Warships that survived World War Two and should have been museums!
- Thread starter nortex
- Start date
For the Finnish Navy:
The coastal defence ship Väinämöinen. One of the two biggest ships of the Finnish Navy has built so far. Was handed over to the Soviets after WWII, and served as the Vyborg until being scrapped in 1966.
The minelayer Ruotsinsalmi. Built in 1940, along with its sister Riilahti it laid the bulk of the Finnish mine barrages of the Continuation War. Served the Navy for over three decades before being scrapped in 1974. Should have absolutely been retained as a museum ship.
The coastal defence ship Väinämöinen. One of the two biggest ships of the Finnish Navy has built so far. Was handed over to the Soviets after WWII, and served as the Vyborg until being scrapped in 1966.
The minelayer Ruotsinsalmi. Built in 1940, along with its sister Riilahti it laid the bulk of the Finnish mine barrages of the Continuation War. Served the Navy for over three decades before being scrapped in 1974. Should have absolutely been retained as a museum ship.
BRP Sultan Kudarat, formerly USS PCE-881 in World War II and then RVNS Đống Đa II during the Vietnam War, was the oldest ship in the Philippine Navy in terms of the year it was built (built in 1942 but entered the PN in 1975). After being decommissioned on July 5, 2019, plans are to have her as a museum.
I think the Phillipines still uses another WW2 ship just not as a ship. Years ago they intentionally rammed a old USN auxilary on a reef they claim in the spratleys. It has a permanent small garrison as a way of maintaining the claim. Though I think the Chinese " Little Blue Men" have them semi permanently blockaded forcing them to resupply via chopper.
Not quite a " Ship" but I wish Fort Drum " The concrete battleship" had survived WW2 in better shape and been preserved as a sort of " Museum". Though it still exists its in bad shape and not open for visitors.
The U-505 has been on display at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry for 50+ years and has not become a neo Nazi shrine. Over the years Chicago and its suburbs have had there share of neo Nazi activities, most notably the Skokie march, without the U-505 becoming an issue.
My one visit to the states was for an Adepticon in Schaumberg where I took part in a Kings of War tournament of all things.
My last day there me and my friend who had travelled with me from the UK visited the excellent U505 display at the excellent Museum of Science and Industry
Well worth a visit
You are referring to BRP Sierra Madre, which was an LST that saw service in Normandy in 1944, was sold to South Vietnam after WWII, and escaped to the Philippines after the Fall of Saigon in 1975. It was flying the USA flag so it could be admitted into Subic, since President Marcos only allowed 2,000 Vietnamese refugees to settle here.
She was placed there to serve as a permanent marker since the shoal can't be considered "living territory" without any people in it. The Chinese would not dare fire for they knew that would activate the Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States.
Yes, I still remember clearly the Philippine government's attempts to resupply the ship in early 2014. The first resupply mission was blocked by the Chinese so the navy used maritime patrol planes to drop the supplies. On March 29, 2014, another supply ship was able to slip past the giant China Coast Guard ship in a David vs. Goliath scenario. The Marines were successfully resupplied and few days later, were replaced with a new a batch of Marines.
Philippine supply ship evades Chinese vessel
SECOND THOMAS SHOAL, South China Sea (AP) — A Philippine government ship slipped past a Chinese coast guard vessel and brought food and fresh troops to a marooned navy ship used as a base by Filipino troops to bolster the country's territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea.
ABS-CBN special news coverage:
On Board the BRP Sierra Madre | ABS-CBN News
A reporter's behind-the-scenes log on the critical mission of the Philippine Navy to reach the BRP Sierra Madre in the disputed Ayungin Shoal.
news.abs-cbn.com
I was still first year college that time and it was the time I was following the news of the Syrian Civil War, the Crimean Crisis, and the search for MH370. It was just the beginning of Summer 2014 as classes ended on the 27th (seven years ago today as I posted, how timely. Just a reminder I'm not getting any younger). Man those were good times to be alive.
Fort Drum, the unsinkable concrete battleship of Manila Bay, is an interesting place but it is considered a hazard in the area. During the Cold War, it was cannibalized by scrappers for its precious metals. Even then, the topic of Fort Drum for defense experts is a can of worms since there are fanbois who have wet dreams thinking it could be reactivated.
Deleted member 147978
Here's my two cents in regards of would be museum ships.
HMS Vanguard
The Last Battleship the Royal Navy ever had. It's unfortunate that she had never seen any naval action that's basically render her useless when the age of the Battleship ended after WWII. Truly unfortunate she was deemed to be scrapped possibly for monetary reasons of maintain her in commission. Had she remained in the RN for the rest of the Cold War, and get upgraded with missiles (Just like the Iowa Class IOTL) I bet that she'll be a symbol of the long forgotten time when Britannia ruled the waves with massive steel-built Battleships.
SMS Goeben / TCG Yavuz
Without any reasonable doubt the last surviving Dreadnought-Style Battlecruiser not only in the world but the last Imperial German Ship to float beyond the Great War.
She was the ship that drove the Ottoman Empire on the CP Camp because of her pursuit from the Royal Navy. If she didn't make it, I'm skeptically sure the OE would remain neutral during the Great War.
While she served well under the Ottoman/Turkish Republican Navy since WWI right up to her decommissioning in 1950, it's tragically unfortunate that the West German Government weren't bothered in purchasing her. She suffered the same fate has Vanguard, sold as scrap metal. I wonder how would anyone in Turkey see and think of her as a museum ship.
HMS Vanguard
The Last Battleship the Royal Navy ever had. It's unfortunate that she had never seen any naval action that's basically render her useless when the age of the Battleship ended after WWII. Truly unfortunate she was deemed to be scrapped possibly for monetary reasons of maintain her in commission. Had she remained in the RN for the rest of the Cold War, and get upgraded with missiles (Just like the Iowa Class IOTL) I bet that she'll be a symbol of the long forgotten time when Britannia ruled the waves with massive steel-built Battleships.
SMS Goeben / TCG Yavuz
Without any reasonable doubt the last surviving Dreadnought-Style Battlecruiser not only in the world but the last Imperial German Ship to float beyond the Great War.
She was the ship that drove the Ottoman Empire on the CP Camp because of her pursuit from the Royal Navy. If she didn't make it, I'm skeptically sure the OE would remain neutral during the Great War.
While she served well under the Ottoman/Turkish Republican Navy since WWI right up to her decommissioning in 1950, it's tragically unfortunate that the West German Government weren't bothered in purchasing her. She suffered the same fate has Vanguard, sold as scrap metal. I wonder how would anyone in Turkey see and think of her as a museum ship.
The Dunquerque class were sleek and had a unique gun arrangement. It's a shame the French scrapped them.
There’s no way the U.K. could have done an Iowa and kept Vanguard in service, hell the RN would never be able to sustain a crew for her and struggled at times even when she was in service. The best she could have got was being picked as the historical ship over Belfast.
Deleted member 147978
I had said she had been scrapped on the basis of monetary reasons, however I get your point that it'll too difficult maintain her in commission. I'm only speculating her fate as a would be museum ship with a frivolous thought.
You are referring to BRP Sierra Madre, which was an LST that saw service in Normandy in 1944, was sold to South Vietnam after WWII, and escaped to the Philippines after the Fall of Saigon in 1975. It was flying the USA flag so it could be admitted into Subic, since President Marcos only allowed 2,000 Vietnamese refugees to settle here.
She was placed there to serve as a permanent marker since the shoal can't be considered "living territory" without any people in it. The Chinese would not dare fire for they knew that would activate the Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States.
Yes, I still remember clearly the Philippine government's attempts to resupply the ship in early 2014. The first resupply mission was blocked by the Chinese so the navy used maritime patrol planes to drop the supplies. On March 29, 2014, another supply ship was able to slip past the giant China Coast Guard ship in a David vs. Goliath scenario. The Marines were successfully resupplied and few days later, were replaced with a new a batch of Marines.
Philippine supply ship evades Chinese vessel
SECOND THOMAS SHOAL, South China Sea (AP) — A Philippine government ship slipped past a Chinese coast guard vessel and brought food and fresh troops to a marooned navy ship used as a base by Filipino troops to bolster the country's territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea.news.yahoo.com
ABS-CBN special news coverage:
On Board the BRP Sierra Madre | ABS-CBN News
A reporter's behind-the-scenes log on the critical mission of the Philippine Navy to reach the BRP Sierra Madre in the disputed Ayungin Shoal.news.abs-cbn.com
I was still first year college that time and it was the time I was following the news of the Syrian Civil War, the Crimean Crisis, and the search for MH370. It was just the beginning of Summer 2014 as classes ended on the 27th (seven years ago today as I posted, how timely. Just a reminder I'm not getting any younger). Man those were good times to be alive.
Fort Drum, the unsinkable concrete battleship of Manila Bay, is an interesting place but it is considered a hazard in the area. During the Cold War, it was cannibalized by scrappers for its precious metals. Even then, the topic of Fort Drum for defense experts is a can of worms since there are fanbois who have wet dreams thinking it could be reactivated.
I'm not sure how exactly it could be restored. It took pretty bad damage in 1945 when it was retaken (bombed to bits and then they landed US soldiers on it to pour burning gasoline down the vents to burn out the Japanese garrison that wouldn't surrender). It hasn't seen any maintenance in a tropical climate in the 70 odd years since then. And as you note scrappers have pretty heavily hit it over the years. I'm surprised they never managed to cut off the 14 inch gun barrels.
So you've got a deeply damaged structure possibly full of UXE thats been utterly guttered by fire and scrapping and where anything metal left in place has been rusted solid for nearly a century at this point.
You'd probably be better off finding a similar tiny island and building a reproduction on top of it.
Fort Drum was built around the 1920s to serve in the defense of Manila Bay against a hypothetical attack from the Royal Navy under War Plan Red. By the time of World War II, Fort Drum was already long obsolete.
Those fanbois who want it restored have dreams of placing a SAM system or an anti-ship battery in it but they fail to see the structure itself could no longer support those. Even more impractical because the Philippines' threat does not lie in Manila Bay but in the West Philippine Sea. Spending millions of pesos to restore a long-obsolete rusty seafort would be better off in investing for shore defenses in the choke points which may deny the PLA-N access to the Pacific Ocean.
Some have proposed to have Fort Drum as a war memorial in respect to the dead Americans and Japanese that fell in battle.
These sea forts are reminiscent to those seen in the English Channel, one of them being the famous self-declared country known as the Principality of Sealand.
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As a Turkish person I would love for Yavuz to be a museum ship. In Turkey or in Germany.
Wow the idea of actually restoring it into actual service never occurred to me. It seems frankly insane. Beyond the vast costs involved in actually restoring it to military standards the fact that it would be a pretty easy target for a sufficiently large LGB bunker buster seems to render the idea nutty. I mean maybe I could see the Philippine's deploying a couple of MANPAD teams and maybe one or two ATGM for use against landing craft or patrol boats or as an unarmed covert recon post but anything else seems insane.
I mean even with the rough state of the Fort you could probably still stick a couple of guys with a MANPAD on top. Maybe give them some camouflage netting so they can hide under the gun turrets.
If your looking for SAM or ASM missile batteries your better off with mobile affairs that can be covered in camouflage netting or take advantage of the team. MANPAD teams to take on low flying helicopters and attack planes and ATGM and recoilless rifle teams to bust up landing craft. The Israeli's make a variant of their rather nice SPIKE ATGM missiles for coastal defense roles. Ya know have them either deployed from vehicles or camouflage firing pits to bust up landing craft. I think the Finns and the Chileans have both procured them in some numbers for that role. Alternatively you guys could probably buy some cheap second hand TOWs off the US.
The idea of turning it into a memorial makes a lot more sense. Make it a war memorial with some sort of guided boat tour that goes up to and around the fort. Might bring in a few tourist dollars and since they wouldn't be doing much restoring it wouldn't cost much.
I mean I imagine the fort itself will probably be there for a very long time. It's basically just one big chunk of reinforced concrete. Even though it's been burnt out, raided by scrappers, and been exposed to tropical humidity and salt for seventy plus years it'll still probably outlast both of us if it isn't outright demolished with a few dozen tons of TNT.
I sort of kind of wish one of the Alaska's would have ended up a museum ship (even if it's one where it's put on dry land to save money). They might not have been worth the money or resources to build them but they'd make cool museum ships.
Same with say HMS Hood if she'd survived the war.
Hood being around would be great.
Also, not fitting the thread but Agincourt. Come on man, 7 turreted BB.
I'll go with an offbeat pick. The IJN Hosho, Japan's first purpose-built aircraft carrier. She managed to survive the war and served for a year as a repatriation ship before being decommissioned and scrapped. In an ATL, Hosho somehow winds up in Chinese Nationalist service after the war. Eventually she takes part in the retreat to Formosa and winds up as a museum ship for Taiwan.