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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!

The story behind the battlecruiser HMAS Australia

In March 1909 there was a good deal of around Australia’s major cities about responding to the latest Imperial naval crisis by giving Britain a battleship. At a time when social militarism was a major feature of society the call resonated. It also came on the eve of a...

Iowa Class Battleships – A Departure from Traditional Design

The Iowa class battleships were the last dreadnoughts put to sea by the United States. In many ways they incorporated all of the lessons learned by the US Navy throughout the dreadnaught age. They were powerfully armed, decently armored, and very fast. It is no doubt...

Brooklyn Class Cruisers: Warship Spotlight

The United States Navy produced a large number of cruisers in the years before and during the Second World War. Many of these ships were highly successful designs, providing excellent service during the War years and became well known such as the Baltimore and...

Battlecruiser or Cruiser : Origins of the Alaska Class Cruiser

The Alaska Class Cruiser is one of the more interesting warship designs of the Second World War. Few designs have as many admirers as they do detractors. Some appreciate the size and impressive capabilities of its 12"/50 naval guns. Others criticize the cost of the...

Is the submarine the perfect stealth warship?

Over a century ago, Admiral Sir John Fisher (1841-1920) – one of the main forces behind both the dreadnought and the battlecruiser – declared that both were obsolete. The ideal warship of the future, he insisted, was the submarine – the perfect stealth warship that...

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...

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...

Was ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’ a naval phrase?

The unprecedented cold that swept parts of the United States in early 2019 could be called 'brass monkey weather', though with the temperatures reported, that might be an understatement. According to legend, the term - in full, 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a...

Super Battleships of the World

Battleships were among the largest, most complex, and most powerful weapons of their day. Combining the largest guns and the thickest armor, they were impressive warships. While battleships were already powerful, some navies sought new designs that were even more...

The origins of the American battlecruiser – 1902-1910

The United States Navy’s only planned battlecruisers, six Lexington class ships authorised by the Naval Act 1916,[1] were cancelled by the Five Power (‘Washington’) Treaty of 1922.[2] Two – Lexington and Saratoga - were completed as aircraft carriers instead.[3] The...

HMS Dreadnought – revolution or evolution?

In early 1907, the battleship HMS Dreadnought sailed on her shake-down cruise to the Caribbean under Captain Reginald Bacon. She was a remarkable vessel in many ways, one whose name became synonymous with all battleships during the First World War period, and whose...

German Aircraft Carrier Of World War 1

By 1919 the Great War had dragged on for five long blood-soaked years. Even with the USA havingjoined the Allies in 1917, victory had been elusive for any of the combatants. For the two years that hadfollowed that declaration, a flood of war materials had poured from...

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...

Why HMS New Zealand’s debt wasn’t cancelled until 1944-45

One of the many myths about the battlecruiser HMS New Zealand – the ship built as a gift from New Zealand to Britain in 1909 - is that she was unaffordable for a small Dominion of just under a million people. In the previous article I showed that this was simply not...

The Kaisers Pirates

SMS Wolf the Kaisers most successful Surface commerce raider

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. 

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...

Canada’s Next Generation Submarine

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

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...

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...

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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