The comparatively small type of monitor intended for use on rivers and larger wetlands is well protected and, in general, carried the largest-calibre guns of any riverine warship. On 18 December 1965, as its major commitment to the Vietnam War was in its early stages, the US Navy decided to create a ‘brown-water navy’ for …
Tag Archives: gunboat
Soviet armoured river and coastal gunboats – the BKA and MBK types
Given its huge size and enormously varied geography, the USSR – like the Imperial Russia it succeeded in 1917 – found that there was considerable scope for the use of gunboats on the country’s many large rivers, major lakes, and even its shallow coastal waters (such as the Sea of Azov and the Gulf of …
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US Chinese river gunboats
A number of European powers, the USA and Japan maintained flotillas of these shallow-draft river gunboats to patrol the larger rivers with which China abounds, enforcing these nations’ concessionary rights under the terms of treaties which China had been compelled to sign in the period after her defeat during the 1st Opium War (1840/42) with …
The British ‘Insect’ class river gunboat
Despite its different designation, the river gunboat was in reality the riverine counterpart of the sea-going monitor, but because of its supposed limitation to more confined waters was a far smaller vessel with a correspondingly lighter armament optimised for the bombardment of river bank targets. In February 1915 the British ordered 12 ‘Fly’ class river …