ancient ships roman medieval renaissance enlightenment

To the industrial era

From antiquity to the XIXth century: The age of sail, from prehistoric boats to this day, through the bronze age, antique & Medieval era, Renaissance and Enlightment and naval battles, from Salamine to Tsushima.

Sail & steam Era

World War One

Triple entente and central empire fleets, ships types, and naval battles of the 1914-1918 period, plus naval actions up to the Washington treaty defining naval matters in the interwar years.

WW1 Fleets

World War Two

Six years putting the entire world ablaze, with major belligerents clashing at the surface of the sea, under and above, shifting from battleships to aircraft carriers. It's also a study of interwar treaties and consequences, and civilian ships types.

WW2 Fleets

The cold war

From 1947 to 1990 two superpowers entered a naval arms race, via NATO and the Warsaw Pact. This saw the end of the colonial era and proxy wars, the rise of new nations and non-aligned navies.

Cold War

Naval Encyclopedia

The First Online Warship Museum What it is about ?

Naval Encyclopedia is the first online warship museum. Dedicated to the history of all ships of the industrial era, roughly since 1820 to this day. It is focusing on the 20th century through until the end of the cold war. It covers also the classical antiquity, medieval, renaissance and enlightenment eras.

Naval History is indeed very ancient, warships constantly evolving, just as tactics adapting to existing sources of power. Wind and human power first, and from the 19th century, steam power (and the rule of fossil fuels), up to the dominance of nuclear energy for the most valuable assets. There has been path of divergence and convergence also between civilian ships and their navy counterparts, like the famous Galleons of the 16-17th century that blended the role of cargo and warship. This survived well into the 20th century on civilian ships, first as a precaution (like fake ports) then as a tradition on mixed and tall ships.

Nowadays the most complex hand-built moving crafts ever designed by mankind, arguably, are nuclear submarines. Specialization and optimization helped global trade in the last XXth century, and especially the XXIth one frequently called “globalized”, based on the consumer society. The challenges world’s fleets are facing are huge, traducing like always the shifting weight of nations in geopolitics, in ever growing tensions born from dwindling resources.

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⚒ Tech

Naval-related technology, and associated tactics & statistics

Naval Tech

⚔ Battles

Full history of naval battles, strategies, tactics, fleets and ships

Naval Battles

merchandisiding, plans, photos, illustrations

☘ Medias

Photos, blueprints and dedicated illustrations, also some merchandising to support this site !

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Recenty Published

➲ 16/05/2022

South Dakota class Battleships (1942)

The South Dakota class was four #USN fast battleships (with USS Indiana, Massachusetts, and Alabama) designed under Washington-capped peacetime standard displacement limit of 35,000 long tons like the preceding North Carolina class. They were a more compact repeat keeping the same main battery, but with an overall better protection, at the price of some speed. According to some naval historians they were the perhaps best "treaty battleship" ever built, with a long wartime active career to prove it, and South Dakota seeing fierce naval action at Guadalcanal. #WW2 #pacificwar

14/05/2022

Loire Nieuport 40 (1938)

The "French Stuka" as it was called, was an attempt by the Navy to acquire a modern dive bomber to be based on the aircraft carrier Béarn and coastal units. It was a rugged, inline engine model which initial development started in 1934, but when introduced in 1939 with the Béarn already at sea, they served on land and were mostly destroyed in action by May 1940.

➲ 11/05/2022

N3 class Battleships (1918)

The N3 was a 1918 project of triple turret battleship with interestingly new ideas about protection and speed, the fruit of lessons learned at Jutland as well. This long development led to a class called M at first, then N, the third iteration being retained to be laid down with possible name such as the St. Andrews class. The Washington Treaty had it cancelled, but the next "O3" design was eventually authorized and built entirely, better known as the Nelson class.

➲ 09/05/2022

LS type midget MTBs (1939-43)

The "Leichte Schnellboote" Type motor torpedo boats of the Kriegsmarine were a far cry to the massive and more famous S-Boote. But they were designed to be deployed -among others- on German commerce raiders, resurrecting the old idea of a torpedo mother ship, and had an interesting story and evolution, remarkably close to the Luftwaffe.

➲ 07/05/2022

Numancia (1863)

#Numancia was the first Spanish #ironclad, built in France in 1862-64. This iron-hulled ship-rigged vessel had one funnel and a ram bow. She had quite an amazing career, and was entirely rebuilt in during the Spanish-American war, but was lost in 1916 on her way to the shipbreaker. This first entry goes in par with a currently worked out overview of the #Armada in 1870.#spanishnavy https://bit.ly/38ZvpQc

➲ 05/05/2022

Swiftsure class Battleships (1903)

The Swiftsure were two #RoyalNavy 2nd class pre-dreadnoughts, originally ordered as the #ChileanNavy Constitución class, requisitioned in 1904 and completed for the Royal Navy. Design-wise, they were battlecruisers at the pre-dreadnought age. In #WWI they served abroad, in China and the Mediterranean, both participating in the Dardanelles campaign where HMS Triumph was torpedoed and sunk.

➲ 02/05/2022

WW2 Argentinian Destroyers (1911-1945)

Although Argentina adopted a neutral stance during WW2, the Armada de Argentina had five destroyers classes in service in 1939. Here is a more extensive overview of these, alternative to the main page which just brushed over the subject, with more precise specs and individual career.

About Naval Encyclopedia

Naval Encyclopedia is the first online warship museum (1997), with 2,600+ pages for now, and counting. Dedicated to the history of all ships of the industrial era and 20th century, so 1820 to 1990, but also earlier times. The main difference for this early period is to study ships types through some famous examples. The latter is a work in progress since more than twenty years. This current version is #5. After its last refit in 2021, the present website is:

☑ SNAPPIER: Faster website all across the board due to its new structure
☑ SECURE: No database nor plugins, almost no attack surface left for hackers: Far more secure.
☑ PRETTIER: Although it's a matter of subjectivity, the new site is more identifiable now.
☑ WITH MORE FEATURES: Using javascript, bootstrap features and a new, better search engine
☑ AND BETTER MENUS: Mega menu with spoilers in column (on desktop)/bottom (mobile) accessible anywhere.
☑ BUT ALSO BETTER FOCUS: Era page now encompass Fleets, Classes, Battles, Tactics/strategy, and Biopics.
☀ MORE PAST-FOCUSED: Focus on the XIXth century and earlier naval warfare (1700s, 1850, 1870 and 1898 world's fleets).

Other sites of the Portal

He who controls the sea controls everything
(Themistocles)

A smooth sea never made a skilful Sailor
F.D. Roosevelt

Don't give up the ship!
Captain James Lawrence

Sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover
Mark Twain

There are three kinds of beings: the living, the dead and the sailors.
Anacharsis

Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead !
Adm. David. G. Farragut

We cannot control the wind, but we can direct the sail
Thomas S. Monson

When the sea is calm, every boat has a good captain
Swedish Proverb