The Ship Characteristics Board was a unit of the United States Navy .
56-537: The purpose of the Ship Characteristics Board was to coordinate the creation of 'ship characteristics' that are essential to the design of naval combatants and auxiliaries . Coordination was required because the operators and the designers of ships had different interests, perceptions, concepts, and constraints: as summarized by the naval historian Norman Friedman , "How to achieve the best possible compromise among competing bureaus has been one of
112-481: A line of battle . The man-of-war now evolved into the ship of the line . In the 18th century, the frigate and sloop-of-war – too small to stand in the line of battle – evolved to escort convoy trade, scout for enemy ships and blockade enemy coasts. During the 19th century a revolution took place in the means of marine propulsion , naval armament and construction of warships . Marine steam engines were introduced, at first as an auxiliary force, in
168-455: A class in any way changed, such suffixes are listed here for historical note only. In effect, this new numbering scheme changed the focus of the SCB from design and development to procurement and budget compliance. As a result, concept-only designs would largely disappear from the historical record. The SCB also had a list of projects called Class Improvement Projects. These were usually changes of
224-407: A deck like a helicopter carrier for helicopters and V/STOL aircraft. CL-154-class cruiser The CL-154 class of 5-inch (127 mm) gun light cruisers was a United States Navy project from the last two years of World War II , with antecedents reaching back to 1938 and earlier. The CL-154 class was contemporary to the 6-inch (152 mm) gun Worcester -class light cruisers and
280-472: A displacement hierarchy, and the size of all vessel types has grown beyond the definitions used earlier in the 20th century. Another key difference between older and modern vessels is that all modern warships are "soft", without the thick armor and bulging anti-torpedo protection of World War II and older designs. Most navies also include many types of support and auxiliary vessels , such as minesweepers , patrol boats and offshore patrol vessels . By 1982
336-584: A lesser scope or risk than SCB projects; many were contingency plans to refurbish reserve ships had it been necessary to reactivate them . No list of CIP numbers is available. Warship A warship or combatant ship is a ship that is used for naval warfare . Usually they belong to the navy branch of the armed forces of a nation , though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations . As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are typically faster and more maneuverable than merchant ships . Unlike
392-430: A merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries only weapons, ammunition and supplies for its crew. In wartime, the distinction between warships and merchant ships is often blurred. Until the 17th century it was common for merchant ships to be pressed into naval service, and not unusual for more than half of a fleet to be composed of merchant ships—there was not a large difference in construction, unlike
448-446: A pioneer of modern-day amphibious assault ships . During some of her operations, she was known to have used at least four cover names, R1, GL, MT, and Ryujo Maru. An amphibious warfare ship is an amphibious vehicle warship employed to land and support ground forces, such as marines , on enemy territory during an amphibious assault. Specialized shipping can be divided into two types, most crudely described as ships and craft. In general,
504-416: A ship class without redefinition. The destroyer is generally regarded as the dominant surface-combat vessel of most modern blue-water navies. However, the once distinct roles and appearances of cruisers , destroyers , frigates , and corvettes have blurred. Most vessels have come to be armed with a mix of anti-surface, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft weapons. Class designations no longer reliably indicate
560-459: A smaller number of larger guns to be carried. The final innovation during the 19th century was the development of the torpedo and development of the torpedo boat . Small, fast torpedo boats seemed to offer an alternative to building expensive fleets of battleships. Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced
616-519: The 1975 ship reclassification ), and a two digit suffix denoting the fiscal year of the construction phase of the project. This suffix is not the start date of the project as a concept: SCB 400.65 actually began in November 1962, not in 1965, and SCB 409.68 actually began in February 1965, not in 1968. The existence of successive suffixes also does not necessarily mean that the design of ships of
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#1732787371666672-543: The Atlanta class as a destroyer flotilla leader . The design study ended in 1940 without any ships started due to more pressing priorities. The "ship characteristics" resulting from the study would be almost identical to that of the later CL-154 design. When the United States entered World War II the 5-inch gun Atlanta class was under construction: eight Atlanta -class ships would ultimately be completed. As
728-520: The General Board , had been seen as ineffective in a series of earlier Navy bureau miscoordinations . The SCB would adjudicate between operational requirements set by the ship operators ( the fleets and other operational forces ) and the technological and fiscal constraints imposed on the ship designers (the Bureau of Ships / BuShips and the Bureau of Ordnance / BuOrd ). The SCB had nowhere near
784-541: The Second World War Nazi Germany's fleet of U-boats (submarines) almost starved Britain into submission and inflicted huge losses on US coastal shipping. The success of submarines led to the development of new anti-submarine convoy escorts during the First and Second World Wars, such as the destroyer escort . Confusingly, many of these new types adopted the names of the smaller warships from
840-587: The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) treaty negotiations had produced a legal definition of what was then generally accepted as a late-twentieth century warship. The UNCLOS definition was : "A warship means a ship belonging to the armed forces of a State bearing the external marks distinguishing such ships of its nationality, under the command of an officer duly commissioned by
896-507: The age of sail , such as corvette , sloop and frigate . A seaplane tender is a ship that supports the operation of seaplanes . Some of these vessels, known as seaplane carriers, could not only carry seaplanes but also provided all the facilities needed for their operation; these ships are regarded by some as the first aircraft carriers and appeared just before the First World War . A major shift in naval warfare occurred with
952-516: The capital ships from the menace of the torpedo boat. At this time, Britain also introduced the use of fuel oil to power steam warships, instead of coal. Oil produced twice as much power per unit weight as coal, and was much easier to handle. Tests were conducted by the Royal Navy in 1904 involving the torpedo-boat destroyer Spiteful , the first warship powered solely by fuel oil. These proved its superiority, and all warships procured for
1008-420: The dreadnoughts on an even larger hull , battlecruisers sacrificed armour protection for speed. Battlecruisers were faster and more powerful than all existing cruisers, but much more vulnerable to shellfire than contemporary battleships. The torpedo-boat destroyer was developed at the same time as the dreadnoughts. Bigger, faster and more heavily gunned than the torpedo boat , the destroyer evolved to protect
1064-407: The hull classification CLAA (anti-aircraft light cruiser) on 18 March 1949. The CL-154 class was the final attempt to build a "super- Atlanta -class cruiser" by replacing the Atlanta ' s 5-inch/38-caliber gun with the new 5-inch/54-caliber Mark 16 gun . The new gun had a higher rate of fire and a longer range than the 38-caliber gun, and fired a heavier and more destructive projectile;
1120-516: The 1930s, including the 5-inch/54-caliber Mark 16, and had continued to push for ships that would act as testbeds for their new guns. The Navy agreed in the waning days of World War II to construct a small number of cruisers for this purpose, including the 5-inch gun CL-154 class. Initially the Navy wanted at least one squadron of six ships of each class, but in the end only two Worcester -class and three Des Moines -class cruisers would be completed, and
1176-567: The 1980s it was revived as the Ship Characteristics Improvement Board (SCIB), but without its former authority. A decision by the SCB likely contributed to the 1963 loss of the nuclear submarine Thresher . The SCB had ordered BuShips to study increasing the test depth for future submarines from 700 to 1,600 feet, and this increase was approved after November 1956. Thresher 's components were too far along in design to accommodate this change, but it
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#17327873716661232-554: The 4th century BC and the subsequent refinement of this technology enabled the first fleets of siege engine - equipped warships by the Hellenistic age . During late antiquity , ramming fell out of use and the galley tactics against other ships used during the Middle Ages until the late 16th century focused on boarding. Naval artillery was redeveloped in the 14th century, but cannon did not become common at sea until
1288-550: The 8-inch (203 mm) gun Des Moines -class heavy cruisers: like them the CL-154 design incorporated the lessons learned of World War II combat. The Navy allocated six hull numbers (CL-154 through CL-159) to the CL-154 class for the planned construction, but unlike the Worcester and Des Moines classes the CL-154 class would be cancelled with no units named or constructed. Had these ships been built, they would have been given
1344-487: The CL-154 class as their sixth top priority. The new Ship Characteristics Board / SCB set the final ship characteristics for the class in September 1945, which included dropping the 20 mm and 40 mm secondary batteries in favor of six or eight dual mounts of the new 3"/70 Mark 26 gun . Weeks later the SCB recommended the class be cancelled on cost-effectiveness grounds . The projected ship would be expensive, equal to
1400-467: The CL-154 class would be cancelled in its entirety. BuOrd had again proposed a 5-inch/54 caliber gun cruiser in June 1942, and the Bureau of Ships / BuShips noted that two unfinished Atlanta -class hulls could be converted if one less turret was installed and other compensations were made (for example, increasing the beam of the ships by a foot, or reducing the armor thickness). The General Board killed
1456-463: The Navy gained experience with combat conditions, it was decided that the Atlantas needed improvement. However, major improvements would cause unacceptable delays in the construction programs. It was decided that the Atlantas and other cruisers would be succeeded by two new generations, an "interim" generation with minor improvements that were easily added during the war, and a later generation near
1512-807: The Royal Navy from 1912 were designed to burn fuel oil. During the lead-up to the Second World War , Germany and the United Kingdom once again emerged as the two dominant Atlantic sea powers. The German navy, under the Treaty of Versailles , was limited to only a few minor surface ships. But the clever use of deceptive terminology, such as Panzerschiffe deceived the British and French commands. They were surprised when ships such as Admiral Graf Spee , Scharnhorst , and Gneisenau raided Allied supply lines. The greatest threat however,
1568-606: The attacks, as in the Battle of the Coral Sea . Modern warships are generally divided into seven main categories, which are: aircraft carriers , cruisers , destroyers , frigates , corvettes , submarines , and amphibious warfare ships . Battleships comprise an eighth category, but are not in current service with any navy in the world. Only the deactivated American Iowa -class battleships still exist as potential combatants, and battleships in general are unlikely to re-emerge as
1624-540: The construction of ships: some projects would remain conceptual only, or would be superseded by later projects. In 1966 the successors to BuShips and BuOrd ( NAVSHIPS and NAVORD ) were moved to report to OpNav. The SCB role as an adjudicator became less relevant. During the development of the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates it was renamed the Ship Acquisition and Improvement Board (SAIB). In
1680-456: The cost of two proposed destroyers with similar armament, a proposal that would become the Mitscher -class destroyers (but eventually with the single mount 5"/54 caliber Mark 42 gun instead of the dual mount 5"/54 caliber Mark 16): the two destroyers would be more operationally flexible and survivable than – but with only two-thirds of the volume of fire of – the one cruiser. No further action
1736-602: The difference between a heavily armoured battleship and an ocean liner. Until the threat of piracy subsided in the 19th century, it was normal practice to arm larger merchant ships such as galleons . Warships have also often been used as troop carriers or supply ships, such as by the French Navy in the 18th century or the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War. In war since
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1792-573: The early 20th century, merchant ships were often armed and used as auxiliary warships , such as the Q-ships of the First World War and the armed merchant cruisers of the Second World War . The main types of warships today are, in order of decreasing size: aircraft carriers – amphibious assault ships – cruisers – destroyers – frigates – corvettes – fast attack boats . A more extensive list follows: The first evidence of ships being used for warfare comes from Ancient Egypt , specifically
1848-403: The first time, the aircraft carrier became the clear choice to serve as the main capital ship within a naval task force. World War II was the only war in history in which battles occurred between groups of carriers. World War II saw the first use of radar in combat. It brought the first naval battle in which the ships of both sides never engaged in direct combat, instead sending aircraft to make
1904-494: The government of the State and whose name appears in the appropriate service list or its equivalent, and manned by a crew which is under regular armed forces discipline." The first practical submarines were developed in the late 19th century, but it was only after the development of the torpedo that submarines became truly dangerous (and hence useful). By the end of the First World War submarines had proved their potential. During
1960-559: The great dilemmas of 20th-century U.S. naval administration." This list of SCB projects is a useful exposition of the U.S. Navy's shipbuilding priorities in the first half of the Cold War . The Ship Characteristics Board was founded in 1945 under the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations / OpNav . It was created after the body previously responsible for coordinating ships characteristics,
2016-468: The guns were capable of being reloaded quickly enough to be reused in the same battle. The size of a ship required to carry a large number of cannons made oar-based propulsion impossible, and warships came to rely primarily on sails. The sailing man-of-war emerged during the 16th century. By the middle of the 17th century, warships were carrying increasing numbers of cannons on their broadsides and tactics evolved to bring each ship's firepower to bear in
2072-527: The introduction of the aircraft carrier . First at Taranto and then at Pearl Harbor , the aircraft carrier demonstrated its ability to strike decisively at enemy ships out of sight and range of surface vessels. By the end of the Second World War, the carrier had become the dominant warship. Shinshū Maru was a ship of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. She was the world's first purpose-built landing craft carrier ship, and
2128-551: 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. The role of corvettes , sloops and frigates were taken by new types of ships like destroyers , protected cruisers and armoured cruisers . Another revolution in capital warship design began shortly after
2184-399: The main material for warship construction. From the 1850s, the sailing ships of the line were replaced by steam-powered battleships , while the sailing frigates were replaced by steam-powered cruisers . The armament of warships also changed with the invention of the rotating barbettes and turrets , which allowed the guns to be aimed independently of the direction of the ship and allowed
2240-697: The move to the 5-inch/54 caliber gun necessary. BuShips presentations of design studies to the General Board in October and then December 1944 showed it was extremely difficult to design a cruiser with adequate armor on a hull displacement large enough to accommodate six or eight twin 5-inch/54 caliber gun mounts plus a robust secondary battery, but small enough to obtain a 35-knot (65 km/h; 40 mph) speed on two propellers; more propellers would have meant an even larger and more expensive ship, an unacceptable result. Still, six hull numbers were allocated to
2296-754: The northern Nile River most likely to defend against Mediterranean peoples. The galley warship most likely originated in Crete an idea which was soon copied and popularized by the Phoenicians . In the time of Mesopotamia , Ancient Persia , Phoenicia , Ancient Greece and the Ancient Rome , warships were always galleys (such as biremes , triremes and quinqueremes ): long, narrow vessels powered by banks of oarsmen and designed to ram and sink enemy vessels, or to engage them bow -first and follow up with boarding parties. The development of catapults in
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2352-407: The only downside to the new gun was a heavier mount, faster barrel wear, and greater crew fatigue if forced into manually loading. It was slated for installation in the projected Montana -class battleships , and its developer, the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance / BuOrd desired to find additional applications for it. A light cruiser installation for the new gun similar in design to the Atlanta class
2408-483: The project at this time, CL-154 through CL-159. The CL-154 class was cancelled on 27 March 1945 due to broad naval budget cuts ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt , but Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal reinstated the design study on 10 May 1945 in recognition of the Atlanta class's successful history of screening carriers from air attack. In June 1945 BuOrd ranked the 5-inch gun for
2464-441: The proposal two months later largely on logistical grounds (i.e., the difficulties of adding a new ammunition type to the fleets). The General Board began to reconsider in the spring of 1944. BuShips noted that the as-yet unlaunched Juneau class was already overweight despite every effort to reduce it, which meant a larger hull would be required for any follow-on design, and that projected improvements in aircraft would likely make
2520-592: The same fate as the "interim" generation: only a handful were completed. The German introduction of anti-ship guided missiles and the Japanese use of kamikaze attacks (which were in effect missiles guided under direct human control) made all anti-aircraft guns smaller than the 3-inch gun obsolete and increased pressure to adopt 5- and 6-inch dual purpose (DP) guns which were capable of attacking both airborne and surface targets at longer ranges and with higher rates of fire. BuOrd had begun development of such gun designs in
2576-519: The same stature as its predecessor [the General Board], since in effect it was separated from the policy- and strategy-planning process. It was far more concerned with the details of design, and included representatives of all the bureaus, who had equal votes. Participants in SCB meetings recall cases in which the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery cast the decisive vote on weapons systems choices. From
2632-472: The second quarter of the 19th century. The Crimean War gave a great stimulus to the development of guns. The introduction of explosive shells soon led to the introduction of iron , and later steel , naval armour for the sides and decks of larger warships. The first ironclad warships, the French Gloire and British Warrior , made wooden vessels obsolete. Metal soon entirely replaced wood as
2688-470: The ships carry the troops from the port of embarkation to the drop point for the assault and the craft carry the troops from the ship to the shore. Amphibious assaults taking place over short distances can also involve the shore-to-shore technique, where landing craft go directly from the port of embarkation to the assault point. Amphibious assault ships have a well deck with landing craft which can carry tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles and also have
2744-478: The start of the 20th century, when Britain launched the Royal Navy 's all-big-gun battleship Dreadnought in 1906. Powered by steam turbines , it was bigger, faster and more heavily gunned than any existing battleships , which it immediately rendered obsolete. It was rapidly followed by similar ships in other countries. The Royal Navy also developed the first battlecruisers . Mounting the same heavy guns as
2800-456: The surviving records it is not entirely clear who within OpNav worked up the lists of projects on which the SCB worked, at least at first. For a time that was both very important, given the poverty of the [post-World War Two] shipbuilding program and the lack of any integrated U.S. concept of future warfare. The SCB assigned numbers to its projects beginning in 1946. Not all projects would result in
2856-531: The symbols in use at the conception of the project, rather than when construction started. Explanations of these symbols are usually to be found in the linked articles on each ship or class. SCB projects began in numeric sequence in 1946, and were originally listed in descending priority (the Norfolk cruiser/destroyer leader having top priority, the Tang submarines as second priority, etc.), but such prioritization
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#17327873716662912-541: The war's end which would incorporate major improvements including new gun types. The "interim" generation would include the 5-inch gun Juneau class . By late 1944 the Navy had realized that the ship construction program could be cut back due to the near-total destruction of the Imperial Japanese Navy . The number of the ships of this generation would be small in comparison to the previous generation: only three Juneau -class ships were completed. The later (and as it would turn out) final generation of gun cruisers met
2968-504: Was decided that they could be modified to enable a test depth of 1,300 feet. The irony is that the SCB's motives for this change were to enhance safety: not only to support greater combat survivability, but also out of a concern that the increased speed of nuclear submarines could cause them to inadvertently exceed the more shallow test depths while maneuvering. Review of the following lists of SCB projects will show: All ship hull classification symbols shown (CLK, SS, DL, CVA, DE, etc.) are
3024-479: Was eventually dropped. Several of the early projects actually began in 1945 - for example, the Mitscher -class destroyer (which in 1946 was assigned the project number SCB 5) was the ship design that on paper out-performed the projected CL-154 class light cruiser design and led to that cruiser's cancellation in September 1945. By 1965 the numeric sequence was abandoned and SCB projects were organized by block numbers which arranged projects by ship types (valid until
3080-416: Was naturally attractive to BuOrd. The 1936 Second London Naval Treaty imposed limits that resulted in the Atlanta class with the 5-inch/38-caliber gun dual purpose rapid fire main gun battery, the first such ship in the Navy. The first attempt to design a super- Atlanta using the 5-inch/54-caliber Mark 16 gun was the "Cruiser-Destroyer", or CLD of 1938. The name reflected an intended minor role of
3136-624: Was the introduction of the Kriegsmarine 's largest vessels, Bismarck and Tirpitz . Bismarck was heavily damaged and sunk/scuttled after a series of sea battles in the north Atlantic in 1941, while Tirpitz was destroyed by the Royal Air Force in 1944. The British Royal Navy gained dominance of the European theatre by 1943. The Second World War brought massive changes in the design and role of several types of warships. For
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