 History, datas and pictures of British and US warships in WW2.
Most of this warships are used or will be used with the computer wargame WW2 Total.
During the 1920s and 1930s naval construction was limited by a series of international treaties restricting the number, size and armament of new warships. These were abandoned as WW2 loomed, and by 1940 new construction programmes were under way, with different results for different navies.
Germany's grandiose Plan Z for a powerful navy of surface ships gave way to concentration on U-Boat warfare; Japan persisted with such redundant concepts as aircraft-carrying submarines while neglecting more useful types; Britain, dependent on the Atlantic convoys, concentrated on providing escorts for them; and the United States, after standardizing on a number of basic designs, proceeded to build them by the dozen, and sometimes the hundred.
Tactically, WW2 saw a number of profound changes in the use of sea power. Aircraft and submarines became the main enemy of surface ships, while the battleships and battle-cruisers that had been regarded as the king-pins of the fleets were eclipsed by the aircraft carrier, sea battles being fought at aircraft range without the opposing fleets ever sighting each other. Germany made startling progress in submarine design, though too late to have any influence on the outcome of the war; the necessity for aircraft protection of Allied convoys led first to merchant ships being equipped with a single catapult-launched fighter, then to the production of large numbers of comparatively inexpensive escort carriers; and Japan, her carrier force destroyed in a series of epic Pacific battles, managed to produce the most powerful battleship ever built, the ill-fated Yamato.
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