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Battle Of Rufiji Delta
The Battle of the Rufiji Delta was fought in German East Africa (modern Tanzania) from October 1914–July 1915 during the First World War, between the German Navy's light cruiser , and a powerful group of British warships. The battle was a series of attempts, ultimately successful, to sink the blockaded German light cruiser. Background In 1914 the most powerful German ship in the Indian Ocean was the light cruiser ''Königsberg''. After an engine failure following her sinking of the British protected cruiser HMS ''Pegasus'', ''Königsberg'' and her supply ship ''Somali'' hid in the delta of the Rufiji River while ''Königsbergs damaged machinery was transported overland to Dar es Salaam for repair. The British cruiser discovered ''Königsberg'' in the delta towards the end of October. On 5 November, two additional British cruisers, and , arrived at the scene, and blockaded the German ship in the delta. In early November, ''Chatham'' opened fire at long range and set fire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camouflage
Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier, and the leaf-mimic katydid's wings. A third approach, motion dazzle, confuses the observer with a conspicuous pattern, making the object visible but momentarily harder to locate, as well as making general aiming easier. The majority of camouflage methods aim for crypsis, often through a general resemblance to the background, high contrast disruptive coloration, eliminating shadow, and countershading. In the open ocean, where there is no background, the principal methods of camouflage are transparency, silvering, and countershading, while the bioluminescence, ability to produce light is among other things used for counter-illumination on the undersides of cephalopods such as squid. Some animals, such as chamel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Goliath (1898)
HMS ''Goliath'' was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the British Royal Navy and a member of the . Intended for service in Asia, ''Goliath'' and her sister ships were smaller and faster than the preceding s, but retained the same battery of four guns. She also carried thinner armour, but incorporated new Krupp steel, which was more effective than the Harvey armour used in the ''Majestic''s. ''Goliath'' was laid down in January 1897, launched in March 1898, and commissioned into the fleet in March 1900. The ship was deployed to the China Station from her commissioning until 1903, when she returned to Britain; she was sent back to East Asian waters, but while en route was reassigned to the Mediterranean Fleet. In early 1906, she was transferred to the Channel Fleet, followed by a stint in the Home Fleet starting in early 1907. She was sent to the Mediterranean a second time in 1908, and later returned to the Home Fleet in 1909, before being decommissioned in 1913. With the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuxhaven Raid
The Raid on Cuxhaven (german: link=no, Weihnachtsangriff, Christmas Raid) was a British ship-based air-raid on the Imperial German Navy at Cuxhaven mounted on Christmas Day, 1914. Aircraft of the Royal Naval Air Service were carried to within striking distance by seaplane tenders of the Royal Navy, supported by both surface ships and submarines. The aircraft flew over the Cuxhaven area and dropped their bombs, causing damage to shore installations. It was described at the time as an "air reconnaissance of the Heligoland Bight, including Cuxhaven, Heligoland and Wilhelmshaven ... by naval seaplanes" during which "the opportunity was taken of attacking with bombs points of military importance" in northern Imperial Germany. Planning The Zeppelin sheds at the Nordholz Airbase near Cuxhaven were out of range of UK-based aircraft, so a plan was developed for the seaplane tenders , ( Squadron-commander Cecil Malone, who was also air commander for the raid) (Lieutenant E. D. M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Folder
Short Folder is a generic name often applied to several different Short Brothers' aircraft types designed and built prior to and during World War I. Short Brothers developed and patented folding wing mechanisms for ship-borne aircraft from 1913; the wings were hinged so that they folded back horizontally alongside the fuselage (as shown in the image), reducing the storage space required for stowing them aboard ship. Shorts produced many "folder" aircraft; in addition large numbers of Shorts' designs were produced by other companies, including Brush Electrical Engineering Co. Ltd., Robey & Co. Ltd., J Samuel White, Frederick Sage & Co. Ltd., S E Saunders Limited, Phoenix Dynamo Manufacturing Company, Supermarine Aviation Works Ltd., Mann, Egerton & Co. Ltd. and Westland Aircraft Works Ltd. Short Folders saw service in many theatres of World War I, notably in the Cuxhaven Raid in 1914, in the Dardanelles and in the disabling of the SMS ''Königsberg'' in East Africa in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Admiralty Type 81
The Short Admiralty Type 81 was a series of British two-seat floatplanes built prior to the First World War, and used by the Royal Naval Air Service in the early years of the war. They were powered by Gnome Lambda-Lambda 14 cylinder two-row rotary engines and had folding wings to aid storage on ship, hence the popular name Short Folder, shared with a number of other seaplanes made by Short Brothers. Design and development During 1913, Short Brothers received orders for two new types of floatplanes for the British Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), a two- bay biplane powered by a Gnome Lambda-Lambda twin-row rotary engine, of which two were ordered, and a lighter and less powerful three-bay biplane powered by a Gnome Omega-Omega, (the Short Admiralty Type 74) of which seven were ordered.Barnes 1967, p. 91. The first of these to appear was the 160 hp Gnome-powered aircraft, the first of which had the Shorts construction number ''S.63'' and the Royal Navy serial numb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Brothers
Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London, and was the first company in the world to make production aeroplanes. It was particularly notable for its flying boat designs manufactured into the 1950s. In 1943, Shorts was nationalised and later denationalised, and in 1948 moved from its main base at Rochester, Kent to Belfast. In the 1960s, Shorts mainly produced turboprop airliners, major components for aerospace primary manufacturers, and missiles for the British Armed Forces. Shorts was primarily government-owned until being bought by Bombardier in 1989, and is today the largest manufacturing concern in Northern Ireland. In November 2020, Bombardier sold its Belfast operations to Spirit AeroSystems. The company's products include aircraft components, engine nacelles and aircraft flight control systems for its parent company Bombardier Aerospace, and for Boeing, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sopwith Aviation Company
The Sopwith Aviation Company was a British aircraft company that designed and manufactured aeroplanes mainly for the British Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps and later the Royal Air Force during the First World War, most famously the Sopwith Camel. Sopwith aircraft were also used in varying numbers by the French, Belgian and American air services during the war. In April 1919, the company was renamed as the Sopwith Aviation & Engineering Company Limited. In September 1920, the company entered voluntary liquidation after an attempt to build motorcycles failed. The patents and other assets were bought by a new company, H.G. Hawker Engineering. Early years The Sopwith Aviation Company (based at Brooklands) was created in June 1912 by Thomas Octave Murdoch (Tommy, later Sir Thomas) Sopwith, a wealthy sportsman interested in aviation, yachting and motor-racing, when he was 24 years old. Following their first military aircraft sale in November 1912, Sopwith moved to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Naval Air Service
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force (RAF), the world's first independent air force. It was replaced by the Fleet Air Arm, initially consisting of those RAF units that normally operated from ships, but emerging as a separate unit similar to the original RNAS by the time of World War 2. Background In 1908, the British Government recognised the military potential of aircraft. The Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, approved the formation of an "Advisory Committee for Aeronautics" and an "Aerial Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence". Both committees were composed of politicians, army officers and Royal Navy officers. On 21 July 1908 Captain Reginald Bacon, who was a member of the Aerial Navigation sub-committee, submitted to the First Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seaplane
A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteristics: floatplanes and flying boats; the latter are generally far larger and can carry far more. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are in a subclass called amphibious aircraft, or amphibians. Seaplanes were sometimes called ''hydroplanes'', but currently this term applies instead to motor-powered watercraft that use the technique of hydrodynamic lift to skim the surface of water when running at speed. The use of seaplanes gradually tapered off after World War II, partially because of the investments in airports during the war but mainly because landplanes were less constrained by weather conditions that could result in sea states being too high to operate seaplanes while landplanes could continue to operate. In t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curtiss Aeroplane And Motor Company
Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (1909 – 1929) was an American aircraft manufacturer originally founded by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and Augustus Moore Herring in Hammondsport, New York. After significant commercial success in its first decades, it merged with the Wright Aeronautical to form Curtiss-Wright Corporation. History Origin In 1907, Glenn Curtiss was recruited by the scientist Dr. Alexander Graham Bell as a founding member of Bell's Aerial Experiment Association (AEA), with the intent of establishing an aeronautical research and development organization. According to Bell, it was a "co-operative scientific association, not for gain but for the love of the art and doing what we can to help one another."Milberry 1979, p 13. In 1909, shortly before the AEA was disbanded, Curtiss partnered with Augustus Moore Herring to form the Herring-Curtiss Company.Gunston 1993, p. 87. It was renamed the Curtiss Aeroplane Company in 1910 and reorganized in 1912 after being t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blockship
A blockship is a ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used. It may either be sunk by a navy defending the waterway to prevent the ingress of attacking enemy forces, as in the case of at Portland Harbour in 1914; or it may be brought by enemy raiders and used to prevent the waterway from being used by the defending forces, as in the case of the three old cruisers , and scuttled during the Zeebrugge raid in 1918 to prevent the port from being used by the German navy. An early use was in 1667, during the Dutch Raid on the Medway and their attempts to do likewise in the Thames during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, when a number of warships and merchant ships commandeered by the Royal Navy were sunk in those rivers to attempt to stop the attacking forces. An even earlier use are the six 11th century Skuldelev ships in Roskilde Fjord, sunk to protect Roskilde from northern Vikings. They are now on display in the Viking Ship Museum. The above is th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
