Bystander

Isn't the the Dorchester armour classified? Would be very surprised if MoD would be prepared to release any CR2s into private hands. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the handful of privately owned CR1s were prototype vehicles built without armour.

Very very nice indeed - I presume that it works both as a simple and as compound in the protypical way?

Beautiful!

Also see: http://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/ships_register.php?action=ship&id=713. I agree tragedy if it goes to scrap, but we do have such a poor record of preserving twentieth century warships in this country, HMS Belfast excepted. One only has to look at the near loss of HMS Cavalier in the 80's and 90's, the current travails of HMS Plymouth, the recent apparent failure to repatriate HMS Whimbrel as a memorial to the Battle of the Atlantic, and the failure to save a Flower Class Corvette thirty or so years ago, when the Canadians managed to do it, to name but a few examples. At least it appears clear that HMS Caroline will be preserved when its naval use comes to an end next year - what it is important is that it ends up at Portsmouth, where it can be cared for in perpituity, and that it does not end stuck in Belfast rotting away, as has happened to HMS Unicorn in Dundee, once the initial enthusiasm has waned and without the visitor numbers in Belfast to give it a viable future. But LCT 7074 must be saved as a unique memorial, but not in Liverpool, given the continual failures of large ship preservation on Merseyside. We do seem to be mixing up LSTs and LCTs rather promiscously on this thread!

http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?8942-Last-L.S.T.-at-Pounds-Yard

Thanks for the long reply Steve - I will break your text down into chunks and reply slowly as time permits. But a few instant comments on the G3 and N3 designs: Both the G3 & N3 were designed simulataneously and were always intended as complementary class battleships & battlecruisers - the designs being advanced in parallel through a number of iterations starting with L & K designs. Originally both were intended as 18" armed vessels, but as the designs progressed the battlecruisers were downgraded initailly to 16.5" guns and then finally to 16" guns, while the battleships always remained as 18" vessels. The G3 and N3 did not share the same hull form - both would have had a beam of 106' whereas the G3 would have been 850' long while the N3 would have been 815' long, due to the more powerful machinery and greater number of boilers required in the battlecruiser. Yes the the hull forms had a great degree of similarity, but as these were designed by the same design team, at the same time, as a part of the same project, it would have been remarkable had they not been. I have always been given to understand that the first of the G3 was actually laid down (Preston claimed it), but have yet to find photographic evidence of this. This is just possible as the first order was placed in October 1921, whereas the suspension order came in November.

"Someone has spiked my wagon" Obviously something quite heavy as it appears to be constructed on a (locomotive) tender chassis. The chassis looks continental, is the soldier in German uniform? Some sort of wireless transmitter with a telescopic aerial?

Try this: http://the.shadock.free.fr/Repros.pdf

Andy has submitted some good photos, which seem to show the restoration coming along. In my view the stuggles with HMS Cavalier are a good illustration of the way that we struggle with ship preservation in the UK. As you say it had a nomadic and threatened existence via Southampton, Brighton & Tyneside, before finally gaining some security at Chatham. The fate of the Warship Preservation Trust at Birkenhead and the threat hanging over HMS Plymouth & HMS Bronington is another example. One just hopes that when the navy's need for HMS Caroline comes to an end it's future will be assured and it will be restored. After all this not only the last surviving ship to have fought at Jutland but also the last surviving major RN warship to have served in WW1. I for one am very concerned about the future of HMS Whimbrel - why we cannot manage to provide a memorial ship to those lost in the Battle of the Atlantic, when the cost was only £2M.

It is still true today - the campaign to repatriate HMS Whimbrel (the last surviving Royal Navy vessel that fought in the Battle of the Atlantic) from Eygpt collapsed recently. We could have had a memorial to those who fought in the Battle of the Atlantic for a fraction of the sum that has been p*ss*d away trying to keep a Vulcan in the air.

Thanks for an interesting reply Steve, but I think that we will have to agree to disagree, the classification of the Alaska Class vessels as large cruisers (not heavy cruisers) is a mere piece of tautology. I will just make a few observations: as you very honestly point out yourself, the “rule” that a battlecruiser has to have a battleship calibre is not borne out by the Germans sticking with 11” for a time pre-WW1 while they were building 12” gunned battleships, and nobody suggests that these are not battlecriusers; HMS Tiger was being built with 13.5” main armament as exact contemporary of HMS Queen Elizabeth, which had 15” guns, as far as I am aware nobody has ever suggested that HMS Tiger was not a battlecrusier; there were also the abortive G3 and N3 class designs post-WW1, the G3 being 16” gunned “battlecruisers” and the N3 as 18” gunned battleships, nobody at the Admiralty appeared to believe that the G3s were mere heavy cruisers because they would “only” ship 16” guns; then there was the uncompleted German Mackensen Class battlecruisers with 14” guns, the lead ship being well behind the two Baden Class battleships armed with 15” guns; you omitted mention of the French Dunkerque class of the mid 1930s which only had 13” guns, while French battleships had either 14” or 15” guns; heavy cruisers have a main armament calibre of 8” or thereabouts, certainly not 12”. I would certainly agree that Alaska and Guam were supremely pointless vessels, in some respects being even more flawed the 6” armoured British battlecruisers.

Photo from Mk V** Female at Bovington. (Apart from the obvious damage, if one looks carefully one can see several hairline cracks propagating off)

What about the two units of the Alaska Class? Despite the "large cruiser" nomenculture they were plainly battlecruisers in my view and are commonly described as such. After all looking back HMS Inflexible was seen by Fisher as a replacement for cruisers...

Lovely place Ceske Budjovice.. happy memories of a nice holiday. and of course there is the beer!

Is that where the Sturm Tiger barrel at Bovington came from?