Ah, battleships: is there anything more majestic than a set of ten-inch guns rising up in the air, ready to ejaculate a set of armor-piercing shells deep into whatever target happens to be nearby? There’s also speed, armor, maneuverability, and fire control, but we all know it really just comes down to the big guns. From 1880 to 1941 they were the most powerful ships to sail the waves and the pride of every navy.

They sparked an arms race which heavily contributed to the outbreak of World War I. Then in just a few years they vanished, replaced by aircraft carriers and submarines. Follow Duffel Blog as we take a look back on the history of the battleship.

The USS Maine was America’s second commissioned battleship. Ordered in 1886, launched in 1890 and commissioned in 1895, she was both over budget and obsolete by the time she entered service, setting a precedent for every Navy project since.

In 1898 she made her decisive contribution to victory in the Spanish-American War by exploding at anchor in Havana.

In the late Sixties, Milton Bradley created the game Battleship, which introduced the catch phrase “You sank my battleship” to the general public.

It is still the shortest and most accurate history of the battleship to date.

After the Japanese sank or damaged eight U.S. battleships at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Navy took up the rallying cry of “Remember Pearl Harbor.”

Like the USS Maine, this event reinforced the relevance of the battleship’s role in galvanizing the American public for war by blowing up at anchor.

Although she saw minimal action, the Russian battleship Potemkin is famous for both the unsuccessful 1905 mutiny which partially contributed to the Russian Revolution and its portrayal in the 1925 silent film “The Battleship Potemkin” by Sergei Eisenstein… none of which you’ve heard of.

Read more: http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/01/battleship-history/4/#ixzz3PO8QLRMz

Quoted:
Duffleblog may be more right than wrong with this piece.  Maybe DPort is spending some of his ARF down time as one of their authors




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