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thomo
Barlick Born Old Salt
2021 Posts
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 Posted -
03/06/2007
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11:46
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In this field, America comes out tops and in that country there are over 200 preserved vessels of all kinds. Our country on the other hand developed a "We wont be needing this again" attitude after several wars that were going to be the last! I once saw a film of perfectly good aeroplanes being bulldozed off the back of an Aircraft Carrier, no good asking for our pots and pans back then.
Of all the British Battleships that saw WW1, only one specimen survives, and although she a British built "Majestic" class ship, she belongs to the Japanese. The pre- Dreadnought "Mikasa" built by Vickers and launched 08. 11. 1900. She is now at Yokosuka as a memorial ship having served as Admiral Togo's Flagship at the battle of Tsushima in 1905. Built at Barrow in Furness at a cost of £880,000 with a displacement of 15,000 tons, OA length 132m & beam of 23.2m, her power was provided HP Triple Expansion engines developing 15,000 HP from coal fired boilers. The Americans also have a WW1 first generation Dreadnought, "USS Texas" preserved at San Jacinto, Texas, She is a New York Class ship built in 1912 and is 573' long and 27,000 tons. she was powered by Verticle Triple Expansion engines developing 28,100 HP. Her main armament being 10 x 14" guns in five turrets.
The largest surviving group of vessels of a single class are the American "Iowa" class Battleships "USS Iowa" is currently at the Naval College at Rhode Island, "USS New Jersey" is at New Jersey, "USS Missouri" is at Pearl Harbour and "USS Wisconsin" at Norfolk Virginia. Design characteristics are: 45,000 tons displacement, 887' OA Length, 108' 2" Beam, powered by steam turbines at 212,000 HP their main armament being 9 x 16" guns in three triple turrets. Also preserved is the "USS North Carolina" class name Battleship at Wilmington, North Carolina, The South Dakota Class Battleship "Massachusetts" is at Fall River Mass. and another ship of this class "USS Alabama" is at Mobile. At 35,000 tons she appeared in the 1992 film "Under Siege" with Steven Segal in her guise as USS Missouri. During this bit of research I came across another "FilmStar" another preserved ship. "USS Salem" a "Des Moine" class Heavy Cruiser, she was the one that posed rather badly as "The Graf Spee" in the film "Battle of the River Plate" and is now a Museum ship at Quincey, Mass, where she was built. So there we are, nine Battleships to date and all but one of them in America.
thomo
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Ribble Rouser
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Posted - 14/01/2008 : 19:31
Hey Thomo. Thanks for this. Good idea. Please ignore my original post in ‘Articles’. I found you after all. But no one seems to want to play with this thread…till now.
I was saddened by the fate of HMS Warspite, but the old girl seemed to do her best in the end to make it pretty difficult for the breakers to have their way. What a disgrace to dispose of such an historic vessel. It couldn’t have owed the taxpayer anything and must have meant a lot to generations of sailors and families, not to mention the GP.
Does HMS Warrior count as an example of domestic preservation? A pre-pre-pre dreadnaught battleship…perhaps the first of the ironclad battleships? http://www.hmswarrior.org/. Waddaya say?
Yon in Port Phillip, in Half Moon Bay, we have a rapidly deteriorating example of a breast-work monitor, HMVS Cerberus, sometimes described as an early battleship (probably by those who purchased this rather ineffectual beast). Virtually the next step on the progression to modern battleships from HMS Warrior. Preserved it most certainly isn’t. Another disgrace. Not so many years ago, used to take a breath on one side of the hull amidships, descend down the plates, swim through a hole into the boiler room, have a look around, exit through another hole and surface on the other side. Still had four 10” Armstrong RMLs in the Coles Turrets in those days. Beautiful teak decks that were dry at high tide, unless there was a chop. Some brass fittings. Peace signs from the 1960s. Then in 1996, the hulk suffered a structural collapse in a storm. The frames finally failed because a several hundred ton hull was holding up a several thousand ton armoured deck and superstructure. Der! Now all the authorities have done in recent years is to remove some of the guns, drop them adjacent on the bottom, hook them up as anodes, monitor the corrosion rate and zone the hulk RESTRICTED AREA DO NOT ENTER. Makes you sick. Here you go: http://www.cerberus.com.au/ Poor old Cerberus. Iconic place for us old water babies. At least something is being attempted, even if it is twenty-five years too late.
Edited by - Ribble Rouser on 14/01/2008 19:33:33
it's bums that count 'ere; not 'ats  |
thomo
Barlick Born Old Salt
2021 Posts
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Posted - 15/01/2008 : 15:53
Thanks for that, I have mountains of info to plough through, and have been busy with other things. I think I have a pic somewhere of Cerberus.
thomo |
Tizer
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Posted - 15/01/2008 : 17:07
RR, thanks for raising this thread from the depths - as a recent OGFB registrant I didn't see it first time around.
And thomo, if you have pictures of battleships I'm sure that others, like me, would love to see some here. I did a site search for "battleship" but nothing came up in the pictures category.
My interest stems from when I was a child in the 50s. I spent hours building plastic kits of planes and warship. Also, I would go to Blackburn Library, take Churchill's history of the Second Word War off the shelves and look through to find information on battleships.
I know what you mean, RR, about Warspite. There is a plaque dedicated to Warspite in Marazion, at Mount's Bay Cornwall, where it ran aground on its way to the breakers. I sometimes stay near there and walk along the stretch of cliffs where she ran aground. When you stand and look you can imagine the extraordinary scene with this enormous battleship taking up the view! And you can imagine even further back to the earlier years of the 20th century when the review of the fleet was sometimes held in Mount's Bay.
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thomo
Barlick Born Old Salt
2021 Posts
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Posted - 15/01/2008 : 18:21
Amongst the data that I have amassed, I probably have pics of every Battleship ever built, and even the Japanese have a preserved 1909 vessel that was built here. I served on the last Warspite, nuclear submarine for a while, mostly in the Indian Ocean.
thomo |
Ribble Rouser
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Posted - 17/01/2008 : 13:48
Hey Thomo, love to see some of the battleship photos you have, if it is appropriate to post them here and/or you have the time. May I request an identification challenge, where you post one-at-a-time...next post requires identification of the current ship? Just a loony idea. Don’t worry if it doesn’t sit right and let me know if I'm out of line.
it's bums that count 'ere; not 'ats |
Ribble Rouser
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Posted - 17/01/2008 : 14:07
Here is an example of a USN preserved vessel, a particularly interesting one berthed at Penn’s Landing Philadelphia, the home of the Independence Seaport Museum. It is the USS Olympia, a 5586-ton protected cruiser built at San Francisco, commissioned in 1895, struck off in 1922. The Americans claim that it is the oldest steel warship still afloat. Here is a link to the museum site: http://www.phillyseaport.org/ships_olympia.shtml. A concise history and some photos of the vessel can be found at: http://www.spanamwar.com/olympia.htm
it's bums that count 'ere; not 'ats |
Tizer
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Posted - 17/01/2008 : 14:32
RR, The battleship teaser is a good idea!
Your first link in the last post (phillyseaport) gives "Bad Request (Invalid URL)". The Olympia on the other site is great.
Tizer
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thomo
Barlick Born Old Salt
2021 Posts
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Posted - 17/01/2008 : 16:44
Is it steel or is it iron, if is the latter, then HMS Warrior predates it by 35 years.
thomo |
frankwilk
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Posted - 17/01/2008 : 17:05
Maybe this is the link
http://www.phillyseaport.org/ships_index.shtml
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
Tizer
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Posted - 17/01/2008 : 20:29
Thanks Frank. I wouldn't mind if they wanted to loan us the Olympia for a while! - Tizer
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Ribble Rouser
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Posted - 18/01/2008 : 00:21
Quite right, Thomo. But USS Olympia is most definitely steel. Speaking of early steel vessels, we have the remains of what is reputed to be the first mild steel hull ship, the SS Rotomahana. Built for the Union Steam Ship Company by William Denny & Brothers, Dumbarton, on the Clyde, 1879, she was quite a technical innovation in her time. This vessel plied the trans Tasman route between New Zealand and Oz. Known for its exaggerated clipper bow and high speed. This is one of the vessels that now lies in an area outside Port Phillip Heads known as the Ship’s Graveyard, having been scuttled there in 1928. I have dived her remains many times. It’s a bit deep for comfort (42-46 metres), but the effort is worth it. In the early days, the bow was still discernable and the site was dominated by four enormous boilers. But it was always broken up and scattered...I suppose the corrosion of mild steel was rapid and extensive. The site was such a mess we used to call her the Rotten Banana. Most of the iron and steel wrecks from that era and earlier are now in an advanced state of collapse (oddly enough many older wooden hulled ships are in a better state of preserve).
Post-banana-script: Interestingly, there is a regular rugby match called the Rotomahana Challenge, which is contested between the Waratahs (NSW) and Crusaders (NZ) to commemorate the ship running aground in Auckland Harbour in 1882, while taking the Waratahs on a tour of NZ.
 Perhaps I will say more about the occupants of the Ship’s Graveyard in another post...something submersive specially for Thomo...
it's bums that count 'ere; not 'ats |
softsuvner
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Posted - 18/01/2008 : 23:49
RR
The Olympic is a fascinating survival, but her only spell of active service was in the Spanish American war which was a very one- sided affair. Most non-American historians consider that it was an excuse to further American colonialism, (no change there then!). Strange that she should survive.
But then there is a similar survival with the Russian cruiser Aurora. She is preserved because she fired the last major shot in the Russion Revolution (although it was a blank round).
Her only spell of action as a warship, was in the Russo-Japanese war. She was hit by friendly fire in the "Dogger Bank incident" where the Russians mistook British trawlers for Japanese torpedo boats. She then went on to figure in the final Russian naval defeat at the hands of Admiral Togo!
Strange that neither survivor exactly covered themselves in glory.
Malcolm
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Tizer
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Posted - 19/01/2008 : 11:22
Malcolm, if you are a collector you might recognise a corollary here. For example, the most valuable old books are often the ones which were the poorest sellers - because there are fewer of them. The moral is, if you collect things, sometimes it's best to collect those that were considered less desirable in their own time. In some other cases the reason is that the less successful or less desirable were protected from normal use. This might apply to battships as much as books!
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softsuvner
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Posted - 20/01/2008 : 11:10
Tizer
I know what you mean, having met some book (and bike) collectors in my time. Mind you, the idea of a book that has to be kept sealed, and can't be read, because it affects the value, I find bizarre!
With the cruisers, perhaps chance has more to do with it. After the famous Eisenstein film "Battleship Potemkin" the Russian people associated the navy with revolution, this probably helped the "Aurora".
Malcolm
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Ribble Rouser
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Posted - 20/01/2008 : 11:38
Hey Malcolm, sorry, but don’t agree about your summation of USS Olympia' naval career. This vessel saw active service in WWI, but did not engage in combat as you point out. As for the Aurora, I think the Russian people might take issue with you regarding her not being bathed in glory. This vessel is in many ways the symbol of the Revolution.
it's bums that count 'ere; not 'ats |
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TGTP, Ships, Naval, Steam.
