WW2 British Battleships United Kingdom (1913-1946) 3 battlecruisers & 18 battleships 1915-1945 WW2 British battleships in 1939 mirrored those in the US and Japanese Navies of the time, essentially WW1 era dreadnoughts modernized at various stages during the interwar, and newly-built fast battleships that had to wait until the end of the prolonged ban of … Read more
Introduction For once, we left the guns to rest, and turn the bar back in time, with one of the most glorious page of sail: A long tradition that still is revered around the world, maintained by naval schools and living museums: The magnificent Tall ships and the invention of trading race: The great clippers … Read more
France (1881-90) – France’s ‘Grand Hotel’ The Hoche is now as then, the supreme ugly ducking in the nest, a testimony of how hard naval engineers of the time tried to push their luck with designs that had to square circles in terms of iron construction, heavy weaponry, stability as a gun platform, seaworthiness, and … Read more
Popular Science article, 1917. As USA entered the war and lacked everything including tanks, PopSci published an article about the idea of… putting old pre-dreadnoughts on tracks (or wheels in this case). We must remember that the idea was not that outlandish back in 1917. After all, the only significant fiction about the matter has … Read more
IJN Chin Yen: The first Japanese Ironclad Imperial Chinese Navy – Imperial Japanese Navy The result of the first Sino-Japanese war in 1894 was a devastated, scuttled Beiyang Fleet, the largest fleet ever fielded by the Chinese Empire so far since the days of Zheng He. The prize which topped it all were a pair … Read more
Dingyuan class ironclads (1881) Chinese Beiyang Fleet The first and last Chinese battleships The present ironclads had many names, in modern Chinese called 定远, they were known in pinyin as Dìngyǔan and in the Wade–Giles dictionary Ting Yuen or Ting Yuan. With her sister-ship Zhenyuan, Dingyuan was the largest military ship ever to bear the … Read more
WW2 American Cruisers USA, 1921-1947 – 62 cruisers From Omaha to Worcester, two decades of conventional cruiser development (1918-47) The term of ‘conventional cruiser‘ appeared in the late 1950s when the first missile cruisers were developed, notably in the US the “three T*” carrying ships, to describe a gun-armed vessel as primary armament. The USN … Read more
Quarto (1911) Italy (1911) Scout Cruiser The best Italian scout cruiser The Quarto was the third Italian modern scout cruiser in service in 1915, when Italy went at war on the side of the entente. She was a light protected cruiser of the Regia Marina started in 1910 at Venice Admiralty NyD and often favourably … Read more
Scutting of the Hochseeflotte (1919) And the fate of other Central Empires Navies The arrival of German delegates of the Hochseeflotte on HMS Queen Elisabeth in 1918. The end of the second largest European Navy: Today, 11 November 2018, we remember the sacrifice of an entire generation throughout Europe, four years of a fratricide war … Read more
Bundesmarine (1962-70) – 3 ships: Lütjens, Mölders, Rommel Called the class 103/103A/103B or more commonly Lütjens class, these were the main guided missile destroyers of the Bundesmarine (German Navy). The ships ships were built in 1966-1970 in the United States for the Federal Republic of Germany, based on the the American Charles F. Adams class. … Read more
