Naval Equipment that should and shouldn't have entered service

Riain

Banned
True, but I don't understand why it is relevant.

People are talking about how it could go on British carriers after 1971 or so. If Britain keeps around long enough that the Jaguar M enters service the RN would have Phantom and Buccaneer fleets that are better than Jaguar Ms.
 

McPherson

Banned
Question to McP - why wasn't Enterprise saved?

Same reason as Warspite wasn't. Incompetence and too expensive to render safe for museum purposes. Both warships took incredible amounts of damage that rendered them economically unfit for that kind of fate.

Slade's facts may be disorganized, his opinions unpopular. But the damage cited and the real results remained (US navy ship's bills) that the conclusions were drawn from and still are all too real.

And besides citing British government records to further underpin and confirm the USN repair conclusions from the same source used to refute them ought to be worth looking at for the absolute hilarity involved.

HMS Belfast? Preserved as a private effort. Notable reason? IWM wanted to preserve a 6 in gun turret to match the 15 in ones they got from scrapped British battleships, and that ballooned out to preserve a whole ship. Why should she have been preserved? Battle of North Cape. How about USS Salem? As far as I can tell, for about the same reason as the HMS Belfast was picked to represent British WW II cruisers, she was just picked at random as a cold war era survivor to be an example of a US WWII era heavy cruiser.

Funny thing is that unlike Belfast, she did her career as a Mediterranean showboat. At least Belfast shot at somebody. I would have loved USS San Francisco to have made it. Now THAT was a cruiser.

McP
 
And Warrior, thanks to her being used as a refueling jetty (I think), and everyone forgot she was there long enough that by the time someone got curious enough to look more closely, and realised what she was, there was enough interest in warship preservation for her to be saved. If anything it reinforces your point even more.

Gives me the idea for a story where a bunch of dimensional travelling naval history nerds go back in time to a different dimension that's almost identical to our own in order to purchase/save/steal historical warships that were scrapped in OTL.
 
AAAh, M33 is only a baby monitor!!

Strangely enough the Russians seem to have a still floating example of their version of the US Designed ACW era Passaic Class Monitor.

It's still afloat and has apparently been used as a storage hulk/repair ship and retains a lot of original features. They seem to have just forgotten about her. Their are efforts underway to preserve her and restore her for display.

 

McPherson

Banned

Imagine what that will be when she is ready? 2035... Maybe the Americans are crazy to do it, but Hampton Roads was one of those key moments in history. Worth it.
 
AAAh, M33 is only a baby monitor!!
With her guns orginally being from one of the Queen Elizabeths(does anyone know which one?)since the aft secondaries on the QEs such had terrible problems with being dry in anything but the calmest seas which meant the RN simply plated the area over on all five QEs and used the guns on Monitors
 
AAAh, M33 is only a baby monitor!!
It's a shame HMS Roberts wasn't preserved. She lasted till 1965, and would look very impressive next to Victory.


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Gives me the idea for a story where a bunch of dimensional travelling naval history nerds go back in time to a different dimension that's almost identical to our own in order to purchase/save/steal historical warships that were scrapped in OTL.
I.... don't know where I'd begin :p simply too much to choose from!
 
With her guns orginally being from one of the Queen Elizabeths(does anyone know which one?)since the aft secondaries on the QEs such had terrible problems with being dry in anything but the calmest seas which meant the RN simply plated the area over on all five QEs and used the guns on Monitors
The QE's were wet boats from the start... remember seeing a photo a LONG time ago of the Queen Elizabeth in a heavy sea with her bow dipped under almost back to the "A" turret.... think if I'd been on her I might've been questioning the wisdom of my enlistment at the time :p
 
The QE's were wet boats from the start... remember seeing a photo a LONG time ago of the Queen Elizabeth in a heavy sea with her bow dipped under almost back to the "A" turret.... think if I'd been on her I might've been questioning the wisdom of my enlistment at the time :p
That's the price of being quite over their intended design weight
 
Huh just occurred to me that theoretically (with a lot of handwaving) the HMS Roberts could have provided NGS off of Vietnam. Weird.
RAN buys her in 1965 for scrap value, she's refurbished in the US while the USN trains gunners for her and she commissions in at the end of 1966. Joins the naval forces off Vietnam in 1967.
 
RAN buys her in 1965 for scrap value, she's refurbished in the US while the USN trains gunners for her and she commissions in at the end of 1966. Joins the naval forces off Vietnam in 1967.
Would there still be viable 15" shells and powder for her at that stage?
 
Would there still be viable 15" shells and powder for her at that stage?
Depends, while the BL 15" Mark I was out of service, the Vickers-Armstrong 15" B gun was in service until 2008, so if the weapons can share ammunition then that may be an option, have to deal with Franco of course
 
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