Gunboat - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A gunboat is a naval watercraft

Watercraft

A watercraft is a vessel or craft designed to move across or through water. The name is derived from the term "craft" which was used to describe all types of water going vessels...

designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more gun

Gun

A gun is a muzzle or breech-loaded projectile-firing weapon. There are various definitions depending on the nation and branch of service. A "gun" may be distinguished from other firearms in being a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer or mortar, as opposed to a small arm like a rifle or pistol,...

s to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.

History

In the age of sail

Age of Sail

The Age of Sail was the period in which international trade and naval warfare were dominated by sailing ships, lasting from the 16th to the mid 19th century...

, a gunboat was usually a small undecked vessel carrying a single smoothbore

Smoothbore

A smoothbore weapon is one which has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars.-History of firearms and rifling:...

cannon

Cannon

A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...

in the bow, or just two or three such cannon

Cannon

s. A gunboat could carry one or two masts or be oar-powered only, but the single-masted version of about 15 m (49.2 ft) length was most typical. Some types of gunboat carried two cannons, or else mounted a number of swivel gun

Swivel gun

The term swivel gun usually refers to a small cannon, mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun with two barrels that rotated along their axes to allow the shooter to...

s on the railings.

The advantages of this type of gunboat were that since it only carried a single cannon, that cannon could be quite heavy—for instance, a 32-pounder—and that the boat could be maneuvered in shallow or restricted waters, where sailing was difficult for larger ships. A single hit from a frigate would demolish a gunboat, but a frigate facing six gunboats in an estuary would likely be seriously damaged before it could manage to sink all of them. Gunboats were also easy and quick to build; the combatants in the 1776 Battle of Valcour Island

Battle of Valcour Island

The naval Battle of Valcour Island, also known as the Battle of Valcour Bay, took place on October 11, 1776, on Lake Champlain. The main action took place in Valcour Bay, a narrow strait between the New York mainland and Valcour Island...

on Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain is a natural, freshwater lake in North America, located mainly within the borders of the United States but partially situated across the Canada—United States border in the Canadian province of Quebec.The New York portion of the Champlain Valley includes the eastern portions of...

in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

were mostly gunboats built on the spot.

All navies of the sailing era kept a number of gunboats on hand. Gunboats were a key part of the planned Napoleon's invasion of England

Napoleon's invasion of England

Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom at the start of the War of the Third Coalition, although never carried out, was a major influence on British naval strategy and the fortification of the coast of south-east England. French attempts to invade Ireland in order to destabilise the...

in 1804, and were heavily used by Denmark-Norway in the Gunboat War

Gunboat War

The Gunboat War was the naval conflict between Denmark–Norway and the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The war's name is derived from the Danish tactic of employing small gunboats against the conventional Royal Navy...

. Between 1803 and 1812, the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

had a policy of basing the naval forces on coastal gunboats, and experimented with a variety of designs, but they were nearly useless in the War of 1812

War of 1812

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

, and went back to being special-purpose vessels.

Gunboats saw extensive use in the Baltic Sea during the late 18th century as they were well-suited for the extensive coastal skerries

Skerry

A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack....

and archipelago

Archipelago

An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...

es of Sweden, Finland and Russia. The rivalry between Sweden and Russia in particular lead to an intense expansion of gunboat fleets and development of new gunboat types. The two clashed during the Russo-Swedish war of 1788-90

Russo-Swedish War (1788-1790)

The Russo-Swedish War of 1788–90, known as Gustav III's Russian war in Sweden, Gustav III's War in Finland and Catherine II's Swedish War in Russia, was fought between Sweden and Russia from June 1788 to August 1790.-Background:...

a conflict that culminated in the massive Battle of Svensksund

Battle of Svensksund

The Battle of Svensksund was a naval battle fought in the Gulf of Finland outside the present day city of Kotka on 9 July 1790. The Swedish naval forces dealt the Russian fleet a devastating defeat that resulted in an end to the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–90...

in 1790, where over 30,000 men and hundreds of gunboats, galleys and other oared craft participated. The majority of these were vessels developed from the 1770s and onwards by the naval architect Fredrik Henrik af Chapman

Fredrik Henrik af Chapman

Fredrik Henrik af Chapman was a Swedish shipbuilder, scientist and officer in the Swedish navy. He was also manager of the Karlskrona shipyard 1782-1793...

for the Swedish Archipelago Fleet

Archipelago fleet

The archipelago fleet , officially the fleet of the army , was a branch of the armed services of Sweden between 1756 and 1823. Its purpose was to protect the coasts of Sweden, which was surrounded by a natural barrier of archipelagoes...

. The designs were copied and refined by the rival Danish and Russian navies and spread to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Two variants were the most common, a larger 20 m (65.6 ft) "gun sloop" (from the Swedish kanonslup) with two 24-pounders in the stern and bow and a smaller 15 m (49.2 ft) "gun yawl" (kanonjolle) with a single 24-pounder. Many of the Baltic navies kept gunboats in service well into the second half of the 19th century. Larger 22 m (72.2 ft) types of Russian gunboats were engaged by British ships off Turku

Turku

Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...

in southeast Finland in 1854 during the Crimean War

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

and had the distinction of being the last oared vessels of war in history to fire their guns in anger.

Steam era

With the introduction of steam power in the early 19th century, small vessels propelled by side paddles and later by screw

Screw

A screw, or bolt, is a type of fastener characterized by a helical ridge, known as an external thread or just thread, wrapped around a cylinder. Some screw threads are designed to mate with a complementary thread, known as an internal thread, often in the form of a nut or an object that has the...

s were built in considerable numbers by the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

and other navies. These retained full sailing rigs, so that steam propulsion was used as an auxiliary form.

The British Royal Navy deployed two wooden paddle gunboats in the Lower Great Lakes

Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

and St. Lawrence River during the 1837 rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada. The United States Navy deployed an iron-hulled paddle gunboat, the USS Michigan

USS Michigan (1843)

|USS Michigan was the United States Navy's first iron-hulled warship and served during the American Civil War. She was renamed USS Wolverine in 1905.-Early career:...

, to the Great Lakes in 1844.

The Von der Tann
Von der Tann (gunboat)
Von der Tann was a steam-powered 120 ton gunboat built in 1849 at Conradi shipyards in Kiel for the small navy of Schleswig-Holstein, the first propeller-driven gunboat in the world...

was a steam-powered 120 LT (121.9 t) gunboat built in 1849 at Conradi shipyards in Kiel for the small navy of Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...

, the first propeller-driven gunboat in the world. Initially called "Gunboat No. 1", Von der Tann was the most modern ship in the navy. She participated successfully in the First Schleswig War.

Britain built a large number of wooden screw gunboats during the 1850s, some of which participated in the Crimean war

Crimean War

, Second Opium War

Second Opium War

The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...

and Indian Mutiny. The requirement for gunboats in the Crimean war was formulated in 1854 and was to allow for shore bombardment operations to be carried out in the Baltic. The first ships built by the Royal Navy that met this requirement were the Arrow-class

Arrow class gunvessel

The Arrow class comprised six second-class screw-driven vessels built as despatch vessels for the Royal Navy in 1854, mounting 6 guns. In 1856 they were redesignated as second-class gunvessels.-Design:...

gunvessels. Then in mid 1854 the Royal Navy ordered six Gleaner-class gunboats followed latter in the year by an order for 20 Dapper-class gunboats. In May 1855, six Dapper-class gunboats were deployed to the Sea of Azov

Sea of Azov

The Sea of Azov , known in Classical Antiquity as Lake Maeotis, is a sea on the south of Eastern Europe. It is linked by the narrow Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea to the south and is bounded on the north by Ukraine mainland, on the east by Russia, and on the west by the Ukraine's Crimean...

where they repeatedly raided and destroyed stores around its coast. In June 1855, the Royal Navy reentered the Baltic with a total of 18 gunboats as part of a larger fleet. The boats were used to attack various coastal facilities operating alongside larger warships from which they drew supplies such as coal.

Gunboats experienced a revival during the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. Armed sidewheel steamer

Paddle steamer

A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...

s were quickly converted from existing passenger-carrying boats by Union and Confederate forces. Later, some boats were purposely built, such as the . They all frequently mounted 12 or more guns, sometimes of rather large caliber, and were usually armored to some degree. At the same time, Britain's gunboats from the Crimean war period were starting to wear out so a new series of classes was ordered. At the same time, construction shifted from a purely wooden hull to an iron teak composite.

In the later 19th century and early 20th century, "gunboat" was the common name for smaller armed vessels, often called "patrol gunboats". These could be classified, from the smallest to the largest, into river gunboat

River gunboat

A river gunboat is a type of gunboat adapted for river operations. River gunboats required shallow draft for river navigation. They would be armed with relatively small caliber cannons, or a mix of cannons and machine guns. If they carried more than one cannon, one might be a howitzer, for shore...

s, river monitor

River monitor

River monitors were heavily armored, and normally mounted the largest guns of all riverine warships. The name originated from the US Navy's Brown Water Navy's USS Monitor, which made her first appearance in the American Civil War, and being distinguished by a single revolving turret.On 18 December...

s, coastal defense gunboats (such as the ), and full-fledged monitors

Monitor (warship)

A monitor was a class of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns. They were used by some navies from the 1860s until the end of World War II, and saw their final use by the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.The monitors...

for coastal bombardments. In the 1870s-1880s, Britain took to building so called "flat-iron" (or Rendel) gunboat

Flat-iron gunboat

Flat-iron gunboats were a number of classes of coastal gunboats generally characterised by small size, low freeboard and the absence of masts.Some Rendel-type gunboats were fitted with masts ; they are included in the article for...

s for coastal defence. When there would be few opportunities to re-coal, vessels carrying a full sailing rig were still used as gunboats; , a sloop

Sloop

A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....

preserved at Chatham Historic Dockyard in the United Kingdom, is an example of this type of gunboat.

In the U.S. Navy, these boats had the hull classification symbol

Hull classification symbol

The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use hull classification symbols to identify their ship types and each individual ship within each type...

"PG"; they usually displaced under 2000 LT (2,032.1 t), were about 200 ft (61 m) long, 10–15 ft (3–4.6 m) draught and sometimes much less, and mounted several guns of caliber up to 5–6 in (127–152.4 mm). An important characteristic of these was the ability to operate in rivers, enabling them to reach inland targets in a way not otherwise possible before the development of aircraft

Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

. In this period, gunboats were used by the naval powers for police actions in colonies or weaker countries, for example in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

(see e.g. Yangtze Patrol

Yangtze Patrol

The Yangtze Patrol, from 1854 to 1945, was a prolonged naval operation to protect American interests in the Yangtze River's treaty ports. Initially the patrol was carried out by ships of the United States Navy's East India and Asiatic Squadrons. In 1922, the "YangPat" was established as a formal...

). It is this category of gunboat that inspired the term "gunboat diplomacy

Gunboat diplomacy

In international politics, gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of military power — implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare, should terms not be agreeable to the superior force....

". With the addition of torpedoes they became ""torpedo gunboat

Torpedo gunboat

In late 19th-century naval terminology, torpedo gunboats or, in north European usage, torpedo cruisers, were a form of gunboat armed with torpedoes and designed for hunting and destroying smaller torpedo boats...

s".

In Britain, much of the gunboat fleet was disposed of as part of Admiral Fisher's reforms in the 1900s. A handful were still in service in various roles at the start of World War I. The very last in active service were two of the second Bramble class which survived until 1926 carrying out river patrols in west Africa.
In the circumstances of World War I, however, the Royal Navy re-equipped with small (625 LT (635 t)), shallow draught gunboats (12 ships of the Insect class

Insect class gunboat

The Insect class patrol boats were a class of small, but well-armed Royal Navy ships designed for use in shallow rivers or inshore. They were intended for use on the Danube...

) with sufficient speed to operate in fast-flowing rivers and relatively heavy armament. During the War and in the post-war period, these were deployed in Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

on the Danube

Danube

The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

, in Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

on the Euphrates

Euphrates

The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...

and Tigris

Tigris

The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...

, in northern Russia

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

on the Northern Dvina

Northern Dvina

The Northern Dvina is a river in Northern Russia flowing through the Vologda Oblast and Arkhangelsk Oblast into the Dvina Bay of the White Sea. Along with the Pechora River to the east, it drains most of Northwest Russia into the Arctic Ocean...

and in China

China

on the Yangtze. In China, during anarchic and war conditions, they continued to be deployed until World War II in defence of British interests; other western Powers did the same.

More, larger, gunboats were built in the late 1930s for the Far East. Some were sailed there; others were transported in sections and reassembled at Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

World War II and the United Kingdom

Most British gunboats were withdrawn from the Far East early in World War II and redeployed in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, where they supported various army operations in north Africa and southern Europe. Those that remained in the Far East were either handed over to the Chinese (HMS Sandpiper, renamed Ying Hao) or lost to the Japanese.

Vietnam War

U.S. riverine gunboats in the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, utilized Patrol Boats River (PBR), which were constructed of fiberglass; Patrol Craft Fast

Fast Patrol Craft

Patrol Craft Fast , also known as Swift Boats, were all-aluminum, long, shallow-draft vessels operated by the U.S. Navy, initially to patrol the coastal areas and later for work in the interior waterways as part of the Brown Water Navy to interdict Vietcong movement of arms and munitions,...

(PCF), commonly known as Swift Boats, which were built of aluminum; and Assault Support Patrol Boats (ASPB) built of steel. These U.S. Navy vessels were supplemented by U.S. Coast Guard 82-foot Point Class Patrol Boats. The ASPBs were commonly referred to as "Alpha" boats and were primarily deployed for mine sweeping duties along the water ways, due to their all steel construction. The ASPB's were the only U.S. Navy riverine craft specifically designed and built for the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

. All of these boats were assigned to the U.S. Navy's "Brownwater Navy".

Gunboats are still being built and operated around the world today, albeit mainly used for coast guard

Coast guard

A coast guard or coastguard is a national organization responsible for various services at sea. However the term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with...

duties.

Print references

Anderson, Roger Charles, Oared Fighting Ships: From classical times to the coming of steam. London. 1962.
Chapelle, Howard, The History of the American Sailing Navy Norton. 1949.
Friedman, Norman. US Small Combatants: An Illustrated Design History. 1987; Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-8702 1713-5.
Glete, Jan, Navies and Nations: Warships, Navies and State Building in Europe and America 1500-1860 (vol 2) Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm. 1993. ISBN 91-22-01565-5
Preston, John Antony, Send a Gunboat! The Victorian Navy and Supremacy at Sea, 1854-1904. Conway Maritime, London. 2007. ISBN 9780851779232.

Web references

http://www.chdt.org.uk/Historic_Warships/HMS_Gannet/hms_gannet.html

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Steam era

World War II and the United Kingdom

Vietnam War

See also

Print references

Web references