• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

World's Worst Warships?

One of those systems that looks goodon paper and works in a spectacular way buthas no effect in the real world.
 
Trebuchet said:
Dreadnought was the "bleeding edge" of a period of both extreme technical advancement and a massive arms race that fueled it. No way she was still going to be competitive after 8-10 years at a time like that. For comparison, the USN commissioned these truly awful ships well over a year after Dreadnought.
Click to expand...

To be fair, the very similar Lord Nelsons were completed at about the same time after having been delayed by another ship taking all their main gun turrets.
 
If we're talking about worst warship weapons.

The main AA gun suite of the Bismarck.

The heavy AA guns (105 m) were primarily meant for barrage work, but not suitable for shooting at individual aircraft (AA guns on ships in this calibre would only come into its own with the late war American radar/127 mm combo for shooting at individual aircraft). As guns they and their mounts were very good though.

The 20 mm giuns were very, very good. Unfortunately. By the time guns in this caliber start to get effective, the enemy aircraft are almost on board of your ship. These are only last ditch weapons.

In between are the 37 mm guns. Nominal in the same range of the famous 40mm guns the allies used and should be the main AA gun suite for shooting at aircracft.
Only.... These particular 37mm guns were hand loaded with single shells. The practical rate of fire was an embarrassing 30 rounds per minute! For an AA gun! On a moving ship!

It is really no surprise that Bismarck couldn't shoot any aircraft down.
 
Some German destroyers were fitted with 150 mm twin turrets in the bow. These had originally been manufactured for planned, but never built, "O" class battlecruisers, they were fully enclosed and armoured.
They were overweight for the ships they were fitted to and caused the bows plunge making the ships very 'wet' and unable to carry high speed in a head sea.
They were abandoned and single mounts were reverted to.
 
The Vasa. I made an Airfix kit of it in my childhood. Looked a really impressive vessel. Then I found out that it just sank after sailing about 1 mile on its maiden voyage. It was too top heavy and anything more than a breeze was always likely to sink it. Pretty spectacular failure, but now one of Sweden's biggest tourist attractions. Go figure.
 
And now in counterpoint, what I think was at least a very capable Littoral Combat Ship - The Svierge-class

Let's build a mini battleship, because we want something that only operates to defend our coast, so we can compromise on the blue-water capabilities, so it's smaller than a light cruiser but with 11-inch guns and heavier armour than a heavy cruiser.

Seemed to work as a strategic threat.
 
I think that Nelson and Rodney would class as ugly warships. And not in a mean "Apache helicopter, ugly" way.
 
jimbob said:
And now in counterpoint, what I think was at least a very capable Littoral Combat Ship - The Svierge-class

Let's build a mini battleship, because we want something that only operates to defend our coast, so we can compromise on the blue-water capabilities, so it's smaller than a light cruiser but with 11-inch guns and heavier armour than a heavy cruiser.

Seemed to work as a strategic threat.
Click to expand...

Not so different to the USS Mississippi Class, mentioned above. Other than having a much better secondary battery arrangement and being designed to actual be useful to their nation, rather than a silly compromise between Congress and the USN!
 
I'm pretty sure I've seen more than half the scenes in this video verbatim in older World Of Warships and War Thunder trailers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom