Battleship - warship
From Hull AWE
There is a difference between a battleship and a warship. It is of real importance only to historians, and perhaps particularly naval historians; but no academic writer should be guilty of confusing the two. The safer, because more general, term is warship; and battleship is a largely obsolete word. Both are words applied to military vessels in the fighting navies of the world.
- A battleship is a major fighting vessel, for the most part a development of the steam age.
- In the great age of fighting in sailing ships, in the eighteenth and (first part of the) nineteenth centuries, the biggest vessels were those thought big enough to take part in 'the line of battle' - i.e. to fight in the engagements of one fleet with another, like Trafalgar. A line-of-battle ship, or ship of the line, was reckoned to be one carrying at least 74 guns, and proportionately heavily built. The name was, naturally enough, sometimes abbreviated to 'battle ship', but this was felt to be informal.
- As ships began to be built of steel and propelled by steam, fighting ships became more and more specialised. The battleship was the largest and most heavily armoured of these. Typically, it carried nine of the heaviest naval guns, of 14, 16 or 18 inches (46 cm), in three or four turrets, and had belts of armour plate up to 14 inches (35 cm) thick. It was proved in the Second World War that such vessels were very vulnerable to attack from the air. No battleships are currently in commission, although battleships were most prestigious naval ships through the first half of the twentieth century: the aircraft carrier and the nuclear submarine are now the biggest, most important and expensive parts of navies, the capital ships of modern warfare at sea.
- Any vessel in the fighting navy of its country may be called a warship. The word simply means 'a ship designed for war'. A warship may be of any size or type, as long as it carries weapons capable of some resistance if it is attacked.
All battleships are warships, but not all warships are battleships.
