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.

Contact Us !

⚲ Search this site

⚒ 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 !

All Posters

Recenty Published

♆ 11/08/2022

Admiral Charner class Armored Cruisers (1894)

The French Jeune Ecole, assuming the success of the Dupy de Lôme armored cruiser design, ordered in 1889, even before the first entered service, a class of four vessels usable as commerce raiders. They were the Amiral Charner, Bruix, Chanzy and Latouche-Tréville. Their post-completion trials were marred by problems and they barely reached their contracted speed while having also stability problems. Chanzy aground and was lost off China in 1907, but the other three actively took part in WWI, Amiral Charner being sunk by U-21 in 1916. #frenchnavy #marinenationale #WW1 https://bit.ly/3zQ9vZG

♆ 08/08/2022

Nelson class Battleships (1925)

HMS Nelson and Rodney derived from the cancelled N3 class battleships. They were the first British battleships testing novel solutions for capital ships, exceptionally authorized by the treaty of Washington, but constrained in tonnage. They famously shown a new armor scheme dictacting the placement of the main artillery forward. Both fought actively during WW2 in Europe, the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean. This is complete rewrite and expansion of the old 2007 article.

♆ 04/08/2022

Wiesbaden class cruisers (1915)

These two light cruisers built for the Hochseeflotte to screen for its capital ships were closely derived from the previous Graudenz class, but for the first time upgraded with a 15 cm armament (6 inches) to face British cruisers and notably those of the 'Town' class. They fought at Jutland, in which Wiesbaden was sunk, and Frakfurt took part in more operations. #germannavy #hochseeflotte #kaiserlichesmarine #ww1 #jutland

♆ 01/08/2022

The Royal Navy in the cold war, amphibious update

Today, a major update of the Royal Navy's cold war page: Amphibious warfare and assault ships, some of which were used in the Falklands war: The Fearless class Assault ships (1963), Sir Lancelot class Logistic Landing ships (1963), Ardennes class LSTs (1976) and the post-war HMS Sir Galahad Logistic Landing ship (1986). The fleet also deployed the Avon class, Arromanches class, LCM(9), LCVP Mk.4 and LCU Mk.9R types. But we will also have a sneak peak into the Ocean class assault ships planned during the #coldwar (launched 1995). #royalnavy #falklands

♆ 28/07/2022

USS Long Beach (CGN-9), 1960

She was largest cruiser built in the cold war -aside the massive Soviet Kirov and Kiev class- and the world's first nuclear-powered all-missile armed cruiser. She also introduced a very innovative detection and guidance system called SCANFAR -shared with USS Enteprise, which she escorted many time in her career. She was also the last built with a WW2 style cruiser hull. She took part in Operation Sea Orbit, a world tour of the first all-nuclear powered fleet, reminiscent of the "Great white fleet" tour of 1907. She was also the first to shoot down MIGs with her SAMs in Vietnam, and had a well-filled 33 years of career on all oceans, ending after the Gulf War.

♆ 25/07/2022

Chitose class aircraft carriers

The Imperial Japanese Navy "cheated" the Washington treaty with the IJN Ryujo and later an ambitious program of convertible auxiliaries (notably seaplane carriers), later transformed as light aircraft carriers. IJN Chitose and Chiyoda had an amazing, well filled career as Seaplane tenders already until late 1942. They were then converted until late 1943, but both were sunk during the battle of Leyte in October 1944. #IJN #imperialjapanesenavy #ww2 #pacificwar #leytebattle

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