Warships that should never been built?

McPherson

Banned
Warning
Nice map.

Still not entirely sure how this reinforces your opinion that Italy were better than the British at Convoying

Maybe the light is different that side of the looking glass eh? ;)

1. The British had an easier convoy problem. Those were only Germans after all. The Italians were fighting the British, an enemy with a far bigger air force, a much more technologically advanced navy, and with better infrastructure and logistics assets in the Med.
2. Why are the Italians better at whack-a-sub? They did not have ASDIC and their other ASW gear is decidedly (on paper) inferior.
3. In the clash of the light forces, the RN and the RM at best are honors even.
4. Getting 90% through with the Germans as your inept allies blabbing your secrets and as tyros at sea and in the face of enemy air superiority has got to count for something?

Just for starters.

BTW, that map is how the Americans saw the European War. Blue is SLOCs, Green is land actions. Lavender is Soviet LLOCs and RED is of course the anvil moving west to meet the Wallie hammer moving east.
 

McPherson

Banned
Actually the Swedish navy judgment. They built four of this during WW2 and upgraded and kept them long after the war.

CollinsClassSub20120315.jpg


The Swedes built the Vasa and it sank. The Swedes developed the Collins for Australia and that (^^^) NEVER was right, even after the Australians brought in the Americans to sort it out.
 
CollinsClassSub20120315.jpg


The Swedes built the Vasa and it sank. The Swedes developed the Collins for Australia and that (^^^) NEVER was right, even after the Australians brought in the Americans to sort it out.
But they didn't build three more Vasas and kept them in their own service for 30 years.
People tend to keep what works and sell what the costumer wants and makes a decent profit.
 
AdmiralUshakov1981.jpg

And here's the Sverdlov class Light Cruiser, a class of ship that might've been the state of the art in the early 1950s, but was became horribly obsolete by the end of the decade. The Soviets kept these ships until the 1980s, and even a few soldiered on until the late 1990s.

You know, the Sverdlovs were definitely a suboptimal move, and in this respect maybe they fulfill the OP condition of a "warship that should never have been built." But I am hard pressed to say that it really belong anywhere near the top of the list of such ships. And the fact is, I think, they weren't *worthless* - just not the best use of Soviet defense dollars.
  • At a time when NATO powers were moving away from heavy armor, the Sverdlovs retained enough to be a threat (perceived threat, at least). And this threat in turn was key in forcing the British to develop the Buccaneer. So this had some value: It forced the British to spend major defense dollars to react.
  • The Soviets had the good sense to cancel the class in 1959 and shift resources before they got *too* obsolete.
  • The Soviets also had the good sense to at least try to equip the surviving ships with Scrubbers and Volkhov-M's. Granted, it didn't really work; but there was at least the effort to try to keep them up to date, and it wasn't the Sverdlovs' fault that Soviet missile technology of the day was so immature.
And on top of all that, I can't help but grade the Soviets at this point in time on a wee bit of a curve, because they knew so little of what they were about in warship design and operation. A Sverdlov is a bit more forgivable than something like the Courbets, a ship design the MN had every reason to know was a complete lemon - even for just countering second-class rivals being deployed by Italy and Austria-Hungary - and yet built 'em anyway. The same, of course, is even more true of the Alaskas - but enough has been said about them already.
 
So what?
Those two ships were lost in an explosion, then the Swedes built two replacement ships of the very similar Visby class that served until 1978.
Does that somehow indicates that the Swedish navy in the 40s was a bad judge of seakeeping?
They tested the Spicas they bought, then set about to build four impproved ones that had a modified hull for better seakeeping, and liked the new ships so much they modernised and kept them until the 70s.
How is that indicative of poor seakeeping?. Your whole point seems to be that you looked at a photo of Mode and decided it was top heavy.
 
900 shells; 5 US and 4 Japanese HEAVYWEIGHT torpedoes. USS Hornet hung on for hours as a hulk. A Yorktown would have shrugged off a 800 kg special. Shōkaku was mission killed by 2, count them 2 x 454 kg bombs which were not even square hits at Coral Sea and was out a year. Enterprise shrugged off those kinds of hits at Santa Cruz and came back within 3 months. USS Cavalla murdered Shōkaku with 3 torpedoes, 2 confirmed as hitting.
Thank you for one of the worst responses I have ever had. It is a quite spectacular display of bad faith debating from the first line.
When discussing the effects of bomb hits you go straight to shells and torpedoes ... which is absolutely not the point. And a vessel being reduced to a crippled hulk is hardly a ringing endorsement of its capabilities. (And pointedly this was an era in which USN torpedoes had so many faults that the cumulative failure rate exceeded 100%)
There is nothing to suggest that a single bomb that sank a battleship can be shrugged off by a less heavily armoured carrier, to be clear the evidence is quite noticeably otherwise. Yorktown was Mission Killed, ie. rendered immobile, by a single, that's one count it, 250kg bomb at Coral Sea, Shokaku was put out of action by 2, count them 2 x 1000lb bombs. Its not the same thing.
And there is nothing remarkable by about a ship being sunk by 3 torpedo hits.

I apologise to anyone else that has been subjected to this.
 

McPherson

Banned

You can learn a LOT about a navy about how they create peacetime disasters for themselves. Just from memory the Swedish board of inquiry did a masterful coverup. But from what little evidence there is available, there were three theories.

1. Fire, unknown cause, set off the torpedoes.
2. The torpedoes, unknown reasons, decided to spontaneously explode.
3. Swedish bomber on training mission, dropped a bomb by accident.

My own opinion? Fires, cause unknown. As for the Goteborgs, that 12 cm gun between the funnels = the Swedes did not know what they did.

Those two ships were lost in an explosion, then the Swedes built two replacement ships of the very similar Visby class that served until 1978.

If you look at the Visbys the torpedo flat has been changed, the topweight has been extensively reduced, the hydronamics (hull was lengthened) was vastly improved and they carried a lot more firefighting gear. I also believe the torpedoes were changed. Also the main armament layout is RADICALLY different.

Does that somehow indicates that the Swedish navy in the 40s was a bad judge of seakeeping?

(^^^) If you lesson learn, that means you are inexperienced, not that you are stupid.
They tested the Spicas they bought, then set about to build four impproved ones that had a modified hull for better seakeeping, and liked the new ships so much they modernised and kept them until the 70s.

Same comments, overall.

How is that indicative of poor seakeeping?. Your whole point seems to be that you looked at a photo of Mode and decided it was top heavy.

Superstructure was made mostly of aluminum. The Swedes were concerned about TOPWEIGHT. They should have been.
 
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McPherson

Banned
Thank you for one of the worst responses I have ever had. It is a quite spectacular display of bad faith debating from the first line.
When discussing the effects of bomb hits you go straight to shells and torpedoes ... which is absolutely not the point. And a vessel being reduced to a crippled hulk is hardly a ringing endorsement of its capabilities. (And pointedly this was an era in which USN torpedoes had so many faults that the cumulative failure rate exceeded 100%)
There is nothing to suggest that a single bomb that sank a battleship can be shrugged off by a less heavily armoured carrier, to be clear the evidence is quite noticeably otherwise. Yorktown was Mission Killed, ie. rendered immobile, by a single, that's one count it, 250kg bomb at Coral Sea, Shokaku was put out of action by 2, count them 2 x 1000lb bombs. Its not the same thing.
And there is nothing remarkable by about a ship being sunk by 3 torpedo hits.

I apologise to anyone else that has been subjected to this.

1. Overall the Yorktowns were subjected to enormous amounts of damage by Japanese weaponry which they survived far better than British battleships.
2. Explosive force from a torpedo = near miss explosive force from a bomb. What happened to the Prince of Wales at quayside when the Luftwaffe bombed her?
3. Yorktown was in the fight at Midway about 3 weeks after Coral Sea after an incredible speed run. If that is a mission kill, then your definition and mine are different. Enterprise took 3 bombs at Eastern Solomons, was plated over, still in the fight at Santa Cruz (about a month and a half). Took 2 bombs there and STILL was mission capable, because she completed the battle after mid-battle repairs.
4. Shokaku's bow hit was the one that put her out of action for a year. The other bomb was a 2 month repair.

5. These details matter. These metrics about how ships survive weapon effects matter. The Yorktowns for all their faults, and those were many, could take beatings that many warships could not survive. This is the historical record.

McP.
 
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You can learn a LOT about a navy about how they create peacetime disasters for themselves. Just from memory the Swedish board of inquiry did a masterful coverup. But from what little evidence there is available, there were three theories.

1. Fire, unknown cause, set off the torpedoes.
2. The torpedoes, unknown reasons, decided to spontaneously explode.
3. Swedish bomber on training mission, dropped a bomb by accident.

My own opinion? Fires, cause unknown. As for the Goteborgs, that 12 cm gun between the funnels = the Swedes did not know what they did.



If you look at the Visbys the torpedo flat has been changed, the topweight has been extensively reduced, the hydronamics (hull was lengthened) was vastly improved and they carried a lot more firefighting gear. I also believe the torpedoes were changed. Also the main armament layout is RADICALLY different.



(^^^) If you lesson learn, that means you are inexperienced, not that you are stupid.


Same comments, overall.



Superstructure was made mostly of aluminum. The Swedes were concerned about TOPWEIGHT. They should have been.
So, to cut a long post short, you didn't find any actual complaints about the Mode sea keeping.
 
Of course I did have some complaints.
Again, that's just your impression from photos. The issue is whether there are any sources that the Swedish Navy had complaints regarding the Mode class sea keeping, since they actually sailed the ships and didn't just take a look at their photos.
But since this is not chat, and again you follow your usual MO of trying to lecture people on unrelated issues, i'll pass.
 
1. The British had an easier convoy problem. Those were only Germans after all. The Italians were fighting the British, an enemy with a far bigger air force, a much more technologically advanced navy, and with better infrastructure and logistics assets in the Med.
2. Why are the Italians better at whack-a-sub? They did not have ASDIC and their other ASW gear is decidedly (on paper) inferior.
3. In the clash of the light forces, the RN and the RM at best are honors even.
4. Getting 90% through with the Germans as your inept allies blabbing your secrets and as tyros at sea and in the face of enemy air superiority has got to count for something?

Just for starters.

BTW, that map is how the Americans saw the European War. Blue is SLOCs, Green is land actions. Lavender is Soviet LLOCs and RED is of course the anvil moving west to meet the Wallie hammer moving east.

You really need to stop treating threads like a contest to be won at any cost. It's downright unpleasant to discuss things with people who will defend minor off topic points to the death while evading the main thrust of a discussion. Treat threads as an opportunity for discussion, not a platform for you to filibuster.
 
I can tell you one thing that's true, every Soviet Battleship/Battlecruiser program was a massive waste of steel, guns,skilled shipyard workers, machinery,money, and above all else a waste of the time as related to a large chunk of the Soviets fairly limited pool of naval designers
 
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I can tell you one thing that's true, every Soviet Battleship/Battlecruiser program was a massive waste of steel, guns,skilled shipyard workers machinery,money, and above all else a waste of the time as related to a large chunk of the Soviets fairly limited pool of naval designers
In which that steel could've been better suited for other stuff like smaller warships, submarines, tanks, or aircraft.
 
Parenthetically, that was also what happened to the Space Shuttle. It had to be large enough to carry a spy satellite (which it never did), which entailed going to the hull tiles, which of course caused the Columbia disaster. The costs of development meant that the Manned Flyback Stage had to be omitted, which led to the Challenger disaster. And with the usual delays for everyone and their sibling putting in something . . .
Not really. NASA settled on a 15 foot x 60 foot payload bay and an orbital payload capacity of 65 000 pounds (i.e. the actual dimensions and capacity of the payload bay) very early in the design process, well before the Air Force got involved. Why? Space station modules, especially once it became apparent that they weren't going to have Saturn Vs around to launch them. The fact that the payload bay happened to be the same size as the largest payloads that the Air Force wanted to launch wasn't a driver of these decisions, but it was a bureaucratic cudgel that they could wield to overcome objections from OMB and Congress.

And the tiles weren't selected because of the size, but because given what they knew at the time they were absolutely the best available technology for creating a reusable space vehicle. The first alternative was ablatives, which experience with the X-15-A2 proved were finicky, ablated in unpredictable and aerodynamically unsettling ways, and, worst of all, required gargantuan amounts of labor between flights to refurbish, obviously a non-starter when the whole point was to make space operations cheap and routine. The other possible alternative technology was a metallic heat-shield, which on the face of it sounds good until you realize that those materials had numerous problems with the harsh thermo-chemical environment of reentry (they tended to oxidize), which had been the focus of intense materials science research for a number of years but not entirely overcome. By comparison, the silica materials looked absolutely amazing.
 
The downmass and cross-range requirements for the purported satellite theft mission were what drove the size and weight of the wings, not the size of the payload bay or the TPS material, although NASA might have picked them up just so Vandenberg launches could do a once-around abort.
 
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