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Navy General Board

Home of Naval History and News

Welcome to the home page of the Navy General Board website! This is your portal to all things navy, whether it be current events or historical topics. You can find a wide range of news stories or historical articles on the website. You can also connect with fellow readers on the website forum.

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History Articles

Navy General Board was created to help share all aspects of naval history from throughout the ages. Here you will find our collection of history articles. It has come a long way and has something for everyone. Take your time and browse them all!

The story behind the battlecruiser HMAS Australia

In March 1909 there was a good deal of around Australia’s major cities about responding to the latest Imperial naval crisis by giving Britain a battleship. At a time when social militarism was a major feature of society the call resonated. It also came on the eve of a...

Were the ‘Admirals’ Britain’s first class of battleships?

In an earlier article we explored the story of HMS Collingwood, a British battleship that the Royal Navy’s Director of Naval Construction, Nathaniel Barbaby, sketched in 1880 and which was detailed by his assistant, William White.[1] Collingwood was soon followed by...

Super Battleships of the World

Battleships were among the largest, most complex, and most powerful weapons of their day. Combining the largest guns and the thickest armor, they were impressive warships. While battleships were already powerful, some navies sought new designs that were even more...

Iowa Class Battleships – A Departure from Traditional Design

The Iowa class battleships were the last dreadnoughts put to sea by the United States. In many ways they incorporated all of the lessons learned by the US Navy throughout the dreadnaught age. They were powerfully armed, decently armored, and very fast. It is no doubt...

K Class vs. U.D.1

If you were to be asked what was large, metallic, mechanical and steam powered I would imagine your most likely answer would be that of a steam engine or train. But bizarrely in the late 18th century the "Old Man of Europe" the Ottoman Empire commissioned the British...

Best Battleship : Anti-Aircraft Guns

I'm working on a comprehensive ranking system to establish a hierarchy in the effectiveness of each class of battleship, basically finding what was the best battleship. This post will kick off the series by looking at the anti-aircraft guns of each battleship to...

Canada’s Next Generation Submarine

My own opinion and hypothesis on what class of submarine could become Canada’s next generation submarine

Was ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’ a naval phrase?

The unprecedented cold that swept parts of the United States in early 2019 could be called 'brass monkey weather', though with the temperatures reported, that might be an understatement. According to legend, the term - in full, 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a...

Designing Britain’s oddest looking battleships

In the mid-1880s the British began building two new battleships as part of the so-called ‘Northbrook’ programme, a massive burst of naval expenditure to which government reluctantly agreed in early December 1884. What then emerged from the drawing boards of the...

The story behind ‘The battlecruiser HMS New Zealand: a gift to The Empire’

The story of HMS New Zealand, the battlecruiser that the Dominion of New Zealand gave as a gift to the Empire of Britain in 1909, has been told many times. Often incorrectly. Indeed, the ship is surrounded with mythology. A variety of stories about her origin and...

The many names of the Washington Treaty of 1922

The term ‘Washington Treaty’ frequently appears in specialist naval books and even general histories of the inter-war period. There is no mistaking the meaning: it refers to the treaty signed on 6 February 1922 between the United States, Britain, Japan, France and...

How some key naval engineering terms migrated into English

It’s been said that English is a language that pursues other languages down dark alleys and mugs them for vocabulary, then riffles their pockets for more, and that’s certainly true of a fair number of naval engineering terms. Words such as ‘barbette’, ‘casemate’ and...

Oddities at Sea : A Foreword to the Suicide Club

We are honoured to present a piece by our contributor Andy South! Andy touches on a few of the naval oddities at sea, specifically the infamous K class submarines of the Royal Navy. Andy has been hard at work putting together a book on these submarines. This article...

Is the submarine the perfect stealth warship?

Over a century ago, Admiral Sir John Fisher (1841-1920) – one of the main forces behind both the dreadnought and the battlecruiser – declared that both were obsolete. The ideal warship of the future, he insisted, was the submarine – the perfect stealth warship that...

The Inverted Bow and Warships

The traditional raked bow as seen on the Soviet nuclear powered cruiser Frunze. This type of bow has been typical on most warships of the 20th century. When one thinks of the bow on a warship, they typically think of the traditional raked bow that overhangs the water....

News and Current Events

A relatively new addition to the Navy General Board website. While we remain focused on sharing history, we also want to examine naval current events that are occuring across the world. This section is still new, but more articles are coming. 

China’s Newest Warship : The Type 55 Destroyer

At a time when the United States Navy is struggling to determine the future of its Navy, China has been quietly building up its naval forces. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has risen to be the second largest navy in the world by tonnage. It’s not just quantity that...

The Navy’s FFG(X) Program : Foreign and Domestic Options

The Navy has all but admitted that the Littoral Combat Ships are a flop. Therefore, they have started looking at potential ships to fulfill requirements for a new frigate design known as the FFG(X) Program. Make makes things interesting is that this time the US Navy...

Why China’s Island Bases are Not a Big Deal

Over the past few years, the media has made a big deal of the artificial island bases that China has built in the South China Sea. Several of these islands are well fortified, featuring harbors, airstrips, and formidable land-based weaponry. Some in the media have...

Canada’s Next Generation Submarine

My own opinion and hypothesis on what class of submarine could become Canada’s next generation submarine

Want to go a little bit further than simply reading an aritcle? Interesting in writing your own and sharing it with Navy General Board? Check out our about us page for information on becoming a guest writer for the Navy General Board website! We are looking for both historical pieces and current events happening with navies across the World. 

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