To the industrial era
From antiquity to the XIXth century
This chapter covers the industrial revolution to WW1, but naval encyclopedia also covers the age of sail, from ancient times to this day. Check out prehistory, bronze age to antiquity, Medieval era, Renaissance and Enlightment age (XVIIIth cent.) with hundred of famous ancient ships profiles or rare sailing vessels. Also naval battles, from Salamine to Tsushima.
World War One
This chapter covers the end of the industrial revolution up to WW1, and covers the various triple entente and central empire fleets, ships types, as well as naval battles of the 1914-1918 period and naval actions in 1919-1921, up to the Washington treaty defining naval matters in the interwar years.
World War Two
The gigantic six years conflict that put the world to the torch saw major belligerents clashing at the surface of the sea, under and above it as well. It was the shifting to battleships to aicraft carrier that shaped the naval powers of today. This chapted also covers the interwar and civilian ships, from cargos to transatlantic liners, and naval world war two operations.
The cold war
From 1947 to 1990, ending the millenium, two superpowers with radically opposed visions of the society faced each other, seeking allies and warring though proxies. Its naval side saw the opposing might of NATO US Navy and European navies combined, versus a Soviet/wasrsaw pact Navy which really peaked on the 1980s.
Naval Encyclopedia
Note: This is a static portal, naval encyclopedia is undergoing maintenance and moving on a new server
The History
Naval strategy and related technology, like naval fortifications, naval aviation, weapons and tactics
The ships
Ships types (for the most ancient) to ship's class or individual vessel full history, specifications and career
The Medias
Many photos, blueprints and dedicated illustrations, also check the merchandising and support this site !
About Naval Encyclopedia
Naval Encyclopedia is the first online warship museum (1997). Dedicated to the history of all ships of the industrial era, roughly since 1820 to this day. Although the main scope is about the XXth century through four main eras (WW1 and second world war, cold war and modern-day fleets), the website also covers (and will cover) civilian liners, first steamers, ships from the age of sail from the ancient ships of classical antiquity to medieval ships and renaissance vessels up to the enlightenment era ships which ambition also to cover most main types of ships of the time and famous examples.
Definition of Naval History
Naval History is indeed quite old and warships has been a constant evolution, just as tactics which adapted to existing sources of power. The wind and human power (rows) and from the XIXth 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 XVI-XVIIth century that blended the role of cargo and warship. This survived well into the twentieth 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. The rise of the Chinese Navy is a perfect example of this.
How Naval Encyclopedia was created
Naval Encyclopedia was reborn in english in 2010, by the same creator as tanks encyclopedia. It integrated previous age of sail topics, and is mirroring tanks encyclopedia for everything related to warships...
But not only. Civilian ships has always been an interesting part of naval history, almost as exciting when thinking of huge container ships, race boats, clippers or the romance of blue ribbon luxury liners. Tanks and aviation emerged in 1915, whereas warships were already there in the Bronze age, empires makers, and are still to this day the largest, costliest, mightiest, and sometimes most complex vehicles ever designed.
