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203 Mm 50 Caliber Pattern 1905
The 203 mm 50 caliber Pattern 1905 was a Russian naval gun developed by Vickers for export in the years before World War I that armed a variety of warships of the Imperial Russian Navy. Guns salvaged from scrapped ships found a second life as coastal artillery, railway artillery and aboard river monitors during the Russian Civil War. By 1941 it was estimated there were 36 coastal defense guns and two railroad mounts remaining. During the 1930s a number were relined down to and re-designated the 180mm Pattern 1931-1933. These guns were used aboard Kirov-class cruisers or as coastal artillery and railway artillery. History The Pattern 1905 began life as a Vickers design for export customers called the Mk B and Mk C. These guns did not serve aboard ships of the Royal Navy because they had standardized on guns. The Pattern 1905 was also produced under license at the Obukhov State Plant in St. Petersburg, Russia. Construction The Pattern 1905 was similar in construction ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suomenlinna
Suomenlinna (; until 1918 Viapori, ), or Sveaborg (), is an inhabited sea fortress the Suomenlinna district is on eight islands of which six have been fortified; it is about 4 km southeast of the city center of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Suomenlinna is popular with tourists and locals who enjoy it as a picturesque picnic site. Originally named ''Sveaborg'' (Castle of the Swedes), or ''Viapori'' as referred to by Finnish-speaking Finns, it was renamed in Finnish to ''Suomenlinna'' (Castle of Finland) in 1918 for patriotic and nationalistic reasons, though it is still known by its original name in Sweden and by Swedish-speaking Finns. The Swedish crown commenced the construction of the fortress in 1748 as protection against Russian expansionism. The general responsibility for the fortification work was given to Augustin Ehrensvärd. The original plan of the bastion fortress was strongly influenced by the ideas of Vauban, the foremost military engineer of the time, and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Railway Artillery
A railway gun, also called a railroad gun, is a large artillery piece, often surplus naval artillery, mounted on, transported by, and fired from a specially designed railway wagon. Many countries have built railway guns, but the best-known are the large Krupp-built pieces used by Germany in World War I and World War II. Smaller guns were often part of an armoured train. Only able to be moved where there were good tracks, which could be destroyed by artillery bombardment or airstrike, railway guns were phased out after World War II. Design considerations The design of a railway gun has three firing issues over and above those of an ordinary artillery piece to consider. Namely how the gun is going to be traversed – i.e. moved from side to side to aim; how the horizontal component of the recoil force will be absorbed by the gun's carriage and how the vertical recoil force will be absorbed by the ground. Methods of traverse The first method of traverse is to rely entirel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evstafi-class Battleship
The ''Evstafi'' class were a pair of pre-dreadnought battleships of the Imperial Russian Navy built before World War I for the Black Sea Fleet. They were slightly enlarged versions of the , with increased armour and more guns. Numerous alterations were made as a result of experience in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 that seriously delayed the completion of the two ships. They were the most modern ships in the Black Sea Fleet when World War I began and formed the core of the fleet for the first year of the war, before the newer dreadnoughts entered service. They forced the German battlecruiser to disengage during the Battle of Cape Sarych shortly after Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in late 1914. Both ships covered several bombardments of the Bosphorus fortifications in early 1915, including one where they were attacked by the ''Goeben'', but they managed to drive her off. Later, ''Evstafi'' and ''Ioann Zlatoust'' were relegated to secondary roles after the firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Casemate
A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which artillery, guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to Ancient history, antiquity, the term "casemate wall" means a double city wall with the space between the walls separated into chambers, which could be filled up to better withstand battering rams in case of siege (see #Antiquity: casemate wall, Antiquity: casemate wall). In its original early modern meaning, the term referred to a vaulted chamber in a fort, which may have been used for storage, accommodation, or artillery which could fire through an opening or embrasure. Although the outward faces of brick or masonry casemates proved vulnerable to advances in artillery performance, the invention of reinforced concrete allowed newer designs to be produced well into the 20th century. With the introduction of ironclad warships, the definition was widened to include a prot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships. Aboard ships and large boats On water craft, the superstructure consists of the parts of the ship or a boat, including sailboats, fishing boats, passenger ships, and submarines, that project above her main deck. This does not usually include its masts or any armament turrets. Note that in modern times, turrets do not always carry naval artillery, but they can also carry missile launchers and/or antisubmarine warfare weapons. The size of a watercraft's superstructure can have many implications in the performance of ships and boats, since these structures can alter their structural rigidity, their displacements, and/or stability. These can be detrimental to any vessel's performance if they are taken into consideration incorrectly. The height and the weight of superstructure on board a ship or a bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gun Turret
A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in some degree of azimuth and elevation (cone of fire). Description Rotating gun turrets protect the weapon and its crew as they rotate. When this meaning of the word "turret" started being used at the beginning of the 1860s, turrets were normally cylindrical. Barbettes were an alternative to turrets; with a barbette the protection was fixed, and the weapon and crew were on a rotating platform inside the barbette. In the 1890s, armoured hoods (also known as "gun houses") were added to barbettes; these rotated with the platform (hence the term "hooded barbette"). By the early 20th Century, these hoods were known as turrets. Modern warships have gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrei Pervozvanny-class Battleship
The ''Andrei Pervozvanny'' class were a pair of pre-dreadnought battleships built in the first decade of the twentieth century for the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. They were conceived by the Naval Technical Committee in 1903 as an incremental development of the s with increased displacement and heavier secondary armament. The disastrous experiences of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and the unrest resulting from the 1905 Russian Revolution led to countless redesigns, change orders and delays in construction. Despite the designers' repeated attempts to modernize the ships while under construction, they were obsolete in concept from the beginning, and even more so when they entered service in 1911. In the first year of World War I, '' Andrei Pervozvanny'' and '' Imperator Pavel I'' formed the core of the Baltic Fleet. For most of the war they remained moored in the safety of Sveaborg and Helsingfors.Suomenlinna (former Sveaborg) is now part of the city of Hels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battleships
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,Stoll, J. ''Steaming in the Dark?'', Journal of Conflict Resolution Vol. 36 No. 2, June 1992. now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906, the commissioning of 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.Sondhaus, L. ''Naval Warfare 1815–1914'', . A global arms race in battleship constr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Predreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, protected by case-hardened steel armour, and powered by coal-fired triple-expansion steam engines, pre-dreadnought battleships carried a main battery of very heavy guns in fully enclosed rotating turrets supported by one or more secondary batteries of lighter weapons. In contrast to the multifarious development of ironclad warships in preceding decades, the 1890s saw navies worldwide start to build battleships to a common design as dozens of ships essentially followed the design of the Royal Navy's . The similarity in appearance of battleships in the 1890s was underlined by the increasing number of ships being built. New naval powers such as Germany, Japan, the United States, and to a lesser extent Italy and Austria-Hungary, began to establish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Built-up Gun
A built-up gun is artillery with a specially reinforced barrel. An inner tube of metal stretches within its elastic limit under the pressure of confined powder gases to transmit stress to outer cylinders that are under tension.Fairfield (1921) p.161 Concentric metal cylinders or wire windings are assembled to minimize the weight required to resist the pressure of powder gases pushing a projectile out of the barrel. Built-up construction was the norm for guns mounted aboard 20th century dreadnoughts and contemporary railway guns, coastal artillery, and siege guns through World War II. Background The first built-up gun was designed by French artillery officer Alfred Thiéry in 1834 and tested not later than 1840. Also about 1840 another one was made by Daniel Treadwell, and yet another one was produced by Mersey Iron Works in Liverpool according to the John Ericsson's design. Sheffield architector John Frith received a patent on their manufacture in 1843. However, all these guns (w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service. From the middle decades of the 17th century, and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century, it was the world's most powerful navy until the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing and defending the British Empire, and four Imperial fortress colonies and a string of imperial bases and coaling stations secured the Royal Navy's ability to assert naval superiority globally. Owing to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, to ref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
