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Tizer
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20/01/2008
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17:15
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The bottom picture is from an Australian postcard which features in an article by Philip J. Chapman on page 32 of "Picture Postcard Monthly" magazine (January 2008 - lots of interesting poctcards shown in each issue!). I have kept the image small to avoid upsetting Mr Chapman. I have enlarged the two warships from the postcard image. Mr Chapman wonders whether the ships are Australian Navy or Royal Navy. The card is dated 17th November 1913 and was sent from "Wal" in Australia to "Pearl" in Wymondham, Norfolk, UK. The view is of Sydney harbour with the ships at anchor.
I have put these pictures on the OGFB site for general interest but also because someone might be able to provide more details of the ships. I started a new thread rather than disrupting the objectives of thomo's thread!
Tizer
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Tizer
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Posted - 18/03/2008 : 20:19
These two pictures are scanned from pages 76 and 75 respectively of the `Journal of the Ordnance Society', 2002, Volume 14 in an article by Eugene B. Canfield titled "Guns for the monitors: developing the XV-inch Dahlgren smoothbore". Figure 5 originally comes from `The American Soldier in the Civil War', 1895, page 265, Bryan Taylor & Co, New York. Figure 6 is originally from `Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume IV, 1884-88, edited by R. Johnson and C. Buel, The Century Co., New York.
The figure legends tell some of the story. The reason for there being two different sized guns is that the monitors were intended to have two 15-inch guns but there was a shortage of these so they had to be given one 15-inch plus whatever was available (11-inch for USS Montauk. These guns were cast iron, smooth bore, firing round shot (which can be seen to the right in the lower picture). The 15-inch gun weighed 42,000 pounds. The 11-inch gun could withstand a 30 pound charge and fire a 169 pound shot through 4.5 inches of iron plate.
The 15-inch gun fired a 434 pound shot with a 60 pound charge and could penetrate armour heavier than that of HMS warrior.
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Tizer
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 10:08
The following photos of British warships originally illustrated the brochure which was sold at the 1984 Plymouth "Navy Days" event (open day for the public at Plymouth). I don't know whether they appeared anywhere else or even whether they are archived somewhere. So I thought it would be a good idea to at least scan and archive them on OGFB. Some of the pictures were very small and therefore look poor when enlarged as here. There are about 25 photos and I have put batches into separate posts for convenience.
[Please be patient while I upload the pictures!]
HMS Ambuscade (1)
HMS Ambuscade (2)
HMS Ariadne
HMS Avenger
HMS Battleaxe (1)
HMS Battleaxe (2)
Edited by - Tizer on 02/06/2008 10:10:43
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Tizer
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 10:22
HMS Boxer (1)
HMS Boxer (2)
HMS Brilliant
HMS Charybdis
HMS Charybdis (2)
HMS Cleopatra
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Tizer
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 10:36
HMS Courageous
CSS
HMS Hydra
HMS Minerva in the Kiel Canal
HMS Penelope
HMS Phoebe
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Tizer
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 10:50
HMS Phoebe (2)
HMS Plymouth
HMS Sirius
HMS Splendid
HMS Brazen (left of photo) and HMS Rothesay refuel from a Rover class tanker, possibly RFA Gold Rover.
Front cover of the Plymouth Navy Days brochure 1984.
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 17:51
Nice pics. In the days when we had the remnants of a navy..... How many left now?
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
pluggy
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 19:16
Most of the piccies are of Leander Class Frigates which was the most common class of British warship at the time, there were 26 built. Today the most common class is the Duke Class Frigate (the replacement for the Leander), 16 have been built. They also have a smaller complement of personnel each.
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk" 
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
frankwilk
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 22:14
When you look at the Leanders it's interesting to see the ones that have had their 4.5 removed and Ikara fitted.
I have put a picture on the front page of F56 and F75 I can't remember the third one fartest away, the answer would be nice. How can I move the picture to here ??
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
frankwilk
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Posted - 02/06/2008 : 22:16
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
Tizer
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Posted - 03/06/2008 : 12:01
Frank, I wondered what you meant by Ikara until I saw a BAe ad in the Navy Days brochure. Here is the bit of the ad with the pictures. Anyone for missile spotting? (Your picture is great - thanks for posting it.)
Edited by - Tizer on 03/06/2008 12:02:36
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pluggy
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Posted - 03/06/2008 : 21:05
I served on an Ikara converted Leander (HMS Aurora - F10) Not a very efficient weapon. There was an immense amount of mods to the ship to accomodate its launcher, delivery trunks and magazine. It was very expensive, about a million quid a pop at early 80's prices and of the two that were test fired whilst I was on board both failed (one misfired and didn't launch and one just cleared the forecastle before diving into the sea). It was supposed to fly 20 miles before dropping a homing torpedo into the water. When they did work, it was a 3 day job for the deck apes to remove the charred and smoked paint and repaint the front of the ship. It made a hell of a mess every time you fired one. The Navy soon came to the conclusion that a Wasp Helicopter was a better , cheaper and more flexible means of delivering a torpedo to its target. The ones that still had 4.5" guns were easier to flog to other Navies when we'ed finished with them. The Ikara ships were sunk or scrapped.
Edited by - pluggy on 03/06/2008 21:12:43
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk"
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
pluggy
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Posted - 03/06/2008 : 21:21
I just noticed, there isn't a photo of an Ikara boat in the above pictures, the ones that don't have guns have Exocets on the front. Nice tidy weapon, it just had the pods on the deck, which were just swapped in port or by a supply vessel for one with a missile in it when you fired one. No internal mods other than a guidance system.
The exocet was much used by many countries. The French weren't very picky who they sold 'em to. HMS Sheffield came to grief at the wrong end of one and other ships were damaged by them in the Falklands conflict.
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk"
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
pluggy
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Posted - 03/06/2008 : 21:32
Ikara Modified Leander - HMS AJAX
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk"
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
Tizer
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Posted - 04/06/2008 : 09:41
Pluggy's mention of torpedo reminds me I read a Times article on the weekend about the guy who discovered the Titanic wreck. Saying it was a cover for a mission to find what happened to two US nuclear subs that had "disappeared" some time ago. They concluded that one of them had been hit by it's own torpedo.
Thanks for the picture Pluggy!
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softsuvner
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Posted - 04/06/2008 : 11:22
The chap who discovered the Titanic wreck was Bob Ballard, who has written an interesting series of books on his various wreck missions.
One of the US subs was the Thresher which vanished at the height of the Cold War amid the usual ant-Soviet accusations, I can remember the controversy at the time.
In one of his books, Ballard reveals that the Thresher was the victim of a bodged dockyard repair, done to save money. Some repaired pipework started to leak, and the water tripped out an unimportant switchboard.
But - as things were then arranged, this tripped out the main switchgear which triggered an automatic shut down of the main reactor.
In the two hours that it took to restart the reactor, the sub lost all steam and electrical power ( nuclear subs are steam-turbine driven remember!). This all happened at great depth. As the sub slowed she literally stalled like an aircraft, and plunged to the depths below crushing depths. This was suspected at the time, but not confirmed until Ballard found the wreck. it suited the US to leave the matter open at the time of the sinking.
Can't give you the name of the book, I am at work, but worth looking out for all of Bob Ballard's stuff.
Malcolm
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Warships
