population, the French-speaking Community, which comprises about 40 percent of all Belgians. A small German-speaking Community, numbering around one percent, exists in the East Cantons.
The Brussels-Capital Region is bilingual, although French is the dominant language. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Belgium was part of an area known as the Low Countries, a somewhat larger region than the current Benelux group of states that included parts of northern France and western Germany, its name is derived after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, the area of Belgium was a prosperous and cosmopolitan centre of commerce and culture. Between the 16th and early 19th centuries, Belgium served as the battleground between many European powers, earning the moniker the "Battlefield of Europe", a reputation strengthened by both world wars; the country emerged in 1830 following the Belgian Revolution. Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa.
The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fueled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups have remained, if not increased. Unemployment in Wallonia is more than double that of Flanders. Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union and hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, as well as a seat of the European Parliament in the country's capital, Brussels. Belgium is a founding member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD, WTO, a part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area. Brussels hosts several of the EU's official seats as well as the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO.
Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy. It has high standards of living, quality of life, education, is categorized as "very high" in the Human Development Index, it ranks as one of the safest or most peaceful countries in the world. The name "Belgium" is derived from Gallia Belgica, a Roman province in the northernmost part of Gaul that before Roman invasion in 100 BC, was inhabited by the Belgae, a mix of Celtic and Germanic peoples. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings. A gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire; the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the region into Middle and West Francia and therefore into a set of more or less independent fiefdoms which, during the Middle Ages, were vassals either of the King of France or of the Holy Roman Emperor. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 15th centuries.
Emperor Charles V extended the personal union of the Seventeen Provinces in the 1540s, making it far more than a personal union by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 and increased his influence over the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. The Eighty Years' War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands; the latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and comprised most of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. Following the campaigns of 1794 in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Low Countries—including territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liège—were annexed by the French First Republic, ending Austrian rule in the region; the reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, after the defeat of Napo
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U. S. allies or partner nations. With the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches, it has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force. The U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, established during the American Revolutionary War and was disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter.
The U. S. Navy played a major role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy and seizing control of its rivers, it played the central role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The US Navy emerged from World War II as the most powerful navy in the world; the 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a sizable global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, it is a blue-water navy with the ability to project force onto the littoral regions of the world, engage in forward deployments during peacetime and respond to regional crises, making it a frequent actor in U. S. foreign and military policy. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, headed by the civilian Secretary of the Navy; the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is the most senior naval officer serving in the Department of the Navy.
The mission of the Navy is to maintain and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas. The U. S. Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States; the Navy's three primary areas of responsibility: The preparation of naval forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war. The maintenance of naval aviation, including land-based naval aviation, air transport essential for naval operations, all air weapons and air techniques involved in the operations and activities of the Navy; the development of aircraft, tactics, technique and equipment of naval combat and service elements. U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is "to be prepared to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest." As part of that establishment, the U. S. Navy's functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to "sealift" duties, it follows as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, with it, everything honorable and glorious.
Naval power... is the natural defense of the United States The Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia; the rationale for establishing a national navy was debated in the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, make it easier to seek out support from foreign countries. Detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy the world's preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships and reported the captures to the Congress. On 13 October 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the purchase of two vessels to be armed for a cruise against British merchant ships. S. Navy; the Continental Navy achieved mixed results.
In August 1785, after the Revolutionary War had drawn to a close, Congress had sold Alliance, the last ship remaining in the Continental Navy due to a lack of funds to maintain the ship or support a navy. In 1972, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, authorized the Navy to celebrate its birthday on 13 October to honor the establishment of the Continental Navy in 1775; the United States was without a navy for nearly a decade, a state of affairs that exposed U. S. maritime merchant ships to a series of attacks by the Barbary pirates. The sole armed maritime presence between 1790 and the launching of the U. S. Navy's first warships in 1797 was the U. S. Revenue-Marine, the primary predecessor of the U. S. Coast Guard. Although the USRCS conducted operations against the pirates, their depredations far outstripped its abilities and Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 that established a permanent standing navy on 27 March 1794; the Naval Act ordered the construction and manning of six frigates and, by October 1797, the first three were brought into service: USS United States, USS Constellation, USS Constitution.
Due to his strong posture on having a strong standing Navy during this period, John Adams is "often called the father of the American Navy". In 1798–99 the Navy was involved in an undeclared Quasi-War with France. From 18
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