|
Post by williammiller on Sept 9, 2020 9:45:22 GMT -6
warspite You at the very least owe oldpop2000 an sincere apology - your reply to oldpop2000 above was completely uncalled for and violates our TOS, and in plain terms was an ill-mannerd thing to do on your part. I don't know (and don't care) what sort of behavior you are allowed elsewhere, but this will not be tolerated here.
|
|
|
Post by tbr on Sept 9, 2020 14:16:17 GMT -6
Back on thread: I give you the only historic "supership" (2800 crew!) that was actually a successful weapon of war and decided several battles: the Leontophoros
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 9, 2020 15:14:16 GMT -6
Back on thread: I give you the only historic "supership" (2800 crew!) that was actually a successful weapon of war and decided several battles: the Leontophoros Ah, a real pre-pre-pre dreadnought, ancient actually. It was built by Lysimachos in Heraclea. It was a one off ship, never duplicated. She was almost as long as the HMS Belfast. Cool.
|
|
|
Post by bobert on Sept 9, 2020 17:02:11 GMT -6
I've always been partial to Iron Duke for her(?) name, her looks and as flagship at Jutland.
|
|
|
Post by warspite1995 on Sept 9, 2020 18:02:44 GMT -6
Well, it´s hard not to nominate HMS Warspite. She survived nearly all major engagements in both wars, although standing on Neptunes list! She made it home after Jutland, although heavily damaged (without her jammed rudder, she would have been sunk). She survived several torpedo attacks at Norway (torpedo crisis) while sinking (or helping to sink) the half German DD-fleet, survived the battle of Cape Matapan (with scoring her record hit). She survived the Battle of Kreta with heavy damage. She survived 2 hits from Fritz-X guided bombs near Sicily (should I mention Roma?), was hardly repaired and shelled coastal batteries at the Normandie. And even during her last journey she refused to go without a fight. This ship and her career is pretty impressive! And although USS Nevada has an impressive career by her own, she is no match for HMS Warspite. If only we had kept her as a museum... Dont get me wrong i love the Belfast, but having a Real British battleship especially one as steeped in history as the Warspite, it would be like preserving the HMS Victory all over again. And when they tried to scrap her she made a break for it!
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 9, 2020 19:02:16 GMT -6
Well, it´s hard not to nominate HMS Warspite. She survived nearly all major engagements in both wars, although standing on Neptunes list! She made it home after Jutland, although heavily damaged (without her jammed rudder, she would have been sunk). She survived several torpedo attacks at Norway (torpedo crisis) while sinking (or helping to sink) the half German DD-fleet, survived the battle of Cape Matapan (with scoring her record hit). She survived the Battle of Kreta with heavy damage. She survived 2 hits from Fritz-X guided bombs near Sicily (should I mention Roma?), was hardly repaired and shelled coastal batteries at the Normandie. And even during her last journey she refused to go without a fight. This ship and her career is pretty impressive! And although USS Nevada has an impressive career by her own, she is no match for HMS Warspite. If only we had kept her as a museum... Dont get me wrong i love the Belfast, but having a Real British battleship especially one as steeped in history as the Warspite, it would be like preserving the HMS Victory all over again. And when they tried to scrap her she made a break for it! I agree. In the US, we had hoped to save the USS Enterprise but it did not work out.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 9, 2020 20:10:44 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by wknehring on Sept 10, 2020 2:37:37 GMT -6
Well, it´s hard not to nominate HMS Warspite. She survived nearly all major engagements in both wars, although standing on Neptunes list! She made it home after Jutland, although heavily damaged (without her jammed rudder, she would have been sunk). She survived several torpedo attacks at Norway (torpedo crisis) while sinking (or helping to sink) the half German DD-fleet, survived the battle of Cape Matapan (with scoring her record hit). She survived the Battle of Kreta with heavy damage. She survived 2 hits from Fritz-X guided bombs near Sicily (should I mention Roma?), was hardly repaired and shelled coastal batteries at the Normandie. And even during her last journey she refused to go without a fight. This ship and her career is pretty impressive! And although USS Nevada has an impressive career by her own, she is no match for HMS Warspite. If only we had kept her as a museum... Dont get me wrong i love the Belfast, but having a Real British battleship especially one as steeped in history as the Warspite, it would be like preserving the HMS Victory all over again. And when they tried to scrap her she made a break for it!
I know what you mean.
Although BCs are not in the competition, I have to say "our" SMS Goeben/Yavuz should have been preserved as a museum, back in the 70s! Not only for her career, especially for her impact on European history. And it is a shame that our German gouvernment still denies our military history and is afraid to give some right wing idiots some heroic symbols, although our historical heir more and more becomes lost and we have to teach our children history from books! That makes me angry, because this is the wrong way to learn from history!
And in case HMS Warspite would have been preserved, that would have been the main reason for me to visit GB (beside Bovington). Visiting one of these old WW1 battle horses is unreachable for me (I would love to visit USS Texas, but if the US authorities still wait any further untill a major repair is done, I am afraid I will be too late).
|
|
lucur
Junior Member
Posts: 72
|
Post by lucur on Sept 10, 2020 11:49:20 GMT -6
I don't know the particular story of Goeben, but if any german ship deserved honorable mentions i'd go for Admiral Graf Spee. Pocket BATTLESHIP after all ^^
|
|
|
Post by sittingduck on Sept 10, 2020 12:26:27 GMT -6
There's something pleasing in the lines of a modernized New Mexico class. Their bow, the four gun turrets just look "classic".
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 10, 2020 13:44:10 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 10, 2020 19:24:58 GMT -6
I research in Reinhard Scheer book about the High Seas Fleet. He states that the Goeben was the last reserve in the defense of the Dardanelles. The Turks were promised the ship after the war ended. But the Germans in around 1915 or 1916, he really isn't clear realized that they could not withdraw the ship from the Med and were concerned that it would be captured by the British. She was supposed to be sent to Sebastopol but it wasn't going to work. It was at this point that the German's decided just to hand over the Goeben to the Turks. It helped the German's get their troops out of Syria.
|
|
|
Post by vonfriedman on Sept 11, 2020 1:06:21 GMT -6
It is rather strange that no one remembered the Bismarck, which as a rule abounds on the shelves of any ship model shop. Perhaps one of its flaws was its anti-aircraft armament. I think a US BB, like South Dakota at the battle of Santa Cruz, would probably have wiped out the attacking Swordfish biplanes.
|
|
lucur
Junior Member
Posts: 72
|
Post by lucur on Sept 11, 2020 3:03:25 GMT -6
The issue with the Bismarck is that it just just wasn't such a great design. It was powerful and fast and huge, there's no doubt, but was neither economical nor efficient. He also was a beauty. It showed that german shipyards lacked experience in building capital ships and instead of building iterative designs and learn from mistakes they built the one all-in super battleahip. Just think what the brits would have come up with, if they had decided to build such a large ship (instead of building multiple smaller units to cover several theatres of war at once).
|
|
|
Post by wknehring on Sept 11, 2020 5:58:05 GMT -6
It is rather strange that no one remembered the Bismarck, which as a rule abounds on the shelves of any ship model shop. Perhaps one of its flaws was its anti-aircraft armament. I think a US BB, like South Dakota at the battle of Santa Cruz, would probably have wiped out the attacking Swordfish biplanes.
There were a few issues with the Bismarcks AA:
1) Inferior mid range AA. Although the 37mm guns were a good design in terms of V0, penetration and range (even better than the Bofors), its RoF was bad, because it was a semi-automatic design- as AA total misdeveloped! And if you take in mind, that Krupp was company member of Bofors, the 40mm Bofors L/56 AA should have been introduceable in the 2nd half of the 30s for the Germans, but the Germans favurized this damn 37mm calibre for AA and tank AP, you know where the mistakes are
2) no impact fuzes or wrong (too hard) adjusted impact fuzes for AA shells. If you adjust your 20mm and 37mm impact fuzes against some metal plated planes and they come with Swordfishes, they dont fuze properly. If your automatic fuzing adjustment computers (as were used with 4 turrets of Bismarcks heavy AA) set the wrong distance/time of flight for the fuze, you do not shot down anything without impact fuzes. And than there was the missing of incendiary shells for the smaller calibers, especially the 20mm.
3) heavy AA fire controls- 4 of 8 turrets were newer mounts C/37, but the firing controls fitted to the older mounts C/31. So 50% of the heavy AA was wrong controled and computed. In addition the Swordfishes speed was overestimated and so wrong adjusted to the shells- so they had wrong lead and wrong fuze time!
And of course there were some design issues with the Bismarck. But that´s too much to mention here.
I don´t want to say it was a bad design- it was a competitive design against treaty-BBs, but it seems a bit rushed.
|
|