Depends on the damage. A plane taking out bit of the mast as it's going down, that's easy.Would a wooden ship even be salvageable?
A direct 250lb hit, less so.
Depends on the damage. A plane taking out bit of the mast as it's going down, that's easy.Would a wooden ship even be salvageable?
While I'd like to think she'd be repaired, the RN had two other Ships of the Line during WWII, the Implacable and the Wellesley. The HMS Wellesley was hit by a German bomb and eventually sank due to her damage. And in 1949, the HMS Implacable was scuttled when the RN didn't want to spend the 200,000 pounds to fix her. This despite the vessel being a Trafalgar veteran herself (granted as a French ship, but she was there non the less). Having said all that, I'm forced to say that, while my heart says yes, the rest of me says no
The Constitution is still on the US Navy ships registry & a commissioned ship in the US Navy. What is the status of the Victory?
I remember a 1982 cartoon...
...The 'Rusty B' ('HMS Bulwark') was under review to be refitted to (I think) replace 'Atlantic Conveyor', the cartoon had the bows of 'HMS Victory' visible through a window being towed out by a tug!
But not yet the Cutty Sark!
I did have Commander Cartwright suggest sending Cutty Sark to Egypt for grain in After London. Didn't go down well, but his men had just "acquired" a saw mill HMQ had her eyes on.Why am I not surprised, PLP?
There's life in 'HMS Victory', yet, methinks!
After all, my TLs have had London's heritage fleet at sea again... HQS Wellington, HMS Belfast, SS Robin, HMS President, the Steam Tug Portwey and others. But not yet the Cutty Sark!
Think I must consider a book rewrite of the Greater London opus...
Fully restored. They did a good job too from what I can tell.What's her status? Didn't she burn not terribly long ago?
At that point in time, wasn't there a real danger of her stern literally falling off?To be fair in the 20's she was in danger of sinking, and they did what they thought was best to preserve her. Given Britain's attitude to preserving warships, that in its self is something of a miracle.
The USN has that same problem with Constitution. Finding enough live and white oak to repair her. They've gotten lucky a couple of times. Twice when Hurricanes Andrew and Hugo knocked down a ton of Live Oak trees in the south. The USN got a ton of wood then. Another time they literally found a warehouse full of oak that had been stockpiled for a building program that never happened. And now they have a dedicated grove of trees that they use for the purpose. It gives them just barely enough to refit her every ten years. I think in total, the only part of Constitution that's original at this point is her keel. I can't imagine how much lumber would be needed to repair Victory to a similar standard as Old Ironsides.Something like that. To keep her afloat they'd have had to take her almost completely apart and rebuild her from the keel up with many of the timbers having to be completely replaced. Just finding enough oak of the right size would have been a challenge. Britain's woodlands were very depleted. During WWI the US and Canada shipped wood to Britain by building single use wooded ships that were broken up when they'd been unloaded of other cargo.