Portal:Battleships Information

Military Portals:
Military history of: Australia
Europe
Germany
War ( American Civil War
American Revolutionary War
World War I
World War II)
Battleships
Tanks

The Battleships Portal

P:BB

The firepower of a battleship demonstrated by USS Iowa (1984). The muzzle blasts distort the ocean surface.

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 term battleship came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship, now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought into the United Kingdom's Royal Navy heralded a revolution in the field of battleship design. Subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought, were referred to as " dreadnoughts", though the term eventually became obsolete as dreadnoughts became the only type of battleship in common use.

Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, and for decades the battleship was a major factor in both diplomacy and military strategy. A global arms race in battleship construction began in Europe in the 1890s and culminated at the decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905, the outcome of which significantly influenced the design of HMS Dreadnought. The launch of Dreadnought in 1906 commenced a new naval arms race. Three major fleet actions between steel battleships took place: the long-range gunnery duel at the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904, the decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905 (both during the Russo-Japanese War) and the inconclusive Battle of Jutland in 1916, during the First World War. Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of dreadnoughts of the war, and it was the last major battle in naval history fought primarily by battleships.

The Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships, though technical innovation in battleship design continued. Both the Allied and Axis powers built battleships during World War II, though the increasing importance of the aircraft carrier meant that the battleship played a less important role than had been expected in that conflict. ( Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

edit

Selected article

The Minas Geraes class, spelled Minas Gerais in some sources, consisted of two battleships built for the Brazilian Navy by the British company Armstrong Whitworth. In 1904, Brazil began a major naval building program that included three 11,800-long-ton (12,000 tonne) small battleships. Designing and ordering the ships took two years, but these plans were scrapped after the revolutionary dreadnought concept rendered the Brazilian design totally obsolete. Two of these dreadnoughts were ordered instead, making Brazil became the third country to have ships of this type under construction, before traditional powers like Germany, France or Russia. As such, the ships caused quite a stir among the major countries in the world, many of whom incorrectly speculated the ships were actually destined for a rival nation. Soon after their delivery in 1910, both Minas Geraes and São Paulo were embroiled in the Revolt of the Lash, in which the crews of four Brazilian ships demanded the abolition of corporal punishment in the navy. The ships surrendered four days after it began, when a bill was passed granting amnesty to all involved. In the 1920s and 30s, they participated in multiple revolts. Minas Geraes was modernized in the 1930s, but both battleships were too old to actively participate in the Second World War, and instead were employed as harbor defense ships in Salvador and Recife. São Paulo was sold in 1951 to a British shipbreaker, but was lost in a storm north of the Azores while being towed to her final destination. Minas Geraes was sold to an Italian scrapper in 1953 and towed to Genoa the following year.

More selected articles

Read more about the Minas Geraes-class battleships

edit

Selected biography

Reinhard Scheer (30 September 1863 – 26 November 1928) was an Admiral in the German Kaiserliche Marine. Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet; he progressed through the ranks, commanding cruisers and battleships, as well as major staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I, Scheer was the commander of the II Battle Squadron, later commanding III Battle Squadron and eventually the entire High Seas Fleet. Scheer led the German fleet at the Battle of Jutland, and later joined those calling for unrestricted submarine warfare against the Allies. In August 1918, Scheer was promoted to the Chief of Naval Staff, but the Wilhelmshaven mutiny essentially ended his plans for a new offensive, and he retired at the end of the war.

A strict disciplinarian, Scheer was popularly known in the Navy as the "man with the iron mask" due to his severe appearance. The admiral was commemorated in the renascent Kriegsmarine by the " pocket battleship" Admiral Scheer, built in the 1930s.

More selected biographies

Read more about Reinhard Scheer

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various battleship-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The appearance of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 rendered every other battleship obsolete (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 2 USS Texas, built in 1892, was the first pre-dreadnought battleship of the United States Navy. Photochrom print c. 1898. (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 3 HMS Inflexible, after the replacement of her sailing masts with 'military masts' (from Ironclad warship)
Image 4The water-tube boiler was the most efficient method of producing high-pressure steam for pre-dreadnought engines. (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 5 HMS Ocean was typical of pre-dreadnought battleships (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 6Schematic section of a typical pre-dreadnought battleship with an armoured upper and middle deck and side belt (red), lateral protective coal bunkers (grey), and a double-bottom of watertight compartments. The machinery was arranged in the protected internal void. (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 7 USS California (BB-44), one of two Tennessee-class battleships, steaming at high speed in 1921 (from Dreadnought)
Image 8 Napoléon (1850), the first steam battleship (from Ironclad warship)
Image 9 Mikasa as a museum ship (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 10Animated diagram of gun turret loading and firing, based on the British 15-inch gun used on super-dreadnoughts (from Dreadnought)
Image 11Cross section of a German pre-dreadnought Wittelsbach-class battleship, circa 1914 (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 12Cross-section view amidships of USS Kearsarge, showing how the armour scheme relates to the innards of the ship (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 13Postcard of USS Connecticut being used for troop transport in 1919 (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 14 Loa being fitted after its conversion in the Callao harbour, 1864 (from Ironclad warship)
Image 15 Paris on speed trials (1914) (from Dreadnought)
Image 16A plan of HMS Dreadnought, showing the revolutionary design (from Dreadnought)
Image 17The first battle between ironclads: CSS Virginia (left) vs. USS Monitor, in the March 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads (from Ironclad warship)
Image 18The conventional broadside of 68-pounders on HMS Warrior of 1860 (from Ironclad warship)
Image 19The Battle of Iquique, where Peruvian ironclad Huáscar sunk the Chilean wooden corvette Esmeralda (from Ironclad warship)
Image 20 HMS Agamemnon, an example of taking the intermediate battery principle to its ultimate expression with ten 9.2-inch guns (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 21 HMS Audacious sinks after hitting a mine, October 1914 (from Dreadnought)
Image 22The French Redoutable (1876), the first battleship to use steel as the main building material (from Ironclad warship)
Image 23 USS Indiana, an example of the intermediate battery principle with its forward 13-inch and forward port 8-inch gun turrets (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 24 USS Massachusetts, a pre-dreadnought battleship launched in 1893 (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 25French Navy ironclad floating battery Lave, 1854. This ironclad, together with the similar Tonnante and Dévastation, vanquished Russian land batteries at the Battle of Kinburn (1855). (from Ironclad warship)
Image 26A barbette of Redoutable (from Ironclad warship)
Image 27Royal Navy Orion-class super-dreadnoughts in line c. 1914 (from Dreadnought)
Image 28The Argentine Rivadavia, first of its class, under construction in 1912 (from Dreadnought)
Image 29The Confederacy's French-built last ironclad was also Japan's first: Stonewall was later renamed Kōtetsu (from Ironclad warship)
Image 30 HMS Dreadnought shows the low freeboard typical for early ironclad turret-ships. This ship, launched in 1875, should not be confused with her famous successor, launched in 1906, marking the end of the pre-dreadnought era. (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 31 Provence, a Bretagne-class battleship, launched in 1913 (pictured in 1942) (from Dreadnought)
Image 321904 illustration of H.G. Wells' December 1903 The Land Ironclads, showing huge armored land vessels, equipped with Pedrail wheels. (from Ironclad warship)
Image 33The gun trials of the Brazilian dreadnought Minas Geraes in 1910, where all the guns capable of training to the port side were fired, forming what was at that time the heaviest broadside ever fired from a warship (from Dreadnought)
Image 34
Growth in size of battleship designs from 1905 onwards, showing the dreadnought's rapid growth between 1905 and 1920, prior to the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922
(from Dreadnought)
Image 35Mexican frigate Guadalupe 1842 (from Ironclad warship)
Image 36The working of a triple-expansion steam engine. High-pressure steam is used three times to produce motive power, gradually cooling as it goes. (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 37The iron-and-wood armor of Warrior (from Ironclad warship)
Image 38The fleets engaging for the Battle of Lissa (from Ironclad warship)
Image 39A plan of Bellerophon (1907) showing the armament distribution of early British dreadnoughts. The main battery is in twin turrets, with two on the "wings"; the light secondary battery is clustered around the superstructure. (from Dreadnought)
Image 40 King George V (left) inspects HMS Neptune (from Dreadnought)
Image 41Japan's Admiral Togo on the bridge of Mikasa just before the Battle of Tsushima (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 42This section of SMS Bayern shows a typical dreadnought protection scheme, with very thick armour protecting the turrets, magazines and engine spaces tapering away in less vital areas (from Dreadnought)
Image 43 HMS Dominion of the King Edward VII-class was launched towards the end of the pre-dreadnought era, in 1903 (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 44 HMS Ramillies was the fourth ship of the influential Royal Sovereign class. The diagonal tubes are spars for torpedo nets. (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 45 HMS Agamemnon, an all-big-gun mixed-calibre ship of the Lord Nelson class. It carried four 12-inch (305 mm) and ten 9.2-inch (234 mm). (from Dreadnought)
Image 46A Paixhans naval shell gun. 1860 engraving. (from Ironclad warship)
Image 47The Japanese battleship Settsu (1911) (from Dreadnought)
Image 48 Mikasa, a typical pre-dreadnought in many respects; note the positioning of secondary and tertiary batteries, and the concentration of armour on turrets and engineering spaces (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 49Model of the French Gloire (1858), the first ocean-going ironclad (from Ironclad warship)
Image 50 Retvizan sinks in Port Arthur, 1904 (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 51 Punch cartoon from May 1876 showing Britannia dressed in the armor of an ironclad with the word Inflexible around her collar and addressing the sea god Neptune. Note the ram sticking out of Britannia's breast plate. The caption reads: OVER-WEIGHTED. Britannia. "Look here, Father Nep! I can't stand it much longer! Who's to 'rule the waves' in this sort of thing?" (from Ironclad warship)
Image 52 USS Cairo, an example of a City-class ironclad gunboat (from Ironclad warship)
Image 53United States Navy ironclads off Cairo, Illinois, during the American Civil War. (from Ironclad warship)
Image 54The obturator invented by de Bange allowed the effective sealing of breeches in breech-loading guns. (from Ironclad warship)
Image 55The French battleship Justice at speed (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 56French armored floating battery Arrogante (1864). (from Ironclad warship)
Image 57Barbette of the French ironclad Vauban (1882–1905) (from Ironclad warship)
Image 58 Radetzky-class battleship, a pre-dreadnought class of the Austro-Hungarian Navy (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 59 Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein in port around 1930. Both ships served into World War II. (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 60The reloading mechanism onboard HMS Inflexible (from Ironclad warship)
Image 61Unfinished Bayern-class battleship Württemberg (right) and the Mackensen-class battlecruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich in Hamburg after the war, in about 1920 (from Dreadnought)
Image 62 HMS Canopus fires her 12-inch main guns at a Turkish shore battery (1915). Photo by Ernest Brooks. (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 63The Royal Navy's revolutionary HMS Dreadnought, launched in 1906, gave its name to the type (from Dreadnought)
Image 64Officers of a monitor-class warship, probably USS Patapsco, photographed during the American Civil War. (from Ironclad warship)
Image 65 HMS Warrior (1860), Britain's first seagoing ironclad warship (from Ironclad warship)
Image 66Breech-loading 110-pounder Armstrong gun on HMS Warrior (from Ironclad warship)
Image 67The heavy guns and forward barbette of Mikasa's main battery (from Pre-dreadnought battleship)
Image 68 Gloire under sail (from Ironclad warship)
Image 69 USS Texas, the only dreadnought still in existence, was launched in 1912 and is now a museum ship (from Dreadnought)
Image 70 SMS Szent István begins to roll over after being torpedoed in 1918 (from Dreadnought)
Image 71 USS New York making full steam (1915) (from Dreadnought)
Image 72 12-pounder anti-torpedo boat guns mounted on the roof of a turret on Dreadnought (1906) (from Dreadnought)

edit

Selected picture

Credit: PH1 Jeff Hilton, DoD archive

The only bathtub ever installed on a warship of the United States Navy, this tub aboard USS Iowa was installed as a convenience for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Due to his paralytic illness, Roosevelt could make little use of a shower while embarked to the Cairo and Tehran Conferences.

More selected pictures

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that one of the first microwave radars, the British Type 271 on board HMS Duke of York, led to the night-time sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst?
... that British submarine HMS Sceptre towed an X-class midget submarine tasked with attacking German battleships off Norway?

edit

More Did you know - load new batch

... that of the ten German battleships interned in Scapa Flow, only SMS Baden was not successfully scuttled on 21 July 1919?
... that the Armstrong Whitworth shipyard in Elswick submitted four plans for the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo?
... that the French battleship Masséna was sunk as a breakwater during the Gallipoli Campaign?
... that the battleship USS Recruit was built in New York City's Union Square?

Archives

edit

Selected quote

“

[T]he thunderous blast of the 16-inch guns struck the chest like the blow of a baseball bat. The sharp crack of the five-inch was skull splitting, even more painful to the ears. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop, the next 16-inch salvo could not be anticipated. No matter how one might try to brace his body in advance, there was no way to avoid bruises inflicted on elbows, knees and shins, as the entire ship lurched in angry recoil with every main battery salvo. Dust and debris would burst from every crack and corner, asbestos lagging would fly from piping, and insulation would tear loose from the overhead. Every object not bolted down would bounce or ricochet as though kicked by angry gremlins. Topside, solid sheets of flame with great clouds of searing gas and smoke erupted from the gun muzzles with every salvo. Often as not, much of this was carried by the wind back across the ship, to envelop men at exposed stations and be sucked inside through the ventilation system. At the end of such a day, all hands suffered from throbbing headaches, and most were virtually deaf. Red-rimmed eyes smarted from the pall of smoke. Every man's entire body was grimy with dust and the abrasive residue of burned gun powder. All of this could be, and was, endured. There was no pleasure whatever in it; only the grim satisfaction of helping our Marines survive to win the battle ashore.

”

— Ben Blee, speaking of his time as a Lieutenant aboard USS North Carolina

More selected quotes

edit

Related WikiProjects

WikiProject Military history

Maritime warfare task force
Operation Majestic Titan

WikiProject Ships

edit

Quality content

Featured topics

Battlecruisers of Germany • Bayern-class battleships • Indefatigable-class battlecruisers • Iowa-class battleships • König-class battleships • Rivadavia-class battleships • Tosa-class battleships • Yamato-class battleships

Featured articles

Featured lists

List of battlecruisers • List of battlecruisers of Germany • List of battlecruisers of Japan • List of battlecruisers of Russia • List of battlecruisers of the Royal Navy • List of battleships of Austria-Hungary • List of battleships of Germany • List of battleships of Italy • List of battleships of the Ottoman Empire • List of battlecruisers of the United States • List of sunken battlecruisers

A-Class articles

Borodino-class battlecruiser • Design A-150 battleship • Deutschland-class battleship • Florida-class battleship • Fusō-class battleship • German battleship Tirpitz • HMS Courageous (50) • HMS Hood (51) • HMS New Zealand (1911) • HMS Princess Royal (1911) • HMS Queen Mary • Japanese battleship Hiei • Japanese battleship Kirishima • Japanese battleship Kongō • Japanese battleship Musashi • Kongō-class battlecruiser • Lexington-class battlecruiser • Russian battleship Rostislav • Russian battleship Sevastopol (1895) • SMS Deutschland (1904) • SMS Hannover • SMS Kaiser (1911) • SMS Kaiserin • SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm • SMS Nassau • SMS Ostfriesland • SMS Posen • Tosa-class battleship • USS Hawaii (CB-3) • USS Texas (BB-35) • United States Naval Gunfire Support debate

Good topics

Battlecruisers of Russia • Battlecruisers of the Royal Navy • Battleships of Austria-Hungary • Battleships of Germany • Courageous-class battlecruisers and aircraft carriers • Ekaterina II-class battleships • Evstafi-class battleships • Gangut-class battleships • Imperator Aleksandr II-class battleships • Imperatritsa Mariya-class battleships • Kongō-class battlecruisers

Good articles

edit

Related portals

edit

How can I help?

Operation Majestic Titan is the code name for a long-term Wikipedian project with two primary objectives, the first of which is to create the single largest featured topic on Wikipedia, centered around the battleships considered, planned, built, operated, canceled, or otherwise recorded. There are probably a few hundred articles of this nature which will be included, from the earliest pre-dreadnoughts to the last of the dreadnoughts. Once all articles are featured this project will reorient to ensuring that the articles remain up to standard. If you're interested, please view the project page to familiarize yourself with the guidelines, and simply pick an article to improve! There is also ongoing discussion you can participate in.

edit

Associated Wikimedia

Battleships on Wikinews	Battleships on Wikiquote	Battleships on Wikibooks	Battleships on Wiktionary	Battleships on Commons
News	Quotations	Manuals & Texts	Definitions	Images

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Portal:Battleships Information

The Battleships Portal

Selected article

Selected biography

General images - load new batch

Selected picture

Did you know (auto-generated)

More Did you know - load new batch

Selected quote

Related WikiProjects

Quality content

Categories

Related portals

How can I help?

Associated Wikimedia

Videos

Websites

Encyclopedia

Facebook