Naval History Forums

I could go on.... Ted How about HMS Wolverhampton???? I tend to agree with the RN Admiral who complained -in the 1960's?- that the list of RN ships names was starting to read like a British road atlas... Still they are keeping up some traditional names in, for example, HMS Iron Duke and the new Dar...

in many ways accurate fire is actually more difficult to achieve in training than in battle. I simply do not believe this: For example in battle one cannot pick the state of the sea or of visability. The target ship will most likely be moving at high speed on an unpredictable course, The Captain Of...

Britain has only really lost one war between the End of the American War of Independence in 1782 and the present day, the First Anglo-Boer War of 1880-81, since Gladstone would not send reinforcements after Majuba. Ted There was also the failure to complete the occupation of Afghanistan and make it...

I believe plans are in hand to preserve HMS Caroline once she pays off as an RNVR Drill ship. She is after all the last survivor of Jutland and the second oldest Commissioned RN Warship.
Ted

Very long range ship to ship at sea gunnery was never proven in actual combat. It remains a theory, that might, or might not, have worked in actual practice. Right, so the fashionable thing to do is to assume that it won't work, right? Kind of like Exocet missiles actually being dangerous to a Brit...

Ted, the main premise in that thread was naval rivalry between Britain and the USA, exacerbated by a British naval blockade of France resultring in British seizure of US merchant ships trading with France. Prior to WW1 the US Navy had considered the possibilty of a naval war with Britain caused by ...

Theory and practice in war, especially war at sea, are often not very close. To give a comparatively recent example, wisdom was that missles aided by radar guided DP main guns made lighter AA weapons obsolete on modern warships. In the Falklands, in an actual shooting war, the RN found that they did...

Actually only her -unarmoured- lower hull is in a bad state -easily replaced. She is actually in better condition than either the James Craig (now in Sydney) or the SS Great Britain (now in Bristol England) were before their restoration. She is a unique ship and very important in terms of both Austr...

The oldest surviving ironclad is HMS Warrior . She's currently at Naval Base Portsmouth, not far from HMS Victory . Yes I know HMS Warrior of 1860 and have been aboard her. Also in England is the sail and steam sloop HMS Gannet of 1878 (she is at Chatham in Kent). HMVS Cerberus of 1868 is the oldes...

I still do not see a British Government, especially a new British Government, going for this in terms of anything beyond some token force. It is one of the many dreams/nightmares of EU beaurocrats. No major member state will support it beyond token terms and cannot, since the member states do not ha...

The RN's "wargame" rules from the post-war period...

I hope this is the right place to put them...
Ted

http://www.btinternet.com/~david.manley ... s_1921.pdf

I think HMS Warspite might make the most famous list. Too late for WWII but HMS Vanguard would otherwise deserve a place in most powerful and most beautiful... Ted Why do you think the Vanguard could compete in the "most powerfull" league? She had excellent speed, was a good seaboat and h...

This has been a subject of great debate here in Australia. Some of it is now clearer with the discovery of the wreck of HMAS Sydney. Firstly there is no evidence at all of any Submarine, Japanese or otherwise, being involved in the action. Under another Captain, HMAS Sydney had a very fine fighting ...

Was there much to choose between the armour on Bismarck and a KGV? 19000 - 14500 = 4500 tons of armour ( 31% more armour on Bismarck ). The British KGV Class Battleships 28-29 knots. 38,031 tons. 745 feet length. 103 feet beam. 10 x 14 inch (2 rounds per minute. Maximum range 38,000 yards)16 x 5.25...

From my reading, any armed forces assigned to the EU by a member country are only assigned on a voluntary basis. This the EU never does anything militararily anyway, why assign any forces to it. I don't even see the French standing for other nations telling them what ships they may or may not have.....