The Fightins Ship of the Royal Navy/Боевой корабль Королевского флота

Книга на английском языке
The fighting ship in the royal navy that were to be attacked. The large crews made possible the manning of powerful banks of oars, thirty or forty a side, and these, unlike in a merchant ship, were the principal means of propulsion. They were especially important in the rivers which were the high roads through the lands they sailed to, and on whose banks were to be found the richest communities. There was a large square sail as well as the oars and the ships must have run well before the wind or on a broad reach. The long ships, though built for war, were not themselves weapons, like the ram-bowed Mediterranean galleys, nor did they carry weapons heavier than hand arms. Their armament was their men and they provided the transport and on occasion a platform to fight from. The crew had the comfort and amenities of an open rowing boat, though it seems -reasonable to assume that they could rig an awning if they wanted to. But the men were used to hardships, both ashore and afloat; they were vigorous and mostly young, and there was the expectation of adventure, the chance of coming on a rich town, to fight arid kill, to take what they wanted and destroy what they did not, and afterwards tq celebrate with the wine and women of the place.
As a result of the Danish invasions in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries they gained political control in England, and the raids largely ceased. From this time on the role of the oared fighting ship became less and less important in northern waters, and the need for a bluffer cargo carrier increased.
There is no reason to believe, however, that the English and Norman ships in 1066 differed substantially from Alfred’s. The Bayeux Tapestry, which records the Norman invasion and the events leading up to it, confirms this, but also makes a clear distinction between the Norman and English ships. In the former there is a continuous row of oar ports which indicates that their decks were flush from bow to stern. The English ships, on the other hand, have a break in the gunwale amidships where there are no oar ports, and the men standing in that area near the mast can be seen from their ankles up, while those behind the oar ports stand lower. This can surely only mean that the English ships had a deck amidships with a 6- to 8-foot clearance between the floor and deckhead. This must have been useful as a covered place for cargo or shelter, and in a fight the high deck would have been a useful vantage point. It is to be noted also that both Normans and Saxons lined the inside of the gunwales of their ships with their long oval topped shields, which protruded to give added protection against wind and spray. In the Saxon ships the shields amidships are outside the gunwales, which is evidence that there was something to prevent their going inside, such as a raised deck.

Contents
1 Alfred the great to William the conqueror
2 The Normans to the Tudors
3 The Tudor navy and the gun
4 The Elizabethan galleon
5 Enlargements and improvements under James I and Charles I
6 The rates
7 The restoration
8 The fighting ship in the eighteenth century
9 The nineteenth-century wooden battle fleet
10 The nineteenth-century frigates and other cruising vessels
11 The coming of the great iron frigate
12 Turret versus broadside
13 The early mastless battleships
14 Iron- and steel-built masted cruisers
15 The torpedo
16 The naval defence act of 1889 and the navies of foreign powers
17 Screw-steam propulsion in the second half of the nineteenth century
18 William white’s battleships
19 Watts and the dreadnoughts
20 The post-dreadnought battleships
21 The battle-cruiser
22 The mastless steel cruiser
23 The return of the armoured cruiser
24 The light-cruisers
25 The Washington treaty cruisers
26 The return of the 6-inch cruiser
27 Torpedo-gunboats and destroyers
28 Sloops, corvettes and frigates
29 Post-second world war frigates and destroyers
30 The air arm of the navy
31 Submarines
32 Coastal craft
Appendices
1 A summary of British naval events from a.d. 897-1983
2 British and enemy losses (ships of over50 guns) 1688-1855
3 Some establishments of the ships, guns and men 1517-1805. From memoirs of the rise and progress of the royal navy, by Charles derrick, 1806
4 Further abstracts of the strength of the royal navy to 1983
5 The naval surveyors from 1544
6 Two gun establishments from a sea-man’s grammar by captain john smith, 1627
7 Flags and pendants of command and distinction
8 Types of shot and shell
Glossary of nautical terms
Bibliography
Index