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Italian Cruiser Marco Polo
''Marco Polo'' was an armored cruiser built for the Royal Italian Navy ('' Regia Marina'') in the 1890s, the first of her type in Italian service. The ship spent the bulk of her career deployed in the Far East. Between deployments she participated in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–12 during which she caused a diplomatic incident with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After that affair ''Marco Polo'' was sent to Libya where she bombarded the towns of Homs, and Zuara and the defenses of the Dardanelles. In between these operations, the ship provided naval gunfire support to the Royal Italian Army in Libya. Due to her age, ''Marco Polo'' did not play a significant role in World War I, serving as an accommodation ship in Venice until she began conversion into a troopship in 1917. After a series of renamings in 1920–21, the ship was stricken from the naval register in 1922 and subsequently sold for scrap. Design and description ''Marco Polo'' was begun as an improved protecte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marco Polo
Marco Polo (, , ; 8 January 1324) was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in '' The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known as ''Book of the Marvels of the World '' and ''Il Milione'', ), a book that described to Europeans the then mysterious culture and inner workings of the Eastern world, including the wealth and great size of the Mongol Empire and China in the Yuan Dynasty, giving their first comprehensive look into China, Persia, India, Japan and other Asian cities and countries. Born in Venice, Marco learned the mercantile trade from his father and his uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, who travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, exploring many places along the Silk Road until they reached Cathay (China). They were received by the royal court of Kublai Kha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conning Tower
A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer in charge can conn the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for the ship's engine, rudder, lines, and ground tackle. It is usually located as high on the ship as practical, to give the conning team good visibility of the entirety of the ship, ocean conditions, and other vessels. The naval term "conn" may derive from the Middle English ''conne'' (study, become acquainted with) or French ''conduire'' from Latin ''conducere'' (conduct). Surface ships On surface ships, the conning tower was a feature of all battleships and armored cruisers from about 1860 to the early years of World War II. Located at the front end of the superstructure, the conning tower was a heavily armored cylinder, with tiny slit windows on three sides providing a reasonable field of view. Designed to shield just enough personnel and devices for navigation during batt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troopship
A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable land troops directly on shore, typically loading and unloading at a seaport or onto smaller vessels, either tenders or barges. Attack transports, a variant of ocean-going troopship adapted to transporting invasion forces ashore, carry their own fleet of landing craft. Landing ships beach themselves and bring their troops directly ashore. History Ships to transport troops were used in Antiquity. Ancient Rome used the navis lusoria, a small vessel powered by rowers and sail, to move soldiers on the Rhine and Danube. The modern troopship has as long a history as passenger ships do, as most maritime nations enlisted their support in military operations (either by leasing the vessels or by impressing them into service) when their normal naval forces were deemed insufficient ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accommodation Ship
A barracks ship or barracks barge or berthing barge, or in civilian use accommodation vessel or accommodation ship, is a ship or a non-self-propelled barge containing a superstructure of a type suitable for use as a temporary barracks for sailors or other military personnel. A barracks ship, a military form of a dormitory ship, may also be used as a receiving unit for sailors who need temporary residence prior to being assigned to their ship. The United States Navy used to call them Yard Repair Berthing and Messing with designations YRBM and YRBM(L) and now classes them as either Auxiliary Personnel Barracks (APB) or Auxiliary Personnel Lighter (aka barge) (APL). Early use Barrack ships were common during the era of sailing ships when shore facilities were scarce or non-existent. Barrack ships were usually hulks. At times, barrack ships were also used as prison ships for convicts, prisoners of war or civilian internees. Use in World War II ''Barracks ships'' in the com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Italian Army
The Royal Italian Army ( it, Regio Esercito, , Royal Army) was the land force of the Kingdom of Italy, established with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. During the 19th century Italy started to unify into one country, and in 1861 Manfredo Fanti signed a decree creating the Army of the Two Sicilies. This newly created army's first task was to defend against the repressive power in southern Italy. The Army of the Two Sicilies combated against criminals and other armies during this time of unification. After the monarchy ended in 1946, the army changed its name to become the modern Italian Army (). Within the Italian Royal Army are the elite mountain military corporals called, the Alpini. The Alpini are the oldest active mountain infantry in the world. Their original mission was to protect and secure Italy's northern mountain border that aligns with France and Austria. This group emerged in World War I when a three-year campaign was fought against the Austro-Hungarian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naval Gunfire Support
Naval gunfire support (NGFS) (also known as shore bombardment) is the use of naval artillery to provide fire support for amphibious assault and other troops operating within their range. NGFS is one of a number of disciplines encompassed by the term ''naval fires''. Modern naval gunfire support is one of the three main components of amphibious warfare assault operations support, along with aircraft and ship-launched land-attack missiles. Shipborne guns have been used against shore defences since medieval naval warfare. Tactics NGFS is classified into two types: direct fire, where the ship has line of sight with the target (either visually or through the use of radar), and indirect fire, which, to be accurate, requires an artillery observer to adjust fire. When on the gun line, ships are particularly vulnerable to attack from aircraft coming from a landward direction and flying low to avoid radar detection, or from submarines due to a predictable and steady (non-evasive) cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles (; tr, Çanakkale Boğazı, lit=Strait of Çanakkale, el, Δαρδανέλλια, translit=Dardanéllia), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli from the Gallipoli peninsula or from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (; grc-x-classical, Ἑλλήσποντος, translit=Hellēspontos, lit=Sea of Helle (mythology), Helle), is a narrow, natural strait and internationally significant waterway in northwestern Turkey that forms part of the continental boundary between Asia and Europe and separates Anatolia, Asian Turkey from East Thrace, European Turkey. Together with the Bosporus, the Dardanelles forms the Turkish Straits. One of the world's narrowest straits used for International waterway, international navigation, the Dardanelles connects the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean seas while also allowing passage to the Black Sea by extension via the Bosporus. The Dardanelles is long and wide. It has an average d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zuara
Zuwarah, or Zuwara or Zwara ( Berber language: At Willul or Zwara, ) is a coastal Berber-speaking city in Libya. Zuwara or At Willul is famous for its beaches and seafood. It is situated west of Tripoli and from the Tunisian border. It is the capital of the Nuqat al Khams district. Its population speaks Zuwara Berber, a Zenati Berber language. Zuwarah consists of 49 districts. History The settlement was first mentioned by the traveller Abdallah al-Tijani in the years 1306-1309 as ''Zwara al-saghirah'' ("Little Zwarah"). In the Catalan Atlas (1375) it was called as Punta dar Zoyara. The town is mentioned by Leo Africanus in the 16th century. It later served as the western outpost of Italian Libya (1912–43), being the terminus of the now-defunct Italian Libya Railway from Tripoli to the east. Its artificial harbour shelters a motorized fishing fleet. Cereals, dates, and esparto grass (used to make cordage, shoes, and paper) are local products. It was in 1973 in Zuwar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khoms, Libya
Al-Khums or Khoms ( ar, الخمس) is a city, port and the de jure capital of the Murqub District on the Mediterranean coast of Libya with an estimated population of around 202,000. The population at the 1984 census was 38,174. Between 1983 and 1995 it was the administrative center of al-Khums District. Etymology The name ''al-Khums'' or ''Khoms'' ( ar, الخُمس )Fisher, Morris (1985) ''Provinces and provincial capitals of the world'' (2nd edition) Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New Jersey, page 88, translated literally to " the quintile" in Arabic. The origin of the name is not clear. Several hypotheses include: * In Tripolitania the quinary numeral system was used in contrary to most other Arabic cultures, which used the decimal system. Khums and neighbouring villages were famous in producing olives and olive oil. Since the olives had to be counted, residents of other cities started to call the inhabitants 'Khumsi' (Quinary), from which the name Khums derived. * Khums cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest. Libya is made of three historical regions: Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 700,000 square miles (1.8 million km2), it is the fourth-largest country in Africa and the Arab world, and the 16th-largest in the world. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves in the world. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya and contains over three million of Libya's seven million people. Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age as descendants from Iberomaurusian and Capsian cultures. In ancient times, the Phoenicians established city-states and tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War and was dissolved shortly after its defeat in the World War I, First World War. Austria-Hungary was ruled by the House of Habsburg and constituted the last phase in the constitutional evolution of the Habsburg monarchy. It was a multinational state and one of Europe's major powers at the time. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second-largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire, at and the third-most populous (after Russia and the German Empire). The Empire built up the fourth-largest machine building industry in the world, after the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom. Austria-Hungary also b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italo-Turkish War
The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War ( tr, Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War", it, Guerra di Libia, "War of Libya") 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 Tripolitania Vilayet, of which the main sub-provinces were Fezzan, Cyrenaica, and Tripoli itself. These territories became the colonies of Italian Tripolitania and 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 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 renounced all claims on these islands in Arti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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