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Italian Cruiser Piemonte
was a unique protected cruiser built for the Italian (Royal Navy) in the 1880s by the British shipyard Armstrong Whitworth. She was the first major warship armed entirely with quick-firing (QF) guns and she was also the fastest cruiser in the world upon her completion in 1889. was frequently deployed overseas, including a lengthy tour in East Asian waters from 1901 to 1904. She saw significant action during the Italo-Turkish War in 1911–1912 in the Red Sea, where she frequently bombarded Ottoman ports. During the Battle of Kunfuda Bay in January 1912, she and two destroyers sank four Ottoman gunboats and forced ashore three more. participated in World War I but she saw little action during the conflict. She remained in service until 1920, when she was scrapped. Design The first design by the newly hired naval architect Philips Watts for Armstrong Whitworth, was designed as an improved version of the . The ship was built as a speculative venture and was purchased by Ita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy (, ) was a unitary state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 10 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished, following civil discontent that led to an 1946 Italian institutional referendum, institutional referendum on 2 June 1946. This resulted in a modern Italian Republic. The kingdom was established through the unification of several states over a decades-long process, called the . That process was influenced by the House of Savoy, Savoy-led Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia, which was one of Italy's legal Succession of states, predecessor states. In 1866, Italy Third Italian War of Independence, declared war on Austrian Empire, Austria in Italo-Prussian Alliance, alliance with Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia and, upon its victory, received the region of Veneto. Italian troops Capture of Rome, entered Rome in 1870, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protected Cruiser
Protected cruisers, a type of cruiser of the late 19th century, took their name from the armored deck, which protected vital machine-spaces from fragments released by explosive shells. Protected cruisers notably lacked a belt of armour along the sides, in contrast to armored cruisers which carried both deck and belt armour. Outside of a handful of very large designs in the major navies (which preceded the revival of armored cruisers), the majority of protected cruisers were of 'second-' or 'third-class' types, lighter in displacement and mounting fewer and/or lighter guns than armored cruisers. By the early 20th-century, with the advent of increasingly lighter yet stronger armour, even smaller vessels could afford some level of both belt and deck armour. In the place of protected cruisers, these new ' light armored cruisers' would evolve into light cruisers and heavy cruisers, the former especially taking on many of the roles originally envisioned for protected cruisers. ... [...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] |
Breech-loading Weapon
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition from the breech end of the barrel (i.e., from the rearward, open end of the gun's barrel), as opposed to a muzzleloader, in which the user loads the ammunition from the ( muzzle) end of the barrel. The vast majority of modern firearms are generally breech-loaders, while firearms made before the mid-19th century were mostly smoothbore muzzle-loaders. Only a few muzzleloading weapons, such as mortars, rifle grenades, some rocket launchers, such as the Panzerfaust 3 and RPG-7, and the GP series grenade launchers, have remained in common usage in modern military conflicts. However, referring to a weapon explicitly as breech-loading is mostly limited to weapons where the operator loads ammunition by hand (and not by operating a mechanism such as a bolt-action), such as artillery pieces or break-action small arms. Breech-loading provides the advantage of reduced reloading time because it is far quicker to load t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Watts (naval Architect)
Sir Philip Watts (30 May 1846 – 15 March 1926) was a British naval architect, famous for designing numerous Elswick cruisers and the revolutionary battleship HMS ''Dreadnought''. Early life Watts was born in Deptford, Kent and educated at the Dockyard School in Portsmouth and the Royal School of Naval Architecture in South Kensington, London. Career Watts became a constructor to the Admiralty from 1870 to 1885, and reached the rank of chief constructor. From 1885 to 1901 he was director of the war shipping department of Armstrong Whitworth at Elswick (subsequently returning as a director of the company in 1912); but in 1902 he was appointed Director of Naval Construction at the Admiralty. He held this post until 1912, when he was succeeded by Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt and became adviser to the Admiralty on naval construction. In this capacity he played an important part when World War I came. Being the designer of the first dreadnought battleship, it was now up to h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting took place mainly in European theatre of World War I, Europe and the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, Middle East, as well as in parts of African theatre of World War I, Africa and the Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I, Asia-Pacific, and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare; the widespread use of Artillery of World War I, artillery, machine guns, and Chemical weapons in World War I, chemical weapons (gas); and the introductions of Tanks in World War I, tanks and Aviation in World War I, aircraft. World War I was one of the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflicts in history, resulting in an estimated World War I casualties, 10 million military dead and more than 20 million wounded, plus some 10 million civilian de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-steam era In the age of sail, a gunboat was usually a small undecked vessel carrying a single smoothbore cannon in the bow, or just two or three such cannons. A gunboat could carry one or two masts or be oar-powered only, but the single-masted version of about length was most typical. Some types of gunboats carried two cannon, or else mounted a number of swivel guns on the railings. The small gunboat had advantages: if it only carried a single cannon, the boat could manoeuvre in shallow or restricted areas – such as rivers or lakes – where larger ships could sail only with difficulty. The gun that such boats carried could be quite heavy; a 32-pounder for instance. As such boats were cheap and quick to build, naval forces favoured swarm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 a wide range of general threats. They were conceived in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish NavySmith, Charles Edgar: ''A short history of naval and marine engineering.'' Babcock & Wilcox, ltd. at the University Press, 1937, page 263 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, 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 unatte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Kunfuda Bay
The Battle of Kunfuda Bay was a naval battle of the Italo-Turkish War between small squadrons of the Italian and Ottoman navies. On 7 January 1912, the Italian protected cruiser and the s and , cruising the Red Sea, discovered six Ottoman gunboats, a tugboat, and a yacht in the harbor at Kunfuda. The vessels engaged for over three hours and five Ottoman vessels were sunk and four dhows were captured. Three of the gunboats were damaged during the battle and grounded on the beach to prevent them from sinking. The following morning, the Italian vessels returned to destroy the remaining three vessels; the yacht, which had been sunk, was later salvaged and seized by Italy. After the battle, the Italian squadron in the Red Sea was able to proclaim a blockade of Ottoman ports in the Red Sea and frequently bombarded Ottoman positions for the rest of the war. Background Following the outbreak of the Italo-Turkish War in September 1911, the Italian ''Regia Marina'' (Royal Navy) concentrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe, between the early 16th and early 18th centuries. The empire emerged from a Anatolian beyliks, ''beylik'', or principality, founded in northwestern Anatolia in by the Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. His successors Ottoman wars in Europe, conquered much of Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans by the mid-14th century, transforming their petty kingdom into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the Fall of Constantinople, conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II. With its capital at History of Istanbul#Ottoman Empire, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and control over a significant portion of the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interacti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez—leading to the Suez Canal. It is underlain by the Red Sea Rift, which is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Red Sea has a surface area of roughly , is about long, and wide at its widest point. It has an average depth of , and in the central Suakin Trough, it reaches its maximum depth of . Approximately 40% of the Red Sea is quite shallow at less than deep and about 25% is less than deep. The extensive shallow shelves are noted for their marine life and corals. More than 1,000 invertebrate species and 200 types of soft and hard coral live in the sea. The Red Sea is the world's northernmost tropical sea and has been designated a Global 200 ecoregion. Extent The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italo-Turkish War
The Italo-Turkish (, "Tripolitanian War", , "War of Libya"), also known as the Turco-Italian War, was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captured the Ottoman Ottoman Tripolitania, Tripolitania Vilayet, of which the main Sanjak, sub-provinces were Fezzan, Cyrenaica, and Tripoli, Libya, Tripoli itself. These territories became the colonies of Italian Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica, Cyrenaica, which would later merge into Italian Libya. During the conflict, Italian forces also occupied the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea. Italy agreed to return the Dodecanese to the Ottoman Empire in the #Treaty of Ouchy, Treaty of Ouchy in 1912. However, the vagueness of the text, combined with subsequent adverse events unfavourable to the Ottoman Empire (the outbreak of the Balkan Wars and World War I), allowed a provisional Italian administration of the islands, and Turkey eventually ren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
