A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several roles.
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or battle group and defend them against powerful short-range attackers. They were originally developed in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish Navy as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" (TBDs) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War.
A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes.
The Romanian Naval Forces is the principal naval branch of the Romanian Armed Forces and operates in the Black Sea and on the Danube. It traces its history back to 1860.
The Baltic Sea Campaigns were conducted by Axis and Allied naval forces in the Baltic Sea, its coastal regions, and the Gulf of Finland on the Eastern Front of World War II. After early fighting between Polish and German forces, the main combatants were the Kriegsmarine and the Soviet Navy, with Finland supporting the Germans until 1944 and the Soviets thereafter. The Swedish Navy and merchant fleet played important roles, and the British Royal Navy planned Operation Catherine for control of the Baltic Sea and its exit choke point into the North Sea.
The Obukhovskii 12"/52 Pattern 1907 gun was a 12-inch (305 mm), 52-caliber naval gun. It was the most powerful gun to be mounted aboard battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy and later the Soviet Navy during both world wars. It was later modified by the Soviets and employed as coastal artillery and as a railway gun during World War II.
In late 19th-century naval terminology, torpedo gunboats were a form of gunboat armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats. By the end of the 1890s torpedo gunboats were superseded by their more successful contemporaries, the torpedo boat destroyers.
Novík was a destroyer of the Russian Imperial Navy and Soviet Navy, commissioned in 1913 where she served with the Baltic Fleet during World War I. She joined the Bolsheviks in November 1917 and was renamed Yakov Sverdlov in 1923. She was a training ship when Operation Barbarossa began, but was recalled to active duty the following day. She struck a mine on 28 August 1941 and sank while escorting an evacuation convoy during the Soviet evacuation of Tallinn.
The 76-mm air-defense gun M1914/15 was the first Russian purpose-built anti-aircraft gun. Adopted during World War I, the gun remained in production until 1934.
The Ordnance QF Hotchkiss 6 pounder gun Mk I and Mk II or QF 6 pounder 8 cwt were a family of long-lived light 57 mm naval guns introduced in 1885 to defend against new, small and fast vessels such as torpedo boats and later submarines. There were many variants produced, often under license which ranged in length from 40 to 58 calibers, but 40 caliber was the most common version.
The QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss or in French use Canon Hotchkiss à tir rapide de 47 mm were a family of long-lived light 47 mm naval guns introduced in 1886 to defend against new, small and fast vessels such as torpedo boats and later submarines. There were many variants produced, often under license which ranged in length from 32 to 50 calibers but 40 caliber was the most common version. They were widely used by the navies of a number of nations and often used by both sides in a conflict. They were also used ashore as coastal defense guns and later as an anti-aircraft gun, whether on improvised or specialized HA/LA mounts.
The Battle of Someri was a battle in the Gulf of Finland during World War II on 8–9 July 1942, between the Soviet Union and Finland. Starting as a modest operation to clear a Finnish observation post from a small island, it became one of the largest surface ship engagements in the Baltic theater.
The 130 mm/50 B13 Pattern 1936 was a 130 mm (5.1 in) 50 caliber Soviet naval gun. The gun was used as a standard destroyer weapon during World War II, and it was also used as a coastal gun and railway gun. The gun was produced in three different versions which all had incompatible ammunition and range tables. Mountings for the weapon included single open mounts and twin turrets. Besides the Soviet Union, the gun was used on ships sold or donated to Poland, People's Republic of China, Egypt and Indonesia. Finland captured five guns during the Continuation War and used them until the 1990s.
The 130mm/55 B7 Pattern 1913 naval gun was a 5.1-inch naval gun used predominantly on ships of the Imperial Russian Navy and later by the Soviet Navy. It was manufactured mainly by the Obukhov State Plant (OSP) in St. Petersburg, as well as under licence by Vickers Limited in Great Britain. The gun was used as medium artillery on several Russian dreadnoughts and as main artillery on cruisers, as well as coastal artillery. It was succeeded by the 130 mm/50 B13 Pattern 1936 naval gun, which became the standard destroyer gun of the Soviet Navy during World War II.
The 12-inch 40-caliber naval gun was the standard main weapon of the pre-dreadnought battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy. Sixty-eight guns of the first production run were built in 1895–1906 by the Obukhov Works in Saint Petersburg. They were installed on seventeen battleships starting with Sissoi Veliky and Tri Sviatitelia and ending with the Andrei Pervozvanny class. A second production run was ordered to Russian and British gunmakers during World War I.
The Type 41 3-inch (76 mm) naval gun otherwise known as the 8 cm/40 3rd Year Type naval gun was a Japanese dual-purpose gun introduced before World War I. Although designated as 8 cm (3.15 in), its shells were 76.2 mm (3 in) in diameter.
NMS Amiral Murgescu was a minelayer and convoy escort of the Romanian Navy, the first sea-going warship built in Romania and the largest Romanian-built warship of World War II. She laid numerous minefields, from the Bulgarian port of Burgas to the Crimean port of Sevastopol, which inflicted significant losses to the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. She also carried out numerous convoy escort missions and took part in the Axis evacuation of the Crimea in May 1944. Due to her success in combat, she was decorated twice by May 1944. She was captured by the Soviet Union in September 1944 and served until 1988, when she was scrapped.
The 120 mm 50 caliber Pattern 1905 was a Russian naval gun developed by Vickers for export in the years before World War I that armed a variety of warships of the Imperial Russian Navy. Guns salvaged from scrapped ships found a second life as coastal artillery, railway artillery and aboard river monitors during the Russian Civil War. It was estimated that there were 110 guns in the Soviet Navy's inventory in 1941. Of these, 39 were in the Baltic Fleet, 20 in the Black sea Fleet, 24 in the Amur Flotilla, 11 in the Pacific Fleet and 6 in the Pinsk flotilla in World War II.
Dzerzhinsky (Дзержинский) was one of eight Fidonisy-class destroyers built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. She was originally named Kaliakria (Калиакрия) before she was renamed Dzerzhinsky in 1926.
