HISTORY #4: Age of Sail largest warships

Compiled information from Wikipedia articles by D-Mitch

In the previous post I included a number of infographics of various types of warships from the Age of Sail, the period lasting from the 16th to the mid-19th century where naval warfare was dominated by sailing ships armed with cannons. In this post I will describe briefly some of the the largest, most powerful and advanced warships of that era.

HMS Victoria the largest wooden warship which ever entered service

HMS Victoria was the last British wooden first-rate three-decked ship of the line commissioned for sea service. With a displacement of 6,959 tons, she was the largest wooden battleship which ever entered service. She was also the world's largest warship until the completion of HMS Warrior, Britain's first ironclad battleship, in 1861. Victoria´s hull was 79.2 metres (260 ft) long and 18.3 metres (60 ft) wide. She had a medium draught of 8.4 metres (27.5 ft). Her hull was heavily strapped with diagonal iron riders for extra stability. Victoria was the first British battleship with two funnels. She was armed with a total of 121 guns (32 8-inch smooth-bore muzzle-loading guns on the lower gun deck, 30 8-inch (200 mm) guns on the central gun deck, 32 32-pounders on the upper gun deck, 26 32-pounders and one 68-pounder on the upper deck). Victoria was ordered on 6 January 1855, laid down on 1 April 1856 at Portsmouth, and launched on 12 November 1859. She cost a total of £150,578 (2010: £11,764,000) and had a complement of 1,000. During trials in Stokes Bay on 5 July 1860 Victoria reached a top speed of 11.797 knots (21.848 km/h), making her the fastest three decker worldwide, along with the French Bretagne. 

INFOGRAPHICS #18: Age of Sail warships (collection)

The anatomy of an 18th c Man-of-War

In this post I have included a number of infographics of various types of warships from the Age of Sail, the period lasting from the 16th to the mid-19th century where naval warfare was dominated by sailing ships armed with cannons. The end of the sail began in the late 1840s when the steam technology became available. Many ships that were intended to be built as sailing ships they received during their construction or shortly after their launch, engines and screw propeller. The largest, the most powerful and advanced warships of that era will be presented in summary in a next post, the HISTORY #4: Age of Sail largest warships. A great look inside HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's famous flagship (104-gun first-rate ship of the line) at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and world's oldest naval ship still in commission, can be found here.

Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary - Today, past and future (a quick overview)

Written by D-Mitch

RN warships from WWI to 2010. By www.dailymail.co.uk

In this post I aim to present in brief the impressive decline of the United Kingdom's naval force (Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary) through the last decades as well as the current and the future status of the fleet and its synthesis according to the decisions that have been taken the last years. I will not describe all the kind of cuts in the numbers of the various warship categories and craft neither I will expand upon this topic as numerous other very good sites (first of all the savetheroyalnavy.org that its main aim is to put pressure on the UK government to properly resource the RN, others such as the ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot.com, the britisharmedforcesreview.wordpress.com, the thinkdefence.co.uk, the ukdefencejournal.org.uk and more) have focused and analyze thoroughly this issue and the decline of UK's naval power. My main target is to summarize in a simple way the UK's naval power through the last decades by using a variety of infographics, charts and useful information compiled from some good sources.

FLEETS #13: French Navy, Portuguese Navy and Finnish Navy today

Written by D-Mitch

This is the fifth article about various countries' navies today. In these articles, I briefly describe a country's naval fleet by reporting the ships in each type/category of warships and by providing a nice image where all the types of warships are illustrated and the units of its class are reported. I include the vessels that will enter in service this year and I have excluded those that are about to be decommissioned. I deliberately excluded many classes of auxiliary ships; those that they have "0" defence capacity and those that have secondary roles such as hydrographic survey ships, tugs, depollution vessels and training ships.

INFOGRAPHICS #17: Russian Navy submarines (collection)

The past meets the present! Typhoon and Borei SSBN class

This is a collection of fifteen (15) infographics about Russian Navy submarines. The majority of them refer to those vessels that are currently in active service. Please keep in mind that the data on the infographics might not be completely accurate, some of the reported numbers are approximations such as the operational depth, the submerged speed, other capabilities or even the number of submarines that are in active service. As somebody can guess, this is classified information.

The first infographic was created by the talented artist Anton Egorov and it depicts in one image all the submarines that are currently in service with the Russian Navy and their main characteristics and capabilities.

Russian Navy submarines by Anton Egorov High resolution image here.

INFOGRAPHICS #16 and HISTORY #3: Battleships of WWII!

Written by D-Mitch

IJN Yamato in 1941. The ship, together with its sister-ship,
IJN Musashi, were the only super-battleships that saw action.

This article is devoted to the battleships, the most powerful ships to sail the waves and the pride of every navy from 1880 to the early '40s. These large warships with the impressive gun armament, the so-called "Castles of Steel" or "The Floating Fortresses", were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, and for decades the battleship was a major factor in both diplomacy and military strategy. The following image (compiled by iksanov) depicts individual battleships and battlecruisers of major battleship classes as they were in a specific year (camouflage, prior or after a modernization, etc.). The majority of them served during WWII with very few exceptions such as the España class battleship Jaime I (n.28) or the HMS Vanguard (n.2) that was commissioned in 1946 (I modified the original image because instead of Vanguard, it had the Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship, a ship that was never completed and commissioned). Somebody can notice also that not all the battleship classes are included, such examples are the Conte di Cavour class of Italy, the New Mexico and Pennsylvania classes of the United States of America, the Ise class of Japan and many more classes of the United Kingdom. For a brief overview of all the battleship classes (ironclads, pre-dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts, battleships and fast battleships), including those that were never commissioned, you can read here (I noticed quickly that some classes are missing though such as the Espana class). About the individual battleships within the classes you can find them here where they are listed alphabetically. Please notice that the silhouettes have not been created by me but by anonymous users in the web (if somebody found an author or the authors please send me a message!)

INFOGRAPHICS #15 and HISTORY #2: United States Navy aircraft carriers (1922 - today)

Original article (link) by Annalisa Underwood
Naval History and Heritage Command, Communication and Outreach Division, U.S. Navy

The article was improved by D-Mitch, with the addition of information, images, table (original table before the corrections here) and with the inclusion of the escort aircraft carrier classes.

Text and map of the current U.S. Navy aircraft carrier museums by (the excellent!) Jeff Head (link).

The evolution of the United States Navy aircraft carrier from 1922 till present:

Evolution of the USN aircraft carrier. Image: Annalisa Underwood and James Caiella.
High resolution image here.

The U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier, USS Langley (CV-1), was converted from the collier USS Jupiter (AC-3) and recommissioned March 20, 1922. Langley had a displacement of 11,500 tons and measured 542 feet in length. She could travel at a speed of 15.5 knots (17.8 mph) and boasted a crew of 468 personnel. Though Langley was not the first ship with an installed flight deck or the first ship from which an airplane had taken off, her service marked the birth of the era of the carrier. She was also the sight of the first carrier catapult when her commanding officer, Cmdr. Kenneth Whiting, was catapulted from her deck.

Ada class corvettes of the Turkish Navy

Written by D-Mitch

TCG Heybeliada, lead ship of the Ada class corvettes

The MILGEM project, from the Turkish words Milli Gemi (National Ship), is a Turkish national warship program with the aim to design and build locally a fleet of hi-tech stealth multipurpose corvettes and frigates that will replace older ships which are currently in service. Through this ambitious program, Turkey seeks to improve national military shipbuilding capacity and skills and ultimately to achieve independence from foreign weapon producers, designers and manufacturers. More than 50 local companies, including the largest Turkish defense firms such as Aselsan, Havelsan and RMK Marine, play a significant role in the MILGEM project, gaining invaluable experience in warship design and construction. The MILGEM Project Office of the Istanbul Naval Shipyard Command executes and coordinates the design, development and construction works of the MILGEM project since March 12, 2004. The programme initially included the construction of 12 ships in two batches (blocks, due to important differences among the batches). The first batch would have included eight (8) multipurpose corvettes the so-called MILGEM Block I (Ada; island in Turkish) class while the last four (4) would be of the TF-100 frigates equipped with vertical-launching system (VLS) for surface-to-air (SAM) missiles. This plan changed recently as the first batch will include only four corvettes of the Ada class, while all the rest ships will be designated as MILGEM Block II.

WARSHIPS OF THE PAST: Almirante Grau cruiser of the Peruvian Navy

Written by D-Mitch
 

Almirante Grau (CLM-81) cruiser of the Peruvian Navy

There are very few navies in the world today that have cruisers in their inventories. Two of the world's superpowers, as somebody could expected, the USA and Russia, have such warships in their fleets, ships that exceed the 10,000tons displacement and of length greater than 170 meters. The U.S. Navy has the Ticonderoga class (22 ships in active service) while the giant Zumwalt class destroyers, ships that are superior to cruisers, are under construction. Russia has one Kirov class cruiser in active service with another one under re-construction, which are the largest and most heavily armed surface combatant in the world today (thus sometimes they are classified as battlecruisers) and three Slava class cruisers. There are also navies in Asia that have ships that are classified as destroyers despite the fact that they have a displacement over than 10,000tons and they carry a very heavy armament. Such navies are the Japanese Navy with the Atago class and South Korean Navy with the mighty Senjong the Great class that is equipped with 128-cell vertical launching system (!), ships that are equal to cruisers in size (except the length) and armament. However, there is one more country except the "big two" that has also a cruiser in her inventory, a country with an important naval tradition and with a strong fleet. This country is Peru. Peruvian Navy's flagship today is BAP Almirante Grau (CLM-81), the last 6in gun armed cruiser in the world, a cruiser that its main armament consists of.. guns!