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les freathy

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This I knew, but I was in a rush - thanks matey. My mind was set on those classic WW1 period vessels which soldiered on until the next big flap. Of the battleships - they could have saved one of the KGVs post war - but hey - scrap iron is scrap iron. It would be nice if they saved one of the Type 42s - but can you see it happening? They strip the guts out of them for every nut and bolt anyway. But wouldn't it be nice if a Falklands ship of note remained afloat instead in a dry-dock being smashed up like the Fearless. I think we had a post on here via Lee from someone trying to save a frigate down in Essex - I never heard any more even though I left messages.

 

Missouri is a Battleship not a Battlecruiser the U.S. Navy never had any Battlecruisers, one battlecruiser class the Lexiington class was laid down in WW1 but only two were completed and they were aircraft carriers Lexington CV1 and Saratoga CV2. Also the U.S. still have the WW1 battleship USS Texas.

 

While it is true the British have a lamentable record in save historic vessels from WW1 or 2, there is still Warrior which is an Ironclad Battleship and one British built Battleship of great importance still exists in IJN Mikasa which is a memorial to Admiral Togo, Mikasa was built at Barrow in Furness in 1900-02 and is very similar to the British Formidable and Canopus Classes.

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Snapper

 

 

Certainly Iron duke could have been saved as it was still in 1946 a depot ship, a number of Revenge or QE class (jutland vets) could have been saved, but as you say scrap iron is scrap iron.

 

The one that got me down was the oportunity to obtain Yavuz Sultan Selim (ex Geoben) from Turkey for under £1m in 1970-71, could even have been done as a joint project with Australia and N.Z.

 

steve

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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.

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Snapper

 

 

Certainly Iron duke could have been saved as it was still in 1946 a depot ship, a number of Revenge or QE class (jutland vets) could have been saved, but as you say scrap iron is scrap iron.

 

The one that got me down was the oportunity to obtain Yavuz Sultan Selim (ex Geoben) from Turkey for under £1m in 1970-71, could even have been done as a joint project with Australia and N.Z.

 

steve

 

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.

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Bystander

 

With regard to survivors I think HMS Cavalier has been mentioned is this the same WW2 destroyer frigate that hung around in the North East for a long time, Has it survived or has it been scrapped.

 

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.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Bystander

 

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.

 

While I don't want to be accused of tautology, permit me to respond, the Alaska Class started off as a proposed Heavy Cruiser CA2 design by the navy general board, whatever the US navy classified them later, they specifically did not use the term battlecruiser. The proposed type carried out the same duties as a heavy cruiser that being carrier/task force escort from both surface cruiser attack and aircraft attack and detached duties hunting enemy cruisers. It is also significant that the type was primarily designed to over awe the Japanese 8inch cruisers of the Mongami and Tone class rather than as a response to the German Scharnhorst and the lack of armour protection reflected this. With regard to 8inch armament an alternate design for CA2 was proposed with 8inch guns that could be refitted with 12inch weapons if a future requirement demanded it. The term Large Cruiser and the naming for U.S. territories rather than either cities or states was to mark them out as a distinct type from either cruisers or Battleships.

 

The point about comparatively armed battlecruisers (i.e. Fisher inspired designs) is they were products of their time, to call the Alaskas “battlecruisers” is in effect journalese –the class were termed “battlecruiser” by a recent generation of naval writers. To use these vessels as battlecruisers in a fast screening force of a battle fleet would have been as flawed as it would have been to use the heavy armoured cruisers in the same role. Something that to an extent happened with disastrous consequences when the 1st cruiser squadron was caught at Jutland with the loss of three 9.2in gun armed ships, Black Prince, Warrior and Defence.

 

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 battlecruisers;

 

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;

 

Some authorities (Fleming and Preston to name two) consider German battlecruisers as heading toward a distinct type of proto fast battleships almost from the outset, but particularly evident in Derfflinger class and the ultimate configuration in the Mackensen class, hence the great interest even fear for that vessel by the British to the point that the British specifically demanded it to be interned under the Armistice. Apart from the allegedly weak main armament Mackensen was very similar to the Fast battleship Queen Elizabeth design. Because of the Blucher fiasco, even the first German battlecruiser Von Der Tann benefited from study of the Invincibles and at the 1911 Coronation Review British experts were able to view Von Der Tann and were impressed by its balanced design compared to British Battlecruisers.

 

On reflection I could be wrong when I said WW1 German battlecruiser armament was inconsistent with comparable capital ships, the Westfalen class and Von Der Tann were comparable having 11in/45 cal weapons, it would seem that it was because of financial constraints rather than deliberate policy that led to the use of the improved 11inch /50 cal guns in Moltke class and Seydlitz, consuming weapons already in production and possibly otherwise redundant when it was decided to fit the Helgolands with 12inch/50 cal to match British 12/45cal guns, which was mentioned as a concern to the German navy. Unlike the U.K which had 4 major large calibre gun manufactures the Germans had only one major and one smaller large calibre gun builders and this caused bottle necks especially when new designs were proposed. The 3 later 11inch armed ships were very well armoured and very close to a fast battleship design. The balance of weapons resumed with the Derfflinger class which were contemporaneous to the Konig class but again proportionately heavily armoured. The same thing happened with the 14inch guns in Mackensen, designed and built as 14in x 50 cal to outclass the British 13.5in, they were retained for cost reasons, but in the Bayern class the bore was increased to 15inch to nominally catch up to British designs (in fact the Germans would have had to go to 16inch to match the British weight for weight). They were shorter at 45 cal which implies the use of a similar chase, barbette and ancillary components of the original 14inch design.

 

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;

 

 

HMS Tiger was the fourth ship of the Lion Class and was contemporaneous to Iron Duke, its laying down was delayed as the Admiralty digested the superiority of the IJN Kongo being built at Barrow. There was no battlecruiser equivalent to the Queen Elizabeth class until the completion of Hood and even then the Admirals were initially classed as an improved QE class fast battleship. The original concept of the QE class was as a fast battleship which would make the battlecruiser obsolete. When Fisher returned to the Admiralty in August 1914 he resurrected the battlecruiser type in the shape of the Renown class, the comparable class of the Revenge class battleship and were originally the 6th and 7th ship of that class.

 

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;

 

I deliberately did not mention the British Post WW1 designs G3 and N3 were paper designs hence I specifically said the "final commissioned battlecruiser HMS hood".

 

In actuality neither G3 or N3 contracts were confirmed, neither named beyond yard numbers and no keels were laid. Although both types were originally designed together–having the same hull form (which would make G3 without a doubt a fast battleship rather than a battlecruiser). Initially they may have had the same armament and the armament contracts for G3 were let as a 16inch x 9 gun design and were a prioritized to replace the 12inch armed battlecruisers (which even Brassleys had declared obsolete) to give a large calibre fast wing to the battle fleet- the QE having not lived up to their fast battleship reputation and were by 1919 classified as ship of the line.

 

Unfortunately the 16inch Mk1 designed from US and latterly German gun research was flawed but contracts had already been let and by 1919 with the Japanese experimenting with a 19.1inch gun (again the British were aware) a new gun was required hence the proposed development of at least 3 additional weapons two in 16inch and one an 18/45cal Mk2 weapon (and even the existing 15/45cal was reconsidered), therefore the development of the alternative less technically stressed 18inch gun for N3 was more the result of an arms race which the British government could by its own admission barely afford. By early 1922 an increasingly desperate British Government took a political decision to abandon G3 and N3 shortly before signing the Washington Treaty. By then both projects were in trouble, even the gun design was falling behind schedule and it was expected that N3 would not be completed before at least 1930 hence it was becoming a generation away from G3. But really it is irrelevant the only thing that came out of all the paper work and game play by Britain at the Washington conference was two bazaar hybrid battleships which were built around the guns, barbettes and machinery planned for G3 mopping up at least some of the wasted taxpayers money.

 

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;

 

I specifically did not mention any French vessels as none have any bearing on the question, the French never built battlecruisers. The Dunkerque class were the first French battleships since the last of the Bretange class ship was completed in mid 1916. Bretange had 340mm 13.3in /45cal guns. Dunkerque (completed 1937) and Strasburg (completed 1939) were both fast battleships and fitted out with 330mm 13inch 50cal mle1931guns that were an advance in power over the Mle 1912. They were capable of 31 and 30 knot respectively and had 10 and 11inch armour belts. Dunkerque and Strasbourg could have seen off earlier Bretange class without any difficulties, they were designed to defeat contemporary German (Deutschland class and Scharnhorst class commerce raiders) and units of the Italian Fleet such as Andrea Dorio class. The Italians built the Vittorio Veneto Class specifically to counter the Dunkerque class. The larger Richelieu and Jean Bart with a main armament of 380mm 15inch/45 cal mle 1935 guns, was a poker game response to the new Italian vessels - such is the way of an arms race. Being an evolutionary improvement over the previous design it was not a case of the earlier design (Dunkerque) being a battlecruiser version.

 

As ever an overly long reply,:cheesy:

 

Steve

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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:

 

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

 

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  • 1 month later...

I hope they will be able to keep up with the needs of the ship and never let it get that bad again , sadly with the current economic problems We are having here I m pretty sure the funds are not available to do more than keep the lights on and tourists guided through.

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  • 8 months later...

I got about a 1000 quid worth of these languishing in the cupboard :cry: Never have time for them

 

These 2 I picked up in Singapore many years ago, no idea who's Navy they are. I do like RPPC's though as there is typically only one so they are history

 

[ATTACH]39746[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]39747[/ATTACH]

Edited by fesm_ndt
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The book is quite rare now, I had an old battered copy as a kid that went adrift. Then found one through Amazon, and a rare boook dealear a couple of years ago, cost me £45. Problem is the illustrations, all done by Scott. they are split up and framed. Very much recommended.

 

Are you after a copy with illustrations, or did you take the pics out?

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