John's History of British Warships

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Hello,

As part of our ongoing attempts to streamline this site, We now have seperate pages for each nations ships. We feel that this will be better than scrolling as was the case with the previous format. If you have any ideas that might help please use my contact us page. Thank you

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Warships Of the World Introduction

Any country's Navy is a symbol of that nations maritime strength, its ambition, and its wealth. The ships we hope to cover here and later to add a photo album depicting ships featured. We aim to cover a whole variety of vessels from the different navy's of the world, from the early Ironclads of the nineteenth century such as HMS warrior of the Royal Navy, to vast nuclear powered aircraft carriers like USS George Washington and secretive submarines like "Ohio" of today's US Navy.

The ships we will feature were all built with one single purpose, that was to fight, that was their true ultimate purpose, and technical innovations which have attempted to give one ship a fighting edge over another has always been the driving force behind design and construction.

What began in the 1850's with steam engines in the iron clad hulls of wooden proto-battleships, such as the French "Gloire", created within 40 years the big gun battleships, epitomised by Japan's giant " Yamato" of World War II. Ships such as "Yamato" were the archetypal 'big' warship, but smaller vessels were and are important to a navy as its capital ships

It is clear that the advantages of a fighting ship with steam power, armour plate and big guns were too great to be ignored for the sake of practical problems involved in getting the right balance of all three. A ship needed enough armour to defend itself against guns of an enemy vessel, a hull big enough to house the engines necessary to propel that weight at sufficient speed, and guns big enough to match, if not outrange those of any others.It was a technical conundrum which many tried to solve,and which resulted in a huge variety of ship designs.

In 1889, the British Admiralty ordered a entirely new fleet of 70 ships, including eight standard first class battleships. The lead vessel of this fleet was the "Royal Sovereign" of 1892. Her hull and guns were steel, she was protected by amour plate up to 450mm (17.7in) thick and carried guns of 343mm ( 13.5in) calibre. Even though she displaced nearly 16,000 tonnes ( 15,744 tons) she could still make 16 knots.

The era of the big gun battleship had arrived. But the cost was enormous. Naval expenditure in Britain rose by 200 per cent during the 1890's and by the end of the decade the cost of each new Royal Navy battelship was approaching £1.5 million.The world had embarked on its first great arms race, and every industrialised country saw the possession of a navy as a mark of their power and self esteem. Imperial Germany and the United states both spent twice as much as the British on their navies in an effort to catch Up.

But in 1906 the British launched "HMS Dreadnought", a ship which combined every single technical advance to date, from new steam turbine engines to electrically controlled gun turrets."Dreadnought" made every other battleship obsolete, including those in her own navy, and gave her name to an entirely new class of warship.

However "Dreadnoughts" time as the world's number one did not last very long. By 1908 the Royal Navy was building so called " Super Dreadnoughts", ships such as "Iron Duke" which were over 8128 tonnes ( 8000 tons ) heavier. The future of the capital ship seemed to lay in bigger battleships carrying guns of ever increasing size.But questions were now being asked as to the battleships future. many were wondering exactly how useful in battle these huge floating gun batteries would be.

Countries such as Germany were ceding the battleship contest and were beginning to develope other warship types like battle cruisers, vessels designed for fast commerce raiding rather than naval battles. More ominously, Germany was also investing in a fleet of torpedo carrying submarines, The U-boat war in the the battle of the atlantic would devastate the allied convoys until 1943 when submarine detection equipment became sufficiently developed

I trust like me being an ex Royal navy man some of you ex sailors will also take an interest and post to us as well. Regards J.B.Dray

If you wish to add anything on any Warship please use either mail address at top in home page or submit through our warship section on our Titanic Forums

Main source: Fighting Ships of the World, By Robert Jackson & Steve Crawford.