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Home of Naval History and News

Welcome to the home page of the Navy General Board website! This is your portal to all things navy, whether it be current events or historical topics. You can find a wide range of news stories or historical articles on the website. You can also connect with fellow readers on the website forum.

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History Articles

Navy General Board was created to help share all aspects of naval history from throughout the ages. Here you will find our collection of history articles. It has come a long way and has something for everyone. Take your time and browse them all!

HMS Vanguard: Britain’s Last and Greatest Battleship

Britain’s last, largest and fastest battleship, HMS Vanguard, was commissioned in May 1946.[1] She was technically the best battleship the British ever built, but was completed too late for the Second World War, never tested in combat, and entered service at a time of...

High resolution photos of HMS Hood in Wellington, 1924

In November 1923 a British squadron led by HMS Hood embarked on a world tour that took in key elements of Britain’s far-flung Empire and a range of Britain’s main trading partners. It was in many respects a repeat of the 1913 world tour by HMS New Zealand,[1]...

How some key naval engineering terms migrated into English

It’s been said that English is a language that pursues other languages down dark alleys and mugs them for vocabulary, then riffles their pockets for more, and that’s certainly true of a fair number of naval engineering terms. Words such as ‘barbette’, ‘casemate’ and...

Eggshells and hammers: Fisher’s last battlecruisers

In 1919 an embittered Admiral Sir John Fisher published a trenchant criticism of the British Admiralty’s latest heavy warship. He did not name her, but he didn’t have to: there was only one. To Fisher, HMS Hood had too much weight devoted to armour. ‘And so bang went...

The Washington Treaty and the Royal Navy’s scrapping programmes

The naval treaty of 6 February 1922 negotiated in Washington – technically the ‘Five Power Treaty’, but afterwards simply called the ‘Washington Treaty’ - included lists of the ships that signatories were required to dispose of. The longest was British. A significant...

David and Goliath in the Solomons: the ‘pocket corvettes’ Kiwi and Moa vs I-1

By early 1943 the battle for Guadalcanal was in full swing. Japan was supplying its forces on the island by night, often by submarine. United States forces were supported by New Zealand and Australian ground, air and naval units, which included the three Bird-class...

The origins of the American battlecruiser – part 3: Jutland lessons

America’s only battlecruisers,[1] the Lexington class, emerged from ideas flowing through the Naval War College, General Board and other US Navy circles before and during the First World War.[2] As we saw in the previous article, this thinking finally came together...

The Battle of the River Plate and USS Salem

Today's article will go a little off track compared to our typical articles. That's because we are looking at the American Des Moines class heavy cruiser USS Salem (CA-139) and her portrayal of the German raider Admiral Graf Spee in the classic 1956 film The Battle of...

The Q-ship hero – William Sanders, VC

The story of William Sanders (1883-1917) remains one of the most intriguing personal sea experiences of the First World War. His career, though brief, can best be described as outstanding: in quick succession he won first the Victoria Cross and then the Distinguished...

Aircraft Launching Devices of the Imperial Japanese Navy: Vol 1B – Flying-Off Platforms on Wakamiya and Yamashiro

By Joseph Ed. Low, and Sander Kingsepp. This is the second of a series of articles that explores the history of aircraft launching devices used by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) that will be featured on the NGB (Naval General Board) website. The series started with...

HMS Collingwood and the ‘Admirals’– shining lights in the Royal Navy’s ‘dark ages’?

During the early 1880s, Britain laid down six battleships of the Admiral class in several distinct sub-classes, all but one bearing the names of prominent admirals from the Royal Navy’s long history. The prototype was HMS Collingwood, a heavy warship laid down in 1880...

Project 877 & Project 636 The Kilo Class

With more than 75 boats built the Kilo class is one of the most numerous submarines in service

Designing Britain’s oddest looking battleships

In the mid-1880s the British began building two new battleships as part of the so-called ‘Northbrook’ programme, a massive burst of naval expenditure to which government reluctantly agreed in early December 1884. What then emerged from the drawing boards of the...

Project 611 Zulu Class Submarines

With the conclusion of the Great patriotic war (World War Two), the allies set about rounding up all the advanced technologies the Germans had developed.   What the allies acquired in terms of Naval technology was leaps and bounds ahead of anything the allies had...

What drove the Flight of the East Asia Squadron

During my years at school, (sadly now too many years ago to be comforting), Idiscovered the fascination of a naval world before the onset of submersibles and airmachines complicated it. Those brief months of 1914, when the war at sea had a setof rules the ‘gentleman’...

News and Current Events

A relatively new addition to the Navy General Board website. While we remain focused on sharing history, we also want to examine naval current events that are occuring across the world. This section is still new, but more articles are coming. 

Canada’s Next Generation Submarine

My own opinion and hypothesis on what class of submarine could become Canada’s next generation submarine

The Navy’s FFG(X) Program : Foreign and Domestic Options

The Navy has all but admitted that the Littoral Combat Ships are a flop. Therefore, they have started looking at potential ships to fulfill requirements for a new frigate design known as the FFG(X) Program. Make makes things interesting is that this time the US Navy...

Why China’s Island Bases are Not a Big Deal

Over the past few years, the media has made a big deal of the artificial island bases that China has built in the South China Sea. Several of these islands are well fortified, featuring harbors, airstrips, and formidable land-based weaponry. Some in the media have...

China’s Newest Warship : The Type 55 Destroyer

At a time when the United States Navy is struggling to determine the future of its Navy, China has been quietly building up its naval forces. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has risen to be the second largest navy in the world by tonnage. It’s not just quantity that...

Want to go a little bit further than simply reading an aritcle? Interesting in writing your own and sharing it with Navy General Board? Check out our about us page for information on becoming a guest writer for the Navy General Board website! We are looking for both historical pieces and current events happening with navies across the World. 

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