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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!

New photos of HMS Hood in 1924

It is not often that previously unknown photos of HMS Hood are discovered. A set were found recently in a New Zealand archive, and are reproduced here for the first time on a naval website. The quality is typical of the day: the slightly blurred imagery typical of the...

The Last Naval Battle of World War 2

  What was the last naval battle of World War 2 ? When was the last battle between sailing ships? When was the last time that the United States boarded an enemy ship in combat? Would you be surprised if all three of those things occurred simultaneously? In...

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...

Where did the term ‘battleship’ come from?

Think ‘battleship’, and you might think of the steam-driven steel warships that emerged during the last decade or so of the nineteenth century, and which remained an important measure of sea-force until the Second World War. In that, you would be right. The word...

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...

HMAS SYDNEY A Chronological History

If you were wondering where Andy South has been recently, he has been working on his latest book detailing the career of HMAS Sydney! His first volume of H.M.A.S SYDNEY: A chronological history is completed. Andy wanted to share some of his book so he as kind enough...

Eggshells and hammers: Fisher’s last battlecruisers

In 1919 an embittered Admiral Sir John Fisher published a trenchant criticism of the British Admiralty’s latest heavy warship. He did not name her, but he didn’t have to: there was only one. To Fisher, HMS Hood had too much weight devoted to armour. ‘And so bang went...

How Britain gained two new battleships from the Washington conference of 1921-22

Between 12 November 1921 and 6 February 1922 the world’s major powers met in Washington to resolve a wide range of international issues. Outcomes included a naval treaty – the ‘Five Power Treaty’, afterwards known as the ‘Washington Treaty’ – which ended a naval race...

Triple Turrets vs. Three-Gun Turrets : Quick Read

Perhaps one of the most common simplifications when discussing warships occurs when discussing their turret styles. For instance, a battleship might be described as having twin turrets, triple turrets, or even quadruple turrets. This of course refers to the number of...

The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse, Part 2: the air attack

At 5.35 pm on 8 December 1941 the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse, with supporting destroyers, left Singapore to attack a Japanese seaborne invasion force that was landing in Malaya. By the early afternoon of 10 December, both ships had been sunk,...

Did Admiral Sir John Fisher try to launch a battlecruiser revolution?

by Matthew Wright There is no question that Admiral Sir John Fisher, Britain's First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910 and the effective head of the Admiralty, was instrumental in driving a sea-change in the nature of heavy warships. What has puzzled historians, though, is...

F-14 vs F-15 : Tomcat vs Eagle

It's interesting seeing how naval aircraft compare to their contemporaries ashore. Not only does the operating environment impact aircraft design, but the rigors of operating in a maritime environment can also radically influence design as well. This can result in...

12″/50 Mark 8: How Powerful were the Alaska Class Cruisers?

How powerful were the Alaska class cruisers? That question could not be answered without first looking at its weapons. Serving as the primary armament for the Alaska class large cruisers, the 12"/50 Mark 8 naval gun was one of the most advanced naval guns developed by...

The Washington Treaty and the Royal Navy’s scrapping programmes

The naval treaty of 6 February 1922 negotiated in Washington – technically the ‘Five Power Treaty’, but afterwards simply called the ‘Washington Treaty’ - included lists of the ships that signatories were required to dispose of. The longest was British. A significant...

The origins of the American battlecruiser – part 3: Jutland lessons

America’s only battlecruisers,[1] the Lexington class, emerged from ideas flowing through the Naval War College, General Board and other US Navy circles before and during the First World War.[2] As we saw in the previous article, this thinking finally came together...

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. 

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...

Canada’s Next Generation Submarine

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

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...

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...

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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