ship of the line

 A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two columns of opposing warships maneuvering to volley fire with the cannons along their broadsides.

 

retrate

 

retrate (plural retrates)

1. Obsolete form of retreat.

rerebrace

 A rerebrace (sometimes known as an upper cannon) is a piece of armour designed to protect the upper arms (above the elbow). Splint rerebraces were a feature of Byzantine armour in the Early Medieval period. The rerebrace seems to have re-emerged in England, in the early 14th century. As part of the full plate armour of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance the rerebrace was a tubular piece of armour between the shoulder defences (spaulder or pauldron) and the elbow protection (couter). 

 

Fenian

 Fenian (/ˈfiːniən/) served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th century dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic. In 1867 they sought to coordinate raids into Canada from the United States with a rising in Ireland. In the 1916 Easter Rising and the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence, the IRB led the republican struggle.

The term Fenian today occurs as a derogatory sectarian term in Ireland, referring to Irish nationalists or Catholics, particularly in Northern Ireland. The term has been used similarly in Scotland by Protestants as an attempt at a derogatory religious slur when referring to Scottish Catholics or to Scots with Irish ancestry. 

 

Panzerfaust

 The Panzerfaust (German: [ˈpantsɐˌfaʊst], lit. "armor fist" or "tank fist", plural: Panzerfäuste) was an inexpensive, single shot, recoilless German anti-tank weapon of World War II. It consisted of a small, disposable pre-loaded launch tube firing a high-explosive anti-tank warhead, and was intended to be operated by a single soldier. The Panzerfaust's direct ancestor was the similar, smaller-warhead Faustpatrone ordnance device. The Panzerfaust was in use from 1943 until the end of the war, continuing to see service outside of Germany for a number of years.

 

 

cruiser

A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundred years, and has had different meanings throughout this period. During the Age of Sail, the term cruising referred to certain kinds of missions – independent scouting, raiding or commerce protection – fulfilled by a frigate or sloop, which were the cruising warships of a fleet.

From the middle of the 19th century, cruiser came to be a classification for the ships intended for this kind of role, though cruisers came in a wide variety of sizes, from the small protected cruiser to armored cruisers which were as large (though not as powerful) as a battleship.
By the early 20th century, cruisers could be placed on a consistent scale of warship size, smaller than a battleship but larger than a destroyer. In 1922, the Washington Naval Treaty placed a formal limit on cruisers, which were defined as warships of up to 10,000 tons displacement carrying guns no larger than 8 inches in calibre. These limits shaped cruisers up until the end of World War II. The very large battlecruisers of the World War I era were now classified, along with battleships, as capital ships.
In the later 20th century, the obsolescence of the battleship left the cruiser as the largest and most powerful surface combatant. The role of the cruiser varied according to ship and navy, often including air defense, commerce raiding and shore bombardment. The U.S. Navy in the Cold War period built guided-missile cruisers primarily designed to provide air defense, while the navy of the USSR built battlecruisers with heavy anti-ship missiles designed to sink NATO carrier task forces.

destroyer tender

A destroyer tender is a ship designed to provide maintenance support to a flotilla of destroyers or other small warships. The use of this class has faded from its peak in the first half of the 20th century as the roles of small combatants have evolved (in conjunction with technological advances in propulsion reliability and efficiency).



Due to the increased size and automation of modern destroyers, tenders are no longer as necessary as they once were. In the United States Navy, the last destroyer tender class was the Yellowstone-class Destroyer Tender.

destroyer

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called Torpedo boat destroyers in 1892, evolved in response to the threat posed by torpedo boats to capital ships. Growing from earlier developments, the first official designation of "torpedo boat destroyer" (TBD) as a recognised class of warship was given to the HMS Havock and HMS Hornet when commissioned by the Royal Navy in 1894. By the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, TBDs were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats." Although the term destroyer had been used interchangeably with the terms "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term torpedo boat destroyer had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War.

photonics mast

A photonics mast (or optronic mast) is a sensor on a submarine which functions similarly to a periscope without requiring a periscope tube, thus freeing design space during construction and limiting risks of water leakage in the event of damage. A photonics mast replaces the mechanical, line-of-sight viewing system with digital equipment, similar to a digital camera array, and it has fewer locational and dimensional constraints than a traditional periscope.
Unlike a periscope, it need not be located directly above its user, and it requires only a small pressure hull penetration for cabling. This allows the photonics mast to fit entirely within the sail of the submarine and means the control room need not be placed directly below the sail.

A photonics mast operates by rising above the water similarly to a telescoping car-antenna and provides information through an array of sensors, such as high definition low-light and thermographic cameras. Images and information can appear on display panels for analysis. The photonics mast can also support the navigation, electronic warfare, and communications functions of a conventional optical-periscope mast.

The UK's Royal Navy tested an optronic mast on the Trafalgar-class HMS Trenchant in 1998. Boats of the Astute class currently under construction as of 2012 each have two optronic masts manufactured by Thales Optronics.

reticle

A reticle, or reticule (from Latin reticulum, meaning "net"), also known as a graticule (from Latin craticula, meaning "gridiron"), is a net of fine lines or fibers in the eyepiece of a sighting device, such as a telescope, a telescopic sight, a microscope, or the screen of an oscilloscope. Today, engraved lines or embedded fibers may be replaced by a computer-generated image superimposed on a screen or eyepiece. Both terms may be used to describe any set of lines used for optical measurement, but in modern use reticle is most commonly used for gunsights and such, while graticule is more widely used for the covers of oscilloscopes and similar roles.

dud

A dud is an ammunition round or explosive that fails to fire or detonate, respectively, on time or on command. Poorly designed devices (for example, improvised explosive devices (IEDs)), and small devices, have higher chances of being duds.

Duds are still dangerous, and can explode if handled. They have to be deactivated and disposed of carefully. In wartorn areas, many curious children have been injured or killed from tampering with such devices. Dud fireworks should never be destroyed by soaking in water as most fireworks becomes most unstable after water ingress. When the fireworks dryes it can "sweat" chemicals that are wery unstable.

Anschluss

The Anschluss (spelled Anschluß at the time of the event, and until the German orthography reform of 1996; German for "link-up"), also known as the Anschluss Österreichs, was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938.

Chickenhawk

Chickenhawk (also chicken hawk and chicken-hawk) is a political epithet used in the United States as ad hominem argument to criticize somebody who strongly supports a war or other military action (i.e., a War Hawk), yet who actively avoided military service when of age.

The term is meant to indicate that the person in question is cowardly or hypocritical for personally avoiding combat in the past while advocating that others go to war in the present. Generally, the implication is that "chickenhawks" lack the experience, judgment, or moral standing to make decisions about going to war. The term is not applied to those who avoided military service without subsequently adopting a hawkish political outlook.

Perpetual war

Perpetual war refers to a lasting state of war with no clear ending conditions. It also describes a situation of ongoing tension that seems likely to escalate at any moment, similar to the Cold War.

Nokmim

The Nokmim, also referred to as The Avengers or the Jewish Avengers, were groups of Jewish assassins that targeted Nazi war criminals with the aim of avenging the Holocaust.

The groups of Jews – some veterans of the Jewish brigade, and some veterans of the Partisans − were organized after World War II ended. The name refers to Nakam (Dam Yehudi Nakam–"Jewish Blood Will Be Avenged"), a Jewish organization founded by Abba Kovner in 1945.

Quasi-War

The Quasi-War was an undeclared war fought mostly at sea between the United States and the French Republic from 1798 to 1800. In the United States, the conflict was sometimes also referred to as the Franco-American War, the Pirate Wars, or the Half-War.

Kleinstaaterei

Kleinstaaterei is a German word, mainly used to denote the territorial fragmentation in Germany and neighbouring regions during the Holy Roman Empire (especially after the end of the Thirty Years' War) and during the German Confederation in the first half of the 19th century. It refers to the large number of virtually sovereign medium and small secular and ecclesiastical principalities and Free Imperial cities, some of which were little larger than a single town or the grounds of the monastery of an Imperial abbey. Estimates of the total number of German states at any given time during the 18th century varies, ranging from 294 to 348, to more.

On the eve of the French Revolution, travellers leaving Brunswick, capital of the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, for Paris would still need to enter and exit six duchies, four bishoprics and one Free City before reaching France.

Megadeath

Megadeath (or megacorpse) is a term for one million deaths by nuclear explosion. It was coined in 1953 by RAND military strategist Herman Kahn and popularized in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War. In Kahn's view, alternate scenarios in which the United States of America suffers 10 megadeaths instead of 100 should be weighed as "tragic but distinguishable outcomes." Though the term was created in order to discuss the likely consequences of conducting nuclear war, such a large number of deaths could also be associated with other weapons of mass destruction.

FOGBANK

FOGBANK is a code name given to a material used in nuclear weapons such as the W76, W78 and W80.

FOGBANK's precise nature is classified; in the words of former Oak Ridge general manager Dennis Ruddy, "The material is classified. Its composition is classified. Its use in the weapon is classified, and the process itself is classified." Department of Energy Nuclear Explosive Safety documents simply describe it as a material "used in nuclear weapons and nuclear explosives" along with lithium hydride (LiH) and lithium deuteride (LiD), beryllium (Be), uranium hydride (UH₃), and plutonium hydride. Many arms experts believe that FOGBANK is an aerogel material which acts as an interstage material in a nuclear warhead, i.e. a material designed to become a superheated plasma following the detonation of the weapon's fission stage, the plasma then triggering the fusion-stage detonation.

Stahlhelm

Stahlhelm (plural, Stahlhelme) is German for "steel helmet". The Imperial German Army began to replace the traditional boiled-leather Pickelhaube (spiked combat helmet) with the Stahlhelm during World War I in 1916. The term Stahlhelm refers both to a generic steel helmet, and more specifically to the distinctive (and iconic) German design.