Cool ships

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Here's someting we don't seem to have. Cool ships. We have dictators, bad generals, good generals, tanks, planes... No cool ships, however.

What do you like? Not the most decisive, the biggest, fastest. Not the most expensive, the smallest, the worst. Unless, of course, you think they are especially attractive for some other reason...

My favorites...

HMS Agincourt. Wins for looks. 7 centerline turrets. Built for Brazil, sold to Turkey, siezed by the British in harbour. Fleet orders were often to ships, in the relative position to Agincourt.

USS Newport News. Equipped with 9 8" semi-automatic guns, until an explosion disabled one of the turrets. Impressive while on the gunline off Vietnam. Cool name.

HMS Furious. A small-ish cruiser. Armed with 2 18" guns, one forward and one aft. Eventually made much less cool by being converted into an aircraft carrier. A very ridicoulous design, and not at all practical. Similiar to the HMS Terror.

Illmarinen. A Finnish cruiser. Armed with an unbelievable 4 10" guns, 8 105mm guns, 4 40mm, and 8 20mm. All in a 3,900 ton package, with 329 crew.

Steele

PS: Others to follow...

 

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I always like Prinz Eugene. A heavy cruiser that looks like a racing yatch I am the aesthetic kinda of blok lol

 

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The Prinz Eugen.

A beautiful ship.

Steele

 

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For me the Essex class carriers embodied what a naval ship should be: sleek, powerful and aesthetically pleasing.

Todays naval ships just dont look right without all those guns.

 

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Thanks, Steele. I could never get enuf of looking at those clipper bow and angled funnel rakes.

 

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I built a model once of the Prinz Eugen..beautiful that was..

 

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Indeed, those Germans built attractive ships in the 30s. My personal favorite is the Gneisenau after she got the clipper bow. They just seem less cluttered than the bigger Bismarcks. Of course, the Hood was a cool-looking ship, and one of my favorites was the Nagato as well.

In terms of older vessels, I always did like the old Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers, the HMS Tiger, the Konig-class dreadnoughts, and the destroyer leader HMS Swift.

 

[Ape]

The HMS "Lonely" Vanguard is a favourite of mine

and of course the HMS "Mighty" Hood

 

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Originally posted by Steele
Illmarinen. A Finnish cruiser. Armed with an unbelievable 4 10" guns, 8 105mm guns, 4 40mm, and 8 20mm. All in a 3,900 ton package, with 329 crew.

Good use of tonnage there. But is it just me, or does it look like it is made out of cardboard fridge boxes.

 

[stnylan]

The British M or K class submarines are pretty fun - though they probably would enter into a 'most idiotic' category of naval warships

(the M class having a 12" gun for example, the K class being steam-powered)

 

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Re: Re: Cool ships

Originally posted by Neil
Good use of tonnage there. But is it just me, or does it look like it is made out of cardboard fridge boxes.

Cardboard fridge boxes... with lots of big friggin' guns sticking out all over. Ugly as sin, too.

This is another good one. Thought up during the dark days when many merchantmen were being sunk by U-boats, the British concieved of an aircraft carrier built out of an iceberg. It would displace more than 2 million tons, and be virtually unsinkable. Slow as hell, but it could have been stationed in the middle of the Atlantic to allow for air cover across the whole ocean. Great idea, but unfortunatly one which wouldn't have been very practical.

Steele

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Re: Re: Re: Cool ships

Originally posted by Steele
Cardboard fridge boxes... with lots of big friggin' guns sticking out all over. Ugly as sin, too.

This is another good one. Thought up during the dark days when many merchantmen were being sunk by U-boats, the British concieved of an aircraft carrier built out of an iceberg. It would displace more than 2 million tons, and be virtually unsinkable. Slow as hell, but it could have been stationed in the middle of the Atlantic to allow for air cover across the whole ocean. Great idea, but unfortunatly one which wouldn't have been very practical.

Steele

Speaking of the "iceberg carrier," I remember when I was younger my family went on a family trip to the Canadian Rockies, and somewhere along the way we came across a small isolated lake that had a plaque stating that that was where the Allies had run some initial tests on building an iceberg aircraft carrier during the Second World War. At the time, I wasn't sure if the plaque was a hoax or not, considering how unbelievable it sounded. I never thought I'd hear that story confirmed. The things you learn on these forums!

 

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With the exception of the Deutschland class "pocket battleships" and the light cruisers, Ive always thought the WWII German heavy units were more visually striking than their contemporaries.

Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Hipper, Blucher, & Prinz Eugen, were all beautiful ships IMO. They looked more "modern" & technologically advanced somehow than their British, American, & Japanese equivalents.

Ive also always been impressed with those great photos of pre-war reviews & maneuvers of the Italian fleet. The cruisers look like theyre silver-plated.

 

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One more thing: I miss the battleships!

Yeah, I know, missiles, aircraft, and submarines, blah, blah, blah, but nothing looks as imposing, stately, & powerful as an 800' god of war with 16" guns.

 

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Originally posted by BarbarossaHRE
One more thing: I miss the battleships!

Yeah, I know, missiles, aircraft, and submarines, blah, blah, blah, but nothing looks as imposing, stately, & powerful as an 800' god of war with 16" guns.

A shame they are gone, but not surprising. After all, nobody has the heavy industry to turn them out like they used to. Any BBs they made today would no doubt be shoddy knock-offs of their great ancestors.

It's the same way with guns. You look at this beautiful old Bren gun or Thompson, and then you think about how nobody builds them like that anymore, due to the costs of manufacturing.

 

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Now everything is plastic and disposable. The Russians tried to build some battlecruisers, but those were not battleships at all, armed with nothing but missiles for long-range armament.

I hope is the USN decides to remove the last BBs from service permanently, they are at least kept as museums.

Steele

 

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Originally posted by Steele
Now everything is plastic and disposable. The Russians tried to build some battlecruisers, but those were not battleships at all, armed with nothing but missiles for long-range armament.

I hope is the USN decides to remove the last BBs from service permanently, they are at least kept as museums.

Steele

I think they are permanetly mothballed for now...the USS New Jersey being the last BB to go that way in the late 1980s.

The USS New Jersey is currently a museum piece in, how shall I say, "(very) low income" city of Camden. Most of its 5 inch and 40 mm AA armament are gone...though the 16 inch guns are still a sight to behold.

 

[HJ Tulp]

I've always been a fan of the Graf Spee

 

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The Iowa and the Wisconsin are considered class 'B' reserve assets. The New Jersey and the Missouri are now musuem ships, the 'Big Jay' at Camden New Jersey, and the 'Mighty Mo' at Pearl Harbour.

All four ships were modernized in 1968, with most of the 20mm and 40mm guns removed. In the early 1980s, all four were modernized again, with the rest of the light AA guns removed, and all but 12 of the 5" guns. The removed weapons were replaced with various missile systems, and several 20mm 'Phalanx' gatling guns.

Steele

 

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I visited the big Mo at its "resting" place. Somehow, these things looked very big very awesome in pictures. But looking at them (including tanks and planes) in real life, they looked more puny in size, makes one wonder how on earth they could fit so many people in it