Unluckiest Warship

General naval discussions that don't fit within any specific time period or cover several issues.
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19kilo
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

Post by 19kilo »

Shinano.
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neil hilton
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

Post by neil hilton »

19kilo wrote:Shinano.
Ouch. Straight off the slipway and down she goes, almost as if she was deliberately stalked! :wink:
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RF
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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But not quite as fast as the Wasa,
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mike kemble
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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lwd wrote:Didn't the Mary Rose suffer a similar fate?
Mary Rose suffered the fate of quite a few ships of her time, top heavy and unseaworthy. She sailed into the Solent and rough seas upset her 'balance' and she capsized and sank. Pretty to look at but - bloody useless.
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neil hilton
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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mike kemble wrote:
lwd wrote:Didn't the Mary Rose suffer a similar fate?
Mary Rose suffered the fate of quite a few ships of her time, top heavy and unseaworthy. She sailed into the Solent and rough seas upset her 'balance' and she capsized and sank. Pretty to look at but - bloody useless.
From what I've read she was unseaworthy because HVIII had her refitted with more guns, which meant more holes in her side close to the waterline.
And when the captain (who was not a professional mariner but a 'gentleman' who bought his comission) tried to manoeuvre the ship with too much canvas up she heeled over (which was normal) but too far and the gunports (which were open because she was going into battle) went underwater.
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mike kemble
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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I think thats probably quite accurate.
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neil hilton
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

Post by neil hilton »

Having said my previous post I saw a tv program about the sinking of the Mary Rose and how archeologists were examining it. They have found that more than half the crew were actually Spanish! This meant communications problem between the top deck and the gun deck which may well have caused the sinking.
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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This last post could almost breed a conspiracy theory.......Mary Rose sunk by the Spanish!
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mike kemble
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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I saw a documentary on the MR and they said the ENGLISH crew .................
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neil hilton
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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The tv program was called 'Ghosts of the Mary Rose' on the National Geographic channel. It will probably be repeated soon, check it out.
Does seem like perfect material for a conspiracy theory!
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

Post by mike kemble »

the one I saw was the actual raising of the ship from the Solent and Naval people were running down the lists of what should be on board, from original manifests, and this included the crew.
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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How about HMS Curacoa, run over by the Queen Mary that it was trying to protect!
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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Nobody mentions Glorius which was very unlucky in having a captain of questionable sanity. Glorius should never have been at sea with just two destroyers after Norway but Hughes was frothing to court martial a subordinate so he had to get back to Scapa. Hughes wouldn't even authorize a combat air patrol which would probably have driven off Scharnhorst and Gneisgnau because German admirals were forbidden to risk damage to their capital ships. Heck, even after sinking Glorious, Acasta and Ardent Admiral Marschall was sacked because Scharnhorst took a torpedo. To top it all off Scharnhorst scored an astounding 26,000 yard hit on Glorius, destroying some ready to go Swordfish and rendering the flight deck unusable. And after Glorius was sunk aboout 900 men who went in the water were left to die. That's bad luck.
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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frankwl wrote:Nobody mentions Glorius which was very unlucky in having a captain of questionable sanity. Glorius should never have been at sea with just two destroyers after Norway but Hughes was frothing to court martial a subordinate so he had to get back to Scapa. Hughes wouldn't even authorize a combat air patrol which would probably have driven off Scharnhorst and Gneisgnau because German admirals were forbidden to risk damage to their capital ships. Heck, even after sinking Glorious, Acasta and Ardent Admiral Marschall was sacked because Scharnhorst took a torpedo. To top it all off Scharnhorst scored an astounding 26,000 yard hit on Glorius, destroying some ready to go Swordfish and rendering the flight deck unusable. And after Glorius was sunk aboout 900 men who went in the water were left to die. That's bad luck.
There are two points here.

Firstly it is unlikely that an air patrol would have deterred Marschall. Air attack at sea on warships at that time was a largely untried concept; Glorious was carrying I believe land based aircraft and other primitive planes hardly likely to worry the Germans.

Secondly the fault of Scharnhorst being hit by Acasta was that of Captain Hoffman, Scharnhosts CO in misjudging the combing of torpedo tracks. Marschall was not on board as Gneisenau was flagship. Whilst the fact that Scharnhorst was torpedoed was undoubtedly used by Raeder it was not the main reason for Marschall being sacked by Raeder, which was down more to a clash of personalities between a Commander in Chief and a subordinate who was something of a ''loose cannon'' for excerising his own initiative more than Raeder liked. Note that Hoffman wasn't sacked or even reprimanded over the torpedo hit on Scharnhorst.
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Re: Unluckiest Warship

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I might add that Scharnhorst did pick up six survivors from Glorious. For the rest, yes they were left to die as the Germans needed to get out of the area fast.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
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