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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!

Prelude to Battle : HMAS Sydney vs SMS Emden

Andy South has just completed volume II on his series detailing the career of the cruiser HMAS Sydney. He was kind enough to share an excerpt from his book. In this section, he examines the battle between HMAS Sydney and SMS Emden. If you would like to read the...

Navy General Board Naval History Questions: Volume 1

Over the years, I have been asked a great many naval history questions by curious readers. It's actually quite an honor to have people reach out to me and I love getting to chat to people and answering the questions that I can. Even those that escape me are no problem...

A decisive episode: the strategic stakes of the Bismarck sortie

The events surrounding the brief Atlantic sortie of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941, have been told many times. Analysis often focuses on engineering and combat performance,[1] or on the tactical issues associated with finding a lone warship in the North...

Return of the Russian Navy

Table of Contents Executive Summary IntroductionRussia: The Economic factors The Russian Navy: Fleet overviewVessel classes in the fleet and numbersRussian Navy Strategy and ConclusionsAppendicies and Citations  Executive Summary This document serves to provide a...

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...

How do Torpedoes Damage a Ship?

Nothing shook warship designers so much as the arrival of the torpedo. Striking the ship below the water line, torpedoes could deliver an incredible amount of explosive power to a part of the warship that is not easily protected. Designers would learn that there was...

Canada’s Next Generation Submarine

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

Five Great Features of the Littorio Class Battleships

Fast, powerful, and well armed, the Littorio class were the most powerful battleships ever put to sea by the Italian Navy. As the most modern battleships, Italy lavished considerable input into their design, leading to several innovative features. From a triple rudder...

The other HMS Hood – Britain’s last turret ship

Mention HMS Hood and just one ship usually springs to mind. However, there was another HMS Hood, a battleship laid down for the Royal Navy in August 1889, which survived long enough to be given one last - and decisively final - role a few months after the outbreak of...

The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse – Part 3: the 70-year mystery

The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse off the Malayan coast on 10 December 1941 – described in the previous two articles - set alarm bells going in Britain. It marked the first time heavy ships had been lost to air attack, while fully operational and manoeuvering at...

A look at British B.VIII naval gun machinery and variants

By the early twentieth century one of the problems the British had with their heavy naval guns was that existing gun machinery could not elevate or depress the guns quickly enough to compensate for the roll of the ship. In some conditions the turntables could not...

Russia’s Massive Typhoon

Read about the history of the largest submarines ever to put to sea

The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse Part 1: prelude to disaster

The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse to Japanese air attack off the Malayan (Malaysian) coast, on 10 December 1941,[1] was a human tragedy, although the precise death toll has been variously given. The official figure is 840: however numbers given in various...

Iowa Class Battleships over the Years

From the time that USS Iowa was laid down in 1940 until today, the Iowa class battleships have been around for 78 years. During that time, the ships underwent many changes to help them adapt to the type of conflict they were engaged in. In this article, I gathered a...

The hero of the Hood Battalion

When the First World War broke out in August 1914, the British Admiralty had plans to field ground forces, largely to seize coastal areas, if required, for naval bases. Historically there was nothing unusual about sailors fighting ashore. What was unusual was the...

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. 

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

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...

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...

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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