Gunboat

The small gunboat had advantages: if it only carried a single cannon, the boat could manoeuvre in shallow or restricted areas – such as rivers or lakes – where larger ships could sail only with difficulty.

Gunboats used in the Battle of Valcour Island (1776) on Lake Champlain during the American Revolutionary War were mostly built on the spot, attesting to the speed of their construction.

This originated the Spanish Royal Armada's doctrine of fuerzas sutiles, which emphasized the usage of ships equipped with significant firepower but small enough to be difficult to hit back.

The two countries clashed during the Russo-Swedish war of 1788–1790, a conflict that culminated in the massive Battle of Svensksund in 1790, in which over 30,000 men and hundreds of gunboats, galleys and other oared craft took part.

The majority of these were vessels developed from the 1770s and onwards by the naval architect Fredrik Henrik af Chapman for the Swedish archipelago fleet.

[3] British ships engaged larger 22 m (72 ft) Russian gunboats off Turku in southeast Finland in 1854 during the Crimean War.

President Thomas Jefferson (in office: 1801–1809) and his Democratic-Republican Party opposed a strong navy, regarding gunboats as adequate to defend the United States' major harbors.

[6] In May 1855 the Royal Navy deployed six Dapper-class gunboats in the Sea of Azov, where they repeatedly raided and destroyed stores around its coast.

[8] The gunboats attacked various coastal facilities, operating alongside larger British warships from which they drew supplies such as coal.

At the same time, Britain's gunboats from the Crimean War period were starting to wear out,[citation needed] so a new series of classes was ordered.

In the United States Navy, these boats had the hull classification symbol "PG", which led to their being referred to as "patrol gunboats".

In this period the naval powers used gunboats for police actions in colonies or in weaker countries, for example in China (see e.g. Yangtze Patrol).

[12] In the circumstances of World War I (1914–1918), however, the Royal Navy re-equipped with small 625-long-ton (635 t), shallow-draught gunboats (12 ships of the Insect class) with sufficient speed to operate in fast-flowing rivers and with relatively heavy armament.

Some were later redeployed to the Mediterranean theatre and supported land operations during the North African campaign, as well as in parts of Southern Europe.

[13] Three classes, numbering 210 vessels, saw service between 1934 and 1945: With crews of 10 to 20 personnel, riverine tanks displaced 26 to 48 tons, had armour 4–14 mm (0.16–0.55 in) thick, and were 23 to 25 m (75 to 82 ft) long.

The ASPBs were commonly referred to as "Alpha" boats and primarily carried out mine-sweeping duties along the waterways, due to their all-steel construction.