Warship
OTTO WILHELM KÖNIGSMARCK
Although Morosini held overall command of Venetian forces, it would be Königsmarck who led most of the successful land campaigns. SWEDISH GENERAL WHO LED THE VENETIAN MILITARY CONQUEST OF MOREA 1639-88 SWEDEN Although Swedish, Otto Wilhelm Königsmarck was born in Minden, Northern Germany, where his mother had been accompanying his father on military campaigns. Following these campaigns, the family resided…
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The Era of the GUPPY Part II
Running in parallel to the time-bearing plot, another team of plotters used the same sonar bearings at discrete intervals to geographically trace the progress of bearing drift. The bearing drift appeared as spokes in a wheel. Lieutenant Joseph Ekelund and his colleagues saw that with an accurate target speed ruled…
Bogatyr-class cruiser
Bogatyr Russian light cruiser class. Five protected, or 2nd Class, cruisers were ordered for the Imperial Russian Navy between 1889 and I90I. They followed the trend set by the Askold and Variag, being 23-knot ships of medium displacement and reasonable endurance for commerce-raiding. The design was entrusted to the German…
British Battleship Turrets
Successive Royal Navy post-Dreadnought classes were basically improved versions of that pioneering warship. The next significant advance came with the Orions (Orion, Conqueror, Monarch, and Thunderer, constructed between 1909 and 1912). They were improvements over previous designs and were promptly called super dreadnoughts. Their new 13.5-inch guns gave considerably increased…
The Arab Shalandi
SHALANDĪ, MID-7TH CENTURY When the Arabs first began building a galley fleet in the mid-7th century they drew on the shipbuilding traditions and peoples of the seafaring communities of Syria and Egypt. The Coptic (Egyptian Christian) seafarers of Alexandria and Damietta had been building ships for their Byzantine masters, and…
Soviet Navy Era – Small Surface Combatants
The Soviet Navy’s assiduous development of small missile-firing warships like the Osa, Komar and, later, the Nanuchka and its continuing maintenance of large offshore defence forces shows that defending the Motherland against maritime attack remains a high priority. Nevertheless, there are several indications that its perceived importance slipped for a…
The ‘True Frigate’ 1748-1778 Part I
The 1745 Establishment was largely about battleships. The Admiralty’s main concern in appointing the Norris committee was to improve the ships of the battlefleet, and in particular to have the much-maligned three-decker 80-gun ships superseded by what they called ‘two and a half decked ships’ – French and Spanish style…