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Convoy HX 84
Convoy HX 84 was the 84th of the numbered series of Allied North Atlantic HX convoys of merchant ships from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool, England, during the Battle of the Atlantic. Thirty-eight ships escorted by the armed merchant cruiser departed from Halifax on 28 October 1940, eastbound to Liverpool. Background On the morning of 5 November, HX 84 had been passed by the cargo liner , which was also bound for Liverpool, enroute from Port Antonio, during which an offer had been made to ''Mopan''s Master, Captain Sapsworth, for ''Mopan'' to join HX 84. However, the offer had been declined and ''Mopan'' continued eastbound alone. ''Mopan'' Having been thwarted from using its Arado Ar 196 seaplane the previous day, on 5 November the weather was suitable for ''Admiral Scheer'' to utilise its air reconnaissance. Piloted by Lieutenant Pietsch, a seaplane was launched at 09:40hrs having been ordered to make a sweep wide and deep. When the seaplane returned at 12:05 the obse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
B-Dienst
The ''B-Dienst'' (german: Beobachtungsdienst, observation service), also called x''B-Dienst'', X-''B-Dienst'' and χ''B-Dienst'', was a Department of the German Naval Intelligence Service (german: Marinenachrichtendienst, MND III) of the OKM, that dealt with the interception and recording, decoding and analysis of the enemy, in particular British radio communications before and during World War II. B-Dienst worked on cryptanalysis and deciphering (decrypting) of enemy and neutral states' message traffic and security control of ''Kriegsmarine'' key processes and machinery. :"The ultimate goal of all evaluation was recognizing the opponent's goal by pro-active identification of data." B-Dienst was instrumental in moulding Wehrmacht operations during the Battles of Norway and France in spring 1940, primarily due to the cryptanalysis successes it had achieved against early and less secure British Naval cyphers. B-Dienst broke British Naval Combined Cypher No. 3 in October 1941, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
28 Cm SK C/28 Naval Gun
The German 28 cm C/28SK - ''Schnelladekanone'' (quick loading cannon); ''C - Construktionsjahr'' (year of design) was a 283 mm 52-caliber built-up gun designed in 1928 and used on the cruisers. History Characteristics Characteristics of SK C/28 and the later SK C/34 283 mm shells are in the table below: Performance of the SK C/28 at different ranges, firing a 300 kg armour-piercing projectile :Tony diGiulian, http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_11-52_skc28.htm See also * List of naval guns List of Naval Guns by country of origin in decreasing caliber size List of naval guns by caliber size, all countries Naval anti-aircraft guns See also *List of artillery *List of the largest cannon by caliber *Glossary of British ordnance ... * 28 cm SK C/34 naval gun Footnotes ;Notes ;Citations External links * * {{WWIIGermanGuns Naval guns of Germany 280 mm artillery World War II naval weapons Military equipment introduced in the 1930s [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prize Law
In admiralty law prizes are equipment, vehicles, vessels, and cargo captured during armed conflict. The most common use of ''prize'' in this sense is the capture of an enemy ship and her cargo as a prize of war. In the past, the capturing force would commonly be allotted a share of the worth of the captured prize. Nations often granted letters of marque that would entitle private parties to capture enemy property, usually ships. Once the ship was secured on friendly territory, she would be made the subject of a prize case: an ''in rem'' proceeding in which the court determined the status of the condemned property and the manner in which the property was to be disposed of. History and sources of prize law In his book ''The Prize Game'', Donald Petrie writes, "at the outset, prize taking was all smash and grab, like breaking a jeweler's window, but by the fifteenth century a body of guiding rules, the maritime law of nations, had begun to evolve and achieve international recogni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prisoner Of War
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war in custody for a range of legitimate and illegitimate reasons, such as isolating them from the enemy combatants still in the field (releasing and repatriating them in an orderly manner after hostilities), demonstrating military victory, punishing them, prosecuting them for war crimes, exploiting them for their labour, recruiting or even conscripting them as their own combatants, collecting military and political intelligence from them, or indoctrinating them in new political or religious beliefs. Ancient times For most of human history, depending on the culture of the victors, enemy fighters on the losing side in a battle who had surrendered and been taken as prisoners of war could expect to be either slaughtered or enslaved. Ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Two-way Radio
A two-way radio is a radio that can both transmit and receive radio waves (a transceiver), unlike a broadcast receiver which only receives content. It is an audio (sound) transceiver, a transmitter and receiver in one unit, used for bidirectional person-to-person voice communication with other users with similar radios. Two-way radios are available in stationary ( base station), mobile (installed in vehicles), and hand-held portable models. Hand-held two-way radios are often called walkie-talkies, handie-talkies or hand-helds. Two-way radios are used by groups of geographically separated people who need to keep in continuous voice communication, such as aircraft pilots and air traffic controllers, ship captains and harbormasters, emergency services personnel like firefighters, police officers, and ambulance paramedics, taxi and delivery services, soldiers and military units, fast food and warehouse employees, and radio amateurs. Two-way radio systems may use a single radio c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wireless Telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimental technologies for transmitting telegraph signals without wires. In radiotelegraphy, information is transmitted by pulses of radio waves of two different lengths called "dots" and "dashes", which spell out text messages, usually in Morse code. In a manual system, the sending operator taps on a switch called a telegraph key which turns the transmitter on and off, producing the pulses of radio waves. At the receiver the pulses are audible in the receiver's speaker as beeps, which are translated back to text by an operator who knows Morse code. Radiotelegraphy was the first means of radio communication. The first practical radio transmitters and receivers invented in 1894–1895 by Guglielmo Marconi used radiotelegraphy. It continued to be the only type of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naval Flag Signalling
Naval flag signalling covers various forms of flag signalling, such as semaphore or flaghoist, used by various navies; distinguished from maritime flag signalling by merchant or other non-naval vessels or flags used for identification. History Naval flag signalling undoubtedly developed in antiquity in order to coordinate naval action of multiple vessels. In the Peloponnesian War (431 – 401 BCE) squadrons of Athenian galleys were described by Thucydides as engaging in coordinated maneuvers which would have required some kind of communication; there is no record of how such communication was done but flags would have been the most likely method. Flags have long been used to identify a ship's owner or nationality, or the commander of a squadron. But the use of flags for signalling messages long remained primitive, as indicated by the 1530 instruction that when the Admiral Ordnance, and set up his Banner of Council on Starrborde bottocke of his Shippe, everie shipps ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heave To
In sailing, heaving to (to heave to and to be hove to) is a way of slowing a sailing vessel's forward progress, as well as fixing the helm and sail positions so that the vessel does not have to be steered. It is commonly used for a "break"; this may be to wait for the tide before proceeding, or to wait out a strong or contrary wind. For a solo or shorthanded sailor it can provide time to go below deck, to attend to issues elsewhere on the boat or to take a meal break.www.sailingusa.info/points_of_sail.htm It is also used as a storm tactic. The term is also used in the context of vessels under power and refers to bringing the vessel to a complete stop. For example, in waters over which the United States has jurisdiction the |
Signal Lamp
Signal lamp training during World War II A signal lamp (sometimes called an Aldis lamp or a Morse lamp) is a semaphore system using a visual signaling device for optical communication, typically using Morse code. The idea of flashing dots and dashes from a lantern was first put into practice by Captain Philip Howard Colomb, of the Royal Navy, in 1867. Colomb's design used limelight for illumination, and his original code was not the same as Morse code. During World War I, German signalers used optical Morse transmitters called ', with a range of up to 8 km (5 miles) at night, using red filters for undetected communications. Modern signal lamps produce a focused pulse of light, either by opening and closing shutters mounted in front of the lamp, or by tilting a concave mirror. They continue to be used to the present day on naval vessels and for aviation light signals in air traffic control towers, as a backup device in case of a complete failure of an aircraft's radi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bow (ship)
The bow () is the forward part of the hull of a ship or boat, the point that is usually most forward when the vessel is underway. The aft end of the boat is the stern. Prow may be used as a synonym for bow or it may mean the forward-most part of the bow above the waterline. Function A ship's bow should be designed to enable the hull to pass efficiently through the water. Bow shapes vary according to the speed of the boat, the seas or waterways being navigated, and the vessel's function. Where sea conditions are likely to promote pitching, it is useful if the bow provides reserve buoyancy; a flared bow (a raked stem with flared topsides) is ideal to reduce the amount of water shipped over the bow. Ideally, the bow should reduce the resistance and should be tall enough to prevent water from regularly washing over the top of it. Large commercial barges on inland waterways rarely meet big waves and may have remarkably little freeboard at the bow, whereas fast military ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
