Navy ships of the early xxth century

Cruisers and destroyers constructed at the end of the XIXth and beginning the XXth centuries had ideal architecture of the hull by all the criteria.

The destroyer used a storm course in a mode "cut through" of waves. It is known, that in 1887 there were the sea keeping experiment for destroyer on 6 ball roughness, where she went towards to a wave and burying (going too far) on running cabin, showed 15.5 knots, and 17 knots at a course on a wave. According to the drawing it is clear that the bow had n

ot a property to climb on a wave, on the contrary, it provided

Pic. 42. Destroyer of type “Izmail”

pressing of the hull to a surface of a wave on the ship motion that was necessary for stabilization of work of rowing screws in conditions of large roughness.

A cruiser had international form of hull, and her sea keeping quality is very similar to above-mentioned destroyer. The essence was non-resistance of storm phenomena. The inside tilt of boards and absence of the large continuous areas on the top deck was characteristic for the ship. There was obvious technological complexity of the hull, in contours of which there was no direct line.

Her modification were the battlecruiser, a vessel nearly equal in armament to other battleships but very much swifter, a ship that could cruise ahead and scout for the main battle fleet, and be capable of overwhelming any conventional cruiser. Actually, the concept arouse from a simple fact that existing cruisers had evolved into ships so large and expensive that they soon reached the end of their development.

Linear ships of that time had non-smaller seaworthiness. They had low and pointed bows and quarterdecks, which basic surface volumes were going in an average part of the hull. It provided a steady movement on roughness in conditions increased sweeps of extremities.

I

n 1904 in Great Britain there was appointed a committee to study a concept of a warship, which would carry a battery of 305 mm guns but would be much faster than any other type of a battleship, having a speed of 45 km/h (25 kt) or thereabouts. A prototype of this “super-battleship” was laid down by Portsmouth Dockyard in October 1905, and she Pic. 43: HMS “Dreadnought”

was constructed in great secrecy and in record time, a year and a day later. The name given to the formidable new ship was the Dreadnought. The prototype was a success and the construction of this revolutionary type of battleships proceeded rapidly, at the rate of three or four per year. The last dreadnoughts were launched in 1913. Their appearance changed the face of naval warfare and began an arms race with Germany in the years leading up to World War I.

There were no special requirements of propulsive quality of ship at stormy ocean to transport steam vessels because of cumbrousity and low power of the main engine. The vessel had pointed vertical stem and rounded hanging above water to an aft. In case of storm weather the vessel should take a course by a bow to a wave and to be kept on it with the help of engines before improvement of weather.