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HMS Kenya (C14)
HMS ''Kenya'' was a cruiser of the Royal Navy. The ship was named after Kenya, a British possession at the time of the ship's construction. Service history Construction and early service ''Kenya'' was launched on 18 August 1939 from the yards of Alexander Stephen and Sons, Glasgow, Scotland and after working up was commissioned on 27 September 1940. She took part in the hunt for the in May 1941 whilst part of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, Home Fleet, based at Scapa Flow. On 3 June ''Kenya'' and the cruiser surprised and sank the German tanker ''Belchen'' which was supplying in the Davis Straits. Operation Stonewall During September and October 1941, the Royal Navy devised Operation Stonewall, to intercept U-boats which were escorting outbound blockade runners through the Bay of Biscay into the Atlantic. After providing escort to the Malta convoy Operation Halberd on 24 September on 1 October, ''Kenya'' and the cruiser made to intercept the blockade runner ''Rio Grande'', de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of List of islands of the United Kingdom, the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering . Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. It maintains sovereignty over the British Overseas Territories, which are located across various oceans and seas globally. The UK had an estimated population of over 68.2 million people in 2023. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK is London. The cities o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-aircraft Machinegun
Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-based weapon systems, in addition to associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements, and passive measures (e.g. barrage balloons). It may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries, the main effort has tended to be homeland defense. Missile defense is an extension of air defence, as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight. Most modern anti-aircraft (AA) weapons systems are optimized for short-, medium-, or long-range air defence, although some systems may incorporate multiple weapons (such as both autocannons and surface-to-air missiles). 'Layered air defence' usually refers to multiple 'tiers' of air defence systems which, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Home Fleet
The Home Fleet was a fleet of the Royal Navy that operated from the United Kingdom's territorial waters from 1902 with intervals until 1967. In 1967, it was merged with the Mediterranean Fleet creating the new Western Fleet. Before the First World War between 1902 and 1904 the Admiralty reorganised its ships in home waters into a permanent force called the Home Squadron. At the beginning of 1905, it was renamed the Channel Fleet. In 1907 a new Home Fleet was formed from ships in reserve and new ships, and in 1909 the Channel Fleet was merged into it, forming the principal fleet in British waters. In 1912 it was renamed the Home Fleets, formed of the First, Second and Third. On the outbreak of the First World War the First Fleet became the Grand Fleet. When the Grand Fleet was redistributed after the war, the reserve fleet was briefly named Home Fleet in 1919 before being renamed, and after the Invergordon Mutiny in 1931 the Atlantic Fleet was renamed Home Fleet in 1932. Du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenya Colony
The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, commonly known as British Kenya or British East Africa, was part of the British Empire in Africa from 1920 until 1963. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British Crown colony in 1920. Technically, the "Colony of Kenya" referred to the interior lands, while a 16 km (10 mi) coastal strip, nominally on lease from the List of sultans of Zanzibar, Sultan of Zanzibar, was the "Protectorate of Kenya", but the two were controlled as a single administrative unit. The colony came to an end in 1963 when a native Kenyan majority government was elected for the first time and eventually Kenya (1963–1964), declared independence. However, Kenya is sometimes referred to as the "Scotland, Scottish Colony" due to the fact that Sir William Mackinnon, 1st Baronet, William Mackinnon, the founder of the Imperial British East Africa Company that was governing Kenya, was a Scots people, native of Scotland. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early Middle Ages, medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Kingdom of France, France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the English Navy of the early 16th century; the oldest of the British Armed Forces, UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service. From the early 18th century until the World War II, Second World War, it was the world's most powerful navy. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing and defending the British Empire, and four Imperial fortress colonies and a string of imperial bases and coaling stations secured the Royal Navy's ability to assert naval superior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several operational roles from search-and-destroy to ocean escort to sea denial. The term "cruiser", which has been in use for several hundred years, has changed its meaning over time. During the Age of Sail, the term ''cruising'' referred to certain kinds of missions—independent scouting, commerce protection, or raiding—usually fulfilled by frigates or sloop-of-war, sloops-of-war, which functioned as the ''cruising warships'' of a fleet. In the middle of the 19th century, ''cruiser'' came to be a classification of the ships intended for cruising distant waters, for commerce raiding, and for scouting for the battle fleet. Cruisers came in a wide variety of sizes, from the medium-sized protected cruiser to large armored cruisers that were nearly as big (although not as powerful or as well-armored) as a pre- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hangar
A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *''haimgard'' ("home-enclosure", "fence around a group of houses"), from *''haim'' ("home, village, hamlet") and ''gard'' ("yard"). The term, ''gard'', comes from the Old Norse ''garðr'' ("enclosure, garden"). Hangars are used for protection from the weather, direct sunlight and for maintenance, repair, manufacture, assembly and storage of aircraft. History The Wright brothers stored and repaired their aircraft in a wooden hangar constructed in 1902 at Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina for their Glider aircraft, glider. After completing design and construction of the ''Wright Flyer'' in Ohio, the brothers returned to Kill Devil Hills only to find their hangar damaged. They repaired the structure and constructed a new workshop while t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aircraft Catapult
An aircraft catapult is a device used to help fixed-wing aircraft gain enough airspeed and lift for takeoff from a limited distance, typically from the deck of a ship. They are usually used on aircraft carrier flight decks as a form of assisted takeoff, but can also be installed on land-based runways, although this is rare. The catapult used on aircraft carriers consists of a track or slot built into the flight deck, below which is a large piston or ''shuttle'' that is attached through the track to the nose gear of the aircraft, or in some cases a wire rope, called a catapult bridle, is attached to the aircraft and the catapult shuttle. Other forms have been used historically, such as mounting a launching cart holding a seaplane on a long girder-built structure mounted on the deck of a warship or merchant ship, but most catapults share a similar sliding track concept. Different means have been used to propel the catapult, such as weight and derrick, gunpowder, flywheel, co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seaplanes
A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteristics: floatplanes and flying boats; the latter are generally far larger and can carry far more. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are in a subclass called amphibious aircraft, or amphibians. Seaplanes were sometimes called ''hydroplanes'', but currently this term applies instead to motor-powered watercraft that use the technique of hydrodynamic lift to skim the surface of water when running at speed. The use of seaplanes gradually tapered off after World War II, partially because of the investments in airports during the war but mainly because landplanes were less constrained by weather conditions that could result in sea states being too high to operate seaplanes while landplanes could continue to operate. In the 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gun Turret
A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in some degree of azimuth and elevation (cone of fire). Description Rotating gun turrets protect the weapon and its crew as they rotate. When this meaning of the word "turret" started being used at the beginning of the 1860s, turrets were normally cylindrical. Barbettes were an alternative to turrets; with a barbette the protection was fixed, and the weapon and crew were on a rotating platform inside the barbette. In the 1890s, armoured hoods (also known as "gun houses") were added to barbettes; these rotated with the platform (hence the term "hooded barbette"). By the early 20th century, these hoods were known as turrets. Modern warships have gun-m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magazine (artillery)
A magazine is an item or place within which ammunition or other explosive material is stored. The word is taken originally from the Arabic word ''makhāzin'' (مخازن), meaning "storehouses", via Italian and Middle French. The term is also used for an ammunition dump, a place where large quantities of ammunition are stored for later distribution. This usage is less common. Field magazines In the early history of tube artillery drawn by horses (and later by mechanized vehicles), ammunition was carried in separate unarmored wagons or vehicles. These soft-skinned vehicles were extremely vulnerable to enemy fire and to explosions caused by a weapons malfunction. Therefore, as part of setting up an artillery battery, a designated place would be used to shelter the ready ammunition. In the case of batteries of towed artillery the temporary magazine would be placed, if possible, in a pit, or natural declivity, or surrounded by sandbags or earthworks. Circumstances might requ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deck (ship)
A deck is a permanent covering over a Compartment (ship), compartment or a hull (watercraft), hull of a ship. On a boat or ship, the primary or upper deck is the horizontal structure that forms the "roof" of the hull, strengthening it and serving as the primary working surface. Vessels often have more than one level both within the hull and in the superstructure above the primary deck, similar to the floors of a multi-storey building, that are also referred to as decks, as are certain compartments and decks built over specific areas of the superstructure. Decks for some purposes have specific names. Structure The main purpose of the upper or primary deck is structural, and only secondarily to provide weather-tightness and support people and equipment. The deck serves as the lid to the complex box girder which can be identified as the hull. It resists Tension (physics), tension, Compression (physics), compression, and racking forces. The deck's scantling is usually the same as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
