I must admit I have recently developed an interest in and a soft spot for the Panzerschiff Admiral Scheer. These are some postcards of her I have picked up in recent weeks , the seaplanes looks to be a "cut and paste job".
Nice pics Cally, one question, the Gun Turrets at the rear, was this a purely French Design or did other nations have ships with this configuration? I'm not expert but I cant recall seeing that layout before. As far as I know this was purely a French design configuration - of course the Richelieu shared this arrangement with the Jean Bart other than in the area of the AA guns, which were arranged more conventionally around the superstructure in the case of the Jean Bart - which was another fine Battleship....
H.M.S. Belfast. Excellent ship, cracking history and easily accessable for everyone! Have to agree with you that she was indeed an excellent ship although she looked far superior back in her earliest form than she does today in that ludicrously overstated dazzle paint job. Here she was back in 1939 - simply gorgeous!
The German Battlecruiser Scharnhorst was a beautiful warship ;but my favourite ship is/was HMS Anemone K48 Corvette-(My father's old ship.) jainso31
I am a corvette man myself ,due to my old dad serving in one from 1940-43 in th Nth Atlantic.But I have sneaking regard for the pride of the British Fleet-HMS Renown-one of the fastest and who's gunnery was seldom surpassed.
I have to vote HMS Warspite for more than living up to its name and proving its value for money! Her onbaord aircraft was the first to sink a Uboat - but best of all in my eyes was how relutantly she went to her end...after so many collisions, bombings, minings, battles, bombings from Aircraft - she wouldn't be scrapped and instead forced her crew to beach her during a storm! USS Yorktown - She and her Airwing tipped the Balance at Midway and paid the price although she didn't go easily despite multiple bombs, several japanese torpeado's and a serious hanger fire. In the end her escorting destroyer had to sink her. HMS Ark Royal - Probably the most 'reportadly' sunk ship in history - German Properganda would constantly claim that she had been sunk - Ironically when she did eventually sink - the first the Germans knew about it was after the BBC reported it. Her air group despite being obsolete Stringbags and 'designed by committee' Fairy Fulmars (which were suprisingly effective when used to intercept German and Italian bombers). One of the saddest stories about her airgroup that i read once was that one of the Fulmars was flown by Admirals Summervilles Son and the lad was killed within sight of the carrier. A quick note on design as this has been discussed The Nelson and Rodney were both designed and built according to the Washington Navy Treaty of 1922 which among other things limited tonnage of certain classes of ships between nations. The 'unconventional' 3 turrets forward of the Bridge layout was a compromise - the Royal Navy had wanted the G3 and N3 Battleships to replace all the older Battleship and Battle cruisers but with the 1922 treaty were suddenly limited to 35k tons. So they kept the bits of the G3 and N3 designs they liked, but had to use less armor, having the main guns were they were reduced the amount of armor needed than if they had been 2 turrets fore and 1 or 2 aft.
Firstly a fine picture of Renown taken in 1932, followed by an interesting study of Warspite taken not long after completion and finally a postcard showing clearly the unuusual main gun layout on Nelson. Anybody who posts about their favourite warship I will always be happy to provide a picture of it for you.
Cally In the third image ,i wonder if all those ratings are gunnery rates.?? As on all my ships [me a gunnery rate] always fell in up fwd in my day Tot Glass
Favourite ship ? I have a few, Scharnhorst , Repulse , Richelieu , Iowa , and i have a real thing for schnell boots and elco pt boats.
Stock Footage - HMS Nelson, a British Battleship underway in United States. Ships of the Royal Navy - UK - 1922 HMS EREBUS HMS TERROR Extracted from ships of the UK 1922
Just reading back over this thread , enjoyable and good to catch up with it. Some names which I agree with , HMS Prince of Wales, Nelson , Rodney, George V. Sad but perhaps understandable that in a cash strapped post war GB that none of these could have been "saved for the nation", I wonder does anyone have any leads on any photographic record of these poor ships being scrapped or indeed any of the lesser know ships which were paid off in the post war years? (Have seen some of HMS Warspite after she ran aground).
My interests run a little off the beaten path. I've always had a soft spot for the small ships, in particular the Insect Class Gunboats. INSECT CLASS GUNBOATS - Yangtze - China gunboats Also the monitors of the Royal Navy, Erebus and Terror to be specific. Erebus class monitor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Just reading back over this thread , enjoyable and good to catch up with it. Some names which I agree with , HMS Prince of Wales, Nelson , Rodney, George V. Sad but perhaps understandable that in a cash strapped post war GB that none of these could have been "saved for the nation", I wonder does anyone have any leads on any photographic record of these poor ships being scrapped or indeed any of the lesser know ships which were paid off in the post war years? (Have seen some of HMS Warspite after she ran aground). Hi James I have hundreds of pictures of those fine RN battleships being scrapped although it is sad to see them. Of course one of these should have been preserved for the nation to see and the obvious candidate was of course the sadly underused and very last battleship ever HMS Vanguard. Although it is great that we at least have the cruiser Belfast preserved as a museum on the Thames, Vanguard would have been a much better ship to have been preserved if both was impossible.
Sorry I meant to add a few examples for James to my last post. 1. Anson. 1957. 2. Howe. 1958. 3. Nelson. 1949. 4. Orion. 1923. 5. Royal Sovereign. 1950.
There is something very sad about seeing ships, especially warships - many with glorious history - being broken up.
I have always been fascinated with the Maxman class minelayer. Just did a search and came up with some interesting stories. HMS MANXMAN - THE BOSONS LOCKER Stories and Yarns
Ah, built an Airfix model of Manxman many years ago, tiny little thing, but my Dad reckoned it was one of the fastest ships in the Navy, kit instructions certainly seemed to confirm that. 40+ knots? Amazing. Believe sister ship was Abdiel, were there any others?
Ah, built an Airfix model of Manxman many years ago, tiny little thing, but my Dad reckoned it was one of the fastest ships in the Navy, kit instructions certainly seemed to confirm that. 40+ knots? Amazing. Believe sister ship was Abdiel, were there any others? Mike A similar ship was the fast minelayer HMS Apollo from 1944 to 1961. Met a bloke at a football match last week and he served on her in about !953-4. He said she regularly sped at 40 knots like her sister class cruisers. Exhilarating he said. What a tragic loss befell HMS Abdiel at Taranto Rattler
