Ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used
A
blockship
is a
ship
deliberately sunk to prevent a
river
,
channel
, or
canal
from being used as a
waterway
. It may either be sunk by a navy defending the waterway to prevent the ingress of attacking enemy forces, as in the case of
HMS
Hood
at
Portland Harbour
in 1914; or it may be brought by enemy raiders and used to prevent the waterway from being used by the defending forces, as in the case of the three old
cruisers
HMS
Thetis
,
Iphigenia
and
Intrepid
scuttled
during the
Zeebrugge raid
in 1918 to prevent the port from being used by the
German
navy.
An early use was in 1667, during the Dutch
Raid on the Medway
and their attempts to do likewise in the Thames during the
Second Anglo-Dutch War
, when a number of warships and merchant ships commandeered by the
Royal Navy
were sunk in those rivers to attempt to stop the attacking forces.
An even earlier use are the six 11th century
Skuldelev ships
in
Roskilde Fjord
, sunk to protect
Roskilde
from northern
Vikings
. They are now on display in the
Viking Ship Museum
.
[1]
[2]
[3]
The above is the principal and enduring meaning of 'block ship', but in the mid-19th century the term blockships was applied to two groups of mobile sea batteries developed by the Royal Commission on Coast Defence. The first batch of four was obtained from around 1845 by converting old sailing 74-gun two-deckers, all of them
Vengeur
-class
ships of the line
, into floating
batteries
, equipped with a steam/screw propulsion system. Also called "steam guardships",
[4]
these conversions involved cutting down to a single deck, with
ballast
removed, and a
jury rig
installed with a medium 450-
horsepower
(340 kW) engine for speeds of 5.8?8.9
knots
(10.7?16.5 km/h; 6.7?10.2 mph). These ships, converted in 1846, were
Blenheim
,
Ajax
,
Hogue
and
Edinburgh
. Although these ships were intended for coast defence some of them were used offensively, notably in the
Baltic Campaign of 1854
and 1855, where they were an integral part of the British fleet. A second batch of five were similarly obtained from around 1855 by converting other elderly 74-gun ships; these were
Russell
,
Cornwallis
,
Hawke
,
Pembroke
and
Hastings
.
The most recent known use of blockships in warfare was during the
annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation
. On 6 March 2014, the
Russian Navy
towed and scuttled the decommissioned cruiser
Ochakov
at the entrance to
Donuzlav Bay
in western
Crimea
, to prevent remaining Ukrainian navy vessels from leaving port.
[5]
Less than 24 hours later, on 7 March, another blockship, the former
Black Sea Fleet
rescue/diving support vessel
BM-416
was scuttled near
Ochakov
.
See also
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Notes
[
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Further reading
[
edit
]
- Brown, D.K. (1983).
A Century of Naval Construction: The History of Royal Corps of Naval Constructors 1883-1983
. London: Conway Maritime Press.
ISBN
0-85177-282-X
.
- Jumonville, P. C. (2012). "Question 6/47: Use of Blockships".
Warship International
.
XLIX
(1): 38?44.
ISSN
0043-0374
.
- Lyon, David and Winfield, Rif (2004).
The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815-1889
. Chatham Publishing.
ISBN
1-86176-032-9
.
- Savitz, S. (2021). "The Suez Grounding Was an Accident, but the Next Blocked Chokepoint Might Not Be," DefenseOne,
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/03/suez-grounding-was-accident-next-blocked-chokepoint-might-not-be/173011/
.
- Savitz, S. (2021). "Blockship Tactics to Trap Enemy Fleets," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, Vol. 147/12/1426,
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/december/blockship-tactics-trap-enemy-fleets
.
- Sondhaus, L. (2001).
Naval warfare, 1815?1914
. Warfare and history series. London: Routledge,
ISBN
0-415-21477-7
- Winfield, Rif (2009).
British Warships in the Age of Sail 1603?1714: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates
. Seaforth Publishing.
ISBN
978-1-84832-040-6
.
External links
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]