So for most of their history

So for most of their history, battleships operated surrounded by squadrons of destroyers and cruisers. The North Sea campaign of the First World War illustrates how, despite this support, the threat of mine and torpedo attack, and the failure to integrate or appreciate the capabilities of new techniques,^[94] seriously inhibited the operations of the Royal Navy Grand Fleet, the greatest battleship fleet of its time. Sony VGP-BPL18 Battery The presence of battleships had a great psychological and diplomatic impact. Similar to possessing nuclear weapons today, the ownership of battleships served to enhance a nation's force projection.^[3]Even during the Cold War, the psychological impact of a battleship was significant. In 1946, USS Missouri was dispatched to deliver the remains of the ambassador from Turkey, Sony VAIO VGN-AR47G/E1 Battery and her presence in Turkish and Greek waters staved off a possible Soviet thrust into the Balkan region.^[95] In September 1983, whenDruze militia in Lebanon's Shouf Mountains fired upon U.S. Marine peacekeepers, the arrival of USS New Jersey stopped the firing. Gunfire from New Jersey later killed militia leaders. Sony VAIO VGN-AR520E Battery Battleships were the largest and most complex, and hence the most expensive warships of their time; as a result, the value of investment in battleships has always been contested. As the French politician Etienne Lamy wrote in 1879, "The construction of battleships is so costly, their effectiveness so uncertain and of such short duration, Sony VAIO VGN-AR53DB Battery that the enterprise of creating an armored fleet seems to leave fruitless the perseverance of a people".^[97] The Jeune École school of thought of the 1870s and 1880s sought alternatives to the crippling expense and debatable utility of a conventional battlefleet. It proposed what would nowadays be termed a sea denial strategy, Sony VAIO VGN-AR54DB Battery based on fast, long-ranged cruisers for commerce raiding and torpedo boat flotillas to attack enemy ships attempting to blockade French ports. The ideas of the Jeune Ecole were ahead of their time; it was not until the 20th century that efficient mines, torpedoes, submarines, and aircraft were available that allowed similar ideas to be effectively implemented.^[97] Sony VAIO VGN-AR550E Battery The determination of powers such as the German Empire to build battlefleets with which to confront much stronger rivals has been criticised by historians, who emphasise the futility of investment in a battlefleet which has no chance of matching its opponent in an actual battle.^[3] According to this view, Sony VAIO VGN-AR55DB Battery attempts by a weaker navy to compete head-to-head with a stronger one in battleship construction simply wasted resources which could have been better invested in attacking the enemy's points of weakness. In Germany's case, the British dependence on massive imports of food and raw materials proved to be a near-fatal weakness, Sony VAIO VGN-AR630E Battery once Germany had accepted the political risk of unrestricted submarine warfare against commercial shipping. Although the U-boat offensive in 1917–18 was ultimately defeated, it was successful in causing huge material loss and forcing the Allies to divert vast resources into anti-submarine warfare. Sony VAIO VGN-AR64DB Battery This success, though not ultimately decisive, was nevertheless in sharp contrast to the inability of the German battlefleet to challenge the supremacy of Britain's far stronger fleet.A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through to the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, Sony VAIO VGN-AR65DB Battery in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear. Since these engagements were almost invariably won by the heaviest ships carrying the most powerful guns, the natural progression was to build sailing vessels that were the largest and most powerful of their time. Sony VAIO VGN-AR660U Battery From the end of the 1840s, the introduction of steam power brought less dependence on the wind in battle and led to the construction of screw-driven but wooden-hulled ships of the line; a number of pure sail-driven ships were converted to this propulsion mechanism. However, the introduction of the ironclad frigate in about 1859 led swiftly to the decline of the steam-assisted ships of the line, Sony VAIO VGN-AR690U Battery though the ironclad warship became the ancestor of the 20th-century battleship, whose very designation is itself a contraction of the phrase "line-of-battle ship."The term "ship of the line" has fallen into disuse, as the ship classes filling the traditional role (battleships anddreadnoughts) have been discontinued in modern navies in favor of surface ships with better stand-off weaponry (such asguided missile cruisers and aircraft carriers). Sony VAIO VGN-AR71ZU Battery The term is sometimes used to refer to any military vessel of sufficient size and armament to participate in a direct naval confrontation; that is, to "hold the line". The term is also seen in science fiction, referring to spacecraft of large size and armament commissioned as warships, as opposed to more peaceful endeavors. Sony VAIO VGN-AR730E/B Battery The origin of the ship of the line can be found in the carrack first built by the Portuguese and similar great ships built by England and other western European states in the 15th and 16th centuries. These vessels were developed by fusing aspects of the cogs of the Atlantic and galleys of the Mediterranean. Sony VAIO VGN-AR73DB Battery The cogs, which traded along the Atlantic coasts, the North Seaand the Baltic, had an advantage over galleys in battle because they had raised platforms called "castles" at bow and stern that archers could occupy to fire down on enemy ships or even drop heavy weights. Over time these castles became higher and larger, Sony VAIO VGN-AR74DB Battery and eventually were built into the structure of the ship, increasing overall strength. This aspect of the cog was kept by the Portuguese in their newer style carrack designs and proved its worth in the decisive battle of Diu in 1509. Other European naval powers were quick to follow the Portuguese innovations with their own versions of the "man-of-war".Sony VAIO VGN-AR75UDB BatteryMary Rose was an English carrack, being well equipped with 78 guns (91 after an upgrade in the 1530s). Built in Portsmouth in 1510-12, she was one of the earliest purpose-built warships to serve in the English Navy; it is thought that she never served as a merchant ship. Sony VAIO VGN-AR790U/B Battery She was over 500 tons burthen with a keel of over 32 m (106 ft) and a crew that consisted of 200 sailors, 185 soldiers, and 30 gunners. Although she was the pride of the English fleet she accidentally sank during the battle of the Solent against French forces on 19 July 1545.Henri Grâce à Dieu (French, "Henry Grace of God"), Sony VAIO VGN-AR820E Battery nicknamed "Great Harry", was an English great ship of the 16th century. Contemporary with Mary Rose, Henri Grâce à Dieu was 165 feet (50 m) long, weighing 1,000–1,500 tons and having a complement of 700–1,000. It is said that she was ordered by Henry VIII in response to the Scottish ship Michael, launched in 1511. Sony VAIO VGN-AR830E Battery She was originally built at Woolwich Dockyard from 1512 to 1514 and was one of the first vessels to feature gunports and had twenty of the new heavy bronze cannon, allowing for a broadside. In all she mounted 43 heavy guns and 141 light guns. She was the first English two-decker, and when launched she was the largest and most powerful warship in Europe, but she saw little action. Sony VAIO VGN-AR83S Battery She was present at the Battle of the Solent against Francis I of France in 1545 (in which Mary Rose sank) but appears to have been more of a diplomatic vessel, sailing on occasion with sails of gold cloth. Indeed, the great ships were almost as well known for their ornamental design (some ships, like the Vasa, were gilded on their stern scrollwork) as they were for the power they possessed. Sony VAIO VGN-AR83US Battery These ships were the first used in experiments with carrying large-calibre guns aboard. Because of its higher freeboard and greater load-bearing ability, this type of vessel was better suited to gunpowder weapons than the galley. Because of their development from Atlantic seagoing vessels, the great ships were more weatherly than galleys and better suited to open waters. Sony VAIO VGN-AR84S Battery The lack of oars meant that large crews were unnecessary, making long journeys more feasible. Their disadvantage was that they were entirely reliant on the wind for mobility. Galleys could still overwhelm great ships, especially when there was little wind and they had a numerical advantage, but as great ships increased in size, galleys became less and less useful. Sony VAIO VGN-AR84US BatteryAnother detriment was the high forecastle, which interfered with the sailing qualities of the ship; the bow would be forced low into the water while sailing before the wind. But as guns were introduced and gunfire replaced boarding as the primary means of naval combat during the 16th century, the medieval forecastle was no longer needed, Sony VAIO VGN-AR85S Battery and later ships such as thegalleon had only a low, one-deck-high forecastle. By the time of the 1637 launching of England's powerful Sovereign of the Seas, the forecastle was gone altogether. From the 16th to 18th century, the carrack evolved into the galleon, a longer, more manoeuvrable type of ship, with all the advantages of the great ship. Sony VAIO VGN-AR85US Battery The opposing English and Spanish fleets of the 1588 Spanish Armada were largely composed of galleons. By the 17th century every major European naval power was building ships like these.With the growing importance of colonies and exploration and the need to maintain trade routes across stormy oceans, Sony VAIO VGN-AR870EA Battery galleys and galleasses (a larger, higher type of galley with side-mounted guns, but lower than a galleon) were used less and less, and only in ever more restricted purposes and areas, that by about 1750, with a few notable exceptions, they were of little use in naval battles.Large sailing junks of the Chinese Empire, Sony VAIO VGN-AR890U Battery described by various travellers to the East such as Marco Polo and Niccolò Da Conti, and used during the travels of Admiral Zheng He in the early 15th century, were contemporaries of such European vessels. Chinese junks carried cannon as well as other weapons unfavoured in the West but because of their construction and wider beam ends, Sony VAIO VGN-AR93S Battery were not as vulnerable to being fired on at the bow and stern as European ships were, and as a result there was no impetus to develop similar tactics. By the time European powers were capable of sending ships to Chinese waters, Chinese isolationism had resulted in these developments being abandoned and forgotten, Sony VAIO VGN-AR93US Battery and construction halted on all but the smallest types of junks so that what they encountered were coastal defence ships comparable to European sloops and not the purported 137-metre-long (450 ft) and 55-metre-wide (180 ft) Chinese treasure ships AdmiralZheng He commanded.In the early to mid-17th century, several navies—particularly those of England and the Netherlands—began to use new fighting techniques. Sony VAIO VGN-AR94S Battery Previously battles had usually been fought by great fleets of ships closing with each other and fighting in whatever arrangement they found themselves in, and often boarding enemy vessels as opportunities to do so presented themselves. However, the further development of guns and the adoption of broadside arrangements of guns required a change of tactics. Sony VAIO VGN-AR94US Battery With the broadside the decisive weapon, tactics evolved to ensure as many ships could fire broadside as possible. The line-of-battletactic required ships to form long single-file lines and close with the enemy fleet on the same tack, battering the other fleet until one side had had enough and retreated. Sony VAIO VGN-AR95S Battery Any manoeuvres would be carried out with the ships remaining in line for mutual protection."In order that this order of battle, this long thin line of guns, may not be injured or broken at some point weaker than the rest, there is at the same time felt the necessity of putting in it only ships which, if not of equal force, have at least equally strong sides. Sony VAIO VGN-AR95US Battery Logically it follows, at the same moment in which the line ahead became definitively the order for battle, there was established the distinction between the ships 'of the line', alone destined for a place therein, and the lighter ships meant for other uses."^[1] Examples of the latter include acting as scouts and relaying signals between the flagship and the rest of the fleet since, Sony VAIO VGN-BZ11EN Battery from the flagship, only a small part of the line would be in clear sight.The adoption of line-of-battle tactics had consequences for ship design. The height advantage given by the castles fore and aft was reduced, now that hand-to-hand combat was less essential. The need to manoeuvre in battle made the top weight of the castles more of a disadvantage. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ11MN Battery So they shrank, making the ship of the line lighter and more manoeuvrable than its forebears for the same combat power. As an added consequence, the hull itself grew larger, allowing the size and number of guns to increase as well.In the 17th century fleets could consist of almost a hundred ships of various sizes, Sony VAIO VGN-BZ11XN Battery but by the middle of the 18th century, ship-of-the-line design had settled on a few standard types: older two-deckers (i.e., with two complete decks of guns firing through side ports) of 50 guns (which were too weak for the battle line but could be used to escort convoys), two-deckers of between 64 and 90 guns that formed the main part of the fleet, Sony VAIO VGN-BZ12VN Battery and larger three- or even four-deckers with 98 to 140 guns that served as admirals' command ships. Fleets consisting of perhaps 10 to 25 of these ships, with their attendant supply ships and scouting and messengerfrigates, kept control of the sea lanes for major European naval powers whilst restricting the sea-borne trade of enemies. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ12XN Battery The most common size of sail ship of the line was the "74" (named for its 74 guns), originally developed by France in the 1730s, and later adopted by all battleship navies. Until this time the British had 6 sizes of ship of the line, and they found that their smaller 50- and 60-gun ships were becoming too small for the battle line, Sony VAIO VGN-BZ31VT Battery while their 80s and over were 3-deckers and therefore unwieldy and unstable in heavy seas. Their best were 70-gun 2-deckers of about 46 metres (150 ft) long on the gundeck, while the new French 74s were around 52 metres (170 ft). In 1747 the British captured a few of these French ships during the War of Austrian Succession. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ31XT Battery In the next decade Thomas Slade (Surveyor of the navy from 1755, along with co-Surveyor William Bately) broke away from the past and designed several new classes of 51- to 52-metre 74s to compete with these French designs, starting with the Dublin andBellona classes. Their successors gradually improved handling and size through the 1780s.^[2] Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560 Battery Other navies ended up building 74s also as they had the right balance between offensive power, cost, and manoeuvrability. Eventually around half of Britain's ships of the line were 74s. Larger vessels were still built, as command ships, but they were more useful only if they could definitely get close to an enemy, rather than in a battle involving chasing or manoeuvring. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560N24 Battery The 74 remained the favoured ship until 1811, when Seppings's method of construction enabled bigger ships to be built with more stability.In a few ships the design was altered long after the ship was launched and in service. In the Royal Navy, smaller two-deck 74- or 64-gun ships of the line that could not be used safely in fleet actions had their upper decks removed (or razeed), Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560N30 Battery resulting in a very stout, single-gun-deck warship called a razee. The resulting razeed ship could be classed as a frigate and was still much stronger. The most successful razeed ship in the Royal Navy was HMS Indefatigable, commanded by Sir Edward Pellew.Mahmudiye (1829), ordered by the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II and built by the Imperial Naval Arsenal on the Golden Horn in Istanbul, was for many years the largest warship in the world. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P Battery The 76.15 m × 21.22 m (249.8 ft × 69.6 ft)^{[Note 1]} ship of the line was armed with 128 cannons on three decks and was manned by 1,280 sailors. She participated in many important naval battles, including the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) during theCrimean War (1854–1856). She was decommissioned in 1874. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P20 Battery The largest sailing three-decker ship of the line ever built in the West was the French Valmy, launched in 1847. She had right sides, which increased significantly the space available for upper batteries, but reduced the stability of the ship; wooden stabilizers were added under the waterline to address the issue. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P22 Battery Valmy was thought to be the largest sort of sailing ship possible, as larger dimensions made the manoeuvre of riggings impractical with mere manpower. She participated in the Crimean War, and after her return to France later housed the French Naval Academy under the name Borda from 1864 to 1890. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P28 Battery The first major change to the ship-of-the-line concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. The first military uses of steamships came in the 1810s, and in the 1820s a number of navies experimented with paddle steamerwarships. Their use spread in the 1830s, with paddle-steamer warships participating in conflicts like the First Opium Waralongside ships of the line and frigates.^[3] Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P30 Battery Paddle steamers, however, had major disadvantages. The paddle wheel above the waterline was exposed to enemy fire, while itself preventing the ship from firing broadsides effectively. During the 1840s, the screw propeller emerged as the most likely method of steam propulsion, with both Britain and the USA launching screw-propelled warships in 1843. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P34 Battery Through the 1840s, the British and French navies launched ever larger and more powerful screw ships, alongside sail-powered ships of the line. In 1845, Viscount Palmerston gave an indication of the role of the new steamships in tense Anglo-French relations, describing the English Channel as a "steam bridge", rather than a barrier to French invasion. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ561 Battery It was partly because of the fear of war with France that the Royal Navy converted several old 74-gun ships of the line into 60-gun steam-powered blockships, ( following the model of Fulton's Demologos) starting in 1845.^[3] The blockships were "originally conceived as steam batteries solely for harbour defence, Sony VAIO VGN-BZ561N20 Battery but in September 1845 they were given a reduced [sailing] rig rather than none at all, to make them sea-going ships....The blockships were to be a cost-effective experiment of great value."^[4] They subsequently gave good service in the Crimean War.The French Navy, however, developed the first purpose-built steam battleship with the 90-gun Le Napoléon in 1850.^[5] Sony VAIO VGN-BZ561P20 Battery She is also considered the first true steam battleship, and the first screw battleship ever.^[6] Napoleon was armed as a conventional ship of the line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h), regardless of the wind conditions—a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ562P BatteryEight sister ships to Le Napoléon were built in France over a period of ten years, but the United Kingdom soon took the lead in production, in number of both purpose-built and converted units. Altogether, France built 10 new wooden steam battleships and converted 28 from older battleship units, while the United Kingdom built 18 and converted 41.^[7] Sony VAIO VGN-BZ563P Battery In the end, France and Britain were the only two countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships, although several other navies made some use of a mixture of screw battleships and paddle-steamer frigates. These included Russia,Turkey, Sweden, Naples, Prussia, Denmark, and Austria. Sony VAIO VGN-BZAAFS Battery In the Crimean War, six line-of-battle ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853.^[8]In the 1860s unarmoured steam line-of-battle ships were replaced by ironclad warships. Sony VAIO VGN-BZAAHS Battery On March 8, 1862, during the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads, two unarmoured wooden frigates were sunk and destroyed by the Confederate ironclad CSSVirginia.However, the power implied by the ship of the line would find its way into the ironclad, which would develop during the next few decades into the concept of the battleship. Sony VAIO VGN-BZAANS Battery Although Spain, the Netherlands, and France built huge fleets, they were rarely able to match the skill of British naval crews. British crews excelled, in part, because they spent much more time at sea, were generally better fed, were well trained in gunnery (allowing a faster rate of fire), and were generally more competent, Sony VAIO VGN-BZAAPS Battery as the Royal Navy based promotion much more on merit rather than purchase. The British Army has usually been smaller than the armies of comparably prominent continental countries, while the navy tended to be larger than the individual navies of each continental power.In the North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean, the fleets of Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sony VAIO VGN-CS118E/Q Battery France, and Spain fought numerous battles in support of their land armies and to deny the enemy access to trade routes. In the Baltic Sea, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Russia did likewise, while in the Mediterranean Sea, Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Venice, Portugal, Britain, and France battled for control.During the Napoleonic Wars, Sony VAIO VGN-CS118E/R Battery Britain defeated Europe's major naval powers at battles such as at Copenhagen, Cape St Vincent, Aboukir ("The Nile"), and Trafalgar, allowing the Royal Navy to establish itself as the world's primary naval power. Spain, Denmark, and Portugal largely stopped building ships of the line during this time under duress from the British. Sony VAIO VGN-CS118E/W Battery Britain emerged from the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 with the largest and most professional navy in the world, composed of hundreds of wooden, sail-powered ships of all sizes and classes. The Royal Navy had complete naval supremacy across the world following the Napoleonic Wars, and it demonstrated this superiority during the Crimean War in the 1850s. Sony VAIO VGN-CS11S/P Battery Nonetheless, the Napoleonic Wars, as well as the American War of 1812, had illustrated the shortcomings of ships of the line when an enemy resorted to tactics including the large-scale use of privateers. Both the French and the Americans had demonstrated what a menace small, lightly armed, but fast, nimble, and, most especially, Sony VAIO VGN-CS11S/Q Battery numerous vessels like sloops and schooners could be when they spread across the wide oceans, operating singly or in small groups. They targeted the merchant shipping that was Britain's economic lifeblood, and ships of the line were too few, too slow, and too clumsy to be employed against them.Sony VAIO VGN-CS11S/W Battery Overwhelming firepower was of no use if it could not be brought to bear: the Royal Navy's initial response to Napoleon's privateers, which operated from FrenchNew World territories, was to buy Bermuda sloops. Similarly, the East India Company's merchant vessels became lightly armed and quite competent in combat during this period, Sony VAIO VGN-CS11Z/R Battery operating a convoy system under an armed merchantman, instead of depending on small numbers of more heavily armed ships.The only original ship of the line remaining today is HMS Victory, preserved as a museum in Portsmouth to appear as she was while under Admiral Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar. Sony VAIO VGN-CS120J/P Battery Although Victory is in drydock, she is still a fully commissioned warship in the Royal Navy and has the honour of being the oldest commissioned warship in any navy worldwide.The Regalskeppet Vasa sank in the Baltic in 1628 and was lost until 1956. She was then raised intact, in remarkably good condition, Sony VAIO VGN-CS120J/Q Battery in 1961 and is presently on display at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. At the time she was the largest Swedish warship ever built. Today the Vasa Museum is the most visited museum in Sweden.The remains of the Mary Rose were raised in 1982 and are on display in Portsmouth, England a short distance from HMS Victory. Sony VAIO VGN-CS120J/R Battery Although Mary Rose consists of only half of a ship, it is a remarkable example of ship construction from Tudor England, and like Vasa, it contained a wealth of artifacts that tell of the daily lives of those on board. Sony VAIO VGN-CS190JTB Battery,Sony VAIO VGN-CS190JTP Battery,Sony VAIO VGN-CS190JTQ Battery