A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203 mm (8 inches) in calibre, whose design parameters were dictated by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930. The heavy cruiser is part of a lineage of ship design from 1915 through the early 1950s, although the term "heavy cruiser" only came into formal use in 1930. The heavy cruiser's immediate precursors were the light cruiser designs of the 1900s and 1910s, rather than the armoured cruisers of the years before 1905. When the armoured cruiser was supplanted by the battlecruiser, an intermediate ship type between this and the light cruiser was found to be needed—one larger and more powerful than the light cruisers of a potential enemy but not as large and expensive as the battlecruiser so as to be built in sufficient numbers to protect merchant ships and serve in a number of combat theatres.
A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are typically faster and more maneuverable than merchant ships. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries only weapons, ammunition and supplies for its crew. Warships usually belong to a navy, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations.
The King Edward VII class was a class of eight pre-dreadnought battleships launched by the Royal Navy between 1903 and 1905. The class comprised King Edward VII, the lead ship, Commonwealth, Hindustan, Britannia, Dominion, New Zealand, Africa, and Hibernia. They marked the first major development of the basic pre-dreadnought type that had been developed with the Majestic type of the mid-1890s, all of which had been designed by the Director of Naval Construction, William Henry White, with the primary innovation being the adoption of a heavy secondary battery of four 9.2-inch (234 mm) guns to supplement the standard main battery of four 12 in (305 mm) guns. The King Edward VIIs were among the last pre-dreadnoughts built for the Royal Navy before the construction and launch of the revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought in 1906, which immediately rendered them obsolescent.
The Majestic class of nine pre-dreadnought battleships were built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1890s under the Spencer Programme, named after the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Poyntz Spencer. With nine units commissioned, they were the most numerous class of battleships. The nine ships, HMS Majestic, Caesar, Hannibal, Illustrious, Jupiter, Magnificent, Mars, Prince George, and Victorious, were built between 1894 and 1898 as part of a programme to strengthen the Royal Navy versus its two traditional rivals, France and Russia. This continued the naval re-armament initiatives begun by the Naval Defence Act 1889.
The Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were a group of five super-dreadnoughts built for the Royal Navy during the 1910s. These battleships were superior in firepower, protection and speed to their Royal Navy predecessors of the Iron Duke class as well as preceding German classes such as the König class. The corresponding Bayern-class ships were generally considered competitive, although the Queen Elizabeth class were 2 knots (3.7 km/h) faster and outnumbered the German class 5:2. The Queen Elizabeths are generally considered the first fast battleships of their day.
The Mississippi class of battleships comprised two ships which were authorized in the 1903 naval budget: Mississippi and Idaho; these were named for the 20th and 43rd states, respectively. These were the last pre-dreadnought battleships to be designed for the United States Navy, but not the last to be built, because one more ship of a prior design was completed later under the 1904 naval budget. While the quality and technology of the weaponry and armor were first-rate, these ships included a variety of main, intermediate, secondary, and tertiary gun sizes in a predreadnought configuration which became obsolete before the ships were completed.
The Iron Duke class was a group of four dreadnought battleships built for the British Royal Navy before the First World War. The class comprised four ships: Iron Duke, Marlborough, Benbow, and Emperor of India. Launched from October 1912 to November 1913, this was the third class of Royal Navy super-dreadnoughts. The ships were essentially repeats of the King George V-class battleships; they retained the same ten 13.5 inch (34.3 cm) guns in five twin gun turrets on the centreline. However, the Iron Dukes had improved armour and a more powerful secondary armament of 6-inch weapons instead of the 4-inch mounted on the earlier ships.
The Canopus class was a group of six pre-dreadnought battleships of the British Royal Navy built in the late 1890s. The ships were designed by the Director of Naval Construction, William White, for use on the China Station. The class comprised Canopus, the lead ship, and Glory, Albion, Ocean, Goliath, and Vengeance. The class was armed with a main battery of four BL 12 inch Mk VIII naval guns and a secondary battery of twelve QF 6-inch guns. Compared to the preceding Majestic-class battleships, the Canopus class was smaller, faster, and less heavily armoured, though they adopted new, stronger Krupp armour, which was more effective than the Harvey steel used in the Majestics. In addition to the Krupp steel, the ships also adopted several other changes, including water-tube boilers, in-line funnels, and a full-length armoured belt.
Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built from the mid- to late- 1880s to the early 1900s. Their designs were conceived before the appearance of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 and their classification as 'pre-dreadnought' is retrospectively applied. In their day, they were simply known as 'battleships' or else more rank-specific terms such as 'first-class battleship' and so forth. The pre-dreadnought battleships were the pre-eminent warships of their time and replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s.
A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.
The New York class was a pair of super-dreadnought battleships built for the United States Navy between 1911 and 1914. The two ships of the class, New York and Texas, saw extensive service beginning in the occupation of Veracruz, World War I, and World War II.
The Drake class was a four-ship class of armoured cruisers built around 1900 for the Royal Navy.
A gun turret is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in some degree of azimuth and elevation.
A dual-purpose gun is a naval artillery mounting designed to engage both surface and air targets.
The Eidsvold class was a class of coastal defence ships, two of which were built for the Royal Norwegian Navy in 1899 by Armstrong Whitworth. The class consisted of two ships, HNoMS Eidsvold and HNoMS Norge. Locally they were referred to as panserskip.
A main battery is the primary weapon or group of weapons around which a warship is designed. As such, a main battery was historically a gun or group of guns, as in the broadsides of cannon on a ship of the line. Later, this came to be turreted groups of similar large-caliber naval rifles. With the evolution of technology the term has come to encompass guided missiles as a vessel's principal offensive weapon, deployed both on surface ships and submarines.
The Nassau class was a group of four dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the early 1900s. The class comprised Nassau, the lead ship, Rheinland, Posen, and Westfalen. All four ships were laid down in mid-1907, and completed by late 1910. Though commonly perceived as having been built in response to the British Dreadnought, their design traces its origin to 1903; they were in fact a response to Dreadnought's predecessors of the Lord Nelson class. The Nassaus adopted a main battery of twelve 28 cm (11 in) guns in six twin-gun turrets in an unusual hexagonal arrangement. Unlike many other dreadnoughts, the Nassau-class ships retained triple-expansion steam engines instead of more powerful steam turbines.
The dreadnought was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's HMS Dreadnought, had such an effect when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as "dreadnoughts", and earlier battleships became known as pre-dreadnoughts. Her design had two revolutionary features: an "all-big-gun" armament scheme, with an unprecedented number of heavy-calibre guns, and steam turbine propulsion. As dreadnoughts became a crucial symbol of national power, the arrival of these new warships renewed the naval arms race between the United Kingdom and Germany. Dreadnought races sprang up around the world, including in South America, lasting up to the beginning of World War I. Successive designs increased rapidly in size and made use of improvements in armament, armour, and propulsion throughout the dreadnought era. Within five years, new battleships outclassed Dreadnought herself. These more powerful vessels were known as "super-dreadnoughts". Most of the original dreadnoughts were scrapped after the end of World War I under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, but many of the newer super-dreadnoughts continued serving throughout World War II.
The Centurion-class battleships were a pair of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the 1890s. They were rated as second-class battleships because they were less heavily armed and armoured than the first-class battleships. They were designed for service abroad and were given higher speed and longer range to counter the armoured cruisers then being built as commerce raiders.
