Battleship

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Battleship refers to a type of heavily-armored warship bearing the largest caliber of guns afloat, specifically those warships built between the 1890s through the 1940s.

Thre sinking of the battleship U.S.S. Maine, an American warship on a peaceful visit to Havana, Cuba, on February 15, 1898, seized American attention in the days leading to the Spanish-American War, though it was never ceratin who sank it.

World War II

Atlantic

In December 1939 at the start of the war German's small ("pocket") battleship Graf Spee sank numerous merchant ships in the South Atlantic. On December 13 three British cruisers found it along the coast of Uruguay, defeated it in a running fight, and forced it into Montevideo harbor, where it was scuttled by its crew. In October 1940, the pocket battleship Scheer broke out into the Atlantic via the Danish Straits. It attacked an Allied convoy of 36 ships on November 5; the the armed merchant ship Jervis Bay defended the convoy and enabled 31 ships of the convoy to escape. On May 22, 1941, the battleship Bismarck ventured into the North Atlantic to attack British commerce. A Royal Navy (British) task force intercepted it between Iceland and Greenland. The Bismarck sank the battle cruiser Hood with one salvo and damaged the battleship Prince of Wales. The Bosmark was hit too and made for home waters, pursued by a pack of British destroyers. The aircraft carrier Ark Royal gave chase, and the Bismarck was hit by torpedo planes and bombers. Finally two large British battleships joined the hunt; the Bismarck lost its rudder controls; a torpedo finally sank it, ending the era of German surface raiders in the open Atlantic. A solitary battleship undefended by air or by destroyers was proven helpless, as the British discovered when their two Asian battleships were sunk by Japanese air power in December 1941.

End of the battleships

The Royal Navy sank the Italian fleet in Nov. 1940 at the Battle of Taranto using warplanes from aircraft carriers. The Japanese took note and at the Battle of Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7. 1941), sank nearly the entire American battleship fleet using carrier planes. Immediately the carrier replaced the battleship as the capital ship of seapower. The era of big-gun battles between fleets at 30,000 yards was (almost) over. Heavy guns were useful for shore bombardment, but for combat were replaced by bombs delivered by air, and torpedoes (delivered by airplane, submarine, or destroyer) as the chief offensive weapons of naval warfare. The last battleship ever was built in 1945.

see also

Further reading

  • Brown, David K. Eclipse of the Big Gun: The Warship 1906-45 (1992)
  • Friedman, Norman, and A. D. Baker. Naval Firepower: Battleship Guns and Gunnery in the Dreadnaught Era (2008)
  • Friedman, Norman. U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History (1985)
  • Garcia Y Robertson, Rodrigo. "Failure of the Heavy Gun at Sea, 1898-1922." Technology and Culture 1987 28(3): 539-557. Issn: 0040-165x Fulltext: in Jstor
  • Hodges, Peter. The Big Gun: Battleship Main Armament 1860-1945, (1981), highly detailed coverage
  • Hone, Trent. "The Evolution of Fleet Tactical Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1922-1941," The Journal of Military History - Volume 67, Number 4, October 2003, pp. 1107-1148 in Project Muse
  • Hore, Peter. Battleships of World War II: An illustrated history and country-by-country directory of warships, including battlecruisers and pocket battleships, that ... Jersey, Iowa, Bismarck, Yamato, Richelieu (2008)
  • Hore, Peter. Battleships of World War I: A Fully Illustrated Country-By-Country Directory Of Dreadnoughts, Including Armoured Cruisers, Battlecruisers And Battleships From 1906-1918 (2007)
  • Hore, Peter. Ironclads: An Illustrated History of Battleships from 1860 to WWI (2007)
  • Lambert, Nicholas A. Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution (2002) excerpt and text search
  • McBride, William M. Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865-1945 (2000) excerpt and text search
  • Morison, Samuel Loring, and Norman Polmar. The American Battleship (2003) excerpt and text search
  • Muir, Malcolm. The Iowa Class Battleships: Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri & Wisconsin (1991)
  • Mulligan, Timothy. "Ship-of-the-Line or Atlantic Raider? Battleship Bismarck Between Design Limitations and Naval Strategy," The Journal of Military History 69#4 October 2005, pp. 1013-1044 in Project Muse
  • Parkes, Oscar British Battleships: 'Warrior' 1860 to 'Vanguard' 1950 - A History of Design, Construction and Armament (1990) Naval Institute, Annapolis
  • Sondhaus, Lawrence. Naval Warfare, 1815-1914 (2001) online edition
  • Sturton, Ian. Conway's Battleships: The Definitive Visual Reference to the World's All-Big-Gun Ships (2008)
  • Sumida, Jon Tetsuro. "Gunnery, Procurement, and Strategy in the Dreadnought Era," The Journal of Military History v69#4 (2005) 1179-1187 online at Project Muse
  • Sumrall, Robert F., and Thomas Walkowiak. Iowa Class Battleships: Their Design, Weapons and Equipment (1989)
  • Weller, Donald M. "Salvo-splash! The Development of Naval Gunfire Support in World War II". United States Naval Institute Proceedings 1954 80(8): 839-849, 1011-1021
  • Whitley, M.J. Battleships of World War Two (2001) excerpt and text search
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