The capital ships of a navy are its "important" warships; the ones with the heaviest firepower and armour. Fire power is a military capability to direct force at an enemy 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 There is usually no formal criterion for the classification, but it is a useful concept when thinking about strategy, for instance to compare relative naval strengths in a theatre of operations without having to get bogged down in the details of tonnage and gun diameters. A Strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, most often "winning In Warfare a theater or theatre is defined as a specific geographical area of conduct of armed conflict bordered by areas where no combat is taking place A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a fleet. A fleet, or naval fleet is a large formation of Warships, and the largest formation in any Navy.
In the 20th century, especially in World Wars I and II, typical capital ships would be battleships, battlecruisers, and in WWII, aircraft carriers (though it took until late 1942 for carriers to be universally considered capital ships). A battleship is a large heavily armored Warship with a main battery consisting of the largest Calibre of Guns Battleships were Battlecruisers were large Warships in the first half of the 20th century that were first introduced by the British Royal Navy. An aircraft carrier is a Warship designed with All of the above ships were close to 20,000 tons displacement or heavier. Heavy cruisers, despite being important ships, were not considered capital ships. The heavy cruiser was a type of Cruiser, a naval Warship designed for long range high speed and an armament of naval guns roughly 8in in calibre
An exception to the above in World War II was the Deutschland-class cruiser. Description German capital ships were restricted by the Treaty of Versailles to a displacement of 10000 tons for "armoured ships" Though this class was technically similar to a heavy cruiser, albeit with considerably heavier guns, they were generally regarded as capital ships (hence the British label "Pocket battleship"). The heavy cruiser was a type of Cruiser, a naval Warship designed for long range high speed and an armament of naval guns roughly 8in in calibre The Alaska-class cruisers, despite being oversized heavy cruisers and not battleships/battlecruisers, were also considered by some to be capital ships. Description The Alaska class ships are often referred to as large cruisers;in terms of gunnery and displacement they were midway between a Heavy cruiser
During the Cold War, a Soviet Kirov-class large missile cruiser had a displacement great enough to rival WWII-era capital ships, perhaps defining a new battlecruiser for that era. 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 The Soviet Navy ( Russian: Военно-морской флот СССР Voyenno-morskoy flot SSSR, literally "Naval military forces of the USSR" was Armament This class is equipped with missiles and guns as well as electronics
In the 21st century, the aircraft carrier is the last remaining capital ship, with firepower defined in decks available and aircraft per deck, rather than in guns and calibres. The term caliber or calibre designates the interior Diameter of a tube or the exterior diameter of a wire or rod The United States has undeniable supremacy in both categories of aircraft carriers, possessing not only 11 active duty supercarriers each capable of carrying and launching nearly 100 tactical aircraft, but an additional 12 amphibious assault ships every bit as capable (in the "Sea Control Ship" configuration) as the light VSTOL carriers of other nations. This is about the warships For the television program see Supercarrier (TV series. An amphibious assault ship (also referred to as an amphibious assault carrier or commando carrier) is a type of Helicopter carrier employed to land A Sea Control Ship (SCS is a type of small Aircraft carrier designed and conceptualized by the United States Navy under Chief of Naval Operations Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing (V/STOL is a term used to describe Aircraft that are able to take-off or land vertically or on short runways
Ballistic missile submarines (or "boomers"), while important ships and in tonnage are similar to early battleships, are usually counted as part of a nation's nuclear deterrent force and do not share the sea control mission of traditional capital ships. A ballistic missile submarine is a Submarine equipped to launch Ballistic missiles ( SLBMs) A nuclear deterrent is the phrase used to refer to a country's nuclear weapons arsenal when considered in the context of Deterrence theory. (Although in some navies (Royal Navy and United States Navy), ballistic submarines are given names typically formerly given to battleships). The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore known as the Senior Service)
The definition of "capital ship" was formalized in the limitation treaties of the 1920s and 30s; see Washington Naval Treaty, London Naval Treaty, and Second London Naval Treaty. 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 The London Naval Treaty was an agreement between the United Kingdom, the Empire of Japan, France, Italy and the United States, signed The Second London Naval Disarmament Conference opened in London, the United Kingdom, on December 9, 1935.
Before the advent of the all-steel navy in the late 19th century, a capital ship was a warship of the First, Second or Third rates:
- 1st Rate: 100 or more guns, typically carried on three or four decks. First-rate was the designation used by the Royal Navy for its largest ships of the line, those mounting 100 guns or more on three gundecks In the British Royal Navy, a Second-rate was a Ship of the line mounting 90 to 98 guns on three gun decks In the British Royal Navy, a third-rate was a Ship of the line mounting 64 to 80 guns typically built with two Gun decks (thus the related term A deck is a permanent covering over a compartment or a hull of a Ship. Four-deckers tended to have problems with the waterline and the lowest deck could seldom fire except on the calmest of seas.
- 2nd Rate: 90–98 guns
- 3rd Rate: 64 to 80 guns (although 64-gun third-raters were very small and not very numerous in any era).
Frigates were ships of the fourth or fifth rate; a corvette was a ship of the sixth rate. For the bird see Frigatebird. A frigate /ˈfrɪgɪt/ is a warship In the British Royal Navy, a fourth-rate was during the first half of the 18th century a Ship of the line mounting from 46 up to 60 guns In Britain's Royal Navy during the classic age of fighting sail a fifth-rate was the penultimate class of warships in a hierarchal system of six "ratings" based A corvette is a small maneuverable lightly armed Warship, originally smaller than a Frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft, although many Sixth-rate was the designation used by the Royal Navy for small warships mounting between 20 and 24 nine-pounder guns on a single deck sometimes with guns on the upper works
In Fiction
The term has also been adopted into science fiction literature and culture to describe large spaceships used in military contexts, particularly where other naval terms have also been adopted in similar fashion. A starship is a theoretical Spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for Orbital spaceflight or Interplanetary Often, in such contexts, there is a significant size gap between non-capital and capital warships, with the latter typically being over a kilometer in length and incapable of safely entering planetary atmospheres (much less actually landing), like the Star Destroyers (and, especially the Super Star Destroyers) of the Star Wars franchise. Star Destroyers are iconic vessels of the fictional Star Wars universe Star Destroyers are iconic vessels of the fictional Star Wars universe Star Wars is an epic Space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas during the 1970s and significantly expanded Another common occurrence is that the definition of a capital ship depends on who one asks - even within the same fictional universe, one man's capital ship is another man's corvette. Again, in Star Wars, even though Star Destroyers are capital ships to their own Tie fighters , they themselves are the Death Star's frigates. TIE fighters are fictional Starfighters in the Star Wars universe The Death Star is a Fictional Space station and Superweapon appearing in the Star Wars movies and expanded universe.
See also
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 battleDapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic