An Introduction to Not the Big Ships: NGFS As Provided by Destroyers & Below Part 1 of 2

The introduction defines the episode's scope: bombardment and gunfire support by destroyers and smaller warships.

Purpose-built bomb vessels carried heavy mortars, reinforced hulls, and specialist artillery crews for attacks on shore positions.

A warship could concentrate a broadside and change position, while a fort had to distribute guns across several approaches.

The Opium Wars put sailing warships alongside armed steam tugs, paddle vessels, and bomb ships in close coastal operations.

Gunboats on the Nile served simultaneously as artillery batteries, logistical support, maneuver assets, and command platforms.

River and sea transport complemented railroads as the logistical infrastructure of the American Civil War.

Gunboat firepower and mobility made an army's normally risky dependence on a river advantageous during the Nile campaigns.

HMS Terror prompts a discussion of whether an expensive future gun might again justify a ship built around one weapon.

Emden's 1914 attack damaged Madras and embarrassed Britain, but consumed scarce ammunition that the isolated raider could not replace.

Emden's cruiser status and a hypothetical torpedo-boat pass expose the difficulty of defining the episode's destroyer-and-below scope.

Cruisers, destroyers, and carrier aircraft cooperated against pirate bases, while growing destroyer firepower could not solve an opponent's early-warning and dispersal problem.

The Spanish Civil War, Japan's invasion of Manchuria, and an Italian war in East Africa challenge a simple picture of interwar peace.