Definition of Warship

They say that the second job oldest in the world is the soldier. And, unfortunately, war has been fought since the beginning of time by various means, such as land and sea, although to bring it to the air it would still take many centuries.

At sea, a warship is a maritime vessel (ship) prepared for use in military missions of various kinds.

These range from combat against other ships, to amphibious landing operations, through roles such as provisioning, both to other ships and to troops on the ground.

Since classical antiquity, a period that we can fix as the birth of the navies of war that, with the passing of the centuries, end leading to the ones we currently have, a specialization in the use of different types of ship for tasks and missions is denoted different.

The Phoenicians, a people turned into the sea par excellence, were among the first to develop warships, despite being a people with eminently commercial interests.

It must be said that, at the time, the

Commerce and war (specifically piracy) were concepts that did not differ as much as they do today.

The main difference between the Phoenician ships and those of other peoples that preceded them such as the Babylonians (who already had ships specially designed for combat) is that those built by the Phoenicians had a very large seaworthy capacity, which, despite continuing to be coastal ships, allowed them to arrive from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, establishing commercial settlements in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula or on the southern coast of what is currently France.

Phenicia was replaced as the predominant naval power in the Mediterranean by the Greek city-states.

The essential characteristics of the warships would remain unchanged, with the sail and the oars as a propulsion system, and a forward spur as a form of attack (by ramming) against other vessels.

At the same time, merchant ships, duly militarized, were also used for war operations, a use that continues to this day with variations.

The Greeks improved the Phoenician construction techniques, making larger ships, with more load capacity and crews of more men, to travel further.

It is also at that time when ships with several lines of rowers begin to develop, reaching up to the quinquerremes (five lines), although the most successful type was the popular trireme (three lines).

The replacement of the Greeks as the dominant people at sea required Rome and Carthage to confront each other.

The Carthaginians, heirs of the Phoenicians and who had also rivaled the Greeks for the dominion of the Mediterranean, they had a highly developed navy, on which they based their power military. For their part, the Romans had to develop theirs.

The technological changes of ships at this time were not substantial, nor would they be during the centuries of the Roman Empire. We have to wait for the dissolution of this to see new types of warships in the waters.

Despite the fact that warships are being developed on several continents, it is among the European powers among which the technological race is most interesting.

In Asia, for example, various types of reeds develop, but the isolation of countries such as China and Japan, which give up expanding outside their immediate surroundings, undermine the development of their boats.

Stand out with its own light outside of this politics isolationist Zheng He's expedition, which some scholars claim reached the continent American before Christopher Columbus (1421 vs. 1492), and in which the largest junks ever built were lined up, ships of similar dimensions to today's aircraft carriers.

Galleys became the dominant warships in the Mediterranean, although the discovery of the American continent made progress in the construction of ships, both military and civil, since navigation in the Atlantic was very different from the Mediterranean. The development of naval artillery also influences the progress of the navy, which represents a great change in the tactics of war.

Until then, and despite the fact that projectiles are also fired at enemy ships by other means other than a gunpowder cannon, the main method of combat was the ram attack, and the approach.

The oars lose all prominence, leaving the propulsion exclusively at the hands of the sail. Only in the Mediterranean, the galleys will still survive, although with the days numbered.

The galleon will be the king of the seas and will star in the beginning of the great expansion of European powers throughout the world.

In addition to the galleon, several more specialized types of combat ship were also born over the years, such as the brig, frigate or corvette.

Galleons will evolve into so-called ships of the line, who will star in the American war of independence, the Napoleonic wars, and the wars of independence of the Central and South American nations.

The ship of the line was characterized by its large size, with several bridges, a large number of guns, numerous crew members, and several masts with their respective sails.

This type of ships coexisted with the aforementioned frigates, corvettes, schooners and brigs. The next great technological leap would come from the hand of the replacement of wood by metal to protect ships.

The first warships with metal armor appeared in the mid-19th century, such as the British frigate HMS Warrior.

At the same time, steam traction was developing, which replaced the sail as force powerhouse of the ships, with which the prosperous coal industry also began its journey.

In the last quarter of the 19th century the first battleships were born, a type of large ship, highly armored, and with a firepower that allowed him to destroy the enemy from great distance from her.

In 1906 the British launched the battleship HMS Dreadnought, which, due to its design and characteristics, would mark the future developments of this type of ships, which would dominate the maritime war scene until World War II, a conflict in which battleships would prove vulnerable to new airpower and aircraft carriers.

The sinking of the Japanese Yamato, would be the singing of the swan of the great battleships, although today, the United States still has the Iowa in reserve, which even carried out attacks during the Gulf War.

Destroyers, cruisers, patrol boats, miners, and other types of ships, make up the squads of modern war fleets. The quieter its cannons are, the better off we all will do.

Photos: Fotolia - kostymo / robu_s

Themes in Warship