Lexington-class Battlecruiser
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Lexington-class Battlecruiser
The ''Lexington''-class battlecruisers were officially the only ship class, class of battlecruiser to ever be ordered by the United States Navy. While these six vessels were requested in 1911 as a reaction to the building by Japan of the , the potential use for them in the U.S. Navy came from a series of studies by the Naval War College which stretched over several years and predated the existence of the first battlecruiser, (a series of proposed battlecruiser designs was in fact submitted to the General Board of the United States Navy, General Board in 1909 but was not approved for construction). The fact they were not approved by Congress at the time of their initial request was due to political, not military considerations. The ''Lexington''s were included as part of the Naval Act of 1916. Like the battleships also included in the 1916 Act, their construction was repeatedly postponed in favor of escort ships and anti-submarine vessels. During these delays, the class was rede ...
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Funnel (ship)
A funnel is the smokestack or chimney on a ship used to expel boiler steam and smoke or engine exhaust. They are also commonly referred to as stacks. Purpose The primary purpose of a ship's funnel(s) is to lift the exhaust gases clear of the deck, in order not to foul the ship's structure or decks, and to avoid impairing the ability of the crew to carry out their duties. In steam ships the funnels also served to help induce a convection draught through the boilers. Design Since the introduction of steam-power to ships in the 19th century, the funnel has been a distinctive feature of the silhouette of a vessel, and used for recognition purposes. Funnel area The required funnel cross-sectional area is determined by the volume of exhaust gases produced by the propulsion plant. Often this area is too great for a single funnel. Early steam vessels needed multiple funnels ( had 5 when launched), but as efficiency increased new machinery needed fewer funnels. Merchant ships ...
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Battlecruiser
The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attributes. Battlecruisers typically had thinner armour (to a varying degree) and a somewhat lighter main gun battery than contemporary battleships, installed on a longer hull with much higher engine power in order to attain greater speeds. The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom, as a development of the armoured cruiser, at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship. The goal of the design was to outrun any ship with similar armament, and chase down any ship with lesser armament; they were intended to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire while avoiding combat with the more powerful but slower battleships. However, as more and more battlecruisers were ...
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Washington Naval Treaty
The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was a treaty signed during 1922 among the major Allies of World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington Naval Conference, held in Washington, D.C., from November 1921 to February 1922, and it was signed by the governments of Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, and Japan. It limited the construction of battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers by the signatories. The numbers of other categories of warships, including cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, were not limited by the treaty, but those ships were limited to 10,000 tons displacement each. The treaty was concluded on February 6, 1922. Ratifications of that treaty were exchanged in Washington on August 17, 1923, and it was registered in the '' League of Nations Treaty Series'' on April 16, 1924. Later naval arms limitation conferences sought additional limitations o ...
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Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish NavySmith, Charles Edgar: ''A short history of naval and marine engineering.'' Babcock & Wilcox, ltd. at the University Press, 1937, page 263 as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" (TBDs) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War. Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended o ...
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Bureau Of Construction And Repair
The Bureau of Construction and Repair (BuC&R) was the part of the United States Navy which from 1862 to 1940 was responsible for supervising the design, construction, conversion, procurement, maintenance, and repair of ships and other craft for the Navy. The bureau also managed shipyards, repair facilities, laboratories, and shore stations. On 20 June 1940, Congress passed a law which consolidated the Bureau's functions with those of the Bureau of Engineering (BuEng), creating the Bureau of Ships (BuShips). History The Bureau was staffed by officers of the Construction Corps (called constructors) with advanced degrees in naval architecture. Six civilian constructors were hired by the Navy in 1794 to supervise construction of the frigates authorized by Congress that year.Snyder, Philip W., RADM USN "Bring Back the Corps" ''United States Naval Institute Proceedings'' February 1979 p.49 The Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Repairs was established in 1842 as one of the five ori ...
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6"/53 Caliber Gun
The 6"/53 caliber gun (spoken "six-inch-fifty-three-caliber") formed the main battery of some United States Navy light cruisers and three US submarines built during the 1920s. Description United States naval gun terminology indicates the gun fired a projectile 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter, and the barrel was 53 calibers long (barrel length is 6 inch x 53 = 318 inches or 8 meters.)Fairfield 1921 p.156 The gun with side swing Welin breech block and Smith-Asbury mechanism weighed about 10 tonnes and used a silk bag containing 44-pounds (20 kg) of smokeless powder to give a 105-pound (47.6 kg) projectile a velocity of 3000 feet per second (900 m/s). Early Marks were built-up guns with a liner, tube, full-length jacket, and 2 hoops; but the Mark 14 gun was of monobloc construction. Useful life expectancy was 700 effective full charges (EFC) per liner. Mark 13 casemate mounting These guns were installed as the primary battery on the s, and were intended for the ...
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16"/50 Caliber Mark 2 Gun
The 16"/50 caliber Mark 2 gun and the near-identical Mark 3 were guns originally designed and built for the United States Navy as the main armament for the ''South Dakota''-class battleships and s. The successors to the 16"/45 caliber gun Mark I gun, they were at the time among the heaviest guns built for use as naval artillery. As part of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, both of these ship classes were cancelled part way through construction, rendering surplus about 70 examples of the 16-inch/50 which had already been built. Twenty were released to the US Army, between 1922–1924, for use by the Coast Artillery Corps, the rest were kept in storage for future naval use. Only ten of the twenty available guns were deployed (in five two-gun batteries) prior to 1940.Berhow, p. 61 When the design of the began in 1938, it was initially assumed these ships would use the surplus guns. However, due to a miscommunication between the two Navy departments involved in the design, the ...
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5"/51 Caliber Gun
5"/51 caliber guns (spoken "five-inch-fifty-one-caliber") initially served as the secondary battery of United States Navy battleships built from 1907 through the 1920s, also serving on other vessels. United States naval gun terminology indicates the gun fired a projectile in diameter, and the barrel was 51 calibers long. Description The different marks of the gun were Marks 7, 8, 9, 14, and 15. The built-up gun consisted of a tube, full-length jacket, and single hoop with side swing Welin breech block and Smith-Asbury mechanism for a total weight of about 5 metric tons. Some Marks included a tapered liner. A charge of smokeless powder gave a projectile a velocity of . Range was at the maximum elevation of 20 degrees. Useful life expectancy was 900 effective full charges (EFC) per liner.Campbell 1985 p.136 US service The 5-inch/51 caliber gun was designed to engage destroyers, torpedo boats, and other surface targets. The 5"/51 gun entered service in 1911 as secondary ar ...
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14"/50 Caliber Gun
The 14"/50 caliber gun was a naval gun mounted on and s. These ships also featured the first "three-gun" turrets, meaning that each gun in each turret could be "individually sleeved" to elevate separately (however, they could be linked so they would elevate as a unit, similar to the triple turrets on other Navy ships). The 14"/50 caliber guns were designated as Mark 4 and 6, with later versions known as Mark 7, 11, and B. These guns were more powerful than the main gun mounted on the previous three classes of US battleships (the , and es), the 14"/45 caliber gun. History The 14-inch (356mm), 50 caliber gun was the weapon chosen as the main armament on the when they were originally designed, but it was later switched to the 16"/50 caliber Mark 2 gun in a 1917 redesign. The ships were eventually canceled in 1922 after the Washington Naval Treaty was signed.Morison and Polmar (2003), pp. 71–72 The 14"/50 caliber gun was designed in 1916 and entered service in 1918 on the ...
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Escort Ship
Ocean escort was a type of United States Navy warship. They were an evolution of the World War II destroyer escort types. The ocean escorts were intended as convoy escorts and were designed for mobilization production in wartime or low-cost mass production in peacetime. They were commissioned from 1954 through 1974, serving in the Cold War and the Vietnam War. Designation The ocean escorts' hull classification symbol was DE, a carryover from the World War II era when vessels of similar size and role were classified as destroyer escorts. DEs were ASW vessels; DEGs were ASW and AAW vessels with the short-range Tartar guided missile added. Ships similar or identical to the World War II destroyer escorts and the Cold War ocean escorts were called "frigates" in most other navies. Outside the US Navy, no other navy appears to have used the ship type of "ocean escort". The closest equivalents in type name are the Soviet and classes, built circa 1954–65. These classes' Russian de ...
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Battleship
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 cons ...
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Naval Act Of 1916
The Naval Act of 1916 was also called the "Big Navy Act" was United States federal legislation that called for vastly enlarging the US Navy. President Woodrow Wilson determined amidst the repeated incidents with Germany during the First World War to build "''incomparably, the greatest Navy in the world''" over a ten-year period with the intent of making the U.S. Navy able to defend itself against any European power. The bill called for the construction of ten 42,000 ton battleships, six battlecruisers, ten scout cruisers, fifty destroyers, and sixty-seven submarines. The plan was to start construction in 1919 and have the fleet completed by 1923. The bill, signed in the middle of the First World War was not to prepare the United States for entry into that war, but rather to guarantee the security of the United States in what seemed an increasingly dangerous world. It was paralleled by the National Defense Act of 1916 that saw a similar expansion of the Army and National Guard. His ...
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