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Naval Firepower Of The Ages
Battleships and Aircraft Carriers

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Battleships
A
battleship is a large, heavily-armored warship with a main battery
consisting of the largest caliber of guns. They are larger,
better-armed and better-armored than cruisers.
Battleships have evolved a great deal over time, as
designs continually 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 warship in the Age of Sail. The term
came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a developed type of
ironclad warship, and by the 1890s design had become relatively
standard on what is now known as the pre-Dreadnought battleship. In
1906, HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design, and
for many years modern battleships were referred to as dreadnoughts.
As much as a type of war vessel, battleships constituted
a potent symbol of national might and naval domination. For decades,
the numbers and abilities of battleships were a major factor in
diplomacy and military strategy. The global arms race in battleship
construction in the early 1900s was a significant factor in the origins
of World War I, which saw a clash of huge battlefleets at the Battle of
Jutland. The construction of battleships was limited by the Naval
Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s, but battleships both old and new were
deployed during World War II.
Despite this record, some historians and naval theorists
question the value of the battleship. Aside from Jutland, there were
few great battleship clashes. And despite their great firepower and
protection, battleships remained vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper
ordnance and craft: initially the torpedo and mine, and later aircraft
and the guided missile. 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, being retained into the Cold War only by
the United States Navy for fire support purposes. These last
battleships were removed from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in March
2006.
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. The USA has a large number of battleships on display. USS
Massachusetts, North Carolina, Alabama, New Jersey, Wisconsin,
Missouri, and Texas. Missouri, and New Jersey are now museums at Pearl
Harbor and Camden, N.J. respectively. Wisconsin is a museum (at
Norfolk, Va.), 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. The only
other true battleship on display is the Japanese pre-Dreadnought
Mikasa. A number of ironclads and ships-of-the-line are also preserved,
including HMS Victory, Warrior, the Swedish Vasa, the Dutch Buffel and
Schorpioen, and the Chilean war trophy, Huáscar. The earliest ancestor
of the battleship still on display is the sixteenth-century English war
vessel Mary Rose. Go to the
Battleship page.
Aircraft Carriers

Photo: USS Ronald Reagan
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed to deploy and
in most cases recover aircraft, acting as a sea-going airbase. Aircraft
carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power great distances
without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft
operations. They have evolved from wooden vessels used to deploy a
balloon into nuclear powered warships that carry dozens of fixed and
rotary wing aircraft.
Balloon carriers were the first ships to deploy manned
aircraft, used during the 19th and early 20th century, mainly for
observation purposes. The 1903 advent of fixed wing airplanes was
followed in 1910 by the first flight of such an aircraft from the deck
of a US Navy cruiser. Seaplanes and seaplane tender support ships, such
as HMS Engadine, followed. The development of flat top vessels produced
the first large fleet ships. This evolution was well underway by the
mid 1920s, resulting in ships such as the HMS Hermes, Ho-sho-, and the
Lexington class aircraft carriers.
World War II saw the first large scale use and further
refinement of the aircraft carrier, spawning several types. Escort
aircraft carriers, such as USS Barnes, were built only during World War
II. Although some were purpose built, most were converted from merchant
ships, and were a stop-gap measure in order to provide air support for
convoys and amphibious invasions. Light aircraft carriers, such as USS
Independence represented a larger, more "militarized" version of the
escort carrier concept. Although the light carriers usually carried the
same size air groups as escort carriers, they had the advantage of
higher speed as they had been converted from cruisers under
construction rather than civilian merchant ships.
Wartime emergencies also saw the creation or conversion
of other, unconventional aircraft carriers. CAM ships, like the SS
Michael E, were cargo carrying merchant ships which could launch but
not retrieve fighter aircraft from a catapult. These vessels were an
emergency measure during World War II as were Merchant aircraft
carriers (MACs), such as MV Empire MacAlpine, another emergency measure
which saw cargo-carrying merchant ships equipped with flight decks.
Battlecarriers were created by the Imperial Japanese Navy to partially
compensate for the loss of carrier strength at Midway. Two of them were
made from Ise class battleships during late 1943. The aft turrets were
removed and replaced with a hangar, deck and catapult. The heavy
cruiser Mogami concurrently received a similar conversion. This "half
and half" design was an unsuccessful compromise, being neither one
thing nor the other. In addition the superstructure and the turbulent
airflow it generated made landing even more hazardous than usual.
Submarine aircraft carriers, such as the French Surcouf, or the
Japanese I-400 class submarines which were capable of carrying 3 Aichi
M6A Seiran aircraft. The first of these were built in the 1920s, but
were generally unsuccessful at war. Modern navies that operate such
ships treat aircraft carriers as the capital ship of the fleet, a role
previously played by the battleship. The change, part of the growth of
air power as a significant part of warfare, took place during World War
II. This change was driven by the superior range, flexibility and
effectiveness of carrier-launched aircraft.
Following the war, the scope of carrier operations
continued to increase in size and importance. The Supercarrier,
typically displacing 75,000 tonnes or greater has been the pinnacle of
carrier development since their introduction. Most are powered by
nuclear reactors and form the core of a fleet designed to operate far
from home. Amphibious assault carriers, such as USS Tarawa or HMS
Ocean, which serve the purpose of carrying and landing Marines and
operate a large contingent of helicopters for that purpose. They have a
secondary capability to operate VSTOL aircraft. Also known as "commando
carriers" or "helicopter carriers".
Lacking the firepower of other warships, carriers by
themselves are considered vulnerable to attack by other ships,
aircraft, submarines or missiles and therefore travel as part of a
carrier battle group (CVBG) for their protection. Unlike other types of
capital ships in the 20th century, aircraft carrier designs since World
War II have been effectively unlimited by any consideration save
budgetary, and the ships have increased in size to handle the larger
aircraft: The large, modern Nimitz class of United States Navy carriers
has a displacement nearly four times that of the World War II-era USS
Enterprise yet its complement of aircraft is roughly the same, a
consequence of the steadily increasing size of military aircraft over
the years. Go to the
Carrier page.
From
Wikipedia
All
images in this
battleship / aircraft carrier web pages are public domain. These images
are a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made
during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the
U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
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