The Deutschland-class of warships were relatively small, by battleship standards, but were well armoured and carried the type of armament traditionally seen only on battleships
Preventing attacks on defenceless merchant ships is the other main role of the navy.
At one time, the HMS Hood was the largest and possibly most famous ship in the world, representing the supremacy of British sea power
One of the most famous carriers of the war, the HMS Ark Royal received many battle honours in its service.
The British air raid on the Italian port of Taranto demonstrated to the world the vulnerability of ships against attacks from the air. The planes of the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy proved a scourge to Axis forces throughout every theatre of the war.
Sister ship to the Bismarck, the Tirpitz was 2,000 tons heavier and thus the heaviest warship to have ever been produced by a European navy.
With carriers planned but not built, Germanys airpower was limited to launching from airfields far from open water.
The Battle for the Pacific was only the beginning. Victory at Sea is the game of naval combat during the Second World War.
Submarines: Designed for use in North European and Mediterranean waters, the S-class was manoeuvrable with a noted ability to crash dive extremely quickly.
The Kaidai-7-class, or KD-7, was developed in the late 1930s, following on from the preceding KD-6 class.
he Gato-class of submarine was the first mass production US submarine class of the Second World War, forming the majority of the United States Navys submarine fleet of the war.
A long-ranged submersible, the Type IX was the most successful U-boat of the war, with each vessel averaging over 100,000 tons of shipping sunk. One Type IX, U-107, made the most successful convoy mission of the war, with nearly 100,000 tons of shipping sunk out of Freetown in Africa
Originally laid down as an Amagi-class battlecruiser, the stipulations of the Washington Treaty resulted in her conversion to an aircraft carrier. As a result, Akagi (??, "Red Castle") was one of Japans first large aircraft carriers.
The Yorktown-class of aircraft carrier were built in a series of three. Of those, only the USS Enterprise survived the war, with the USS Yorktown sunk during the Battle of Midway, and the USS Hornet during the Battle of Santa Cruz.
Victory at Sea is the game of naval combat during the Second World War. Throughout 1939–45, the nations of the world duelled across the oceans across the globe, only to discover the fundamental nature of naval warfare changing in the face of rapidly developing technologies.
Although the United States of America contains a vast area of land, almost all of its allies and trading partners are overseas, and those interests require a powerful navy to support them.
For centuries, Japan's policy of seclusion (sakoku) saw it concentrate on coastal defences in order to repel foreign vessels. However, with the advances other maritime nations were making, it eventually became obvious that no longer would Japan be able to ignore the rest of the world.
The Kriegsmarine had to be virtually rebuilt after the First World War. Forbidden to own capital ships and submarines, Germany nibbled away at first one clause of the Treaty of Versailles, then another, until a powerful navy force existed.
Yamato (大和, "Great Harmony") and her sister ship, Musashi, were constructed shortly before the outbreak of World War II. They were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed; armed with nine 18.1” Type 94 main guns – the largest guns ever mounted on a warship.
The Royal Navy of Great Britain was the world’s greatest navy at the outbreak of the Second World War. However, Britain went to war with mainly First World War-vintage vessels. Since the Royal Navy already possessed many powerful units, construction of the most modern designs was limited.