1.
Independence-class aircraft carrier
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The Independence-class aircraft carriers were a class of light carriers built for the United States Navy that served during World War II. Adapted from the design for Cleveland-class light cruisers, this class of ship resulted from the interest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in naval air power. With war looming, the former Assistant Secretary of the Navy noted no new aircraft carriers were expected to be completed before 1944. He proposed to some of the many cruisers then under construction to carriers. Undeterred, President Roosevelt ordered another study, on 25 October 1941, the Navys Bureau of Ships reported that aircraft carriers converted from cruiser hulls would be of lesser capability, but available much sooner. After the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the need for more carriers became urgent, the Navy accelerated construction of the 34,000 ton Essex-class aircraft carriers, but these large ships could not be finished quickly. So in January 1942, the Navy also ordered that a Cleveland-class light cruiser then under construction be completed instead as an aircraft carrier. It became the USS Belleau Wood, the first ship of the Independence-class, plans developed for this conversion showed much more promise than expected. Two more light cruisers were reordered as carriers in February, three more in March, and a three in June 1942. The Independence-class design had a short and narrow flight deck and hangar. The hangar, flight deck, and island represented a significant increase in the topside weight. To compensate for this, blisters were added to the original cruiser hull, Ships of this class carried a small air group - only about 30 aircraft. This was originally set to consist of nine fighters, nine bombers, and nine torpedo bombers. These were limited-capability ships, whose principal virtue was near-term availability and their limited size made for seakeeping difficulties in the many typhoons of the Pacific, and their small flight decks led to a relatively high aircraft accident rate. However, being based on a cruiser, they were fast ships. The cruiser hull and engineering allowed them the necessary to operate with the main fleet carrier task groups. Their names followed the US Navys policy of naming aircraft carriers after historic navy ships or historic battles, eight of these carriers participated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, which effectively ended Japans carrier air power. The light carriers provided 40 percent of the Fast Carrier Task Forces fighters and 36 percent of the torpedo bombers
2.
Bofors 40 mm gun
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The Bofors 40 mm gun, often referred to simply as the Bofors gun, is an anti-aircraft/multi-purpose autocannon designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. It was one of the most popular medium-weight anti-aircraft systems during World War II, a small number of these weapons remain in service to this day, and saw action as late as the Gulf War. In the post-war era the original design was not suitable for action against jet powered aircraft, so Bofors introduced a new model of more power. In spite of sharing almost nothing with the design other than the calibre and the distinctive conical flash hider. Although not as popular as the original L/60 model, the L/70 remains in service to this day, especially as a weapon for light armored vehicles. Bofors itself has been part of BAE Systems AB since March 2005, the Swedish Navy purchased a number of 2 pounder Pom-Poms from Vickers as anti-aircraft guns in 1922. The Navy approached Bofors about the development of a capable replacement. Bofors signed a contract in late 1928, Bofors produced a gun that was a smaller version of a 57 mm semi-automatic gun developed as an anti-torpedo boat weapon in the late 19th century by Finspong. Their first test gun was a re-barreled Nordenfelt version of the Finspong gun, testing of this gun in 1929 demonstrated that a problem existed feeding the weapon in order to maintain a reasonable rate of fire. A mechanism that was enough to handle the stresses of moving the large round was too heavy to move quickly enough to fire rapidly. One attempt to solve this problem used zinc shell cases that burned up when fired and this proved to leave heavy zinc deposits in the barrel, and had to be abandoned. This seemed to be the solution they needed, improving firing rates to a level. During this period Krupp purchased a share of Bofors. Krupp engineers started the process of updating the Bofors factories to use equipment and metallurgy. The prototype was completed and fired in November 1931, and by the middle of the month it was firing strings of two and three rounds. Changes to the mechanism were all that remained, and by the end of the year it was operating at 130 rounds per minute. Continued development was needed to turn it into a suitable for production. Since acceptance trials had been passed the year before, this known as the 40 mm akan M/32
3.
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
4.
Grumman F6F Hellcat
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The Grumman F6F Hellcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft of World War II. Designed to replace the earlier F4F Wildcat and to counter the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the Hellcat competed with the faster Vought F4U Corsair for that role and prevailed, as the Corsair had significant issues with carrier landings. The Corsair instead was primarily deployed to great effect in land-based use by the U. S. Marine Corps, some military observers tagged the Hellcat as the Wildcats big brother. 12,275 were built in just over two years, Hellcats were credited with destroying a total of 5,223 enemy aircraft while in service with the U. S. Navy, U. S. Marine Corps and the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. This was more than any other Allied naval aircraft, postwar, the Hellcat was phased out of front line service but remained in service as late as 1954 as a night fighter. Grumman had been working on a successor to the F4F Wildcat since 1938, the aircraft was originally designed to use the Wright R-2600 Twin Cyclone two-row, 14-cylinder radial engine of 1,700 hp driving a three-bladed Curtiss Electric propeller. In addition, the forward fuselage sloped down slightly to the cowling, affording the Hellcats pilot good visibility. Grumman complied by redesigning and strengthening the F6F airframe to incorporate the 2,000 hp R-2800-10, with this combination Grumman estimated the XF6F-3s performance would increase by 25% over that of the XF6F-1. The Cyclone-powered XF6F-1 first flew on 26 June 1942, followed by the first Double Wasp-equipped aircraft, the XF6F-3, the first production F6F-3, powered by an R-2800-10, flew on 3 October 1942, with the type reaching operational readiness with VF-9 on USS Essex in February 1943. The F6F series were designed to damage and get the pilot safely back to base. A bullet-resistant windshield and a total of 212 lb of armor was fitted, along with armor around the oil tank. A250 gal self-sealing fuel tank was fitted in the fuselage, Standard armament on the F6F-3 consisted of six.50 in M2/AN Browning air-cooled machine guns with 400 rounds per gun. Six 5 in HVARs could be carried, three under each wing on zero-length launchers, Hellcat night fighters claimed their first victories in November 1943. A total of 4,402 F6F-3s were built through until April 1944, in addition, the rear fuselage and tail units were strengthened, and, apart from some early production aircraft, the majority of the F6F-5s built were painted in an overall gloss sea blue finish. After the first few F6F-5s were built, the windows behind the main canopy were deleted. The F6F-5N night fighter variant was fitted with an AN/APS-6 radar in a fairing on the outer-starboard wing, a small number of standard F6F-5s were also fitted with camera equipment for reconnaissance duties as the F6F-5P. The F6F-5 was the most common F6F variant, with 7,870 being built, other prototypes in the F6F series included the XF6F-4 which first flew on 3 October 1942 as the prototype for the projected F6F-4. This version never entered production and 02981 was converted to an F6F-3 production aircraft, the turbochargers proved to be unreliable on both engines, while performance improvements were marginal
5.
Fighter aircraft
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A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat against other aircraft, as opposed to bombers and attack aircraft, whose main mission is to attack ground targets. The hallmarks of a fighter are its speed, maneuverability, many fighters have secondary ground-attack capabilities, and some are designed as dual-purpose fighter-bombers, often aircraft that do not fulfill the standard definition are called fighters. This may be for political or national security reasons, for advertising purposes, a fighters main purpose is to establish air superiority over a battlefield. Since World War I, achieving and maintaining air superiority has been considered essential for victory in conventional warfare, the word fighter did not become the official English-language term for such aircraft until after World War I. In the British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force these aircraft were referred to as scouts into the early 1920s, the U. S. Army called their fighters pursuit aircraft from 1916 until the late 1940s. In most languages a fighter aircraft is known as a hunter, exceptions include Russian, where a fighter is an истребитель, meaning exterminator, and Hebrew where it is matose krav. As a part of nomenclature, a letter is often assigned to various types of aircraft to indicate their use. In Russia I was used, while the French continue to use C and this has always been the case, for instance the Sopwith Camel and other fighting scouts of World War I performed a great deal of ground-attack work. Several aircraft, such as the F-111 and F-117, have received fighter designations but had no fighter capability due to political or other reasons, the F-111B variant was originally intended for a fighter role with the U. S. Navy, but it was cancelled. This blurring follows the use of fighters from their earliest days for attack or strike operations against ground targets by means of strafing or dropping small bombs, versatile multirole fighter-bombers such as the F/A-18 Hornet are a less expensive option than having a range of specialized aircraft types. An interceptor is generally an aircraft intended to target bombers and so often trades maneuverability for climb rate, fighters were developed in World War I to deny enemy aircraft and dirigibles the ability to gather information by reconnaissance. Early fighters were very small and lightly armed by later standards, and most were built with a wooden frame, covered with fabric. As control of the airspace over armies became increasingly important all of the major powers developed fighters to support their military operations, between the wars, wood was largely replaced by steel tubing, then aluminium tubing, and finally aluminium stressed skin structures began to predominate. By World War II, most fighters were all-metal monoplanes armed with batteries of guns or cannons. By the end of the war, turbojet engines were replacing piston engines as the means of propulsion, further increasing aircraft speed. Since the weight of the engine was so less than on piston engined fighters. This in turn required the development of ejection seats so the pilot could escape, in the 1950s, radar was fitted to day fighters, since pilots could no longer see far enough ahead to prepare for any opposition. Since then, radar capabilities have grown enormously and are now the method of target acquisition
6.
Curtiss SB2C Helldiver
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The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was a carrier-based dive bomber aircraft produced for the United States Navy during World War II. It replaced the Douglas SBD Dauntless in US Navy service, the SB2C was much faster than the SBD it replaced. Crew nicknames for the aircraft included the Big-Tailed Beast, Two-Cee, neither pilots nor aircraft carrier captains seemed to like it. Delays marred its production—by the time the A-25 Shrike variant for the USAAF was deployed in late 1943, poor handling of the aircraft was another factor that hampered its service introductions, both the British Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force cancelled substantial orders. The Truman Committee investigated Helldiver production and turned in a scathing report, problems with the Helldiver were eventually ironed out, and in spite of its early problems, the aircraft was flown through the last two years of the Pacific War with a fine combat record. The Helldiver was developed to replace the Douglas SBD Dauntless and it was a much larger aircraft, able to operate from the latest aircraft carriers and carry a considerable array of armament. It featured a bomb bay that reduced drag when carrying heavy ordnance. Saddled with demanding requirements set forth by both the U. S, Marines and United States Army Air Forces, the manufacturer incorporated features of a multi-role aircraft into the design. In 1939, a student brought a model of the new Curtiss XSB2C-1 to the MIT wind tunnel, professor Emeritus of Aeronautical Engineering Otto C. Koppen was quoted as saying, if they build more than one of these and he was referring to controllability issues with the small vertical tail. The first prototype made its flight on 18 December 1940. It crashed on 8 February 1941 when its engine failed on approach, the fuselage was lengthened and a larger tail was fitted, while an autopilot was fitted to help the poor stability. The revised prototype flew again on 20 October 1941, but was destroyed when its wing failed during diving tests on 21 December 1941, large-scale production had already been ordered on 29 November 1940, but a large number of modifications were specified for the production model. The SB2C-2 was built with fuel tanks, improving its range considerably. The program suffered so many delays that the Grumman TBF Avenger entered service before the Helldiver, a total of 7,140 SB2Cs were produced in World War II. The first version of the SB2C-1 was kept stateside for training, the first deployment model was the SB2C-1C. The SB2C-1 could deploy slats mechanically linked with landing gear actuators, the early prognosis of the Beast was unfavourable, it was strongly disliked by aircrews due to its size, weight, and reduced range compared to the SBD it replaced. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea,45 Helldivers were lost because they ran out of returning to their carriers
7.
USS Saipan (CVL-48)
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The first USS Saipan was a light aircraft carrier of the United States Navy, the lead ship of her class of carrier. She was later selected for conversion into a ship in 1963–1964. Saipan was laid down on 10 July 1944 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey, launched on 8 July 1945, sponsored by Mrs. John W. McCormack, and commissioned on 14 July 1946, Capt. In November, she returned to Pensacola, but, in late December, after training midshipmen, in February 1948, however, her work in jet operational techniques, carrier support tactics, and electronic instrument evaluation was interrupted briefly. From the 7th to the 24th, she was engaged in transporting the United States delegation to the Venezuelan Presidential inauguration and back. On her return, she conducted operations off the Virginia Capes. On 18 April, she also relieved Mindoro as flagship of Carrier Division 17, on 19 April, she departed Norfolk for Quonset Point, Rhode Island, where, on 3 May, she embarked Fighter Squadron 17A. Three days later, all pilots had qualified in FH-1 Phantom jets. The squadron had become the first carrier-based jet squadron, back at Norfolk by the end of the month, Saipan was relieved of flagship duties. In June, she returned to New England waters, and, in July, in December, she resumed local operations. Departing Norfolk on Christmas Day, the CVL arrived off Cape Farewell on 28 December, on 29 December however, a C-47, equipped with jet assist takeoff and skis, landed on the ice, took on the marooned airmen and made it out again. Saipan then returned to Norfolk, arrived on 31 December, steaming south, she conducted exercises out of Guantanamo Bay into March and returned to Hampton Roads on 10 March. From 11–19 March, she conducted operations for the development force, at the end of May, she again commenced work for the Operational Development Force. Three months later, she conducted her second reservist cruise of the year, from November 1949 to March 1951, Saipan remained on the east coast, operating from the Virginia Capes south. On 6 March 1951, she got underway as flagship, CarDiv 14, deployed for three months, she plied the waters of the western Mediterranean until the end of May, then headed for home. On 8 June, she was back at Norfolk, whence she resumed operations in the western Atlantic from Greenland to the Caribbean, for over two years, Saipan continued Second Fleet operations, interrupting them for midshipman cruises during the summers of 1952 and 1953 and for an overhaul. In October 1953, she departed the east coast and steamed for the Panama Canal, on 30 October, she arrived at San Diego, whence she continued on to Pearl Harbor, Yokosuka, and duty off the coast of Korea in support of the uneasy truce agreement. Assigned to TF95, Saipan was primarily engaged in surveillance and reconnaissance missions along the coast, in January 1954, she interrupted her patrols to provide air support for Japanese manned LSTs ferrying former Chinese POWs from Inchon to new homes on Taiwan
8.
Cruiser
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A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundred years, and has had different meanings throughout this period. In the middle of the 19th century, cruiser came to be a classification for the intended for cruising distant waters, commerce raiding. Cruisers came in a variety of sizes, from the medium-sized protected cruiser to large armored cruisers that were nearly as big as a pre-dreadnought battleship. With the advent of the battleship before World War I. The very large battlecruisers of the World War I era that succeeded armored cruisers were now classified, along with dreadnought battleships, in the later 20th century, the obsolescence of the battleship left the cruiser as the largest and most powerful surface combatant after the aircraft carrier. The role of the cruiser varied according to ship and navy, often including air defense, during the Cold War, the Soviet Navys cruisers had heavy anti-ship missile armament designed to sink NATO carrier task forces via saturation attack. The U. S. Adams guided-missile destroyers tasked with the air defense role. Indeed, the newest U. S. Navy destroyers are more heavily-armed than some of the cruisers that they succeeded, currently only three nations operate cruisers, the United States, Russia, and Peru. The term cruiser or cruizer was first commonly used in the 17th century to refer to an independent warship, Cruiser meant the purpose or mission of a ship, rather than a category of vessel. However, the term was used to mean a smaller, faster warship suitable for such a role. The Dutch navy was noted for its cruisers in the 17th century, while the Royal Navy—and later French and Spanish navies—subsequently caught up in terms of their numbers, during the 18th century the frigate became the preeminent type of cruiser. A frigate was a small, fast, long range, lightly armed ship used for scouting, carrying dispatches, the other principal type of cruiser was the sloop, but many other miscellaneous types of ship were used as well. During the 19th century, navies began to use steam power for their fleets, the 1840s saw the construction of experimental steam-powered frigates and sloops. By the middle of the 1850s, the British and U. S. Navies were both building steam frigates with very long hulls and a gun armament, for instance USS Merrimack or Mersey. The 1860s saw the introduction of the ironclad, the first ironclads were frigates, in the sense of having one gun deck, however, they were also clearly the most powerful ships in the navy, and were principally to serve in the line of battle. In spite of their speed, they would have been wasted in a cruising role. The French constructed a number of smaller ironclads for overseas cruising duties, starting with the Belliqueuse and these station ironclads were the beginning of the development of the armored cruisers, a type of ironclad specifically for the traditional cruiser missions of fast, independent raiding and patrol
9.
Baltimore-class cruiser
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The Baltimore-class cruiser was a large class of heavy cruisers in the United States Navy commissioned during or shortly after World War II. Fourteen Baltimores were completed, more than any class of heavy cruiser. Fast and heavily armed, the Baltimore cruisers were used in World War II to protect the fast aircraft carriers in battle groups from air attack. Additionally, their 8-inch main guns and secondary 5-inch guns were used to bombard land targets in support of amphibious landings. After the war, only six Baltimores and two Oregon City-class ships remained in service, while the rest were moved to the reserve fleet, however, all ships except Boston, Canberra, Chicago and Fall River were reactivated for the Korean War. Except for St Paul, all the ships retaining all-gun configurations had very short lives, and by 1971 were decommissioned. However, four Baltimore-class cruisers were refitted and converted some of the first guided missile cruisers in the world. The last of these was decommissioned in 1980, with the Chicago lasting until 1991 in reserve, no example of the Baltimore class still exists. With the start of the war, the limitations instituted by the Second London Naval Treaty, the Baltimore class was based partly on USS Wichita, a heavy cruiser from 1937, which represented the transition from inter-war to World War II designs. It was also based partly on the Cleveland class, a cruiser that was then being built. The construction of the first four ships of the Baltimore class began on July 1,1940, a second order, which consisted of 16 more ships, was approved on August 7,1942. With the construction of the first eight Baltimore-class ships moving slowly, the new, modified design was itself delayed, so that construction had begun on a further six ships—for a total of 14—using the original design before the revisions were completed. The final three ships ordered were converted to the design, known as the Oregon City class. Between 1943 and 1947,17 ships of the Baltimore and Oregon City classes entered service, construction of the eighteenth ship was suspended, to eventually be completed as a flagship/command ship in 1950. Five more were laid down, but cancelled and scrapped before launch, the largest contractor for the construction of the Baltimore-class ships was Bethlehem Steel, which produced eight ships at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. New York Shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey, built four, the ships were named after cities in the United States, the only exception being USS Canberra, which was named in honor of HMAS Canberra, which had been named after Canberra, the Australian capital. The classification CA originally stood for armored cruiser but was used for heavy cruisers. By 1947, nine of the Baltimores had been decommissioned and placed in the reserve fleet, however, at the start of the 1950s, six were reactivated, making thirteen available for deployment in the Korean War
10.
Heavy cruiser
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The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203mm calibre and displacing approximately 10,000 tons. The heavy cruiser can be seen as a lineage of ship design from 1915 until 1945, the heavy cruisers immediate precursors were the light cruiser designs of the 1900s and 1910s, rather than the armoured cruisers of before 1905. With their intended targets being other cruisers and smaller vessels, the role of the heavy cruiser differed fundamentally from that of the armored cruiser, also, the heavy cruiser was designed to take advantage of advances in naval technology and design. They often had a number of main guns than did armoured cruisers. This arrangement saved tonnage and enabled the ship to all guns on one broadside. They also benefited from the introduction of control in the 1920s and 1930s. These developments meant that the cruiser was an overall more powerful ship type than the armoured cruiser had been. At the end of the 19th century, cruisers were classified as first and their essential role had not changed since the age of sail—to serve on long-range missions, patrol for enemy warships and raid and defend commerce. Armoured cruisers had proved less versatile than needed to do this adequately, in a race to outsize and outgun one another, they had grown to around 15,000 tons and up to 9. While Japanese armored cruisers had distinguished themselves at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, tactics and technology were gearing towards naval encounters held over increasingly longer ranges, which demanded an armament of primarily large caliber guns. The demand for speed with which to outflank a potential enemy, thirty percent was the ratio by which frigates had been faster than ships of the line in the days of sail. If a battleship sailed at 20 knots, this would mean that an armored cruiser would have to steam at least 26 or 27 knots, armoured cruisers could not fulfill these criteria without being built much larger and taking on a different form than they had in the past. HMS Invincible and her two sister ships were designed specifically to fulfill these requirements, however, they were much larger, faster and better-armed than armored cruisers, able to outpace them, stay out of range of their weapons and destroy them with relative impunity. All these factors made battlecruisers attractive fighting units, although Britain, Germany and they also meant that the armored cruiser as it had been known was now outmoded. No more were built after 1910 and by the end of World War I, although Lord Fisher, the man behind the building of Invincible, had hoped to replace practically all forms of cruisers with battlecruisers, they proved to be too costly to build in large numbers. At the same time, the third class cruiser started to carry thin steel armour on the outside of its hull, the first such design was the British Atlantic cruiser proposal of 1912, which proposed a long-range cruiser of about 8,000 tons displacement with 190 mm guns. This was a response to a rumour that Germany was building cruisers to attack merchant shipping in the Atlantic with 170mm guns, the German raiders proved to be fictional and the Atlantic cruisers were never built. However, in 1915 the requirement for long-range trade-protection cruisers resurfaced and resulted in the Hawkins class, essentially enlarged light cruisers, the Hawkins-class each carried seven 190 mm guns, and had a displacement just under 10,000 tons
11.
Light cruiser
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A light cruiser is a type of small- or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the light armored cruiser, describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser. Prior to this smaller cruisers had been of the protected cruiser model, the first small steam-powered cruisers were built for the British Royal Navy with HMS Mercury launched in 1878. Such second and third class protected cruisers evolved, gradually becoming faster, better armed, germany took a lead in small cruiser design in the 1890s, building a class of fast cruisers—the Gazelle class—copied by other nations. Such vessels were powered by coal-fired boilers and reciprocating steam engines, the adoption of oil-fired water-tube boilers and steam turbine engines meant that older small cruisers rapidly became obsolete. Furthermore, new construction could not rely on the protection of coal bunkers, the British Bristol group of Town-class cruisers were a departure from previous designs, with turbine propulsion, mixed coal and oil firing and a 2-inch protective armoured belt as well as deck. Thus, by definition, they were armoured cruisers, despite displacing only 4,800 tons, the first true modern light cruisers were the Arethusa class which had all oil-firing and used lightweight destroyer-type machinery to make 29 knots. 1-inch to 5. 9-inch guns. Cruiser construction in Britain continued uninterrupted until Admiral Jacky Fishers appointment as First Sea Lord in 1904, the group of 21 Town-class cruisers begun in 1910 proved excellent in scouting in all types of weather and could carry enough fuel and ammunition to guard the shipping lanes. The Arethusa class, launched three years later, was also successful, British designers continued enlarging and refining subsequent cruiser designs throughout the war. The Germans built a number of cruisers in the belief that they were good multi-purpose vessels. However, the Germans were very late in adapting 5. 9-inch guns, with the Pillau and Wiesbaden-class cruisers the Germans followed the British example of heavier guns. Earlier German light cruisers were in competition with a series of British scout cruisers which had a speed of 25 knots. The Germans completed the last two of their Bremen-class cruisers in 1906 and 1907 and followed them up with four Königsberg-class and these last two classes, larger and faster than the Bremens, were armed the same and carried less deck armor. Other major powers concentrated on construction and built few cruisers. The United States, Italy, and Austria-Hungary each built only a handful of scout cruisers while Japan and Spain added a few based on British designs. The United States resumed building light cruisers in 1918, largely because the ships it then had in service had become obsolete, the first of these, the ten Omaha-class ships, displaced 7,050 tons and were armed with twelve 6-inch guns. Eight of these guns were mounted in casemates at the bow and stern. Fast and maneuverable, they were well-liked as seaboats despite being very wet in rough weather, the term light cruiser was given a definition by the London Naval Treaty of 1930
12.
Essex-class aircraft carrier
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The Essex class was a class of aircraft carriers of the United States Navy that constituted the 20th centurys most numerous class of capital ships. The class consisted of 24 vessels, which came in both short-hull and long-hull versions, thirty-two ships were originally ordered, however as World War II wound down, six were canceled before construction, and two were canceled after construction had begun. No Essex-class ships were lost to enemy action, despite several vessels sustaining very heavy damage, at the time of the repudiations, both Italy and Japan had colonial ambitions, intending on or already conducting military conquests. A longer, wider deck and a deck-edge elevator facilitated more efficient aviation operations. Machinery arrangement and armor protection was improved from previous designs. These features, plus the provision of more guns, gave the ships much enhanced survivability. Some ships in the class would serve until well after the end of the Vietnam War, debates raged, and continue to this day, regarding the effect of strength deck location. British designers comments tended to disparage the use of deck armor. After the abrogation of disarmament treaties by Japan in 1936, the U. S. took a look at its naval strength. With the Naval Expansion Act of Congress passed on 17 May 1938 and this permitted the building of Hornet, which was the third Yorktown-class CV, and Essex, which was the lead ship of a new class. CV-9 was to be the prototype of the 27, 000-ton aircraft carrier, considerably larger than Enterprise, the Navy ordered the first three of the new design, CV-9, CV-10 and CV-11, from Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock on 3 July 1940. These were to become known as Essex-class carriers, under the terms of the Two-Ocean Navy Act, ten more of these carriers were programmed. After the US declaration of war, Congress appropriated funds for nineteen more Essexes, ten were ordered in August 1942 and three more in June 1943. Only two of these were completed in time to see active World War II service, six ships ordered in 1944 were canceled before construction was begun. The first eight hulls were originally assigned names from historic Navy ships, Lexington was originally laid down as Cabot, but was renamed during construction after the original USS Lexington was lost in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942. Yorktown, originally to be named Bon Homme Richard, was renamed after the original USS Yorktown was lost at the Battle of Midway on 7 June 1942, Lexington and Yorktown share the unique distinction of being named after both historic ships and historic battles. The erstwhile Valley Forge was renamed Princeton after USS Princeton was sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, at the conclusion of the war, the six ships ordered but never laid down were canceled. Of the nine still unfinished six were completed, two were scrapped, and Oriskany was taken in hand for modification to an improved design, in drawing up the preliminary design for Essex, particular attention was directed at the size of both the flight and hangar decks
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United States Navy