Naval battle

Naval Battle

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Naval battle

A naval battle is a battle

Battle

Generally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, wherein each group will seek to defeat the others within the scope of a military campaign, and are well defined in duration, area and force commitment....
fought using ship

Ship

A ship is a large watercraft that floats on water. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size. Ships may be found on lakes, seas, and rivers and they allow for a variety of activities, such as the ferry or cargo ships, fishing, cruise ship, Coast guard, and warship....
s or other waterborne vessels. Most naval battles have occurred at sea

SEA

See also: Sea and seasThe three-letter acronym SEA may refer to:People/organizations/businesses*Scientists and Engineers for America, a pro-science political advocacy group....
, but a few have taken place on lake

Lake

A lake is a terrain feature , a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin and moves slowly if it moves at all....
s or river

River

A river is a natural stream of water, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, or another stream. In some cases a river flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water....
s. The earliest recorded naval battle took place in 1210 BC near Cyprus

Cyprus

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Encyclopedia

A naval battle is a battle

Battle

Ship

SEA

Lake

A lake is a terrain feature , a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin and moves slowly if it moves at all....
s or river

River

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is an island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, west of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, south of Turkey and north of Egypt....
. Most naval battles are undertaken in indirect support of land operations - either to obtain local command of the area so that a seaborne invasion

Invasion

An invasion is a Offensive consisting of all, or large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitics entity aggressively entering territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering, liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory, altering the established government or gaining c...
or bombardment

Bombardment

A bombardment is an attack by artillery fire directed against fortifications, troops or towns and buildings. In its strict sense the term is only applied to the bombardment of defenceless or undefended objects, houses, public buildings, etc., by an assailant with the object of disheartening his opponent, and specially to force the civil popul...
can take place, or to destroy or damage an enemy fleet so that he cannot do these things at some time in the future. Numbers of vessels involved range from 1 on each side to many hundreds; modern naval battles usually involve fewer, more powerful ships. There have been few large naval battles since World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
for several reasons. Few nations can afford large fleets or afford to risk their ships; most wars have not involved great powers fighting against each other; and aircraft

Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle which is able to flight by being supported by the air, or in general, the atmosphere, of a planet. Examples include balloons, airplanes and helicopters....
operating from shore can destroy ships without the need for one's own.

Although the nature of the ships involved in battles has changed drastically, from trireme

Trireme

File:Romtrireme.jpgThe trireme is a class of warships used by the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greece and ancient Rome....
s to sailing ship

Sailing ship

Sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a full rigged ship of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant....
s to battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large, heavily armour warship with a main artillery battery consisting of the largest calibre of guns. Battleships were larger, better armed, and better armored than cruisers and destroyers....
s, submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability....
s and aircraft carrier

Aircraft carrier

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a navy force to project air power great distances without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations....
s, many of the tactical principles

Naval tactics

Naval tactics is the collective name for methods of engaging and defeating an enemy ship or Naval fleet in battle at sea during naval warfare, the naval equivalent of military tactics on land....
remain the same, such as the importance of manoeuvre before the engagement proper, and the desirability of breaking off combat rather than risking the complete loss of a fleet.

There are several contenders for the largest naval battle of all time

Largest naval battle in history

The title of "largest naval battle in history" may be conferred according to criteria which might include the numbers of personnel and/or vessels involved in the battle, the total tonnage of the vessels involved, the damage sustained, or the casualties inflicted....
.