Misplaced Pages

#582417

107-493: The priority market for Severnaya Verf is military export to Asian countries as India, China and Vietnam. The shipyard was established by 1912 with the name of Putilov Shipyard (Russian: Putilovskaya Verf ). It was situated near the main Putilov factory, and began building small warships, up to destroyers in size, in addition to non-military ships for the government like dredgers , tugboats , etc. Under Bolshevik control it

214-522: A Labor Day weekend in 1973, a meeting of about twelve military officers at the Pentagon discussed the creation of a Defense Navigation Satellite System (DNSS) . It was at this meeting that "the real synthesis that became GPS was created." Later that year, the DNSS program was named Navstar , or Navigation System Using Timing and Ranging. During the development of the submarine-launched Polaris missile,

321-635: A self-propelled torpedoes in the Battle of Caldera Bay in 1891, thus surpassing its main function of hunting torpedo boats. Fernando Villaamil , second officer of the Ministry of the Navy of Spain , designed his own torpedo gunboat to combat the threat from the torpedo boat. He asked several British shipyards to submit proposals capable of fulfilling these specifications. In 1885, the Spanish Navy chose

428-582: A crew of 60. In terms of gunnery, speed, and dimensions, the specialised design to chase torpedo boats and her high-seas capabilities, Destructor was an important precursor to the TBD. The first classes of ships to bear the formal designation TBD were the Daring class of two ships and Havock class of two ships of the Royal Navy. Early torpedo gunboat designs lacked the range and speed to keep up with

535-662: A cruise missile attack. Prior to the development of nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missiles , the United States and the Soviet Union conducted their first at-sea deterrence patrols using modified submarines armed with very large nuclear-armed cruise missiles ; The US operated various diesel-electric submarines armed with the Regulus missile , and the Soviets operated Modified Whiskey -class armed with

642-644: A destroyer was the German U-19 , rammed by HMS  Badger on 29 October 1914. While U-19 was only damaged, the next month, HMS  Garry successfully sank U-18 . The first depth-charge sinking was on 4 December 1916, when UC-19 was sunk by HMS Llewellyn . The submarine threat meant that many destroyers spent their time on antisubmarine patrol. Once Germany adopted unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917, destroyers were called on to escort merchant convoys . US Navy destroyers were among

749-465: A displacement of 2,200 tons, while the Arleigh Burke class has a displacement of up to 9,600 tons, a difference of nearly 340%. Moreover, the advent of guided missiles allowed destroyers to take on the surface-combatant roles previously filled by battleships and cruisers. This resulted in larger and more powerful guided missile destroyers more capable of independent operation. At the start of

856-461: A displacement of 9,200 tons, and with an armament of more than 90 missiles, guided-missile destroyers such as the Arleigh Burke class are actually larger and more heavily armed than most previous ships classified as guided-missile cruisers. The Chinese Type 055 destroyer has been described as a cruiser in some US Navy reports due to its size and armament. Many NATO navies, such as

963-598: A doubt magnificent fighting vessels... but unable to stand bad weather". During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, the commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy TBD Akatsuki described "being in command of a destroyer for a long period, especially in wartime... is not very good for the health". Stating that he had originally been strong and healthy, he continued, "life on a destroyer in winter, with bad food, no comforts, would sap

1070-535: A further three similar classes were produced around 1930. The Le Fantasque class of 1935 carried five 138 millimetres (5.4 in) guns and nine torpedo tubes, but could achieve speeds of 45 knots (83 km/h), which remains the record speed for a steamship and for any destroyer. The Italians' own destroyers were almost as swift; most Italian designs of the 1930s were rated at over 38 knots (70 km/h), while carrying torpedoes and either four or six 120 mm guns. Germany started to build destroyers again during

1177-461: A fuse to initiate detonation. US nuclear weapons that met these criteria are designated by the letter "B" followed, without a hyphen, by the sequential number of the " physics package " it contains. The " B61 ", for example, was the primary bomb in the US arsenal for decades. Various air-dropping techniques exist, including toss bombing , parachute -retarded delivery, and laydown modes, intended to give

SECTION 10

#1732798172583

1284-446: A maximum speed of 22.6 knots (41.9 km/h), which made her one of the faster ships in the world in 1888. She was armed with one 90 mm (3.5 in) Spanish-designed Hontoria breech-loading gun, four 57 mm (2.2 in) ( 6-pounder ) Nordenfelt guns, two 37 mm (1.5 in) (3-pdr) Hotchkiss cannons and two 15-inch (38 cm) Schwartzkopff torpedo tubes. The ship carried three torpedoes per tube. She carried

1391-557: A navigational fix approximately once per hour. In 1967, the US Navy developed the Timation satellite that proved the ability to place accurate clocks in space, a technology required by the latter Global Positioning System . In the 1970s, the ground-based Omega Navigation System , based on phase comparison of signal transmission from pairs of stations, became the first worldwide radio navigation system. Limitations of these systems drove

1498-623: A requirement to accurately know the submarine's location was needed to ensure a high circular error probable warhead target accuracy. This led the US to develop the Transit system. In 1959, ARPA (renamed DARPA in 1972) also played a role in Transit. The first satellite navigation system, Transit , used by the United States Navy , was first successfully tested in 1960. It used a constellation of five satellites and could provide

1605-578: A single hit. In most cases torpedo and/or dual-purpose gun armament was reduced to accommodate new anti-air and anti-submarine weapons. By this time the destroyers had become large, multi-purpose vessels, expensive targets in their own right. As a result, casualties on destroyers were among the highest. In the US Navy, particularly in World War II, destroyers became known as tin cans due to their light armor compared to battleships and cruisers. The need for large numbers of antisubmarine ships led to

1712-503: A single missile to strike multiple targets, or to inflict maximum damage on a single target by attacking it with multiple warheads. It makes anti-ballistic missile defense even more difficult, and even less economically viable, than before. Missile warheads in the American arsenal are indicated by the letter "W"; for example, the W61 missile warhead would have the same physics package as

1819-408: A skeleton, and my bones are full of rheumatism ." In 1898, the US Navy officially classified USS  Porter , a 175-foot (53 m) long all steel vessel displacing 165 tons, as a torpedo boat, but her commander, LT. John C. Fremont, described her as "...a compact mass of machinery not meant to keep the sea nor to live in... as five-sevenths of the ship are taken up by machinery and fuel, whilst

1926-431: A threat to large capital ships near enemy coasts. The first seagoing vessel designed to launch the self-propelled Whitehead torpedo was the 33-ton HMS  Lightning in 1876. She was armed with two drop collars to launch these weapons; these were replaced in 1879 by a single torpedo tube in the bow. By the 1880s, the type had evolved into small ships of 50–100 tons, fast enough to evade enemy picket boats. At first,

2033-423: A three-branched nuclear capability is to significantly reduce the possibility that an enemy could destroy all of a nation's nuclear forces in a first-strike attack; this, in turn, ensures a credible threat of a second strike , and thus increases a nation's nuclear deterrence . Historically the first method of nuclear weapons delivery, and the method used in the twin instances of nuclear warfare in history,

2140-404: A turtleback (i.e. rounded) forecastle that was characteristic of early British TBDs. HMS  Daring and HMS  Decoy were both built by Thornycroft , displaced 260 tons (287.8 tons full load), and were 185 feet in length. They were armed with one 12-pounder gun and three 6-pounder guns, with one fixed 18-in torpedo tube in the bow plus two more torpedo tubes on a revolving mount abaft

2247-532: A wide range of general threats. They were originally conceived in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish Navy 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,

SECTION 20

#1732798172583

2354-471: Is a jet- or rocket-propelled missile that flies aerodynamically at low altitude using an automated guidance system (usually inertial navigation , sometimes supplemented by either GPS or mid-course updates from friendly forces) to make them harder to detect or intercept. Cruise missiles can carry a nuclear warhead. They have a shorter range and smaller payloads than ballistic missiles, so their warheads are smaller and less powerful. The AGM-86 ALCM

2461-666: Is believed that the, in development successor to the nuclear A-135, the A-235 Samolet-M , will dispense with nuclear interception warheads and instead rely on a conventional hit-to-kill capability to destroy its target. Small, two-man portable tactical weapons (erroneously referred to as suitcase bombs ), such as the Special Atomic Demolition Munition , have been developed, although the difficulty to combine sufficient yield with portability limits their military utility. According to an audit by

2568-725: Is the US Air Force 's current nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missile . The ALCM is only carried on the B-52 Stratofortress which can carry 20 missiles. Thus the cruise missiles themselves can be compared with MIRV warheads. The BGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk submarine-launched cruise missile is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but all nuclear warheads were removed following the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty . Cruise missiles may also be launched from mobile launchers on

2675-500: Is twofold. It results in a tighter target impact circular error probable and therefore by extension, reduces the need for the earlier generation of heavy multi- megaton nuclear warheads, such as the W53 to ensure the target is destroyed. With increased target accuracy, a greater number of lighter, multi-kiloton range warheads can be packed on a given missile , giving a higher number of separate targets that can be hit per missile. During

2782-584: The Dryad class – all built for the Royal Navy during the 1880s and the 1890s. In the 1880s, the Chilean Navy ordered the construction of two Almirante Lynch class torpedo gunboats from the British shipyard Laird Brothers, which specialized in the construction of this type of vessel. The novelty is that one of these Almirante Lynch -class torpedo boats managed to sink the ironclad Blanco Encalada with

2889-470: The Durandal -class torpilleur d'escadre . The United States commissioned its first TBD, USS  Bainbridge , Destroyer No. 1, in 1902, and by 1906, 16 destroyers were in service with the US Navy. Torpedo boat destroyer designs continued to evolve around the turn of the 20th century in several key ways. The first was the introduction of the steam turbine . The spectacular unauthorized demonstration of

2996-583: The AIR-2 Genie . Further developments of this concept, some with much larger warheads, led to the early anti-ballistic missiles . The United States have largely taken nuclear air-defense weapons out of service with the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Russia updated its nuclear armed Soviet era anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system, known as the A-135 anti-ballistic missile system in 1995. It

3103-476: The Battle of Jutland , which involved pitched small-boat actions between the main fleets, and several foolhardy attacks by unsupported destroyers on capital ships. Jutland also concluded with a messy night action between the German High Seas Fleet and part of the British destroyer screen. The threat evolved by World War I with the development of the submarine , or U-boat . The submarine had

3210-555: The Brookings Institution , between 1940 and 1996, the US spent $ 11.3 trillion in present-day terms on nuclear weapons programs. 57 percent of which was spent on building delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons. 6.3 percent of the total, $ 709 billion in present-day terms, was spent on weapon nuclear waste management, for example, cleaning up the Hanford site with environmental remediation , and 7 percent of

3317-520: The Far East . Badly damaged during World War II by the Germans, the shipyard was rebuilt and enlarged after the war, partially by using plundered equipment and machines from Germany, and specialized in larger surface warships up to cruiser size. As of 1983 about one-third of its output was commercial ships. The shipyard reverted to its earlier name of Severnaya Verf on 2 August 1989. It is now part of

Severnaya Verf - Misplaced Pages Continue

3424-508: The French , Spanish , Dutch , Danish , and German , use the term " frigate " for their destroyers, which leads to some confusion. The emergence and development of the destroyer was related to the invention of the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s. A navy now had the potential to destroy a superior enemy battle fleet using steam launches to fire torpedoes. Cheap, fast boats armed with torpedoes called torpedo boats were built and became

3531-582: The Medium Atomic Demolition Munition and the novel Blue Peacock , nuclear depth bombs , and nuclear torpedoes . An 'Atomic Bazooka' was also fielded, designed to be used against large formations of tanks. In the 1950s the US developed small nuclear warheads for air defense use, such as the Nike Hercules . From the 1950s to the 1980s, the United States and Canada fielded a low-yield nuclear armed air-to-air rocket ,

3638-655: The Meteor 1 was launched on 26 March 1969 on the Vostok rocket , a derivative of the R-7 ICBM . WD-40 was first used by Convair to protect the outer skin, and more importantly, the paper thin "balloon tanks" of the Atlas missile from rust and corrosion. These stainless steel fuel tanks were so thin that, when empty, they had to be kept inflated with nitrogen gas to prevent their collapse. In 1953, Dr. S. Donald Stookey of

3745-574: The P-5 Пятёрка . These early nuclear-armed SSGs served for a few decades until there were enough SSBNs put in service, after which they were retired. Their spiritual successors, armed with larger amounts of more modern, smaller cruise missiles continue to serve to this day serving in a tactical strike role, although they could be rearmed with nuclear cruise-missiles if need be. Air- or Ground-launched nuclear-armed cruise missiles (sometimes even nuclear-powered ) were considered by both sides early in

3852-730: The Polaris SLBM . The subsequent arms-race culminated in some of the largest submarines ever designed; the Trident-armed 170 meter long Ohio -class submarine armed with 24 x 8 MIRV Trident missiles , and the battlecruiser-sized 48,000 tonne Project 941 Акула , the Typhoon -class submarine , armed with 20 R-39s with 10 MIRVs each. After the Cold War, SSBN and subsequently SLBM development have slowed, but nascent nuclear powers are building novel classes of SSB (N)s, while

3959-599: The SSC-X-9 "Skyfall" (9М730 Буревестник ) was revealed by Russian President Vladimir Putin . It is under development and is slated to enter service sometime in the 2020s . Missiles using a ballistic trajectory deliver a warhead over the horizon; in the case of the most capable of these, classified as intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) (and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) if transported by submarine ), they can reach distances of nearly tens of thousands of kilometers. Most ballistic missiles exit

4066-517: The Severnaya Verf Production Association . As of 1998, the shipyard included: 59°52′32.9″N 30°14′49.9″E  /  59.875806°N 30.247194°E  / 59.875806; 30.247194 Destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet , convoy , or carrier battle group and defend them against

4173-573: The 1930s as part of Hitler's rearmament program. The Germans were also fond of large destroyers, but while the initial Type 1934 displaced over 3,000 tons, their armament was equal to smaller vessels. This changed from the Type 1936 onwards, which mounted heavy 150 millimetres (5.9 in) guns. German destroyers also used innovative high-pressure steam machinery; while this should have helped their efficiency, it more often resulted in mechanical problems. Once German and Japanese rearmament became clear,

4280-532: The 21st century, destroyers are the global standard for surface-combatant ships, with only two nations (the United States and Russia ) officially operating the heavier cruisers , with no battleships or true battlecruisers remaining. Modern guided-missile destroyers are equivalent in tonnage but vastly superior in firepower to cruisers of the World War II era, and are capable of carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles . At 510 feet (160 m) long,

4387-449: The B61 gravity bomb described above, but it would have different environmental requirements, and different safety requirements since it would not be crew-tended after launch and remain atop a missile for a great length of time. While the first modern ballistic missile designed is the basis of contemporary rocket- and missilery, it never carried a nuclear warhead. The first ICBM ever designed

Severnaya Verf - Misplaced Pages Continue

4494-538: The British and American navies consciously focused on building destroyers that were smaller, but more numerous than those used by other nations. The British built a series of destroyers (the A class to I class ), which were about 1,400 tons standard displacement, and had four 4.7-inch (119 mm) guns and eight torpedo tubes; the American Benson class of 1938 was similar in size, but carried five 5-inch (127 mm) guns and ten torpedo tubes. Realizing

4601-452: The Cold War, but both concluded that it was impractical with the technology of the time. Nuclear-powered aircraft were considered due to the nascent aeronautical and rocketry technology of the time, especially when considering the temperamental and inefficient nature of early jet engines , which limited the range and use cases of strategic bombers and cruise missiles. Later on in the Cold War both disciplines had advanced far enough that it

4708-786: The Corning Research and Development Division invented Pyroceram , a white glass-ceramic material capable of withstanding a thermal shock (sudden temperature change) of up to 450 °C (840 °F). It evolved from materials originally developed for a US ballistic missile program, and Stookey's research involved heat-resistant material for nose cones . Precise navigation would enable United States submarines to get an accurate fix of their positions before they launched their SLBMs, this spurred development of triangulation methods that ultimately culminated in GPS . The motivation for having accurate launch position fixes, and missile velocities,

4815-541: The Earth's atmosphere and re-enter it in their sub-orbital spaceflight . Ballistic missiles aren't always nuclear armed, but the conspicuous and alarming nature of their launch often precludes arming ICBMs and SLBMs, the most capable classes of ballistic missiles, with conventional warheads . Placement of nuclear missiles on the low Earth orbit has been banned by the Outer Space Treaty as early as 1967. Also,

4922-808: The R-7 is still in use as the launch vehicle for the Russian Federation, in the form of the Soyuz spacecraft . The first true weather satellite , the TIROS-1 was launched on the Thor-Able launch vehicle in April 1960. The PGM-17 Thor was the first operational IRBM (intermediate ballistic missile) deployed by the US Air Force ( USAF ). The Soviet Union 's first fully operational weather satellite,

5029-479: The Royal Navy's first Havock class of TBDs, up to the First World War with 300-foot (91 m) long destroyers displacing 1,000 tons was not unusual. Construction remained focused on putting the biggest possible engines into a small hull, though, resulting in a somewhat flimsy construction. Often, hulls were built of high-tensile steel only 1 ⁄ 8  in (3.2 mm) thick. By 1910,

5136-693: The Russian fleet in port, firing a total of 18 torpedoes, but only two Russian battleships, Tsesarevich and Retvizan , and a protected cruiser , Pallada , were seriously damaged due to the proper deployment of torpedo nets . Tsesarevich , the Russian flagship, had her nets deployed, with at least four enemy torpedoes "hung up" in them, and other warships were similarly saved from further damage by their nets. While capital-ship engagements were scarce in World War I, destroyer units engaged almost continually in raiding and patrol actions. The first shot of

5243-469: The Second World War, Polish ( kontrtorpedowiec , now obsolete). Once destroyers became more than just catchers guarding an anchorage, they were recognized to be also ideal to take over the offensive role of torpedo boats themselves, so they were also fitted with torpedo tubes in addition to their antitorpedo-boat guns. At that time, and even into World War I, the only function of destroyers

5350-792: The US FRAM I programme and the British Type 15 frigates converted from fleet destroyers. Nuclear missile Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation , on or near its target. Several methods have been developed to carry out this task. Strategic nuclear weapons are used primarily as part of a doctrine of deterrence by threatening large targets, such as cities . Weapons meant for use in limited military maneuvers such as destroying specific military, communications, or infrastructure targets, are known as tactical nuclear weapons . In terms of explosive yields , nowadays

5457-519: The USN with the Paulding class of 1909. In spite of all this variety, destroyers adopted a largely similar pattern. The hull was long and narrow, with a relatively shallow draft. The bow was either raised in a forecastle or covered under a turtleback; underneath this were the crew spaces, extending 1 ⁄ 4 to 1 ⁄ 3 the way along the hull. Aft of the crew spaces was as much engine space as

SECTION 50

#1732798172583

5564-581: The battle fleet, and as they inherently became larger, they became officially designated "torpedo-boat destroyers", and by the First World War were largely known as "destroyers" in English. The antitorpedo boat origin of this type of ship is retained in its name in other languages, including French ( contre-torpilleur ), Italian ( cacciatorpediniere ), Portuguese ( contratorpedeiro ), Czech ( torpédoborec ), Greek ( antitorpiliko , αντιτορπιλικό ), Dutch ( torpedobootjager ) and, up until

5671-449: The class gave the guns high-angle turrets for antiaircraft warfare, and the 24-inch (61 cm), oxygen-fueled Long Lance Type 93 torpedo . The later Hatsuharu class of 1931 further improved the torpedo armament by storing its reload torpedoes close at hand in the superstructure, allowing reloading within 15 minutes. Most other nations replied with similar larger ships. The US Porter class adopted twin 5-inch (127 mm) guns, and

5778-470: The design submitted by the shipyard of James and George Thomson of Clydebank . Destructor ( Destroyer in Spanish) was laid down at the end of the year, launched in 1886, and commissioned in 1887. Some authors considered her as the first destroyer ever built. She displaced 348 tons, and was the first warship equipped with twin triple-expansion engines generating 3,784 ihp (2,822 kW), for

5885-442: The destroyer". The German aviso Greif , launched in 1886, was designed as a " Torpedojäger " (torpedo hunter), intended to screen the fleet against attacks by torpedo boats. The ship was significantly larger than torpedo boats of the period, displacing some 2,266 t (2,230 long tons), with an armament of 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and 3.7 cm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon . The first vessel designed for

5992-487: The dropping aircraft time to escape the ensuing blast. The earliest gravity nuclear bombs ( Little Boy and Fat Man ) of the United States could only be carried, during the era of their creation, by the special Silverplate limited production (65 airframes by 1947) version of the B-29 Superfortress . The next generation of weapons were still so big and heavy that they could only be carried by bombers such as

6099-631: The established powers, all members of the United Nations Security Council , are plotting the next - generation of nuclear-powered nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines. Hypersonically-Gliding Warheads are a novel form of warhead to arm ballistic missiles. These maneuverable devices threaten to obsolate current forms of ABM defences, thus various nascent and established nuclear powers are racing to field examples of such systems . Other delivery methods included nuclear artillery shells, mines such as

6206-456: The event of a surprise attack. Early ballistic missiles carried a single warhead , often of megaton -range yield. Because of the limited accuracy of the missiles, this kind of high yield was considered necessary in order to ensure a particular target's destruction. Since the 1970s modern ballistic weapons have seen the development of far more accurate targeting technologies, particularly due to improvements in inertial guidance systems . This set

6313-535: The eventual Soviet Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) that served a similar purpose—it was just deliberately designed to deorbit before completing a full circle—was phased out in January 1983 in compliance with the SALT II treaty. An ICBM is more than 20 times as fast as a bomber and more than 10 times as fast as a fighter plane , and also flying at a much higher altitude , and therefore more difficult to defend against. ICBMs can also be fired quickly in

6420-442: The evolution of US human spaceflight. The Atlas vehicle sent John Glenn , the first American into orbit. Similarly in the Soviet Union it was the R-7 ICBM / launch vehicle that placed the first artificial satellite in space, Sputnik , on 4 October 1957, and the first human spaceflight in history was accomplished on a derivative of the R-7, the Vostok , on 12 April 1961 , by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin . A modernized version of

6527-549: The existence of the United States was the one need that did justify this cost in the view of the United States Congress. This deterrent effect is why GPS was funded. The nuclear triad consisted of the United States Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) along with United States Air Force (USAF) strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Considered vital to

SECTION 60

#1732798172583

6634-462: The explicit purpose of hunting and destroying torpedo boats was the torpedo gunboat . Essentially very small cruisers, torpedo gunboats were equipped with torpedo tubes and an adequate gun armament, intended for hunting down smaller enemy boats. By the end of the 1890s, torpedo gunboats were made obsolete by their more successful contemporaries, the TBDs, which were much faster. The first example of this

6741-664: The first American units to be dispatched upon the American entry to the war, and a squadron of Japanese destroyers even joined Allied patrols in the Mediterranean. Patrol duty was far from safe; of the 67 British destroyers lost in the war, collisions accounted for 18, while 12 were wrecked. At the end of the war, the state-of-the-art was represented by the British W class . The trend during World War I had been towards larger destroyers with heavier armaments. A number of opportunities to fire at capital ships had been missed during

6848-720: The fleet they were supposed to protect. In 1892, the Third Sea Lord , Rear Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher ordered the development of a new type of ships equipped with the then-novel water-tube boilers and quick-firing small-calibre guns. Six ships to the specifications circulated by the admiralty were ordered initially, comprising three different designs each produced by a different shipbuilder: HMS  Daring and HMS  Decoy from John I. Thornycroft & Company , HMS  Havock and HMS  Hornet from Yarrows , and HMS  Ferret and HMS  Lynx from Laird, Son & Company . These ships all featured

6955-489: The form of missiles. Gravity bombs are designed to be dropped from planes, which requires that the weapon be able to withstand vibrations and changes in air temperature and pressure during the course of a flight. Early weapons often had a removable core for safety, known as in flight insertion (IFI) cores, being inserted or assembled by the air crew during flight. They had to meet safety conditions, to prevent accidental detonation or dropping. A variety of types also had to have

7062-558: The former have much larger yield than the latter, even though it is not a rule. The bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 (with TNT equivalents between 15 and 22 kilotons ) were weaker than many of today's tactical weapons, yet they achieved the desired effect when used strategically. A nuclear triad refers to a strategic nuclear arsenal which consists of three components, traditionally strategic bombers , intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The purpose of having

7169-549: The greatest firepower of all destroyers in the world throughout the first half of the 1920s. This was largely because, between their commissioning in 1920 and 1926, they retained the armament that they had while serving in the Italian Navy as scout cruisers ( esploratori ). When initially ordered by Romania in 1913, the Romanian specifications envisioned three 120 mm guns, a caliber which would eventually be adopted as

7276-675: The ground , and from naval ships. There is no letter change in the US arsenal to distinguish the warheads of cruise missiles from those for ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles, even with their lower payload, speed, and thus readiness, have a number of advantages over ballistic missiles for the purposes of delivering nuclear strikes: However, cruise missiles are vulnerable to typical air-defence means as they are essentially one-use unmanned aircraft ; strategies such as combat flights of fighter aircraft , or an integrated air-defence system comprising both CAP and ground-based elements, such as surface-air missiles (SAM) , can be used to defend against

7383-467: The introduction of smaller and cheaper specialized antisubmarine warships called corvettes and frigates by the Royal Navy and destroyer escorts by the USN. A similar programme was belatedly started by the Japanese (see Matsu -class destroyer). These ships had the size and displacement of the original TBDs from which the contemporary destroyer had evolved. Some conventional destroyers completed in

7490-668: The late 1940s and 1950s were built on wartime experience. These vessels were significantly larger than wartime ships and had fully automatic main guns, unit machinery, radar, sonar, and antisubmarine weapons, such as the squid mortar . Examples include the British Daring -class , US Forrest Sherman -class , and the Soviet Kotlin -class destroyers. Some World War II–vintage ships were modernized for antisubmarine warfare, and to extend their service lives, to avoid having to build (expensive) brand-new ships. Examples include

7597-404: The need for a more universal navigation solution with greater accuracy. While there were wide needs for accurate navigation in military and civilian sectors, almost none of those was seen as justification for the billions of dollars it would cost in research, development, deployment, and operation for a constellation of navigation satellites. During the Cold War arms race , the nuclear threat to

7704-602: The need for heavier gun armament, the British built the Tribal class of 1936 (sometimes called Afridi after one of two lead ships). These ships displaced 1,850 tons and were armed with eight 4.7-inch (119 mm) guns in four twin turrets and four torpedo tubes. These were followed by the J-class and L-class destroyers, with six 4.7-inch (119 mm) guns in twin turrets and eight torpedo tubes. Antisubmarine sensors included sonar (or ASDIC), although training in their use

7811-508: The nuclear-deterrence posture, accurate determination of the SLBM launch position was a force multiplier . Precise navigation would enable United States submarines to get an accurate fix of their positions before they launched their SLBMs. The USAF, with two-thirds of the nuclear triad, also had requirements for a more accurate and reliable navigation system. The Navy and Air Force were developing their own technologies in parallel to solve what

7918-565: The potential to hide from gunfire and close underwater to fire torpedoes. Early-war destroyers had the speed and armament to intercept submarines before they submerged, either by gunfire or by ramming. Destroyers also had a shallow enough draft that they were difficult to hit with torpedoes. The desire to attack submarines under water led to rapid destroyer evolution during the war. They were quickly equipped with strengthened bows for ramming, and depth charges and hydrophones for identifying submarine targets. The first submarine casualty credited to

8025-500: The powers of the strongest men in the long run. A destroyer is always more uncomfortable than the others, and rain, snow, and sea-water combine to make them damp; in fact, in bad weather, there is not a dry spot where one can rest for a moment." The Japanese destroyer-commander finished with, "Yesterday, I looked at myself in a mirror for a long time; I was disagreeably surprised to see my face thin, full of wrinkles, and as old as though I were 50. My clothes (uniform) cover nothing but

8132-590: The remaining two-sevenths, fore and aft, are the crew's quarters; officers forward and the men placed aft. And even in those spaces are placed anchor engines, steering engines, steam pipes, etc. rendering them unbearably hot in tropical regions." The TBD's first major use in combat came during the Japanese surprise attack on the Russian fleet anchored in Port Arthur at the opening of the Russo-Japanese War on 8 February 1904. Three destroyer divisions attacked

8239-446: The satellite transponder in orbit. A fourth ground-based station, at an undetermined position, could then use those signals to fix its location precisely. The last SECOR satellite was launched in 1969. Decades later, during the early years of GPS, civilian surveying became one of the first fields to make use of the new technology, because surveyors could reap benefits of signals from the less-than-complete GPS constellation years before it

8346-458: The ship at least had the armament to deal with them. Another forerunner of the torpedo-boat destroyer (TBD) was the Japanese torpedo boat Kotaka ( Falcon ), built in 1885. Designed to Japanese specifications and ordered from the Isle of Dogs, London Yarrow shipyard in 1885, she was transported in parts to Japan, where she was assembled and launched in 1887. The 165-foot (50 m) long vessel

8453-446: The six/ten-engined, seventy-meter wingspan B-36 Peacemaker , the eight jet-engined B-52 Stratofortress , and jet-powered British RAF V bombers , but by the mid-1950s smaller weapons had been developed that could be carried and deployed by fighter-bombers . Modern nuclear gravity bombs are so small that they can be carried by (relatively) small multirole fighter aircraft , such as the single-engined F-16 and F-35 . A cruise missile

8560-450: The stage for smaller warheads in the hundreds-of- kilotons -range yield, and consequently for ICBMs having multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV). Advances in technology have enabled a single missile to launch a payload containing several warheads; the number of which depended on the missile's and payload bus' design. MIRVs has a number of advantages over a missile with a single warhead. With few additional costs, it allows

8667-494: The standard for future Italian destroyers. Armed with three 152 mm and four 76 mm guns after being completed as scout cruisers, the two warships were officially re-rated as destroyers by the Romanian Navy . The two Romanian warships were thus the destroyers with the greatest firepower in the world throughout much of the interwar period. As of 1939, when the Second World War started, their artillery, although changed,

8774-411: The steam-driven displacement (that is, not hydroplaning ) torpedo boat had become redundant as a separate type. Germany, nevertheless, continued to build such boats until the end of World War I, although these were effectively small coastal destroyers. In fact, Germany never distinguished between the two types, giving them pennant numbers in the same series and never giving names to destroyers. Ultimately,

8881-573: The subsequent Mahan class and Gridley classes (the latter of 1934) increased the number of torpedo tubes to 12 and 16, respectively. In the Mediterranean, the Italian Navy's building of very fast light cruisers of the Condottieri class prompted the French to produce exceptional destroyer designs. The French had long been keen on large destroyers, with their Chacal class of 1922 displacing over 2,000 tons and carrying 130 mm guns;

8988-429: The technology of the time would allow - several boilers and engines or turbines. Above deck, one or more quick-firing guns were mounted in the bows, in front of the bridge; several more were mounted amidships and astern. Two tube mountings (later on, multiple mountings) were generally found amidships. Between 1892 and 1914, destroyers became markedly larger; initially 275 tons with a length of 165 feet (50 m) for

9095-487: 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 ocean operations; typically, a number of destroyers and a single destroyer tender operated together. After the war, destroyers grew in size. The American Allen M. Sumner -class destroyers had

9202-573: The term "torpedo boat" came to be attached to a quite different vessel – the very fast-hydroplaning, motor-driven motor torpedo boat . Navies originally built TBDrs to protect against torpedo boats, but admirals soon appreciated the flexibility of the fast, multipurpose vessels that resulted. Vice-Admiral Sir Baldwin Walker laid down destroyer duties for the Royal Navy: Early destroyers were extremely cramped places to live, being "without

9309-470: The third one in 1974 carrying the first atomic clock into orbit. Another important predecessor to GPS came from a different branch of the United States military. In 1964, the United States Army orbited its first Sequential Collation of Range ( SECOR ) satellite used for geodetic surveying. The SECOR system included three ground-based transmitters from known locations that would send signals to

9416-545: The threat had evolved once again. Submarines were more effective, and aircraft had become important weapons of naval warfare; once again the early-war fleet destroyers were ill-equipped for combating these new targets. They were fitted with new light antiaircraft guns, radar , and forward-launched ASW weapons, in addition to their existing dual-purpose guns , depth charges , and torpedoes. Increasing size allowed improved internal arrangement of propulsion machinery with compartmentation , so ships were less likely to be sunk by

9523-427: The threat of a torpedo-boat attack to a battle fleet was considered to exist only when at anchor, but as faster and longer-range torpedo boats and torpedoes were developed, the threat extended to cruising at sea. In response to this new threat, more heavily gunned picket boats called "catchers" were built, which were used to escort the battle fleet at sea. They needed significant seaworthiness and endurance to operate with

9630-541: The total, $ 795 billion was spent on the manufacturing of nuclear weapons themselves. Strictly speaking however not all this 57 percent was spent solely on "weapons programs" delivery systems. For example, two such delivery mechanisms , the Atlas ICBM and Titan II , were re-purposed as human launch vehicles for human spaceflight , both were used in the civilian Project Mercury and Project Gemini programs respectively, which are regarded as stepping stones in

9737-449: The turbine-powered Turbinia at the 1897 Spithead Navy Review, which, significantly, was of torpedo-boat size, prompted the Royal Navy to order a prototype turbine-powered destroyer, HMS  Viper of 1899. This was the first turbine warship of any kind, and achieved a remarkable 34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph) on sea trials. By 1910, the turbine had been widely adopted by all navies for their faster ships. The second development

9844-467: The two funnels. Later, the bow torpedo tube was removed and two more 6-pounder guns added, instead. They produced 4,200 hp from a pair of Thornycroft water-tube boilers, giving them a top speed of 27 knots, giving the range and speed to travel effectively with a battle fleet. In common with subsequent early Thornycroft boats, they had sloping sterns and double rudders. The French navy, an extensive user of torpedo boats, built its first TBD in 1899, with

9951-595: The war at sea was fired on 5 August 1914 by HMS  Lance , one of the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla , in an engagement with the German auxiliary minelayer Königin Luise . Destroyers were involved in the skirmishes that prompted the Battle of Heligoland Bight , and filled a range of roles in the Battle of Gallipoli , acting as troop transports and as fire-support vessels, as well as their fleet-screening role. Over 80 British destroyers and 60 German torpedo boats took part in

10058-401: The war, because destroyers had expended all their torpedoes in an initial salvo. The British V and W classes of the late war had sought to address this by mounting six torpedo tubes in two triple mounts, instead of the four or two on earlier models. The V and W classes set the standard of destroyer building well into the 1920s. Two Romanian destroyers Mărăști and Mărășești , though, had

10165-492: Was HMS  Rattlesnake , designed by Nathaniel Barnaby in 1885, and commissioned in response to the Russian War scare . The gunboat was armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats . Exactly 200 feet (61 m) long and 23 feet (7.0 m) in beam, she displaced 550 tons. Built of steel, Rattlesnake was unarmoured with the exception of a 3 ⁄ 4 -inch protective deck. She

10272-455: Was a gravity bomb dropped by a plane . In the years leading up to the development and deployment of nuclear-armed missiles, nuclear bombs represented the most practical means of nuclear weapons delivery; even today, and especially with the decommissioning of nuclear missiles , aerial bombing remains the primary means of offensive nuclear weapons delivery, and the majority of US nuclear warheads are represented in bombs, although some are in

10379-570: Was armed with a single 4-inch/25-pounder breech-loading gun , six 3-pounder QF guns and four 14-inch (360 mm) torpedo tubes, arranged with two fixed tubes at the bow and a set of torpedo-dropping carriages on either side. Four torpedo reloads were carried. A number of torpedo gunboat classes followed, including the Grasshopper class, the Sharpshooter class , the Alarm class , and

10486-452: Was armed with four 1-pounder (37 mm) quick-firing guns and six torpedo tubes, reached 19 knots (35 km/h), and at 203 tons, was the largest torpedo boat built to date. In her trials in 1889, Kotaka demonstrated that she could exceed the role of coastal defense, and was capable of accompanying larger warships on the high seas. The Yarrow shipyards, builder of the parts for Kotaka , "considered Japan to have effectively invented

10593-494: Was essentially the same problem. To increase the survivability of ICBMs, there was a proposal to use mobile launch platforms (such as Russian SS-24 and SS-25 ) and so the need to fix the launch position had similarity to the SLBM situation. In 1960, the Air Force proposed a radio-navigation system called MOSAIC (MObile System for Accurate ICBM Control) that was essentially a 3-D  LORAN . A follow-on study, Project 57,

10700-420: Was feasible to create both reliable long-ranged cruise missiles and the strategic bombers able to launch them. Another arms-race began which produced contemporary post-Cold War cruise missiles and launch systems; VLS technology also allowed for surface ships to be armed with nuclear-armed cruise missiles while concealing their true payload. In 2018, the first operational nuclear-powered strategic cruise missile,

10807-467: Was indifferent. Antisubmarine weapons changed little, and ahead-throwing weapons, a need recognized in World War I, had made no progress. During the 1920s and 1930s, destroyers were often deployed to areas of diplomatic tension or humanitarian disaster. British and American destroyers were common on the Chinese coast and rivers, even supplying landing parties to protect colonial interests. By World War II,

10914-627: Was known as the Severnaya Verf and was then renamed Severnaya sudostroitel'naya verf in the early Twenties. It was given the honorific "in the name of Zhdanov" in 1935 and was renamed as Shipyard No. 190 (in the name of Zhdanov) when the Soviets numbered most of their industrial facilities on 30 December 1936. During this time, the yard built its only submarines ; notably several Shchuka and M-class boats as well as components for S-class submarines that were assembled in Vladivostok in

11021-587: Was still close to cruiser standards, amounting to nine heavy naval guns (five of 120 mm and four of 76 mm). In addition, they retained their two twin 457 mm torpedo tubes and two machine guns, plus the capacity to carry up to 50 mines. The next major innovation came with the Japanese Fubuki class or "special type", designed in 1923 and delivered in 1928. The design was initially noted for its powerful armament of six 5-inch (127 mm) guns and three triple torpedo mounts. The second batch of

11128-554: Was the Soviet R-7 . The first SLBM-carrying submarine was also Soviet; the prototype Modified Zulu -class and the mass-produced Golf -class ballistic missile submarines carried their SLBMs in their sails, but these pioneering designs had to surface to launch their ballistic missiles. The Americans responded with the first "modern design" of ballistic missile subs; the George Washington -class , which launched

11235-475: Was the replacement of the torpedo boat-style turtleback foredeck by a raised forecastle for the new River-class destroyers built in 1903, which provided better sea-keeping and more space below deck. The first warship to use only fuel oil propulsion was the Royal Navy's TBD HMS  Spiteful , after experiments in 1904, although the obsolescence of coal as a fuel in British warships was delayed by oil's availability. Other navies also adopted oil, for instance

11342-519: Was to protect their own battle fleet from enemy torpedo attacks and to make such attacks on the battleships of the enemy. The task of escorting merchant convoys was still in the future. An important development came with the construction of HMS Swift in 1884, later redesignated TB 81. This was a large (137 ton) torpedo boat with four 47 mm quick-firing guns and three torpedo tubes. At 23.75 knots (43.99 km/h; 27.33 mph), while still not fast enough to engage enemy torpedo boats reliably,

11449-610: Was worked in 1963 and it was "in this study that the GPS concept was born". That same year, the concept was pursued as Project 621B, which had "many of the attributes that you now see in GPS" and promised increased accuracy for Air Force bombers as well as ICBMs. Updates from the Navy Transit system were too slow for the high speeds of Air Force operation. The Navy Research Laboratory continued advancements with their Timation (Time Navigation) satellites, first launched in 1967, and with

#582417