A battleship is a large, heavily armored warship with a main battery consisting of the largest calibre of guns. Armour (or armor) is protective covering most commonly manufactured from metals to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact A warship is a Ship that is built and primarily intended for Combat. In Military organizations an artillery battery is a unit of Guns mortars or Rockets so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield The term caliber or calibre designates the interior Diameter of a tube or the exterior diameter of a wire or rod A gun is a particular Weapon that propels Projectiles The projectile is generally fired through a hollow tube known as the gun's barrel. Battleships are larger, better armed, and better armored than cruisers and destroyers. A cruiser is a large type of Warship, which had its prime period from the late 19th century to the end of the Cold War. In naval terminology a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance Warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, Convoy

Battleship design continually evolved to incorporate and adapt technological advances to maintain an edge. The word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a shortened form of line-of-battle ship, the dominant wooden warship during the Age of Sail. A ship-of-the-line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th century through the mid-19th century to take part in the the naval tactic known as the Line of battle The Age of Sail was the period in which International trade and Naval warfare were dominated by Sailing Ships lasting from the 16th to the mid ^[1] The term came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship,^[2] now referred to as pre-dreadnought battleships. An ironclad was a steam-propelled Warship of the later 19th century protected by Iron or Steel armor plates Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea going Battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905 In 1906 the launching of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design, and battleships constructed subsequently were referred to as dreadnoughts. Several ships and one submarine of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Dreadnought in the expectation that they would "dread nought" i The dreadnought was the predominant type of Battleship of the 20th century

Battleships were a potent symbol of naval dominance and national might, and for decades the battleship was a major factor in both diplomacy and military strategy. Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting Negotiations between representatives of groups or states Military strategy is a National defence policy implemented by Military organisations to pursue desired strategic goals Derived from the Greek ^[3] The global arms race in battleship construction in the early 20th century was one of the causes of World War I, which saw a clash of huge battle fleets at the Battle of Jutland. The term arms race, in its original usage describes a competition between two or more parties for real or apparent military supremacy World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All fix various bugs per WikipediaHow to fix bunched-up edit links --> The Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships but did not end the evolution of design. The Limitation of Naval Armament included many separate treaties Both the Allies and the Axis Powers deployed battleships of old construction and new during World War II. The Allies of World War II were the countries officially opposed to the Axis powers during the Second World War. The Axis powers also known as the Axis alliance Axis nations Axis countries or sometimes just the Axis were those Countries World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including

Nevertheless, some historians and naval theorists question the value of the dreadnought. ^[4] Apart from Jutland, there were few great dreadnought clashes. Despite their great firepower and protection, dreadnoughts remained vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper ordnance and craft: initially the torpedo and the naval mine, and later aircraft and the guided missile. The modern torpedo (historically called an automotive automobile locomotive or fish torpedo is a self-propelled explosive Projectile weapon launched above or below A naval mine is a self-contained Explosive device placed in water to destroy Ships or Submarines Unlike Depth charges mines are deposited Guided Missile is a London based Independent record label set up by Paul Kearney in 1994. ^[5] The growing range of engagement led to the battleship's replacement as the leading type of warship by the aircraft carrier during World War II; battleships were retained by the United States Navy into the Cold War only for fire support purposes. An aircraft carrier is a Warship designed with Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the Fire support is a Military term referring to long-range Firepower provided to a front-line unit These last battleships were removed from the U. S. Naval Vessel Register in March 2006. The Naval Vessel Register ( NVR) is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. ^[6]

Contents 1 The ship of the line 2 Ironclads 2.1 Explosive shells 2.2 Iron armor and construction 3 The pre-dreadnought battleship 4 The Dreadnought era 4.1 The origin of Dreadnought 4.2 The dreadnought arms race 5 World War I 6 The inter-war period 6.1 The Rise Of Airpower 6.2 Rearmament 7 World War II 8 The Cold War 9 Today 10 Battleships in strategy and doctrine 10.1 Doctrine 10.2 Tactics 10.3 Strategic and diplomatic impact 10.4 Value for money 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 14 External links

The ship of the line

A ship of the line was a large, unarmoured wooden sailing ship on which was mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore guns and carronades. A ship-of-the-line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th century through the mid-19th century to take part in the the naval tactic known as the Line of battle Wood is hard fibrous lignified structural tissue produced as secondary Xylem in the stems of Woody plants notably trees but also shrubs In Military organizations an artillery battery is a unit of Guns mortars or Rockets so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield Smoothbore refers to a Firearm or Cannon which does not have a rifled barrel. A gun is a particular Weapon that propels Projectiles The projectile is generally fired through a hollow tube known as the gun's barrel. The carronade was a short Smoothbore, Cast iron Cannon, developed for the Royal Navy by the Carron Company, an Ironworks The ship of the line was a gradual evolution of a basic design that dates back to the 1400s, and, apart from growing in size, it changed little between the adoption of line of battle tactics in the early 17th century and the end of the sailing battleship's heyday in the 1830s. In Naval warfare, the line of battle is a tactic in which the ships of the fleet form a line end-to-end From 1794, the alternative term 'line of battle ship' was contracted (informally at first) to 'battle ship' or 'battleship'. ^[1]

The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant that a sailing battleship could wreck any wooden vessel, smashing its hull and masts and killing its crew. Technological context Before the experimental adoption of the screw in warships in the 1840s the only available steam technology was that of the Paddle wheels A broadside is the side of a Ship; the battery of Cannon on one side of a Warship; or their simultaneous (or near simultaneous fire in A hull is the body of a Ship or Boat. It is a central concept in floating vessels as it provides the Buoyancy that keeps the vessel from sinking The mast of a sailing ship is a tall vertical or near vertical Spar, or arrangement of Spars which supports the Sails Large ships have several masts However, the effective range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards, and the battle tactics of sailing ships depended entirely on the wind.

The first major change to the ship of the line concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. A steam engine is a Heat engine that performs Mechanical work using Steam as its Working fluid. Marine propulsion is the act of moving a floating object over or through water Steam power was gradually introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft and later for frigates. For the bird see Frigatebird. A frigate /ˈfrɪgɪt/ is a warship The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Le Napoléon in 1850^[7] — the first true steam battleship. The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale ( National Navy) and often called La Royale ( The Royal Navy) is the maritime arm Technological context Before the experimental adoption of the screw in warships in the 1840s the only available steam technology was that of the Paddle wheels ^[8] Napoleon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h), regardless of the wind conditions: a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement. The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships. France and the United Kingdom were the only two countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships, although several other navies made some use of a mixture of screw battleships and paddle-steamer frigates. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927 These included Russia, Turkey, Sweden, Naples, Prussia, Denmark and Austria. The Russian Empire ( Pre-reform Russian: Pоссійская Имперія Modern Russian: Российская Империя translit: Rossiyskaya The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. The Kingdom of Naples was an informal name of the Polity officially known as the Kingdom of Sicily which existed on the mainland of the southern Italian The Kingdom of Prussia (Königreich Preußen was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918 and from 1871 was the leading state of the German Empire, comprising The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe For the history of these states before 1804 see Holy Roman Empire, Habsburg Monarchy, and articles on each of the component countries. ^[3]

Ironclads

Main article: Ironclad warship

The adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad: powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells. An ironclad was a steam-propelled Warship of the later 19th century protected by Iron or Steel armor plates A shell is a payload-carrying Projectile, which as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling though modern usage includes large solid projectiles

Explosive shells

Wooden-hulled ships stood up comparatively well to solid shot, as shown in the 1866 battle of Lissa, where the old Austrian steam battleship Kaiser ranged across a confused battlefield, rammed an Italian ironclad and took a pounding of several 300 pound shots at point blank range. Lead shot is a collective term for small balls of Lead. It is used primarily as Projectiles in Shotguns but is also used for a variety of other purposes The Battle of Lissa took place on 20 July 1866 in the Adriatic Sea near the island of Vis ( Italian: Lissa and was The Kingdom of Italy ( Italian: Regno d'Italia) was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom The pound or pound-mass (abbreviation lb, lbm, or sometimes in the United States #) is a unit of Mass Despite losing her bowsprit and her foremast, and being set on fire, she was ready for action again the very next day. The bowsprit, or boltsprit, of a Sailing vessel is a pole extending forward from the vessel's prow ^[9] By contrast, guns which fired explosive or incendiary shells were a major threat to wooden ships, and these weapons became widespread in the 1840s. In the Crimean War, the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed a flotilla of wooden Turkish ships with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853. The Crimean War, also known in Russia as the Eastern War (Восточная война Vostochnaya Vojna) (March 1854–February 1856 was fought The Black Sea Fleet (Черноморский Флот is a large sub-unit of the Russian (and formerly Soviet) Navy, operating in the Black Sea The naval Battle of Sinop (or Sinope) took place on 30 November 1853 at Sinop, a Sea port in northern Turkey, when Later in the war, French ironclad floating batteries used similar weapons against the defenses at the Battle of Kinburn. The Battle of Kinburn/Kil-Bouroun was a naval engagement during the final stage of the Crimean War. ^[10]

Iron armor and construction

The development of high-explosive shells made the use of iron armor plate on warships necessary. Armour (or armor) is protective covering most commonly manufactured from metals to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact In 1859 France launched La Gloire, the first ocean-going ironclad warship. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. See also French ship ''Gloire'' for eponymous ships She had the profile of a ship of the line, cut to one deck due to weight considerations. Although made of wood and reliant on sail for most of her journeys, La Gloire was fitted with a propeller, and her wooden hull was protected by a layer of thick iron armor. ^[11] Gloire prompted further innovation from the Royal Navy, anxious to prevent France from gaining a technological lead. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore known as the Senior Service)

The superior armored frigate Warrior followed La Gloire by only fourteen months, and both nations embarked on a program of building new ironclads and converting existing screw ships of the line to armored frigates. Design and construction News of the highly-secretive designs for La Gloire reached the British Admiralty in May 1858 ^[12] Within two years, Italy, Austria, Spain and Russia had all ordered ironclad warships, and by the time of the famous clash of the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia at the Battle of Hampton Roads at least eight navies possessed ironclad ships. The Spanish Empire (Imperio Español was one of the largest Empires in history and one of the first Global empires In the 15th and 16th centuries Design Monitor was one of three ironclad warships ordered by the U USS Merrimack becomes CSS Virginia When the Commonwealth of Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861 one of the important federal military bases threatened The Battle of Hampton Roads, often called the Battle of Monitor and Merrimack, was a ^[3]

Navies experimented with the positioning of guns, in turrets (like the USS Monitor), central-batteries or barbettes, or with the ram as the principal weapon. See also For other ships of the name see French ship Redoutable. A gun turret is a device that protects the crew or mechanism of a projectile firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions The centre-battery ship was a major warship and a development of the Ironclad ships For the early 20th Century female impersonator see Barbette (performer A barbette is a protective circular armor feature around a Cannon A naval ram was a weapon carried by varied types of ships dating back to antiquity As steam technology developed, masts were gradually removed from battleship designs. By the mid-1870s steel was used as a construction material alongside iron and wood. The French Navy's Redoutable, laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876, was a central battery and barbette warship which became the first battleship in the world to use steel as the principal building material. See also For other ships of the name see French ship Redoutable. In Military organizations an artillery battery is a unit of Guns mortars or Rockets so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield ^[14]

The pre-dreadnought battleship

Main article: Pre-dreadnought battleship

By the 1890s, there was an increasing similarity between battleship designs, and the type now known as the 'pre-dreadnought battleship' emerged. Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea going Battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905 Background Following the 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War, and the forced return of the Liaodong Peninsula to China under Russian pressure Japan began to The Battle of Tsushima ( Japanese: 対馬海戦 tsushima-kaisen, Цусимское сражение Tsusimskoye srazheniye) commonly known as the Technical Characteristics HMS Agamemnon was ordered in 1904 and was the first warship order for the William Beardmore and Company's Dalmuir Naval Construction These were heavily armored ships, mounting a mixed battery of guns in turrets, and without sails. The typical first-class battleship of the pre-dreadnought era displaced 15,000 to 17,000 tons, had a speed of 16 knots (30 km/h), and an armament of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns in two turrets fore and aft with a mixed-caliber secondary battery amidships around the superstructure. Units of mass There are three similar units of Mass called the ton: Long ton (simply ton in countries such as the United ^[2] An early design with superficial similarity to the pre-dreadnought is the British Devastation-class of 1871. ^[15] However, it was not until the 1890s that the widespread adoption of steel construction and hardened steel armor meant that a turret-ship could combine heavy armament and protection with high speed and good seakeeping.

The slow-firing 12-inch (305 mm) main guns were the principal weapons for battleship-to-battleship combat. The intermediate and secondary batteries had two roles. Against major ships, it was thought a 'hail of fire' from quick-firing secondary weapons could distract enemy gun crews by inflicting damage to the superstructure, and they would be more effective against smaller ships such as cruisers. A cruiser is a large type of Warship, which had its prime period from the late 19th century to the end of the Cold War. Smaller guns (12-pounders and smaller) were reserved for protecting the battleship against the threat of torpedo attack from destroyers and torpedo boats. In naval terminology a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance Warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, Convoy A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval Ship designed to carry Torpedoes into battle ^[16]

The beginning of the pre-dreadnought era coincided with an attempt by Britain to re-assert her naval dominance. For many years previously, Britain had taken naval supremacy for granted. Expensive naval projects were criticised by political leaders of all inclinations. ^[3] However, in 1888 a war scare with France and the build-up of the Russian navy gave added impetus to naval construction, and the British Naval Defence Act of 1889 laid down a new fleet including eight new battleships. The principle that Britain's navy should be more powerful than the two next most powerful fleets combined was established. This policy was designed to deter France and Russia from building more battleships, but both nations nevertheless expanded their fleets with more and better pre-dreadnoughts in the 1890s. ^[3]

In the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, the escalation in the building of battleships became an arms race between Britain and Germany. The term arms race, in its original usage describes a competition between two or more parties for real or apparent military supremacy The German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from 1871 to 1918 when it was a semi- Constitutional monarchy: beginning with the Unification The German naval laws of 1890 and 1898 authorised a fleet of 38 battleships, a vital threat to the balance of naval power. ^[3] Britain answered with further shipbuilding, but by the end of the pre-dreadnought era, British supremacy at sea had markedly weakened. In 1883, the United Kingdom had 38 battleships, twice as many as France and almost as many as the rest of the world put together. By 1897, Britain's lead was far smaller due to competition from France, Germany, and Russia, as well as the development of pre-dreadnought fleets in Italy, the United States and Japan. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Empire of Japan ( {{unicode|Kyūjitai}}: ja 大日本帝國 Shinjitai: ja 大日本帝国 pronounced Dai Nippon Teikoku ^[17] Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Chile and Brazil all had second-rate fleets led by armored cruisers, coastal defence ships or monitors. Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Chile, officially the Republic of Chile ( Spanish:) is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow Coastal strip wedged between the |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld The armored cruiser, or armoured cruiser (see spelling differences) is a type of Cruiser, a naval warship. Coastal defence ships (sometimes called coast battleships) were Warships A monitor was a type of relatively small Warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns and was used by some navies ^[18]

Pre-dreadnoughts continued the technical innovations of the ironclad. Turrets, armor plate, and steam engines were all improved over the years, and torpedo tubes were introduced. A steam engine is a Heat engine that performs Mechanical work using Steam as its Working fluid. The modern torpedo (historically called an automotive automobile locomotive or fish torpedo is a self-propelled explosive Projectile weapon launched above or below A small number of designs, including the American Kearsarge and Virginia classes, experimented with all or part of the 8-inch intermediate battery superimposed over the 12-inch primary. Ship history This class of battleships was the first in the U Ships in class Designation BB-13 Laid down 21 May 1902 Launched 6 April 1904 Results were poor: recoil factors and blast effects resulted in the 8-inch battery being completely unusable, and the inability to train the primary and intermediate armaments on different targets led to significant tactical limitations. Even though such innovative designs saved weight (a key reason for their inception), they proved too cumbersome in practice. ^[19]

The Dreadnought era

Main article: Dreadnought

In 1906, the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought, created as a result of pressure from Admiral John A. Fisher, made existing battleships obsolete. The dreadnought was the predominant type of Battleship of the 20th century Genesis Battleships of the era typically carried four large guns mounted fore and aft in twin turrets with a number of smaller-calibre guns ranged along the sides of the Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot "Jackie" Fisher 1st Baron Fisher of Kilverstone, GCB, OM, GCVO ( 25 January 1841 Combining an 'all-big-gun' armament of ten 12-inch (305mm) rifles with unprecedented speed and protection, she prompted navies worldwide to re-evaluate their battleship building programmes. The Millimetre ( American spelling: millimeter, symbol mm) is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to While the Japanese had laid down an all-big-gun battleship (Satsuma) in 1904, ^[20] and the concept of an all-big-gun ship had been in circulation for several years, it had yet to be validated in combat. Dreadnought sparked a new arms race, principally between Britain and Germany but reflected worldwide, as the new class of warships became a crucial element of national power. The term arms race, in its original usage describes a competition between two or more parties for real or apparent military supremacy

Technical development continued rapidly through the dreadnought era, with step changes in armament, armor and propulsion. Ten years after Dreadnought's commissioning, much more powerful ships, the super-dreadnoughts, were being built.

The origin of Dreadnought

In the first years of the 20th century, several navies worldwide experimented with the idea of a new type of battleship with a uniform armament of very heavy guns.

General Vittorio Cuniberti, the Italian Navy's chief naval architect, articulated the concept of an all-big-gun battleship in 1903. Vittorio Emanuele Cuniberti (1854- 1913 was an Italian military officer who envisioned the concept of the all big gun battleship best exemplified by HMS ''Dreadnought'' When the Regia Marina did not pursue his ideas, Cuniberti wrote an article in Jane's proposing an "ideal" future British battleship, a large armored warship of 17,000 tons, armed solely with a single caliber main battery (twelve 12-inch {305 mm} guns), carrying 300-millimetre (12 in) belt armor, and capable of 24 knots (44 km/h). The Regia Marina ( Italian Royal Navy) dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification. Jane's Fighting Ships is an annual reference Book (also published online on CD and Microfiche) of information on all the world's Warships Belt armor is a layer of armor -plating outside the hull of warships typically on Battleships, Battlecruisers, Cruisers and some Aircraft ^[21]

The Russo-Japanese War provided operational experience to validate the 'all-big-gun' concept. The Russo-Japanese War (日露戦争 Romaji: Nichi-Ro Sensō Русско-японская война Russko-Yaponskaya Voyna;, 10 February 1904 – 5 September At the Yellow Sea and Tsushima, pre-dreadnoughts exchanged volleys at ranges of 7,600–12,000 yd (7 to 11 km), beyond the range of the secondary batteries. The Battle of the Yellow Sea (黄海海戦 Kōkai kaisen Бой в Жёлтом море a major naval engagement of the Russo-Japanese War, was The Battle of Tsushima ( Japanese: 対馬海戦 tsushima-kaisen, Цусимское сражение Tsusimskoye srazheniye) commonly known as the A yard (abbreviation yd) is a unit of Length in several different systems including English units Imperial units and United The kilometre ( American spelling: kilometer) symbol km is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to one thousand It is often held that these engagements demonstrated the importance of the 12-inch (305 mm) gun over its smaller counterparts, though some historians take the view secondary batteries were just as important as the larger weapons. ^[3]

The Imperial Japanese Navy's battleship Satsuma became the first ship in the world designed (1904) as an all-big-gun battleship. For Combined Fleet, please see that article For Carrier Striking Task Force, please see that article Background Funding for Satsuma was approved as part of the 1904 Emergency Budget for the Russo-Japanese War, and she was the first battleship to be designed However, she was never armed to specification, due to the financial pressures of the Russo-Japanese War, and was completed with a mixed armament. For this reason, the new all-big-gun battleships would not be called Satsumas but Dreadnoughts, after the first such ship actually completed, in 1906. ^[22] Satsuma also retained triple-expansion engines, though her sister ship Aki, completed in 1911, used turbines. Background Funding for Aki was approved as part of the 1904 Emergency Budget for the Russo-Japanese War, and was the second battleship (after ''Satsuma''

As early as 1904, First Sea Lord Sir John A. "Jackie" Fisher had been convinced of the need for fast, powerful ships with an all-big-gun armament. The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service. Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot "Jackie" Fisher 1st Baron Fisher of Kilverstone, GCB, OM, GCVO ( 25 January 1841 If Tsushima influenced his thinking, it was to persuade him of the need to standardise on 12 inch guns. ^[3] Fisher's concern was submarines and destroyers equipped with torpedoes that outranged battleship guns, making speed imperative for capital ships. A submarine is a Watercraft that can operate independently below water as distinct from a Submersible that has only limited underwater capability In naval terminology a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance Warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, Convoy The capital ships of a Navy are its "important" warships the ones with the heaviest Firepower and Armor. ^[3] Fisher's preferred option was his brainchild, the battlecruiser: lightly armored but heavily armed with eight 12 inch guns and propelled to 25 knots (46 km/h) by steam turbines. Battlecruisers were large Warships in the first half of the 20th century that were first introduced by the British Royal Navy. A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts Thermal energy from pressurized Steam, and converts it into useful mechanical work ^[23]

It was to prove this revolutionary technology that Dreadnought was designed in January 1905, laid down in October 1905 and sped to completion by 1906. She carried ten 12 inch guns, had an 11-inch armour belt, and was the first large ship powered by turbines. She mounted her guns in five turrets; three on the centerline (one forward, two aft) and two on the wings, giving her at her launch twice the broadside of anything else afloat. A gun turret is a device that protects the crew or mechanism of a projectile firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions A broadside is the side of a Ship; the battery of Cannon on one side of a Warship; or their simultaneous (or near simultaneous fire in She retained a number of 12-pound (3-inch, 76 mm) quick-firing guns for use against destroyers and torpedo-boats. This article explains terms used to describe the British Armed Forces ' ordnance (i Her armor was heavy enough for her to go head-to-head with any other ship afloat in a gun battle, and conceivably win. ^[24]

Dreadnought was to have been followed by three Invincible-class battlecruisers, their construction delayed to allow lessons from Dreadnought to be used in their design. Genesis Battleships of the era typically carried four large guns mounted fore and aft in twin turrets with a number of smaller-calibre guns ranged along the sides of the Design In early 1906 three ships were laid down to the final specifications of Admiral Fisher's vision -, and. While Fisher may have intended Dreadnought to be the last Royal Navy battleship,^[3] the design was so successful he found little support for his plan to switch to a battlecruiser navy. Although there were some problems with the ship (the wing turrets had limited arcs of fire and strained the hull when firing a full broadside, and the top of the thickest armour belt lay below the waterline at full load), the Royal Navy promptly commissioned another six ships to a similar design in the Bellerophon and St Vincent classes. Design The Bellerophon' s continued the universal trend of greater displacement and cost Design The selection of a gun five feet longer than before necessitated a hull ten feet longer between X and Y turret to maintain clearance between the guns and the superstructure

An American design, South Carolina, authorized in 1905 and laid down in December 1906, was another of the first dreadnoughts, but she and her sister, Michigan, were not launched until 1908. Both used triple-expansion engines and had superior layout of their super-firing main battery, dispensing with Dreadnought's wing turrets. They thus retained the same broadside, despite having two fewer guns.

The dreadnought arms race

In 1897, before the revolution in design brought about by Dreadnought, the Royal Navy had 62 battleships in commission or building, a lead of 26 over France and 50 over Germany. ^[25] In 1906, the Royal Navy owned the field with Dreadnought. The new class of ship prompted an arms race with major strategic consequences. Major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts to catch up with the United Kingdom. Possession of modern battleships was not only vital to naval power, but also, as with nuclear weapons today, represented a nation's standing in the world. ^[3] Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Austria, and the United States all began dreadnought programmes; and second-rank powers including Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American yards. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. ^[26]

World War I

Main article: Naval warfare of World War I

The First World War was an anticlimax for the great dreadnought fleets. Naval warfare in World War I was mainly characterized by the efforts of the Allied Powers, with their larger fleets and surrounding position to blockade the There was no decisive clash of modern battlefleets to compare with the Battle of Tsushima. The Battle of Tsushima ( Japanese: 対馬海戦 tsushima-kaisen, Цусимское сражение Tsusimskoye srazheniye) commonly known as the The role of battleships was marginal to the great land struggle in France and Russia; and it was equally marginal to the First Battle of the Atlantic, the battle between German submarines and British merchant shipping. The First Battle of the Atlantic ( 1914 &ndash 1918) was a naval campaign of World War I, largely fought in the seas around the British U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word, itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot ( undersea boat) and refers

By virtue of geography, the Royal Navy could keep the German High Seas Fleet bottled up in the North Sea with relative ease. The High Seas Fleet (Hochseeflotte was the main battle fleet of the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy during World War I. The North Sea is a marginal, Epeiric sea of the Atlantic Ocean on the European Continental shelf. Both sides were aware that, because of the greater number of British dreadnoughts, a full fleet engagement would likely result in a British victory. The German strategy was therefore to try to provoke an engagement on their terms: either to induce a part of the Grand Fleet to enter battle alone, or to fight a pitched battle near the German coastline, where friendly minefields, torpedo-boats and submarines could be used to even the odds. ^[27]

The first two years of war saw conflict in the North Sea limited to skirmishes by battlecruisers at the Battle of Heligoland Bight and Battle of Dogger Bank and raids on the English coast. The High Seas Fleet (Hochseeflotte was the main battle fleet of the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy during World War I. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Battlecruisers were large Warships in the first half of the 20th century that were first introduced by the British Royal Navy. The First Battle of Heligoland Bight was the first Naval battle of the First World War, fought on 28 August 1914 after the British planned to attack The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle fought near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea on 24 January 1915, during the First World War In the summer of 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on German terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets in the Battle of Jutland: an indecisive engagement. fix various bugs per WikipediaHow to fix bunched-up edit links --> ^[28]

In the other naval theatres there were no decisive pitched battles. In the Black Sea, engagement between Russian and Turkish battleships was restricted to skirmishes. The Black Sea is an inland Sea bounded by southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Anatolian peninsula ( Turkey The Russian Empire ( Pre-reform Russian: Pоссійская Имперія Modern Russian: Российская Империя translit: Rossiyskaya The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish In the Baltic, action was largely limited to the raiding of convoys, and the laying of defensive minefields; the only significant clash of battleship squadrons there was the Battle of Moon Sound at which one Russian pre-dreadnought was lost. The Baltic Sea is a Brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N Latitude and from 20°E to 26°E Longitude. The Battle of Moon Sound was a Naval battle in World War I, fought in the autumn of 1917 between German and Russian forces (and three British The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by the British and French blockade. And in the Mediterranean, the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault on Gallipoli.

The course of the war also illustrated the vulnerability of battleships to cheaper weapons. In September 1914, the potential threat posed to capital ships by German U-boats was confirmed by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three British armoured cruisers by the German submarine U-9 in less than an hour. The capital ships of a Navy are its "important" warships the ones with the heaviest Firepower and Armor. The armored cruiser, or armoured cruiser (see spelling differences) is a type of Cruiser, a naval warship. Sea mines proved a threat the next month, when the recently commissioned British super-dreadnought Audacious struck a mine. Image gallery See also List of battleships List of battleships of the Royal Navy List of ship launches By the end of October, the British had changed their strategy and tactics in the North Sea to reduce the risk of U-boat attack. ^[29] While Jutland was the second and last major battleship engagement in history(the first being Tsushima), the German plan for the battle relied on U-boat attacks on the British fleet. The Battle of Tsushima ( Japanese: 対馬海戦 tsushima-kaisen, Цусимское сражение Tsusimskoye srazheniye) commonly known as the  ; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships, causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing paranoia in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships. By October 1916, the Royal Navy had essentially abandoned the North Sea, instructing the Grand Fleet not to go south of the Farne Islands unless adequately protected by destroyers. The Farne Islands (also referred to less formally as the Farnes) are a group of islands off the coast of Northumberland, England.

The German High Seas Fleet, for their part, were determined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines; and since the submarines were needed more for raiding commercial traffic, the fleet stayed in port for the remainder of the war. ^[30] Other theatres equally showed the role of small craft in damaging or destroying dreadnoughts. The two Austrian dreadnoughts lost in 1918 were the casualties of torpedo boats and of frogmen. A frogman is someone who is trained to dive or swim in a military capacity often in combat The Allied capital ships lost in Gallipoli were sunk by mines and torpedo,^[31] while a Turkish pre-dreadnought was caught in the Dardanelles by a British submarine. The Entente Powers (from Triple Entente) were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. See also [[Hellespont]] The Dardanelles ( Turkish: Çanakkale Boğazı Greek: Δαρδανέλλια Dardanellia) formerly

The inter-war period

The inter-war period saw the battleship subjected to strict international limitations to prevent a costly arms race breaking out. History Nelson was laid down in December 1922 and built at Newcastle by Armstrong-Whitworth. ^[32]

For many years, Germany simply had no battleships. The term Weimar Republic ( ˈvaɪmarɐ repuˈbliːk is used by historians to signify the democratic and Republican period of Germany from 1919 to 1933 The Armistice with Germany required that most of the High Seas Fleet be disarmed and interned in a neutral port; largely because no neutral port could be found, the ships remained in British custody in Scapa Flow, Scotland. The armistice treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on November 11, 1918 Scapa Flow ( Old Norse: Skalpaflói) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. The Treaty of Versailles specified that the ships should be handed over to the British. The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. Instead, most of them were scuttled by their German crews on 21 June 1919 just before the signature of the peace treaty. Scuttling is the act of deliberately sinking a ship by allowing water to flow into the hull. Events 524 - Godomar, King of the Burgundians defeats the Franks at the Battle of Vézeronce. Year 1919 ( MCMXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common The treaty also limited the German Navy, and prevented Germany from building or possessing any capital ships. The capital ships of a Navy are its "important" warships the ones with the heaviest Firepower and Armor. ^[33]

While the victors were not limited by the Treaty of Versailles, many of the major naval powers were crippled after the war. Faced with the prospect of a naval arms race against Great Britain and Japan, which would in turn have led to a possible Pacific war, the United States was keen to conclude the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, limited the naval armaments of its five signatories the United States of America, the This treaty limited the number and size of battleships that each major nation could possess, and required Britain to accept parity with the U. S. and to abandon the British alliance with Japan. ^[34] The Washington treaty was followed by a series of other naval treaties, including the First Geneva Naval Conference (1927), the First London Naval Treaty (1930), the Second Geneva Naval Conference (1932), and finally the Second London Naval Treaty (1936), which all set limits on major warships. The Geneva Naval Conference was a conference held to discuss naval arms limitation held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1927 The London Naval Treaty was an agreement between the United Kingdom, the Empire of Japan, France, Italy and the United States, signed The Second Geneva Naval Conference was a conference held to discuss naval arms limitation held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1932. The Second London Naval Disarmament Conference opened in London, the United Kingdom, on December 9, 1935. These treaties became effectively obsolete on 1 September 1939 at the beginning of World War II, but the ship classifications that had been agreed upon still apply. Events 462 - Possible start of first Byzantine indiction cycle. Year 1939 ( MCMXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including ^[35] The treaty limitations meant that fewer new battleships were launched from 1919–1939 than from 1905–1914. The treaties also inhibited development by putting maximum limits on the weights of ships. Designs like the projected British N3 battleship, the first American South Dakota-class, and the Japanese Kii-class—all of which continued the trend to larger ships with bigger guns and thicker armor—never got off the drawing board. Background In the aftermath of the First World War the Royal Navy was faced with the task of trying to maintain a superiority over the other major nations Japan and the Ships USS ''South Dakota'' (BB-49 USS ''Indiana'' (BB-50 USS ''Montana'' (BB-51 USS ''North Those designs which were commissioned during this period were referred to as treaty battleships. A treaty battleship was a Battleship built in the 1920s or 1930s under the terms of one of a number of international treaties

The Rise Of Airpower

As early as 1914, the British Admiral Percy Scott predicted that battleships would soon be made irrelevant by aeroplanes. History The ship was named after the German region Ostfriesland ( East Frisia) which borders the Netherlands and the North Sea. Admiral Sir Percy Moreton Scott 1st Baronet GCB KCVO ( July 10, 1853 &ndash October 18, 1924) was a British Military aviation is the use of Aircraft and other flying machines for the purposes of conducting or enabling warfare including national airlift ( Cargo) capacity ^[36] By the end of World War I, aeroplanes had successfully adopted the torpedo as a weapon. ^[37] A proposed attack on the German fleet at anchor in 1918 using the Sopwith Cuckoo carrier-borne torpedo-bomber was considered and rejected—but it was not long before such a technique was adopted. The Sopwith T1 Cuckoo was a British Biplane Torpedo bomber used by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS and its successor organization the

In the 1920s, General Billy Mitchell of the United States Army Air Corps, believing that air forces had rendered navies around the world obsolete, testified in front of Congress that "1,000 bombardment airplanes can be built and operated for about the price of one battleship" and that a squadron of these bombers could sink a battleship, making for more efficient use of government funds. For other people with the same name see Billy Mitchell (disambiguation. The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC was the predecessor of the U ^[38] This infuriated the U. S. Navy, but Mitchell was nevertheless allowed to conduct a careful series of bombing tests alongside Navy and Marine bombers. In 1921, he bombed and sank numerous ships, including the "unsinkable" German World War I battleship Ostfriesland and the American pre-dreadnought Alabama. History The ship was named after the German region Ostfriesland ( East Frisia) which borders the Netherlands and the North Sea. History Her keel was laid down on 1 December 1896 at Philadelphia Pennsylvania, by the William Cramp and Sons Ship and Engine Building ^[39]

Although Mitchell had required "war-time conditions", the ships sunk were obsolete, stationary, defenseless and had no damage control. The sinking of Ostfriesland was accomplished by violating an agreement that would have allowed Navy engineers to examine the effects of various munitions: Mitchell's airmen disregarded the rules, and sank the ship within minutes in a coordinated attack. The stunt made headlines, and Mitchell declared, "No surface vessels can exist wherever air forces acting from land bases are able to attack them. " While far from conclusive, Mitchell's test was significant because it put proponents of the battleship against naval aviation on the back foot. ^[3] Rear Admiral William A. Moffett used public relations against Mitchell to make headway toward expansion of the U. William Adger Moffett ( 31 October 1869 &ndash 4 April 1933) was an American Admiral notable as the architect of Naval S. Navy's nascent aircraft carrier program. ^[40]

Rearmament

The Royal Navy, United States Navy, and Imperial Japanese Navy extensively upgraded and modernized their WWI-era battleships during the 1930s. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore known as the Senior Service) For Combined Fleet, please see that article For Carrier Striking Task Force, please see that article Among new features were tower height and stability such that optical rangefinder equipment for gunnery control could be used, deck plating was increased especially around turrets against plunging fire and aerial bombing, anti-aircraft weapons added. Some British ships received a large block superstructure nicknamed the "Queen Anne's castle", such as in the Queen Elizabeth and Warspite, which would be used in the new conning towers of the King George V fast battleships. History World War One She was launched on 16 October 1913 at Portsmouth, Hampshire, and entered service in January 1915 during World War I Early career Warspite's first commanding officer upon commissioning in 1915 was Captain Edward Montgomery Phillpotts. Development The King George V class were the outcome of a design process dating from 1928 External bulges were added to improve both buoyancy to counteract weight increase and provide underwater protection against mines and torpedoes. The Japanese rebuilt all of their battleships, plus their battlecruisers, with distinctive "pagoda" structures, though the Hiei received a more modern bridge tower that would influence the new Yamato battleships. A pagoda is the general term in the English language for a tiered Tower with multiple Eaves common in China, Japan, Korea Pre-war service Following World War I, her Boilers were upgraded for speed and bulges were added for better defense against Torpedoes Kongō Design and construction Japanese naval strategy after World War I included plans for the construction of a fleet powerful enough to intimidate likely opponents in particular Bulges were fitted, including steel tube array to improve both underwater and vertical protection along waterline. The U. S. experimented with tripod and later caged masts, though after Pearl Harbor some of the most severely damaged ships such as West Virginia and California were rebuilt to a similar appearance to their fast battleship contemporaries. The attack on Pearl Harbor (or Hawaii Operation, as it was called by the Imperial General Headquarters) was a surprise Military strike conducted by 1923 – 1941 In the months that followed West Virginia ran her trials and shakedown and underwent post-commissioning alterations History Her keel was laid down on 25 October 1916 by the Mare Island Navy Yard. History The Iowa -class battleships were shaped by the Battle of Jutland, by naval treaties signed by various countries during the 1920s and 1930s and by the Radar, which was effective beyond visual contact and was effective in complete darkness or adverse weather conditions, was introduced to supplement optical fire control. ^[41]

Even when war threatened again in the late 1930s, battleship construction did not regain the level of importance which it had held in the years before World War I. The "building holiday" imposed by the naval treaties meant that the building capacity of dockyards worldwide was relatively reduced, and the strategic position had changed. The development of the strategic bomber meant that the navy was no longer the only method of projecting power overseas, and the development of the aircraft carrier meant that battleships had a rival for the resources available for capital ship construction. A strategic bomber is a heavy type Aircraft designed to drop large amounts of ordnance onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating an enemy's An aircraft carrier is a Warship designed with

In Germany, the ambitious Plan Z for naval rearmament was abandoned in favour of a strategy of submarine warfare supplemented by the use of battlecruisers and Bismarck-class battleships as commerce raiders. Construction Vittorio Veneto's keel was laid in 1934 at Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico, Trieste; she was launched on 25 July 1937 Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Plan Z was the name given to the planned re-equipment and expansion of the Nazi German Navy ( Kriegsmarine) ordered by Adolf Hitler on January 27 1939 History The Bismarck and the Tirpitz, the only two ships of this class were laid down in 1936 and launched three years later nominally In Britain, the most pressing need was for air defenses and convoy escorts to safeguard the civilian population from bombing or starvation, and re-armament construction plans consisted of five ships of the King George V class. Development The King George V class were the outcome of a design process dating from 1928 It was in the Mediterranean that navies remained most committed to battleship warfare. France intended to build six battleships of the Dunkerque and Richelieu classes, and the Italians two powerful Littorio-class ships. Design The Littorio class's design was notable in several respects Neither navy built significant aircraft carriers. The U. S. preferred to spend limited funds on aircraft carriers until the South Dakota class. Design The South Dakotas achieved the remarkable goal of a 35000 ton 'Treaty' ship mounting a main battery of nine 16 inch guns with reasonable speed and 'balanced protection' (meaning Japan, also prioritising aircraft carriers, nevertheless began work on three mammoth Yamato class ships (although one of these was later completed as a carrier). Design and construction Japanese naval strategy after World War I included plans for the construction of a fleet powerful enough to intimidate likely opponents in particular ^[5]

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish navy consisted of only two small dreadnought battleships, España and Jaime I. The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict in Spain that started after an attempted Coup d'état committed by parts of the army against the government of The Second Spanish Republic was the system of government in Spain between April 14 1931, when King Alfonso XIII left the country España (originally named Alfonso XIII), by then in reserve at the northwestern naval base of El Ferrol, fell into Nationalist hands in July 1936. This article refers to Ferrol Galicia For other uses see Ferrol (disambiguation. The crew aboard Jaime I murdered their officers, mutinied, and joined the Republican Navy. Thus each side had one battleship; however, the Republican Navy generally lacked experienced officers. The Spanish battleships mainly restricted themselves to mutual blockades, convoy escort duties, and shore bombardment, rarely in direct fighting against other surface units. ^[42] In April 1937, España ran onto a mine laid by friendly forces, and sank with little loss of life. In May 1937, Jaime I was damaged by Nationalist air attacks and a grounding incident. The ship was forced to go back to port to be repaired. There she was again hit by several aerial bombs. It was then decided to tow the battleship to a more secure port, but during the transport she suffered an internal explosion that caused 300 deaths and her total loss. Several Italian and German capital ships participated in the non-intervention blockade. On May 29, 1937, two Republican aircraft managed to bomb the German pocket battleship Deutschland outside Ibiza, causing severe damage and loss of life. Events 363 - Roman Emperor Julian defeats the Sassanid army in the Battle of Ctesiphon, under the walls of the Year 1937 ( MCMXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Description Their size and characteristics were severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles, which limited Germany to ships of no more than 10000 tons displacement Ibiza (Eivissa is an island located in the Mediterranean Sea about 80 km off the coast of Spain Admiral Scheer retaliated two days later by bombarding Almería, causing much destruction, and the resulting Deutschland incident meant the end of German and Italian support for non-intervention. History During World War II Admiral Scheer, under Captain Theodor Krancke, was by far the most successful capital ship Commerce raider of the war ^[43]

World War II

Main article: Battleships in World War II

German battleships — obsolete pre-dreadnoughts — fired the first shots of World War II with the bombardment of the Polish garrison at Westerplatte;^[44] and the final surrender of the Japanese Empire took place aboard a United States Navy battleship, the USS Missouri. The Second World War saw the end of the Battleship as the dominant force in the world's navies. In the Atlantic Fleet Upon commissioning Pennsylvania was attached to the U Operational History Pre-war operations Colorado sailed from New York City on 29 December 1923 on a maiden voyage that took her to Portsmouth 1933 – 1941 Departing Boston on 1 April 1933, the cruiser arrived Gravesend Bay, N Awards In addition to the Navy Unit Commendation Columbia received 10 Battle stars for World War II service The Lingayen Gulf is an extension of the South China Sea on Luzon in the Philippines stretching. The Philippines ( Filipino: Pilipinas, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (fil ''Republika ng Pilipinas'' RP Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea going Battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905 Westerplatte is a Peninsula in Gdańsk, Poland, located on Baltic Sea coast at the river mouth of the Dead Vistula (one of the USS Missouri may refer to, was a sidewheel Frigate launched in 1841 and lost to fire in August 1843 Missouri Between those two events, it became clear that aircraft carriers the new principal ships of the fleet, and battleships had an auxiliary role, if any at all.

Battleships played a part in major engagements in Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean theatres; in the Atlantic, the Germans used their battleships as independent commerce raiders. However, clashes between battleships were of little strategic importance. TheBattle of the Atlantic was fought between destroyers and submarines, and most of the decisive fleet clashes of the Pacific war were determined by aircraft carriers. The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous Military campaign of World War II, (though some say it was a series of naval Military campaigns An aircraft carrier is a Warship designed with

In the first year of the war, armored warships defied predictions that aircraft would dominate naval warfare. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau surprised and sank the aircraft carrier Glorious off western Norway in June 1940. For the German armoured cruiser commissioned in 1907 see SMS Scharnhorst The sisters - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau The Construction She was laid down in February 1934 at Deutsche Werke Kiel. Genesis Glorious was built by Harland and Wolff, Belfast. The design was for a light Battlecruiser; while having guns she was actually Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional ^[45] This engagement marked the last time a fleet carrier was sunk by surface gunnery. In the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir, British battleships opened fire on the French battleships harboured in Algiers with their own heavy guns, and later pursued fleeing French ships with planes from aircraft carriers. The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir, also known as Operation Catapult, was a hostile engagement off the coast of French Algeria where a British Royal Navy

The rest of the War saw many demonstrations of the maturity of the aircraft carrier and its potential against battleships. The British air attack on the Italian naval base at Taranto sank one Italian battleship and damaged two more. The naval Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11 November 1940 &ndash 12 November 1940 during World War II The same Swordfish torpedo bombers played a crucial role in sinking the German commerce-raider Bismarck. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout Background Design of the ship started in the early 1930s following on from Germany's development of the ''Deutschland'' class cruisers and the ''Scharnhorst'' class

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Events 43 BC - Marcus Tullius Cicero assassinated 1696 - Connecticut Route 108, one of the oldest highways Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The attack on Pearl Harbor (or Hawaii Operation, as it was called by the Imperial General Headquarters) was a surprise Military strike conducted by Within a short time five of eight U. S. battleships were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. The Japanese had neutralized the U. S. battleship force in the Pacific region through an air attack, and thereby proven Mitchell's theory, showing the vulnerability of major warships lying at anchor, as at Taranto. The American aircraft carriers were out to sea, however, and evaded detection. They in turn would take up the fight, eventually turning the tide of the war in the Pacific. The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth 's Oceanic divisions The sinking of the British battleship Prince of Wales and her escort, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse further demonstrated the vulnerability of a battleship to air attack, in this case while at sea without air cover. The Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse was a World War II naval engagement which illustrated the effectiveness of aerial attacks Both ships were on their way to assist in the defense of Singapore when they were caught by Japanese land-based bombers and fighters on December 10, 1941. Singapore A bomber is a Military aircraft designed to attack ground and sea targets primarily by dropping Bombs on them A fighter aircraft is a Military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other Aircraft, as opposed to a Bomber, which is designed Events 1041 - Empress Zoe of Byzantium elevates her adoptive son to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire as Michael V Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. ^[46]

At many of the crucial battles of the Pacific, for instance Coral Sea and Midway, battleships were either absent or overshadowed as carriers launched wave after wave of planes into the attack at a range of hundreds of miles. The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from May 4 – May 8, 1942, with most of the action occurring on May 7 and May 8, was The Battle of Midway was a major Naval battle, widely regarded as the most important one of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Battleships in the Pacific ended up primarily performing shore bombardment and anti-aircraft defense for the carriers. Even the largest battleships ever constructed, Japan's Yamato class, which carried a main battery of nine 18-inch (457 millimetre) guns and were designed as a principal strategic weapon, were never given a chance to show their potential. Inches redirects here To see the Les Savy Fav album see Inches. The Millimetre ( American spelling: millimeter, symbol mm) is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to ^[47]

The Cold War

After World War II, several navies retained battleships, but it became clear that they were not worth the considerable cost. Operation Crossroads was a series of Nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States in the summer of 1946 During the war it had become clear that battleship-on-battleship engagements like Leyte Gulf or the sinking of the Hood were the exception and not the rule, and that engagement ranges were becoming longer and longer, making heavy gun armament irrelevant. The armor of a battleship was equally irrelevant in the face of a nuclear attack, and nuclear missiles with a range of 100 kilometres (60 mi) or more could be mounted on the Soviet Kildin class destroyer and Whiskey class submarine by the end of the 1950s. Design The Kotlin Class hull and machinery were retained A rail SSM launcher was fitted at the stern and the forward 130mm gun was replaced by two quad 57mm anti aircraft guns Incidents involving Whiskey class submarines On or about 15 December 1952, the Soviet Whiskey class submarine S-117 was lost due to unknown

The remaining battleships met a variety of ends. USS Arkansas and Nagato were sunk during the testing of nuclear weapons in Operation Crossroads in 1946. First overseas cruise Following this assignment Arkansas joined the Atlantic Fleet for maneuvers along the east coast Construction Nagato was laid down at the Kure Naval Arsenal on 28 August 1917 launched on 9 November 1919 and completed on 15 November 1920 Operation Crossroads was a series of Nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States in the summer of 1946 Both battleships proved resistant to nuclear air burst but vulnerable to underwater nuclear explosions. The Italian Giulio Cesare was taken by the Soviets as reparations and renamed Novorossiysk; she was sunk by a German mine in the Black Sea on 29 October 1955. World War II During the Battle of Punta Stilo on 9 July 1940 Giulio Cesare was hit by a 15 inch (381 mm shell as HMS ''Warspite'' set The Black Sea is an inland Sea bounded by southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Anatolian peninsula ( Turkey Events 437 - Valentinian III, Western Roman Emperor, marries Licinia Eudoxia, daughter of his cousin Theodosius II Year 1955 ( MCMLV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar) The two Andrea Doria class ships were scrapped in 1956. Ships ''Andrea Doria'', launched in 1913 served mostly as an escort until interned after the armistice in 1943 ''Caio Duilio'' ^[48] The French Lorraine was scrapped in 1954, Richelieu in 1968^[49] and Jean Bart in 1970. Construction The Lorraine was built by Ateliers & Chantiers de la Loire at St Design Derived from the ''Dunkerque'' class Richelieu and ''Jean Bart'', as well as the unfinished Clemenceau and Gascogne, Pictures The United Kingdom's four surviving King George V class ships were scrapped in 1957,^[50] and Vanguard followed in 1960. Development The King George V class were the outcome of a design process dating from 1928 Construction At the outbreak of World War II the Admiralty decided to concentrate the limited shipbuilding resources on vessels that could come into service ^[51] All other surviving British battleships had been scrapped in the late 1940s. The Soviet Union's Petropavlovsk was scrapped in 1953, Sevastopol in 1957 and Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya (back under her original name, Gangut, since 1942)^[52] in 1956-7. Development The ship was laid down on 3 June 1909 in the Admiralty Shipyard at St ^[53] Brazil's Minas Gerais was scrapped in Genoa in 1953,^[54] and her sister ship São Paulo sank during a storm in the Atlantic en route to the breakers in Italy in 1951. ^[55] Argentina kept its two Rivadavia class ships until 1956 and Chile kept Almirante Latorre (formerly HMS Canada) until 1959. See also List of battleship classes List of battleships of minor navies See also List of ship commissionings in 1921 List of ship decommissionings in 1958 Sailors' mutiny ^[56] The Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz (formerly Goeben, launched in 1911) was scrapped in 1976 after an offer to sell her back to Germany was refused. Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches The pursuit of Goeben and Breslau See also Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau In 1912 the German navy's Mittelmeerdivision (Mediterranean Sweden had several small coastal defense battleships, one of which, Gustav V, survived until 1970. The Soviets scrapped four large incomplete cruisers in the late 1950s, whilst plans to build a number of new Stalingrad-class battlecruisers were abandoned following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party The three old German battleships Schleswig-Holstein, Schlesien, and Hessen all met similar ends. History SMS Schleswig-Holstein was one of five Pre-dreadnought, ''Deutschland''-class battleships not to be confused with a later class of Pocket Design Dimensions and machinery Schlesien was at the waterline and overall Design Dimensions and machinery Hessen was 413ft long at the waterline and overall Hessen was taken over by the Soviet Union and renamed Tsel. She was scrapped in 1960. Schleswig-Holstein was renamed Borodino, and was used as a target ship until 1960. Schlesien, too, was used as a target ship. She was broken up sometime between 1949 and 1956.

The Iowa class battleships gained a new lease of life in the U. History The Iowa -class battleships were shaped by the Battle of Jutland, by naval treaties signed by various countries during the 1920s and 1930s and by the S. Navy as fire support ships. Shipborne artillery support is considered by the U.S. Marine Corps as more accurate, more effective and less expensive than aerial strikes. Radar and computer-controlled gunfire could be aimed with pinpoint accuracy to target. Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range altitude direction or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as Aircraft, ships The U. S. recommissioned all four Iowa class battleships for the Korean War and the New Jersey for the Vietnam War. The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korean and South Korean regimes with major hostilities lasting from June 25 1950 until the Construction See also Iowa class battleship, Armament of the Iowa class battleship New Jersey was one of the ''Iowa''-class " The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia These were primarily used for shore bombardment, New Jersey firing seven times more rounds against shore targets in Vietnam than she had in the Second World War. ^[57]

As part of Navy Secretary John F. Lehman's effort to build a 600-ship Navy in the 1980s, and in response to the commissioning of Kirov by the Soviet Union, the United States recommissioned all four Iowa class battleships. The United States Secretary of the Navy ( SECNAV) is the Civilian head of the Department of the Navy. John F Lehman Jr (born September 14, 1942) is an American Investment banker and Writer who served as Secretary of the The 600 Ship Navy was a strategic plan of the United States Navy during the 1980s to rebuild its fleet after cutbacks that followed the end of the Vietnam War History She was laid down in June 1973 or March 27 1974 at the Baltiysky Naval Shipyard in Leningrad, launched on December 26 On several occasions, battleships were support ships in carrier battle groups, or led their own battleship battle group. A carrier battle group (CVBG consists of an Aircraft carrier (CV and its escorts A battleship battle group was a formation used by the United States Navy, after the recommissioning of the ''Iowa''-class battleships. These were modernized to carry Tomahawk missiles, with New Jersey seeing action bombarding Lebanon in 1983 and 1984, while Missouri and Wisconsin fired their 16 inch (406 mm) guns at land targets and launched missiles in the Gulf War of 1991. The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM is a long-range all-weather subsonic cruise missile Lebanon (ˈlɛbənɒn Arabic: ar لبنان Lubnān) officially the Republic of Lebanon or Lebanese Republic (ar الجمهورية اللبنانية Construction See also Iowa class battleship, Armament of the Iowa class battleship Missouri was one of the ''Iowa''-class " Construction See also Iowa class battleship, Armament of the Iowa class battleship Wisconsin was one of the " Fast battleship Wisconsin served as the TLAM strike commander for the Persian Gulf, directing the sequence of launches that marked the opening of Operation Desert Storm and fired a total of 24 TLAMs during the first two days of the campaign. The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM is a long-range all-weather subsonic cruise missile This will most likely be the last combat action ever by a battleship. The primary threat to the battleships were Iraqi shore based surface-to-surface missiles; Missouri was targeted by two Iraqi Silkworm missiles, with one missing and another being intercepted by the British destroyer HMS Gloucester. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iraq topics. The HY-2 Haiying ( known in Western media as the Silkworm missile, is an anti-ship Cruise missile made by the People's Republic of China and Affiliations The Rifles City of Gloucester Worshipful Company of Grocers Gloucester R

All four Iowas were decommissioned in the early 1990s, making them the last battleships to see active service. USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin were, until fiscal year 2006, maintained to a standard where they could be rapidly returned to service as fire support vessels, pending the development of a superior fire support vessel. ^[58] The U. S. Marine Corps believes that the current naval surface fire support gun and missile programs will not be able to provide adequate fire support for an amphibious assault or onshore operations. ^[59][60]

Today

With the decommissioning of the last Iowas, no battleships remain in service (including in reserve) with any navy worldwide. A number are preserved as museum ships, either afloat or in dry-dock. For ships that are not original see Ship replica. For preserved incomplete ships see Ships preserved in museums. The U. S. has a large number of battleships on display: USS Massachusetts, North Carolina, Alabama, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Texas. World War II service Atlantic operations After shakedown Massachusetts departed Casco Bay in Portland Maine 24 October 1942 and four days later Construction and shakedown She was laid down 27 October 1937 at the New York Naval Shipyard and launched on 13 June 1940 sponsored by Isabel Hoey (daughter Active service Atlantic service Alabama was laid down on 1 February 1940 by the Norfolk Navy Yard, launched on 16 February 1942 and sponsored by Construction See also Iowa class battleship, Armament of the Iowa class battleship New Jersey was one of the ''Iowa''-class " Construction See also Iowa class battleship, Armament of the Iowa class battleship Wisconsin was one of the " Fast battleship Construction See also Iowa class battleship, Armament of the Iowa class battleship Missouri was one of the ''Iowa''-class " Construction Texas was the second of two s authorized on 24 June 1910 Missouri and New Jersey are now museums at Pearl Harbor and Camden, New Jersey, respectively. Pearl Harbor is a Harbor on the Island of O{{okina}}ahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. The City of Camden is the County seat of Camden County, New Jersey, in the United States. Wisconsin is a museum (at Norfolk, Virginia), and was recently removed from the Naval Vessel Register; however, pending donation, the public can still only tour the deck, since the rest of the ship is closed off for dehumidification. Norfolk is an Independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States The Naval Vessel Register ( NVR) is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. The only other true battleship on display is the Japanese pre-Dreadnought Mikasa. Background Following the 1894–1895 First Sino-Japanese War, and the forced return of the Liaodong Peninsula to China under Russian pressure Japan began to

Battleships in strategy and doctrine

Doctrine

Battleships were the embodiment of sea power. Naval warfare is Combat in and on Seas Oceans or any other major bodies of water such as large Lakes and wide Rivers History For Alfred Thayer Mahan and his followers, a strong navy was vital to the success of a nation, and control of the seas was vital for the projection of force on land and overseas. Alfred Thayer Mahan (September 27 1840–December 1 1914 was a United States Navy Flag officer, geostrategist, and educator Mahan's theory dictated that the role of the battleship was to sweep the enemy from the seas. ^[61] While the work of escorting, blockading and raiding might be done by cruisers or smaller vessels, the presence of the battleship was a potential threat. A blockade is any effort to prevent supplies Troops information or aid from reaching an opposing force A cruiser is a large type of Warship, which had its prime period from the late 19th century to the end of the Cold War. (This came to be known as a "fleet in being". In Naval warfare, a fleet in being is a naval force that extends a controlling influence without ever leaving port ) Mahan went on to say victory could only be achieved by engagements between battleships^[62] (which came to be known as the "decisive battle" doctrine in some navies), while guerre de course (developed by the Jeune Ecole) could never succeed. For Combined Fleet, please see that article For Carrier Striking Task Force, please see that article Commerce raiding is to destroy the logistics (supplies of an enemy on the open sea rather than engaging the combatants themselves or enforcing a Blockade against them The Jeune École ( "Young School") was a French naval school of thought developed during the 19th century

Mahan was highly influential in naval and political circles throughout the age of the battleship,^[63][3] and it called for a large fleet of the most powerful battleships possible. Mahan's work developed in the late 1880s, and by the end of the 1890s it had a massive international impact,^[3] in the end adopted by many major navies (notably the British, American, German, and Japanese). The strength of Mahanian opinion was important in the development of the battleships arms races, and equally important in the agreement of the Powers to limit battleship numbers in the interwar era.

A related concept was a "fleet in being": the idea a fleet of battleships could simply by its presence tie down superior enemy resources. This in turn was believed to be able to tip the balance of a conflict even without a decisive battle. This suggested even for inferior naval powers a battleship fleet could have important strategic impact. ^[64]

Tactics

While the role of battleships in both World Wars reflected Mahanian doctrine, the details of battleship deployment were more complex. Unlike the ship-of-the-line, the battleships of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had significant vulnerability to torpedoes and mines, weapons which could be used by relatively small and inexpensive craft. A ship-of-the-line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th century through the mid-19th century to take part in the the naval tactic known as the Line of battle The Jeune Ecole school of thought of the 1870s and 1880s recommended the placing of torpedo boats alongside battleships; the boats would hide behind the battleships until gun-smoke obscured visibility enough for them to dart out and fire their torpedoes. The Jeune École ( "Young School") was a French naval school of thought developed during the 19th century A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval Ship designed to carry Torpedoes into battle ^[3] While this concept was vitiated by the development of smokeless propellant, the threat from more capable torpedo craft (later including submarines) remained. By the 1890s the Royal Navy had developed the first destroyers, small ships designed to intercept and drive off any attacking torpedo boats. In naval terminology a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance Warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, Convoy During the First World War and subsequently, battleships were rarely deployed without a protective screen of destroyers.

Battleship doctrine emphasised the concentration of the battlegroup. In order for this concentrated force to be able to bring its power to bear on a reluctant opponent (or to avoid an encounter with a stronger enemy fleet), battlefleets needed some means of locating enemy ships beyond horizon range. This was provided by scouting forces; at various stages battlecruisers, cruisers, destroyers, airships, submarines and aircraft were all used. Terminology In some countries airships are also known as dirigibles from the French (fr ''diriger'' to direct plus -ible) meaning "directable" (With the development of radio, direction finding and traffic analysis would come into play, as well, so even shore stations, broadly speaking, joined the battlegroup. Radio is the transmission of signals by Modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible Light. Direction finding (DF refers to the establishment of the direction from which a received signal was transmitted Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in Communication. ^[65]) So for most of their history, battleships operated surrounded by squadrons of destroyers and cruisers. The North Sea campaign of the First World War illustrates how, despite this support, the threat of mine and torpedo attack, and the failure to integrate or appreciate the capabilities of new techniques,^[66] seriously inhibited the operations of the Royal Navy Grand Fleet, the greatest battleship fleet of its time.

Strategic and diplomatic impact

The presence of battleships had a great psychological and diplomatic impact. Similar to possessing nuclear weapons today, the ownership of battleships served to enhance a nation's force projection. A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from Nuclear reactions either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. ^[3]

Even during the Cold War, the psychological impact of a battleship was significant. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the In 1946, USS Missouri was dispatched to deliver the remains of the ambassador from Turkey, and her presence in Turkish and Greek waters staved off a possible Soviet thrust into the Balkan region. Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία ^[67] In September 1983, when Druze militia in Lebanon's Shouf Mountains fired upon U. The Druze ( Arabic: درزي derzī or durzī, plural دروز durūz) are a religious community found primarily in Syria, Lebanon Lebanon (ˈlɛbənɒn Arabic: ar لبنان Lubnān) officially the Republic of Lebanon or Lebanese Republic (ar الجمهورية اللبنانية S. Marine peacekeepers, the arrival of USS New Jersey stopped the firing. Gunfire from New Jersey later killed militia leaders. ^[68]

Value for money

Battleships were the largest and most complex, and hence the most expensive warships of their time; as a result, the value of investment in battleships has always been contested. As the French politician Etienne Lamy wrote in 1879, The construction of battleships is so costly, their effectiveness so uncertain and of such short duration, that the enterprise of creating an armored fleet seems to leave fruitless the perseverance of a people. ^[69] The Jeune Ecole school of thought of the 1870s and 1880s sought alternatives to the crippling expense and debatable utility of a conventional battlefleet. The Jeune École ( "Young School") was a French naval school of thought developed during the 19th century It proposed what would nowadays be termed a sea denial strategy, based on fast, long-ranged cruisers for commerce raiding and torpedo boat flotillas to attack enemy ships attempting to blockade French ports. Sea denial is a military term describing attempts to deny an enemy's ability to use the sea (usually with Naval blockades or port blockades but at the same time making no attempt The ideas of the Jeune Ecole were ahead of their time; it was not until the 20th century that efficient mines, torpedoes, submarines, and aircraft were available that allowed similar ideas to be effectively implemented. ^[70]

The determination of powers such as the German Empire to build battlefleets with which to confront much stronger rivals has been criticised by historians, who emphasise the futility of investment in a battlefleet which has no chance of matching its opponent in an actual battle. The German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from 1871 to 1918 when it was a semi- Constitutional monarchy: beginning with the Unification ^[3] According to this view, attempts by a weaker navy to compete head-to-head with a stronger one in battleship construction simply wasted resources which could have been better invested in attacking the enemy's points of weakness. In Germany's case, the British dependence on massive imports of food and raw materials proved to be a near-fatal weakness, once Germany had accepted the political risk of unrestricted submarine warfare against commercial shipping. Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of Naval warfare in which Submarines sink merchant ships without warning as opposed to attacks per prize regulations Although the U-boat offensive in 1917–18 was ultimately defeated, it was successful in causing huge material loss and forcing the Allies to divert vast resources into anti-submarine warfare. Anti-submarine warfare (ASW or in older form A/S is a branch of Naval warfare that uses surface Warships Aircraft, space craft or other Submarines This success, though not ultimately decisive, was nevertheless in sharp contrast to the inability of the German battlefleet to challenge the supremacy of Britain's far stronger fleet.

The problem for a maritime nation that does not maintain a balanced fleet, with at least some ability to contest a set-piece battle, is that it surrenders the use of the sea for its own purposes, whether economic or military. In addition, such a nation lacks the ability to interdict enemy shipping movements which are protected by a sufficient escort. Such a strategy exposes the nation to blockade or even, in the worst case, invasion. In addition, while a navy optimised for sea denial operations may maximise its potential against a stronger opponent, it will be at a disadvantage against nations of similar strength of its own, but which have invested their resources in a more conventional fleet. For this reason, maritime nations which are unable to compete with the dominant naval power have usually sought to achieve an accommodation with that power, thereby allowing them to resource a balanced fleet with which to deal with their more direct rivals. Examples of this strategy are the French entente with Britain in the decade preceding the First World War; and the British withdrawal in 1921 from its alliance with Japan, in order to avoid a confrontation with the United States. Flag of the United Kingdomsvg|right|70px]] The Entente cordiale is a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom The first was signed in London at what is now the Lansdowne Club on January 30 1902, by Lord Lansdowne (British foreign secretary) and ^[71]

See also

• List of battleships
• List of battleships by country
• List of battleship classes
• List of sunken battleships
• Arsenal ship

Notes

References

External links

• Video: Inside one of Missouri’s 16" gun room, about 1955. (Windows Media File)
• Comparison of projected post-World War II battleship designs
• Comparison of the capabilities of seven WWII battleships
• Development of U.S. battleships, with timeline graph

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic