Heavy Metal: The Evolution of the Naval Warship

[Ringel05]

A 90 minute video starting with the Viking ships up to the modern age. Obviously not an exhaustive documentary but still quite interesting with little tidbits of information included. I did not know that during the running battle between the English fleet and the Spanish Armada the English cannon could only be fired once or twice an hour, the Spanish guns once or twice a day.
I looked for it on YouTube but no luck, it's currently on Amazon Prime videos.

heavy metal: evolution of the naval warship

 

[whitehall]

Up to and including WW2, the infamous "Battleship" was the queen of the high seas. After America's battleship fleet was destroyed at Pearl Harbor the stodgy old Navy realized that Aircraft Carriers" were crucial to naval warfare. Today we have Carriers the size of small cities but with the advance of missile technology they might be sitting ducks.

 

[Ringel05]

Up to and including WW2, the infamous "Battleship" was the queen of the high seas. After America's battleship fleet was destroyed at Pearl Harbor the stodgy old Navy realized that Aircraft Carriers" were crucial to naval warfare. Today we have Carriers the size of small cities but with the advance of missile technology they might be sitting ducks.

Great Briton's admiralty was slow to adopt steam power. Modern carrier task forces have fifteen war ships to protect the carriers. That said the latest Ford Class Carriers might be the last of the super carrier with only four committed to and the Navy rethinking the need. We also have the Zumwalt Class Stealth Destroyers which unfortunately had some major teething problems and MASSIVE (an understatement) cost overruns so we only have three of those, they were supposed to replace the aging Arleigh-Burke Class Guided Missile Destroyers. We were supposed to be building the cruiser version this year but I don't think that's even happened yet as the Zumwalts were delivered five years late and are only now ready to fight.

 

[there4eyeM]

Up to and including WW2, the infamous "Battleship" was the queen of the high seas. After America's battleship fleet was destroyed at Pearl Harbor the stodgy old Navy realized that Aircraft Carriers" were crucial to naval warfare. Today we have Carriers the size of small cities but with the advance of missile technology they might be sitting ducks.

"Might" be?
They are a huge mistake; big, expensive, juicy targets. Small and sneaky is the rule today. Remotely guided, intelligent, evasive, potent will overwhelm over sized, over priced and slow.
The fundamental revolution in warfare was the bow and arrow. Stand off weapons that inflict damage at a distance while allowing for evasive maneuver against counter attack led inevitably, by steps, to the aircraft carrier. It, in turn, has been superseded by technology.

 

[Hawk1981]

Occasionally, a dominating personality can influence the evolution of an organization or a navy. The greatest admiral in the British Navy since Nelson was John A. Fisher, who served as First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910 and again from 1914 to 1915.

During a pivotal time in naval history, the Royal Navy was his fleet. Fisher was first to demand reforms in technology, in personnel handling, in tactics and strategy at sea. He was a leading proponent of improved naval gunnery: firing at longer ranges, with greater accuracy and faster rates of fire. Yet he believed that the torpedo would eventually supersede the great gun as the primary naval weapon. He believed in large, fast surface ships with heavy guns, and he supervised the design and construction of the Dreadnought, the first all-big-gun battleship.

Yet, Fisher was convinced that the submarine was the warship of the future and he urged the Royal Navy to invest in these sneaky undersea craft and develop tactics for them to sink battleships. He introduced destroyers and gave them their name. He began substitution of turbines for reciprocating engines and he urged the use of fuel oil rather than coal.

Fisher never commanded a ship during wartime. His role and his great service to the navy and his country were as an administrator and reformer. At the start of the First World War, Fisher appointed Admiral Sir John Jellicoe to command the Grand Fleet and provided Jellicoe with the vast assemblage of ships, battleships, battle cruisers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, with which Britain guarded the exits from the North Sea, shielded her coasts, and foiled the purposes of the German High Seas Fleet.