Keel
On boats and ships, the keel is either of two parts: a structural element that sometimes resembles a fin and protrudes below a boat along the central line, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap; as the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event. Only the ship's launching is considered more significant in its creation; the word can be used as a synecdoche to refer to a complete boat, such as a keelboat. The adjustable centerboard keel traces its roots to the medieval Chinese Song dynasty. Many Song Chinese junk ships had a ballasted and bilge keel that consisted of wooden beams bound together with iron hoops. Maritime technology and the technological know-how allowed Song dynasty ships to be used in naval warfare between the Southern Song Dynasty, the Jin dynasty, the Mongols. A structural keel is the bottom-most structural member; the keel runs from the bow to the stern.
The keel is the first part of a ship's hull to be constructed, laying the keel, or placing the keel in the cradle in which the ship will be built may mark the start time of its construction. Large, modern ships are now built in a series of pre-fabricated, complete hull sections rather than being built around a single keel, so shipbuilding process commences with cutting the first sheet of steel; the most common type of keel is the "flat plate keel", this is fitted in the majority of ocean-going ships and other vessels. A form of keel found on smaller vessels is the "bar keel", which may be fitted in trawlers and smaller ferries. Where grounding is possible, this type of keel is suitable with its massive scantlings, but there is always a problem of the increased draft with no additional cargo capacity. If a double bottom is fitted, the keel is inevitably of the flat plate type, bar keels being associated with open floors, where the plate keel may be fitted. Duct keels are provided in the bottom of some vessels.
These run from the forward engine room bulkhead to the collision bulkhead and are utilized to carry the double bottom piping. The piping is accessible when cargo is loaded; the keel surface on the bottom of the hull gives the ship greater directional stability. In non-sailing hulls, the keel helps the hull to move forward, rather than slipping to the side. In traditional boat building, this is provided by the structural keel, which projects from the bottom of the hull along most or all of its length. In modern construction, the bar keel or flat-plate keel performs the same function. There are many types of fixed keels, including full keels, long keels, fin keels, winged keels, bulb keels, bilge keels among other designs. Deep-draft ships will have a flat bottom and employ only bilge keels, both to aid directional control and to damp rolling motions In sailboats, keels use the forward motion of the boat to generate lift to counteract the leeward force of the wind; the rudimentary purpose of the keel is to convert the sideways motion of the wind when it is abeam into forward motion.
A secondary purpose of the keel is to provide ballast. Keels are different from centreboards and other types of foils in that keels are made of heavy materials to provide ballast to stabilize the boat. Keels may be fixed, or non-movable. Retracting keels may pivot or slide upwards to retract, are retracted with a winch due to the weight of the ballast. Since the keel provides far more stability when lowered than when retracted, the amount of sail carried is reduced when sailing with the keel retracted. Types of non-fixed keels include canting keels. Canting keels can be found on racing yachts, such as those competing in the Volvo Ocean Race, they provide more righting moment as the keel moves out to the windward-side of the boat while using less weight. The horizontal distance from the weight to the pivot is increased, which generates a larger righting moment; the word "keel" comes from Old English cēol, Old Norse kjóll, = "ship" or "keel". It has the distinction of being regarded by some scholars as the first word in the English language recorded in writing, having been recorded by Gildas in his 6th century Latin work De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, under the spelling cyulae.
Carina is the origin of the term careen. An example of this use is Careening Cove, a suburb of Sydney, where careening was carried out in early colonial days. Coin ceremony Kelson False keel Daggerboard Leeboard Bilgeboard Bruce foil Keelhauling – an archaic maritime punishment Rousmaniere, The Annapolis Book of Seamanship, Simon & Schuster, 1999 Chapman Book of Piloting, Hearst Corporation, 1999 Herreshoff, The Sailor’s Handbook, Little Brown and Company Seidman, The Complete Sailor, International Marine, 1995 Jobson, Sailing Fundamentals, Simon & Schuster, 1987
President of the United States
The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. In contemporary times, the president is looked upon as one of the world's most powerful political figures as the leader of the only remaining global superpower; the role includes responsibility for the world's most expensive military, which has the second largest nuclear arsenal. The president leads the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP; the president possesses international hard and soft power. Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government, it vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The power includes the execution and enforcement of federal law, alongside the responsibility of appointing federal executive, diplomatic and judicial officers, concluding treaties with foreign powers with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The president is further empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves, to convene and adjourn either or both houses of Congress under extraordinary circumstances. The president directs the foreign and domestic policies of the United States, takes an active role in promoting his policy priorities to members of Congress. In addition, as part of the system of checks and balances, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution gives the president the power to sign or veto federal legislation; the power of the presidency has grown since its formation, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. Through the Electoral College, registered voters indirectly elect the president and vice president to a four-year term; this is the only federal election in the United States, not decided by popular vote. Nine vice presidents became president by virtue of a president's intra-term resignation. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 sets three qualifications for holding the presidency: natural-born U. S. citizenship.
The Twenty-second Amendment precludes any person from being elected president to a third term. In all, 44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, so he is counted twice, as both the 22nd and 24th president. Donald Trump of New York is the current president of the United States, he assumed office on January 20, 2017. In July 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, the Thirteen Colonies, acting jointly through the Second Continental Congress, declared themselves to be 13 independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. Recognizing the necessity of coordinating their efforts against the British, the Continental Congress began the process of drafting a constitution that would bind the states together. There were long debates on a number of issues, including representation and voting, the exact powers to be given the central government. Congress finished work on the Articles of Confederation to establish a perpetual union between the states in November 1777 and sent it to the states for ratification.
Under the Articles, which took effect on March 1, 1781, the Congress of the Confederation was a central political authority without any legislative power. It could make its own resolutions and regulations, but not any laws, could not impose any taxes or enforce local commercial regulations upon its citizens; this institutional design reflected how Americans believed the deposed British system of Crown and Parliament ought to have functioned with respect to the royal dominion: a superintending body for matters that concerned the entire empire. The states were out from under any monarchy and assigned some royal prerogatives to Congress; the members of Congress elected a President of the United States in Congress Assembled to preside over its deliberation as a neutral discussion moderator. Unrelated to and quite dissimilar from the office of President of the United States, it was a ceremonial position without much influence. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies.
With peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. By 1786, Americans found their continental borders besieged and weak and their respective economies in crises as neighboring states agitated trade rivalries with one another, they witnessed their hard currency pouring into foreign markets to pay for imports, their Mediterranean commerce preyed upon by North African pirates, their foreign-financed Revolutionary War debts unpaid and accruing interest. Civil and political unrest loomed. Following the successful resolution of commercial and fishing disputes between Virginia and Maryland at the Mount Vernon Conference in 1785, Virginia called for a trade conference between all the states, set for September 1786 in Annapolis, with an aim toward resolving further-reaching interstate commercial antagonisms; when the convention failed for lack of attendance due to suspicions among most of the other states, Alexander Hamilton led the Annapolis delegates in a call for a convention to offer revisions to the Articles, to be held the next spring in Philadelphia.
Prospects for the next convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washington's attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. When the Constitutional Convention convened in May 1787, the 12 state delegations in attendance (Rh
5"/54 caliber Mark 45 gun
The 5-inch/54 caliber lightweight gun is a U. S. naval artillery gun mount consisting of a 127 mm L54 Mark 19 gun on the Mark 45 mount. Designed and built by United Defense, it is now manufactured by BAE Systems Land & Armaments after the former was acquired; the latest 5-inch/62 caliber version consists of a longer barrel L62 Mark 36 gun fitted on the same Mark 45 mount. The gun is designed for use against surface warships, anti-aircraft and shore bombardment to support amphibious operations; the gun mount. These can be fired under full automatic control, taking a little over a minute to exhaust those rounds at maximum fire rate. For sustained use, the gun mount would be occupied by a six-man crew below deck to keep the gun continuously supplied with ammunition. Development started in the 1960s as a replacement for the 5-inch/54 caliber Mark 42 gun system that had debuted in 1953 with a new and easier to maintain gun mounting. In United States Navy use, the Mark 45 is used with either the Mk 86 Gun Fire Control System or the Mk 160 Gun Computing System.
Since before World War II, 127 mm has been the standard gun caliber for U. S. Naval ships, its rate of fire is lower than the British 4.5 in gun, but it fires a heavier 127 mm shell which carries a larger burst charge that increases its per-shell effectiveness against aircraft. Mod 0: used mechanical fuze setter. Two-piece rifled construction, with replaceable liner Mod 1: electronic fuze setter replaces the mechanical one. Made with a unitary construction barrel, which has a life span twice that of the Mark 42 gun. Mod 2: export version of Mod 1, but now used in the US Navy Mod 3: same gun with a new control system. Additionally, the Mk 45 mod 4 uses a modified flat-panel gun turret, designed to reduce its radar signature. In sustained firing operations, the gun is manned by all located below decks; these are a gun captain, a panel operator, four ammunition loaders. In automatic non-sustained firing operations, the gun can be fired without any personnel inside the mount. However, sustained fire is limited to the capacity of the automatic loader.
On 9 May 2014, the U. S. Navy released a request for information for a guided 127 mm round that could be fired from Mark 45 guns on Navy destroyers and cruisers; the thinking is that if the technology worked in the 155 mm Long Range Land Attack Projectile for the Advanced Gun System on Zumwalt-class destroyers, it can be applied to a 5-inch mount. This RFI comes six years after the cancellation of the Raytheon Extended Range Guided Munition; the shell must have at least double the range of unguided shells for missions including Naval Surface Fire Support /Land Attack, increasing anti-surface warfare capabilities against fast attack craft and fast inshore attack craft. Expected submissions include the BAE Systems Multi Service–Standard Guided Projectile, Raytheon Excalibur N5, OTO Melara Vulcano guided long-range projectile. Naval Sea Systems Command is looking to fire a version of the hyper velocity projectile developed for Navy electromagnetic railguns from conventional 5-inch deck guns. Using the HVP could give existing destroyers and cruisers better ability to engage land and missile threats and allow more time to refine the railgun.
The HVP would be a cheaper solution to intercepting incoming missiles than a missile interceptor costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Converting the HVP to fire from conventional guns is not yet a program of record. HVP shells fired from 5-inch deck guns would travel at Mach 3, half the speed of a railgun but twice the speed of conventional rounds; the rounds would be more expensive than unguided shells but cheaper than missile interceptors, engage air and missile targets out to 10–30 nautical miles. During 2018 RIMPAC exercises, the USS Dewey fired 20 HVPs from a standard Mk 45 deck gun. Australia Royal Australian NavyAnzac-class frigates: Mod 4 Hobart-class destroyer: Mod 4 Denmark Royal Danish NavyAbsalon-class command and support ships Greece Hellenic NavyHydra-class frigates Japan Japan Maritime Self-Defense ForceAtago-class guided missile destroyers: Mod 4 Akizuki-class destroyers: Mod 4 South Korea Republic of Korea NavySejong the Great-class guided missile destroyer: Mod 4 Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin-class guided missile destroyer: Mod 4 Incheon-class frigate: Mod 4 New Zealand Royal New Zealand NavyAnzac-class frigates: Mod 2 Spain Spanish NavyÁlvaro de Bazán-class frigates: Mod 2 Taiwan Republic of China NavyKee Lung-class guided missile destroyers Thailand Royal Thai NavyNaresuan-class frigates: Mod 2 being upgraded Mod 4 Turkey Turkish NavySalihreis-class frigates Barbaros-class frigates Yavuz-class frigates United States United States Navy Active service ships:Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers: Mod 2CG-52: Mod 4 after receiving the cruiser modernization Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer: DDG 51–80: Mod 2 DDG 81–112: Mod 4Decommissioned:California-class cruisers Kidd-class destroyers Spruance-class destroyers Tarawa-class amphibious assault ships (
Frigate
A frigate is a type of warship, having various sizes and roles over the last few centuries. In the 17th century, a frigate was any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description used being "frigate-built"; these could be warships carrying their principal batteries of carriage-mounted guns on a single deck or on two decks. The term was used for ships too small to stand in the line of battle, although early line-of-battle ships were referred to as frigates when they were built for speed. In the 18th century, frigates were as long as a ship of the line and were square-rigged on all three masts, but were faster and with lighter armament, used for patrolling and escort. In the definition adopted by the British Admiralty, they were rated ships of at least 28 guns, carrying their principal armaments upon a single continuous deck – the upper deck – while ships of the line possessed two or more continuous decks bearing batteries of guns. In the late 19th century, the armoured frigate was a type of ironclad warship that for a time was the most powerful type of vessel afloat.
The term "frigate" was used because such ships still mounted their principal armaments on a single continuous upper deck. In modern navies, frigates are used to protect other warships and merchant-marine ships as anti-submarine warfare combatants for amphibious expeditionary forces, underway replenishment groups, merchant convoys. Ship classes dubbed "frigates" have more resembled corvettes, destroyers and battleships; some European navies such as the French, German or Spanish ones use the term "frigate" for both their destroyers and frigates. The rank "frigate captain" derives from the name of this type of ship; the term "frigate" originated in the Mediterranean in the late 15th century, referring to a lighter galley-type warship with oars, sails and a light armament, built for speed and maneuverability. The etymology of the word remains uncertain, although it may have originated as a corruption of aphractus, a Latin word for an open vessel with no lower deck. Aphractus, in turn, derived from the Ancient Greek phrase ἄφρακτος ναῦς - "undefended ship".
In 1583, during the Eighty Years' War of 1568-1648, Habsburg Spain recovered the southern Netherlands from the Protestant rebels. This soon resulted in the use of the occupied ports as bases for privateers, the "Dunkirkers", to attack the shipping of the Dutch and their allies. To achieve this the Dunkirkers developed small, sailing vessels that came to be referred to as frigates; the success of these Dunkirker vessels influenced the ship design of other navies contending with them, but because most regular navies required ships of greater endurance than the Dunkirker frigates could provide, the term soon came to apply less to any fast and elegant sail-only warship. In French, the term "frigate" gave rise to a verb - frégater, meaning'to build long and low', to an adjective, adding more confusion; the huge English Sovereign of the Seas could be described as "a delicate frigate" by a contemporary after her upper decks were reduced in 1651. The navy of the Dutch Republic became the first navy to build the larger ocean-going frigates.
The Dutch navy had three principal tasks in the struggle against Spain: to protect Dutch merchant ships at sea, to blockade the ports of Spanish-held Flanders to damage trade and halt enemy privateering, to fight the Spanish fleet and prevent troop landings. The first two tasks required speed, shallowness of draft for the shallow waters around the Netherlands, the ability to carry sufficient supplies to maintain a blockade; the third task required heavy armament, sufficient to stand up to the Spanish fleet. The first of the larger battle-capable frigates were built around 1600 at Hoorn in Holland. By the stages of the Eighty Years' War the Dutch had switched from the heavier ships still used by the English and Spanish to the lighter frigates, carrying around 40 guns and weighing around 300 tons; the effectiveness of the Dutch frigates became most evident in the Battle of the Downs in 1639, encouraging most other navies the English, to adopt similar designs. The fleets built by the Commonwealth of England in the 1650s consisted of ships described as "frigates", the largest of which were two-decker "great frigates" of the third rate.
Carrying 60 guns, these vessels were as capable as "great ships" of the time. The term "frigate" implied a long hull-design, which relates directly to speed and which in turn, helped the development of the broadside tactic in naval warfare. At this time, a further design evolved, reintroducing oars and resulting in galley frigates such as HMS Charles Galley of 1676, rated as a 32-gun fifth-rate but had a bank of 40 oars set below the upper deck which could propel the ship in the absence of a favourable wind. In Danish, the word "fregat" applies to warships carrying as few as 16 guns, such as HMS Falcon, which the British classified as a sloop. Under the rating system of the Royal Navy, by the middle of the 18th century, the term "frigate" was technically restricted to single-decked ships of the fifth rate, though small 28-gun frigates classed as sixth rate; the classic sailing frigate, well-known today for its role in the Napoleonic wars, can be traced back to French deve
Honorary citizenship of the United States
A person of exceptional merit a non-United States citizen, may be declared an honorary citizen of the United States by an Act of Congress or by a proclamation issued by the President of the United States, pursuant to authorization granted by Congress. Eight people have been so honored, six posthumously, two, Sir Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa, during their lifetimes. For Lafayette and Mother Teresa, the honor was proclaimed directly by an Act of Congress. In the other cases, an Act of Congress was passed authorizing the President to grant honorary citizenship by proclamation. What rights and privileges honorary citizenship bestows, if any, is unclear. According to State Department documents, it does not grant eligibility for United States passports. Despite widespread belief that Lafayette received honorary citizenship of the United States before Churchill, he did not receive honorary citizenship until 2002. Lafayette did become a natural-born citizen during his lifetime. On 28 December 1784, the Maryland General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Lafayette and his male heirs "forever shall be...natural born Citizens" of the state.
This made him a natural-born citizen of the United States under the Articles of Confederation and as defined in Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution. Lafayette boasted in 1792 that he had become an American citizen before the French Revolution created the concept of French citizenship. In 1803, President Jefferson wrote him he would have offered to make him Governor of Louisiana, had he been "on the spot". In 1932, descendant René de Chambrun established his American citizenship based on the Maryland resolution, although he was ineligible as the inherited citizenship was only intended for direct descendants who were heir to Lafayette's estate and title; the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled in 1955 that "it is possible to argue" that Lafayette and living male heirs became American citizens when the Constitution became effective on 4 March 1789, but that heirs born were not U. S. citizens. Honorary citizenship should not be confused with citizenship or permanent residency bestowed by a private bill.
Private bills are, on rare occasions, used to provide relief to individuals in immigration cases, are passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. One such statute, granting Elián González U. S. was never enacted. Citizenship Citizenship of the United States Honorary Canadian citizenship Public Laws granting Honorary Citizenship
Ship commissioning
Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military forces; the ceremonies involved are rooted in centuries old naval tradition. Ship naming and launching endow a ship hull with her identity, but many milestones remain before she is completed and considered ready to be designated a commissioned ship; the engineering plant and electronic systems and multitudinous other equipment required to transform the new hull into an operating and habitable warship are installed and tested. The prospective commanding officer, ship's officers, the petty officers, seamen who will form the crew report for training and intensive familiarization with their new ship. Prior to commissioning, the new ship undergoes sea trials to identify any deficiencies needing correction; the preparation and readiness time between christening-launching and commissioning may be as much as three years for a nuclear powered aircraft carrier to as brief as twenty days for a World War II landing ship.
USS Monitor, of American Civil War fame, was commissioned less than three weeks after launch. Regardless of the type of ship in question, a vessel's journey towards commissioning in its nation's navy begins with a process known as sea trials. Sea trials take place some years after a vessel was laid down, mark the interim step between the completion of a ship's construction and its official acceptance for service with its nation's navy. Sea trials begin when the ship in question is floated out of its dry dock, at which time the initial crew for a ship will assume command of the vessel in question; the ship is sailed in littoral waters for the purpose of testing the design and other ship specific systems to ensure that they work properly and can handle the equipment that they will be using in the coming years. Tests done during this phase can include launching missiles from missile magazines, firing the ship's gun, conducting basic flight tests with rotary and fixed-wing aircraft that will be assigned to the ship in the future, various tests of the electronic and propulsion equipment.
During this phase of testing problems arise relating to the state of the equipment on the ship in question, which can result in the ship returning to the builder's shipyard to address the concerns in question. In addition to problems with a ship's arms and equipment, the sea trial phase a ship undergoes prior to commissioning can identify issues with the ship's design that may need to be addressed before it can be accepted into service with its nation's navy. During her sea trials in 1999 French Naval officials determined that the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was too short to safely operate the E2C Hawkeye, resulting in her return to the builder's shipyard for enlargement. After a ship has cleared its sea trial period, it will be accepted into service with its nation's navy. At this point, the ship in question will undergo a process of degaussing and/or deperming, which will vastly reduce the ship in question's magnetic signature. Once a ship's sea trials are completed plans for the actual commissioning ceremony will take shape.
Depending on the naval traditions of the nation in question, the commissioning ceremony may be an elaborately planned event with guests, the ship's future crew, other persons of interest in attendance, or the nation in question may forgo a ceremony and instead administratively place the ship in commission. At a minimum, on the day on which the ship in question is to be commissioned the crew will report for duty aboard the ship and the commanding officer will read through the orders given for the ship and its personnel. If the ship's ceremony is a public affair the Captain may make a speech to the audience, along with other VIPs as the ceremony dictates. Religious ceremonies, such as blessing the ship or the singing of traditional hymns or songs, may occur. Once a ship has been commissioned its final step toward becoming an active unit of the navy it now serves is to report to its home port and load or accept any remaining equipment. To decommission a ship is to terminate its career in service in the armed forces of a nation.
Unlike wartime ship losses, in which a vessel lost to enemy action is said to be struck, decommissioning confers that the ship has reached the end of its usable life and is being retired from a given country's navy. Depending on the naval traditions of the country in question, a ceremony commemorating the decommissioning of the ship in question may take place, or the vessel may be removed administratively with little to no fanfare; the term "paid off" is alternatively used in British Commonwealth contexts, originating in the age-of-sail practice of ending an officer's commission and paying crew wages once the ship completed its voyage. Ship decommissioning occurs some years after the ship was commissioned and is intended to serve as a means by which a vessel that has become too old or too obsolete can be retired with honor from the operating country's armed force. Decommissioning of the vessel may occur due to treaty agreements or for safety reasons (such as a ship's nuclear reactor and assoc
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller powerful short-range attackers. They were developed in the late 19th century by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish Navy as a defense against torpedo boats, by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" were "large and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been shortened to "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War. Before World War II destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended ocean operations. After the war, the advent of the guided missile allowed destroyers to take on the surface combatant roles filled by battleships and cruisers; this resulted in larger and more powerful guided missile destroyers more capable of independent operation.
At the start of the 21st century, destroyers are the global standard for surface combatant ships, with only two nations operating the heavier class cruisers, with no battleships or true battlecruisers remaining. Modern guided missile destroyers are equivalent in tonnage but vastly superior in firepower to cruisers of the World War II era, are capable of carrying nuclear tipped cruise missiles. At 510 feet long, a displacement of 9,200 tons, with armament of more than 90 missiles, guided missile destroyers such as the Arleigh Burke-class are larger and more armed than most previous ships classified as guided missile cruisers; some European navies, such as the French, Spanish, or German, use the term "frigate" for their destroyers, which leads to some confusion. The emergence and development of the destroyer was related to the invention of the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s. A navy now had the potential to destroy a superior enemy battle fleet using steam launches to fire torpedoes. Cheap, fast boats armed with torpedoes called torpedo boats were built and became a threat to large capital ships near enemy coasts.
The first seagoing vessel designed to launch the self-propelled Whitehead torpedo was the 33-ton HMS Lightning in 1876. She was armed with two drop collars to launch these weapons, these were replaced in 1879 by a single torpedo tube in the bow. By the 1880s, the type had evolved into small ships of 50–100 tons, fast enough to evade enemy picket boats. At first, the threat of a torpedo boat attack to a battle fleet was considered to exist only when at anchor. In response to this new threat, more gunned picket boats called "catchers" were built which were used to escort the battle fleet at sea, they needed significant seaworthiness and endurance to operate with the battle fleet, as they became larger, they became designated "torpedo boat destroyers", by the First World War were known as "destroyers" in English. The anti-torpedo boat origin of this type of ship is retained in its name in other languages, including French, Portuguese, Greek, Dutch and, up until the Second World War, Polish. Once destroyers became more than just catchers guarding an anchorage, it was realized that they were ideal to take over the role of torpedo boats themselves, so they were fitted with torpedo tubes as well as guns.
At that time, into World War I, the only function of destroyers was to protect their own battle fleet from enemy torpedo attacks and to make such attacks on the battleships of the enemy. The task of escorting merchant convoys was still in the future. An important development came with the construction of HMS Swift in 1884 redesignated TB 81; this was a large torpedo boat with three torpedo tubes. At 23.75 knots, while still not fast enough to engage enemy torpedo boats reliably, the ship at least had the armament to deal with them. Another forerunner of the torpedo boat destroyer was the Japanese torpedo boat Kotaka, built in 1885. Designed to Japanese specifications and ordered from the Glasgow Yarrow shipyards in 1885, she was transported in parts to Japan, where she was assembled and launched in 1887; the 165-foot long vessel was armed with four 1-pounder quick-firing guns and six torpedo tubes, reached 19 knots, at 203 tons, was the largest torpedo boat built to date. In her trials in 1889, Kotaka demonstrated that she could exceed the role of coastal defense, was capable of accompanying larger warships on the high seas.
The Yarrow shipyards, builder of the parts for Kotaka, "considered Japan to have invented the destroyer". The first vessel designed for the explicit purpose of hunting and destroying torpedo boats was the torpedo gunboat. Small cruisers, torpedo gunboats were equipped with torpedo tubes and an adequate gun armament, intended for hunting down smaller enemy boats. By the end of the 1890s torpedo gunboats were made obsolete by their more successful contemporaries, the torpedo boat destroyers, which were much faster; the first example of this was HMS Rattlesnake, designed by Nathaniel Barnaby in 1885, commissioned in response to the Russian War scare. The gunboat was armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying
United States
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