Военные корабли: история и эволюция

Ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare

A warship or combatant ship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a nation. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are typically faster and more maneuverable than merchant ships. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries only weapons, ammunition and supplies for its crew. Warships usually belong to a navy, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations. 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 a fleet to be composed of merchant ships—there was not a large difference in construction, unlike the difference between a heavily armoured World War 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 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 first evidence of ships being used for warfare was in Ancient Egypt, specifically 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 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 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 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 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 French ironclad Gloire and British , made wooden vessels obsolete. Metal soon entirely replaced wood as 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 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 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 the start of the 20th century, when Britain launched the Royal Navy's all big gun battleship 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 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 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 , the first warship powered solely by fuel oil. These proved its superiority, and all warships procured for 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 German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, German battleship Scharnhorst, and German battleship Gneisenau raided Allied supply lines. The greatest threat however, was the introduction of the Kriegsmarine's largest vessels, German battleship Bismarck and German battleship 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 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 the attacks, as in the Battle of the Coral Sea.