An Encyclopedia of Naval History

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The Korean War (1950–53) was fought by Navy forces, which provided extensive air and gunfire support as well as minesweeping efforts. The form of warships for several hundred years to come was determined in the 16th and 17th centuries, when oar propulsion was replaced by arrays of sails and when cannons were mounted on ships.

A categorical index in the back of the book is useful for looking up entries on specific categories.

In 1546, Henry VIII's last year, the Navy Board was formed from the navy's principal officers: it was destined to serve as the executant of the fleet's construction, maintenance, and supply, the country's largest industrial undertaking until the 19th cent.

King, or overlord, also in Denmark (1019) and Norway (1028), no English monarch had such distant dominions again until Charles II in the later 17th cent. At the start of the American Revolution (1775–83), members of the Continental Congress (see Continental Congress, First ) debated the value and necessity of establishing an official navy. Merchantmen built to carry a substantial number of guns, and specialized for trade in contested waters such as the Mediterranean and the East and West Indies, became useful as temporary warships from the late sixteenth century up to the 1650s and 1660s.Oared vessels were intended for cooperation with the army along archipelagic coasts, not for the open sea. S. Navy had added hundreds of new ships and owned more than 70 percent of the world's total naval vessels of 1,000 tons (907 metric tons) or more. In early history the armed men of a tribe or town put to sea in such large boats or ships as might be available to give battle to enemies similarly equipped or to raid territory from the sea. By this time the oared single sail ‘long ship’ or galley, still predominant in northern waters and the Mediterranean, was ceding place to wider-beamed and higher-sided vessels, furnished with fore and stern castles.