• 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?

bruto said:
True, but its battle record is a little bit scanty.
Click to expand...
HMS Dreadnought's battle record isn't that impressive either. She did sink a submarine by ramming - the only battleship ever confirmed as having achieved such a feat, but apart from that, says wiki:
Dreadnought did not participate in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 as she was being refitted. Nor did Dreadnought participate in any of the other First World War naval battles. In May 1916 she was relegated to coastal defence duties in the English Channel, not rejoining the Grand Fleet until 1918. The ship was reduced to reserve in 1919 and sold for scrap two years later.​
So her all big guns broadside never seems to have been fired in anger.
 
Craig B said:
HMS Dreadnought's battle record isn't that impressive either. She did sink a submarine by ramming - the only battleship ever confirmed as having achieved such a feat, but apart from that, says wiki:
Dreadnought did not participate in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 as she was being refitted. Nor did Dreadnought participate in any of the other First World War naval battles. In May 1916 she was relegated to coastal defence duties in the English Channel, not rejoining the Grand Fleet until 1918. The ship was reduced to reserve in 1919 and sold for scrap two years later.​
So her all big guns broadside never seems to have been fired in anger.
Click to expand...

I would say that's a pretty poor record, for sure, but if they made it out of the harbor they automatically drop to number 2, I think.
 
Why is it a poor record?

Most warships never see any action, most never even see a war.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Why is it a poor record?

Most warships never see any action, most never even see a war.
Click to expand...
But if the said ships are part of the fleet in service during a naval war they see it then all right. She was afloat during the only historical occasion when two battle lines of ships of a class of which Dreadnought was the eponym slugged it out in action - but she was being refitted at the time!
 
Last edited:
bruto said:
I would say that's a pretty poor record, for sure, but if they made it out of the harbor they automatically drop to number 2, I think.
Click to expand...

Captain_Swoop said:
Why is it a poor record?

Most warships never see any action, most never even see a war.
Click to expand...

And of those, presumably half have lost the action they took place in.

Rendering all other vesselsnavies obsolete and being the only battleship to sink an enemy submarine seems like a pretty good strategic record as well as tactical.
 
Last edited:
jimbob said:
And of those, presumably half have lost the action they took place in.

Rendering all other vesselsnavies obsolete and being the only battleship to sink an enemy submarine seems like a pretty good strategic record as well as tactical.
Click to expand...
I think you're right, and it's not too bad a record. I was merely struck by these ironies.
The Dreadnought inaugurated a new kind of navy but the one and only time ships of its class formed a major line of battle, the poor old Dreadnought wasn't there to participate. And historians are still arguing about who won that battle. Also Dreadnought's one success was to sink a submarine but by ramming, not the use of her much-vaunted guns. And you don't need a battleship to ram a submarine. A destroyer could do the job as well or better.

Moreover, one of the causes of that pointless Great War was the arms race inaugurated by the launch of the Dreadnought, which makes her a costly vessel indeed.
 
Cainkane1 said:
HMS Thunderchild. A torpedo ram fighting Martians. It lost its first and only battle with extra terrestrials.
Click to expand...
I had to look that up. At first I thought that HMS Thunderchild was itself a spscecraft, and that future cosmic wars were envisaged as being fought with fleets of interstellar torpedo rams, Armoured interplanetary turret ships, and casemate spaceships, protected by belts of steel plate.
 
Craig B said:
I had to look that up. At first I thought that HMS Thunderchild was itself a spscecraft, and that future cosmic wars were envisaged as being fought with fleets of interstellar torpedo rams, Armoured interplanetary turret ships, and casemate spaceships, protected by belts of steel plate.
Click to expand...

kookbreaker said:
Poopycock! She took out three of the Martian fighting machines before going down!
Click to expand...

And "Thunderchild" is the best possible name for a battleship.
 
bruto said:
I suppose in retrospect the Dreadnought wasn't so bad, though I suspect that its original hopes were for more front-line sorts of action.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Cainkane1 said:
HMS Thunderchild. A torpedo ram fighting Martians. It lost its first and only battle with extra terrestrials.
Click to expand...

Ulla!

Meanwhile, let me chime in with those who don't consider Dreadnought's record to be shameful. True, she was no Warspite, but she didn't embarrass herself, either. Take Hood, for example: Still a widely (if not universally) respected ship, but it was involved in only 2 actions that I can find. In the first, she fired on ships that were still docked; in the second, she was sunk without (AFAIK) scoring a hit. Surely Dreadnought's battle record is no worse than Hood's.
 
Last edited:
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...

Although both went on to have useful service lives with the Greek navy.
 
I wonder what the average number of surface actions is for a capital ship, during the lifetime of its original commission.

I'd also argue that successfully serving as a "fleet in being" is just as much a win as actually fighting and winning a naval engagement. Most USN supercarriers will never see a serious naval engagement. Mostly because their very existence makes such engagements unlikely. Mission accomplished.
 
theprestige said:
I wonder what the average number of surface actions is for a capital ship, during the lifetime of its original commission.

I'd also argue that successfully serving as a "fleet in being" is just as much a win as actually fighting and winning a naval engagement. Most USN supercarriers will never see a serious naval engagement. Mostly because their very existence makes such engagements unlikely. Mission accomplished.
Click to expand...

That's correct. The USN commissioned something like 56 battleships over a period of around 50 years, and had them in commission for nearly 100 years, 1895 to 1993. The total number of engagements they ever had with other battleships was three.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom