HMS Vanguard: The Royal Navy's Largest Battleship
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- Опубликовано: 21 ноя 2021
- Big. Very big. Some might say too big.
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During the Gulf war a sailor aboard a British warship said that after witnessing the majesty of seeing an Iowa class letting loose that he wished the Royal Navy still had a ship like her says all you need to know about how the Lads would've loved to of still had the Vanguard.
Indeed. From what I understand, Vanguard even had noticeably better seakeeping than the Iowas in rough seas like the North Atlantic. Completely outgunned of course, but she was a worthy modern battleship in every other respect.
@@jamesm1 I imagine that Vanguard and an Iowa class would have made for one heck of a duo on the high seas.
@@randybentley2633 Throw in France's Jean Bart too. Glorious quad turrets... Tragedy the French disposed of her in much the same way in 1970. She was laid down in 36 as a sister ship of Richelieu, but was not completed until 1949 and not commissioned until the mid 1950s. Because of all the delays she had a more updated design, extremely beefy post war AA guns, etc...
Yea, then the Brits could be firing out of date shells 1 mile from the intended target for ~$500million/year operating expenses...
@@w8stral, when it comes to ship prestige and the Royal Navy the pride a ship like this could provide would be with the coin spent. That she was the go-to means of transporting the Windsors for state visits meant a lot for power projection.
and as it turned out - the World's Most Heavily Armed Yacht.
Most heavy armed royal yacht
Britannia was armed. had a couple of .303 Brens and a lot of .303 rifles.
So, which ship was dumber to complete, Vanguard or Jean Bart. Oh right, both. One truly had to have a couple screws loose to continue pouring money into those steel death traps.
@@w8stral
Try every battleship that entered service from 1935 onwards, but these two were especially stupid.
@@bkjeong4302 That I do not agree with at all. The ability of aircraft to carry LARGE torpedos/bombs at medium/long range was ZERO in 1935, though the writing was on the wall with the design of the B17 at that date and subsequent LONG range airliners which were VERY slow and easy targets to shoot at and why navy planners by and large did not worry about them and were actually proven right in WWII as the ONLY way any torpedo aircraft of ANY make was able to attack a ship without being shot down; was complete and utter surprise. In terms of carrier based aircraft, It was almost ZERO in 1940 and barely existed in 1941 by ANY navy who had ability to sink a maneuvering Battleship at sea. Once the battles of Taranto, Bismark, Pearl Harbor happened, not one single manhour should have been wasted on Battleships.
And yes, Jean Bart/Vanguard were nothing but vanity pieces along with the Iowa's, Tirpitz, Yamato/Musashi and the resurfacing of the sunk BB's at Pearl harbor. I would argue that any ship finished in 1942 or earlier was justified and anything after was not.
My Dad's ship. He did his National Service on HMS Vanguard. He is now 91 and still tells the tales!
HMS Vanguard should have been turned into a museum ship such as HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, Cutty Sark, Queen Mary, Mary Rose, Turbina, et al.
New Jersey, Texas.
I raise you that HMS Warspite (AKA “The Grand Old Lady”) should’ve been turned into a museum ship. Arguably the most distinguished career of any warship of the last 200 years.
HMS Belfast???
Don't forget the SS Great Britain
@@alfrede.neuman9082
And the one that, much like USS Enterprise, continued to survive literally everything thrown at it out of pure spite.
Just a small point: The vanguard's top speed was actually _30 knots_ (56 kph / 35 mph).
Ditto
The lower figure you offer is a lot more credible. It takes a lot more power, a huge amount, to get each extra knot. 35? I wish I could do the math on how much w tra power it would take to motate 52,000 tons that extra 5 knots.
@@RemoteViewr1I know this comment is 2 years old but I’ll answer it. For every 4000 tons you get one knot of speed on a Iowa battleship ship so that should give you some idea of what it would take.
I suggest anyone watching who wants a more in depth and thoroughly researched look at Vanguard should check out Drachinifels extended guide on it.
Or anything Naval up to the end of WW2
@@BrickNewton Indeed.
Yes. Drachinifel.
I was thinking exactly the same! Soon as possible I refresh my memory on Drachinifels excellent guides on this wonderful ship that I know relatively little. I do find it sad that it was the last battleship, and relatively new, to be scrapped....
Up you go good Sir. Drachinifels videos are top dollar content for ship nerds!
Actually. The ships the Royal Navy lost at Jutland were the HMS Invincible, HMS Indafagitable and HMS Queen Mary. The 1st two were armed with 12in guns while Queen Mary was armed with 13.5in guns. All 3 were Battlecruisers
You’re applying facts and logic to RUclips comments… you see where you went wrong? But yeah, excellent point.
@@alfrede.neuman9082 Now, now, people sometimes actually like facts and logic when on videos about historical stuff.
@@SephirothRyu Haha, If only more people appreciated “facts”… Some moron on here is trying to tell me that “soldier” is the correct term for naval ratings/mariners/seamen. I explained that I am in fact currently serving for nearly 10 years, and that it most assuredly bloody well is not. I do love being lectured to about my job by wankers who’ve never even put on a uniform, much less actually served.
@@alfrede.neuman9082 Yeah, the other day some guy "@'d" me with this bizarre rant just because I edited a comment.
And if people had been using them as intended, none would have been lost. I don't mean the ammo handling shortcuts. They never should have been treated like battle line ships in the first place. It was a mistake at a strategic, operational and tactical level to treat them thus.
The shell handling was only the proximate cause or immediate cause if you prefer. While this is the cause that most people zoom in on and focus on, since it is afterall what caused them to explode, two tiers of ultimate causes sit on top of that. First above the ammo handling is the treatment of them as battle line ships and above that is the weakness in the actual design of battlecruisers as a whole.
The concept of "fast enough to run away from anything it cannot kill" only works if you do just that, and it also relies on running away from anything that can put up a fair fight. On top of this, the move to actual fast battleships and complete abandonment of battlecruisers as a whole after such a short period, shows how flawed they were.
(and no, Alaska, Guam and Hood are not battlecruisers, even though some call them that, even officially at times..... names do not matter, I can call a rose a cat, but that doesn't make it a cat..... ability, construction, those are the kinds of things that give any definition its worth, in short Hood is the original fast battleship and the Alaskas are cruiser killer killers, there is a reason they ended up being called large cruisers, the size of their guns vs contemporary battleship guns being the easiest example of how they differ from battlecruisers.... but I shall end this tangent, the fact remains that battlecruiers were abandoned not long after they were conceived, while cruisers and battleships continued to evolve, hell the aircraft carrier is part of the evolution of cruisers, hence the C in CV)
Cemented armour, originally Krupp Cemented Armour / KCA derives its name from cementite also known as iron carbide, an iron - carbon compound.
It has a lot to do with introducing carbon into the armour plate from its surface and with heat treating the carburised steel.
It has absolutely nothing to do with cement and it is NOT "cement based" as claimed at 05:25.
Well said. I came here to offer that correction.
Pasta preserve me, he actually DOES say that.....
Not Roman concrete, then...?
Yea...that part made me cringe a little when he said it. Good video and great way to introduce the Vanguard to those who aren't as focused on naval history but little details like that are a bit glaring.
Sorry, Megaprojects, but you should leave talks about ship armor to Drachinifel.
When it came to the part where the ship was scrapped I'm so used to the Drachinifel closer: "That's it for this video, thanks for watching. If you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review, let us know in the comments below. Don't forget to comment on the pinned post for Drydock questions."
Drach does really set the standard for all things naval
Heheh
"The largest battleship that England had ever constructed".
You bloody Sassenach. She was built at John Brown and Company on Clydebank. In Scotland.
An adult rhinoceros flying at twice the speed of sound. Perfect.
I definitely visualized that when he said it. Eight of them fired simultaneously actually.
It’s been long established that exploding ships at Jutland were more down to bypassing safely systems as opposed to a flawed design.
Trice damn Admiral Beatty in hell!
Flawed command, flawed strategy, flawed tactics, weak design. I think that sums it up.
Beatty as well as all the captains who subscribed to idea that rate of fire was everything is the command and part of the tactics.
The fact that battlecruisers were being treated more or less as replacements for armored cruisers and forced to act part of the line of battle is the strategy and rest of the tactics parts. (armored cruisers, unlike their protected cousins and the later light/heavy cruisers, were actually considered to be part of the line of battle back in the pre-dreadnought days, instead of being scouts and screening vessels and whatnot)
Battlecruisers simply not being a great design in general being the weak design part. (This point gets hammered home when you look at the move towards fast battleships towards the end of the battleship time period, the end of battlecruisers being built as a whole before that, as well as the way the American large cruisers Alaska and Guam were built, unlike battlecruisers which they do somewhat resemble on the surface, they do not have a main battery that is comparable to contemporary battleships)
@@whyjnot420 They were a perfectly fine design. Just look at what they did at the Falkland islands against German armoured cruisers. They demolished them.
They were simply used wrongly, coupled with various safety mechanisms bypassed when they shouldn't have been.
@@garethfairclough8715 I don't think you can argue for an entire type of ship by talking about a couple of battles. What matters is what, if anything, does the type evolve into over time. Battlecruisers were a total dead end, albeit they were not stillborn like the I-400 subs or the M class subs. Sure the I-400's did inform later sub designs on certain aspects, but the concept of submarine aircraft carriers as well as subs with big guns went nowhere in and of themselves. Battlecruisers made it to adolescence but were taken out by a 1-2 combo of treaties and technology, along with people looking at their questionable performance.
One of the biggest problems with them, was that they had guns of the same size as battleships. This might sound good at first, but this dictates how people thought about them and thus what they did with them. People knew that big guns were what won battles after Tsushima happened. Too many of them never thought about the amount of damage that the Russian ships took before going down, as well as many of the Japanese ships, they just remembered "big guns killed stuffs". The designs of the ships themselves along with their designation having the word "battle" in the name is just begging people to use them improperly. This is a failure of design in and of itself.
They were always compromises, people wanted fast battleships back around the turn of the 1900s, but they didn't quite yet have the ability. So they would sacrifice part of the holy trinity in terms of guns and armor, in exchange for a boost in speed. In comparison to contemporary battleships (the comparison here is key as well, afterall, you can easily see how battlecruisers were all so often just downgraded battleships with a speed boost).
Something to note, unlike battleships, which have a proper lineage that you can trace back for centuries to things like the race built galleons of the late 1500s. Cruisers as a type rather than just a description, only go back to 1870 for the first armored cruisers, and around a decade later for the first protected cruisers. The last battlecruisers came about around 1920 (there are things "called" battlecruisers after that, like the Alaskas, but they do not share the same traits as the majority of what people consider battlecruisers) There are some designs and whatnot here and there for 20 years after that, but nothing really done. That is a lifespan of 50 years for that branch of cruiser development, and that is counting the armored cruiser time before battlecruisers, if you don't count that time, you can take 30 years off. Compare this to what has happened with light cruisers and heavy cruisers, which were also branches of the armored cruiser tree. Not only did they continue to move forward, to stay relevant with things like missile cruisers and post-war American frigates (which were just cruisers by another name at that point), they also gave rise to ships like the aircraft carrier, which itself is the (current) ultimate evolution of the cruiser on the large side of things, with modern destroyers essentially filling the role of light cruisers by design (and not simply because they were there, modern destroyers are the size of ww2 cruisers for instance).
Just because something is capable in certain situations, does not make it a good idea. Time is what proves a design philosophy good or not. Some aspects of what made a battlecruiser a battlecruiser did endure, namely the speed, but just as with light cruisers giving way to large modern destroyers, battlecruisers made way for proper fast battleships. Full armor, full battery of large guns, and fast. But of course nothing can outrun time in the long run, just as Thor how he did in a wrestling match with an old woman named Elli. (Look up the story of Utgarda-Loki from the Prose Edda if you want a good laugh and like Viking mythology)
This has gone on too long but one last thing: German armored cruisers had main batteries of around 8-9.5 inches for the largest of them.... the bigger of them were some of the earlier ones tbh, Blucher was 8.something inches. (I forget the actual metric measurements). The earliest British battlecruisers had 12" guns. That is a huge difference in size. Also you are talking what? 15 years of armor development between the last German armored cruisers and the first British battlecruisers.
Fun ending joke: What do you call a German pitcher?
Derfflinger.
:D
It was I think, a little bit of everything, not least of which was a cocksure over confidence in British superiority. And as a Brit I can assure you my grandfather who was there was the epitome of it.
When referring to the Royal Navy during the World War Two era, surely the term 'Britain' should be used, instead of 'England'. Sometimes this channel uses the two terms interchangeably, when they should be recognized as referring to different political, geographical or national regions. Other than that, its a great video, definitely worth watching. Thanks Megaprojects!
Well that's because Simon hasn't a clue and his researchers are utterly reliant on the internet, are not British and have no idea bout history, maps, perspective and look at everything through a you-tube tinted screen. It's not always helpful.
The ship was built in Scotland ..not England.
Soldiers? _SOLDIERS?_
Simon, you just pissed off EVERY RN rating in your audience!
American Navy SAILORS also raised more than an eyebrow at that as well!
Came here to say the same. And, I wasn't a sailor.
Yeah... have to add my two cents. SOLDIERS??? Love this channel, but you good folk should watch one or two vids from Drachinifel...
Soldier: a person involved in military service. Get over yourself.
@@slcpunk2740 but still not a sailor,who is a mariner,
Sometimes you are saying turret when you mean gun or barrel. For example, the Vanguard has four main turrets, each with two 15 inch guns. You said they have 8 15 inch turrets.
The infamous 15" shoebox turret
If you really want to annoy people, remind them that they are in fact heavily armored hooded barbettes, not turrets.
Then to further annoy people, launch into the difference between a "two gun" (or three or four gun if you prefer) and a "twin/double" (or triple or quadruple) turret. (Then remind people that language changes, so it is ok to call these all "turrets")
:D
edit: Just in case clarification is needed, I did not mean that the op was annoying in what they said.
fun addendum: HNLMS De Ruyter from 1935 had 2 triple turrets and 1 single turret for its only battery (no secondary battery, but it did have 40mm & .50 cal AA guns)
They choose interesting topics, then a researcher with no specific expertise (other than researching) writes the script. The lack of background knowledge is often apparent.
I noticed as well :P
@@whyjnot420 No offense taken. I'm no expert, but I consume enough historical warfare content to know the basic terminology. I also know that if I were producing content, especially with my face attached, I'd employ a copy editor. A copy editor would have caught the inconsistent usage within the piece and fixed it.
When being sent to the scrapheap, HMS Vanguard broke her tow and ran aground.
Ultimately a sad end, would have been nice to have her as a museum piece
You're speaking of the Warspite.
@@greggblack8205the Vanguard ran aground on her way to the breaker's yard. Happened at Portsmouth.
I vividly recall HMS Vanguard lying at anchor at the bottom of Fareham Creek. There were no dry eyes, that I recall, when she was towed to her miserable fate, but there was an ironic cheer when she slewed out of control in the entrance of Portsmouth Harbour and tried to ram the Still & West, a public house.
I was disappointed that the explosions of the battlecruisers at Jutland were represented as the destruction of ships with comparable guns. The wellknown photo used was of HMS Queen Mary which had 13.5" guns. The other two lost had even earlier 12" guns. The capital ship that was hardest hit at Jutland but survived, was HMS Warspite, this was an example of the durability of a vessel with the same 15" Mark 1 guns as Vanguard.
Turning back to the loss of HMS Queen Mary and the near loss of her sistership and Admiral Beatty's flagship HMS Lion, the subsequent investigation, confitmed by marince archeologists, attributed the explosion to the practice of keeping ready use ammunition in the turret and the handling chamber beneath it. This dangerously flawed practice was adopted to increase the rate of fire. Subsequent to the investigation, this practice was abandoned.
Fascinating fact about the pre nuclear steel!
They will be scavenging it off the sea floor someday.
I think your average sailor will object to being called a soldier.
I dont think that ship is sail powered.
And the soldier would object to the average sailor being called a soldier!
:V
Given that HMS Vanguard was built on the Clyde, saying that HMS Vanguard was "the largest battleship that England had ever constructed" seems to suggest a certain geographical ignorance. Rather, she was the largest battleship the United Kingdom has ever constructed.
Blame the ignorant American scriptwriters and editors.
Everyone seams to forget that England has no military, Army Navy Or Airforce nether dose the United Kingdom on the other hand Great Britain has. That unfortunately seams to include British politicians including the minister for defence.
Unfortunately that seams to include
Wish I had red your comment before saying the same.
@@owenshebbeare2999 obviously not other wise the script writer would've taken every chance to say that iowa was better and bigger.
Soldiers? Think you meant sailors. The British battleships didn't run out of fuel running down the Bismark, they ran low. But they stayed the course and saw the chase through to the conclusion.
Some had to return to port to refuel. Prince of Wales had to break off pursuit due to lack of fuel, as did Repulse, the air craft carrier Victorious, and the cruiser Suffolk.
Yeah, that irked me a bit. Implies a staggering level of incompetence which isn't justified. The ships involved were fueled for their specific duties and weren't expecting to go haring about in the Atlantic trying to find The Bismark. A lot more fuel is used when sustaining a high speed, in Rodney's case, a speed which shouldn't have been achievable during a chase. Quite a remarkable feat considering she was on her way to the US for a refit because her engines were clapped out when she got the orders to go after The Bismark. Rather than mention that heroic effort or the seamanship of her captain, they go for the ships ran out of fuel.................pathetic. Nobody got towed home!
This kind of highlights the British Navy still clinging to old traditions. The battleship was already pretty much obsolete at this point and 2 new vessels were proving to way more effective. The submarine and the aircraft carrier.
*Royal Navy. And this is what we knew best at the time.
@@qasimmir7117 True, but they still cling to some of those traditions today. My cousin was lucky enough to serve on Trident class subs. You were right to correct me on Royal, I should have known better.
I've always thought in sad whenever one of these great ships are scrapped.
radiation detectors, REJOICE!
My granddad served on the Vanguard during the Royal South Africa visit, nice to see some history on it, surprisingly difficult to get information on the navy at this time compared to the army/airforce. Thanks for the wisdom
Vanguard's radar guided 5.25inch secondary guns were fearsome accurate. The same guns on KGV class ships in the Pacific regularly pinged Japanese aircraft at ludicrous range, often seen as AA sniper guns.
You should do a review of the Royal Navy from 1664 to 1945 as a mega-project. Its power, resilience and endeavours are extraordinary. It even served to end the Atlantic Slave Trade.
except when Prince of Wales and Repulse got lost, I assume
@@john5r That was in 1941. Vanguard was around 1946 onwards, and the KGVs in the Pacific were doing so in 44-45. I'm sure you can imagine the improvements in technology and capability during those 4+ years?
And let’s not mention the carnage in the Falklands…
@@john5r No proximity fuses when Prince of Wales and repulse got taken down and the Japanese had got used to the American 5"/38 maximum range and would form up outside the US anti aircraft radius but the British ships could reach out and touch them...in an unpleasant way.
I would just go and start binging Drachinifel's videos.
Do you think that Simon would spend 70 min talking about WW2 battleship guns (and _just_ the guns), 2 hours talking about destroyer development in the interwar years or around 75 min on the food ships had in the 18th century?
I agree that the history of the RN during that time period is an excellent topic. But ffs, to do it any justice is far far far beyond the scope of this channel.
Just look at this video, Simon doing his impression of a slow version of the Micro Machines guy for a dozen min straight, and he gets out a decent amount of basic info. Drach did his "5 minute guide" at just shy of 7 min, but the "extended look" version clocks in at just over 27 min.
I really like Simons various channels (some more than others), but that kind of video or video series, and the amount of care that would need to be put into research, into the script and the crazy amount of time it would take up in order to do it justice is ludicrous. It would be like trying to write a history of every US senator to ever serve in a single book.
Again, if you are not aware of Drachinifel, go check out his channel, for age of sail through the end of WW2, there is no better channel.
edit: I am aware that the word used was "review", and honestly for that bit that starts with me saying I like Simons videos, _all_ I was thinking of was an overall survey of that history. My use of just how detailed Drach can get was meant to show just how much detail there is and hint at how much would need to be cut.
Wasn't expecting a mention for my town Gosport in this one! We've finally hit the heights of stardom...thanks Simon 🙂
1:30 - Chapter 1 - Armament
5:20 - Chapter 2 - Armor
7:00 - Chapter 3 - Completion
8:30 - Chapter 4 - Carreer
10:30 - Chapter 5 - Scrapping
I read somewhere that HMS Vanguard participated in naval exercises with the United States navy at some point, during which there were very rough seas. Apparently, Vanguard's sea-keeping ability outclassed that of America's prized Iowa-class battleships, however her top speed in calm waters was only 30 knots - 5 knots less than the Iowas. Had she been completed at the start of WW2 hostilities, Vanguard should have been more than a match for KM Bismarck and KM Tirpitz, but no match for IJN Yamato or IJN Musashi. It's questionable whether Vanguard could have survived the sustained aerial torpedo bombardment that sank HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse. Britain's battleships generally suffered the most from naval treaty limits; HMS Rodney and Nelson were hopelessly slow and hence useless against KM Sharnhorst and Gneisnau; the five KGV class battleships suffered from inferior main gun calibre and had terrible underwater protection against torpedoes.
Fascinating, as always, why do I keep getting surprised by Simon's videos I should be used to it by now!
He didn't give out true information.
Weapons Officer: We're out of shells for the main batteries!
Captain: Load the rhinos!!!!
She should have been preserved as a museum ship. I definitely think vanguard is one of the most majestic looking battleships.
The ships which actually fought in the war would be more worthy.
@@denysvlasenko9175 Oh I wanted them all preserved esp warsbite/ duke of York/ Rodney/ Renown. However they where all scrapped well before vanguard was. I had hopped they would have learned from their earlier mistakes. Only the USA preserved battleships.
Beautiful Ship!
HMS HOOD Please ???????
No point in anybody criticising according to today’s thinking... if that was the best we could do at the time, then it was the best we could have at the time. Things change and situations move on...
Very wise.
Simon, viewer from when you had just one channel and I gotta say I love this new channel. In a year or so I expect to see a retrospective lol you've gone far enough to warrant it. You're one of the few on RUclips that those of us not obsessed with the influencer style junk would love to see the story of. Stay you pony boy.
Battle of Jutland included some wicked failed procedures.
HMS Vanguard is basically what should have been the new Lion class battleships, armed with 3x3 406mm guns. However these guns and their triple turrets were new and construction was very time consuming. It would be faster to use spare 15inch guns and turrets from previous ships and this would result in a Lion class battleship to be launched more quickly.
Just to remark that the RN already had a 16 inch gun ship in their fleet, known as the Nelson class. And although you are right that the lion class would have been supposedly equipped with set guns. Due to them having to start from scratch and the creation of the London naval treaty, they where canceled. It was only a few years before ww2 that the RN realized that war would soon start and that they could benefit from a fast battleship with larger guns than the 14 inch found in the KGV. Resources where allocated and to reduce time they decide the use the 15 42 caliber guns in stock, as they where already available and would simplify logistics as the QEs had the same guns.
Interestingly Britain had exactly one factory that could build 16 inch guns.
Good note sir, should have mentioned this aswel
@@javiermedina9080- Good points, to which I would like to add the political dimension... The British government were pushing for the adoption of the 14" calibre as the upper limit in a new naval treaty. The KGVs were forced to adopt this calibre by the political necessity of keeping faith with the proposal. The Americans designed the North Carolinas for 14" guns but faced with less urgency in delivering their ships, had time to revisit the calibre and move to 16" guns. Even so, the American class was only armoured against 14" shells.
@@ross.venner correct. The escalator clause also allowed this to go for 16".
All in all the North carolinas are imo, the best of the treaty battleships. Because of the 16" primary armament and the Dual purpose 5/38s. And surely a match for bismarck and littorio class.
It was realized sometime in 1919 that battleship guns are not able to achieve hits at extreme range; limited by too many factors to allow for any accuracy beyond about 18,000 yards. (roughly 16,500m). No hits (with one notable exception, if certain claims are correct) were achieved beyond that range by battleship gunfire. As the battleship's guns had an hypothetical maximum range of 30,000 yards this creates a significant objection to continuing to build them (big gun armed battleships) in an age of guided missiles. When firing at fixed targets (installations, vehicle parks, and infrastructure, like bridges and viaducts), guns are excellent . . . except they require the ship to come into enemy missile range to use them.
Despite RaDAR fire direction for guns being developed to a high degree, missiles are the way to go for BVR* combat. The 1920s/30s equivalent to the guided missile was the torpedo bomber. In other words, we were already moving away from the big guns a year after world war one concluded.
Do I like battleships? Yes. As engineering marvels they represent the best a nation can offer (as a point on a timeline). Is their age gone, passed into history? In their classical iterations-yes. I doubt we could even build one today. It would be wayyy too expensive, both the sticker price AND the ongoing maintenance costs.
Could the battleship concept be repurposed to suit today's military questions? I think so**. But we haven't done it yet (sorry, Kirov class) and probably never will.
* BVR Beyond Visual Range.
**A battleship task group focuses enemy attention and attracts a huge response-something friendly planners can use to advantage.
The fate of the battleship was sealed with the invention of aircraft.
*fate*
The RADAR proximity fuse DP gun, sextuple Bofors 40mm and automatic 3 inch guns really oppose that view. If you could operate without enemy air superiority you could still do a lot with big guns. Aircraft just have range that is why they win out in the end, also guided munitions help so the aircraft don't get shredded.
"Aircraft serve no military purpose" 💀
Not really as aircraft was a general threat for all kind of ships, and the newer battleship and modernized ones could handle their own against them, the aircraft carrier did replace the battleship as the leading ship, main fighting force and center ship in a fleet or strike group. But they did not made them completely worthless, and it was only really in the misiles age when they where truly obsolete.
Unfortunate timing is my view. If she had been commissioned in 1939-40, the Hood might not have been sunk (assuming the Vanguard would have been there in her place) , and the Bismarck might have been destroyed earlier. The real problem was that battleships had had their day even before WWII broke out. The aircraft carrier was the new ultimate naval weapon.
The aircraft carrier did replace the battleship ( especially the old ones) in Mayer fleet roles, but did not fully make them obsolete, or useless. They where still used in several other mayor roles in the war along with exporting set carriers, and successfully completed most tasked asigne to it. The where like the other ships in the fleet and did their duty. So can we please stop stating that they where useless the minute aircraft carrier became a thing cause things are really not like that, and I’m just tired of hearing the same misconception over and over again.
> the Hood might not have been sunk (assuming the Vanguard would have been there in her place)
Hood and Vanguard are rather similar ships. Main battery is the same number, caliber, and layout of guns. Length, displacement and max speed are very similar.
Vanguard is better (1) by virtue of being newly built (Hood was due to a refit, IOW: was rather worn at the day of its fateful battle)
and (2) had somewhat thicker armor.
@@javiermedina9080
Every one of these roles could have been and often were better fulfilled by subcapital units or (for cases where speed wasn’t an issue) by already-existing older battleships. So yes, building more battleships actually was a stupid idea.
@@bkjeong4302 Yes they where, but battleship allowed those subcapital units to be used elsewhere, freeing up ships for other more immediate roles. Older battleships could be used for shore bomardment and other areas, but for carrier escort and anti aircraft support missions, faster battlehsip where preferred, hence why the British Send the KGV to the pacific, in 1944, instead of the Nelso or QE's
@@javiermedina9080 The aircraft carrier didn't replace the battleship aircraft carrier replaced the battle cruiser The battleship just went away replaced by nothing.
She broke free when being towed for scrap and blocked Portsmouth Harbour. A final defiant act.
Either you are thinking of warspite or the brits should really learn how to tow old battleships
They really just need to learn how to tow ships to the scrappers
Impressive Battle Ship..just came along at the end of era for such capitol ships.
Correction - the max speed was 30 knots, not 35 knots. It was just short of 35 MPH! Also, the whole idea of building a battleship after WW II with the carrier taking the main spotlight, and it was clear that they were not really needed, was Brit ego running amuck!
Simon Whistler you’ve made the sloppy mistake of implying that England is the same as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and North Ireland.
“The final size of the completed vanguard placed it as the largest battleship that England had ever constructed.”
HMS Vanguard was built at John Brown’s shipyard in Clydebank which is in Scotland. Scotland is not part of England, but both are part of the United Kingdom.
One can hope he never tries to keep the flags of each era straight. Even people who have checklists that include "make sure we used the right flag for the year in our illustrations" get it wrong.
That's twice they've tripped over that, I don't think Simon writes the scripts for these mind you. I've been abroad a few times and some foreigners genuinely believe England is the name of the whole island
It's all the same tiny rainswept island tho
@@TheMagusOfTheMagnaCarta several islands.
Yep, UK is not England. Check yer facts, Simon Whistler
The explosions at Jutland were down to the decision to disable hatches and powder handling procedures designed to prevent a fireball making its way to the magazine. The German navy had more accurate guns so the RN went with the philosophy of increase rate of fire at the expense of safety and paid the price
Britain once had the world's most powerful navy with some of the best ships ever constructed... and they didn't turn a single battleship into a museum. I know they were broke after WW2, but Greece is always either broke or almost broke and they managed to keep some of their most historic ships around.
Museums are good for tourist revenue.
H.M.S. Warspite not being turned into a museum and subsequent scrapping caused more outrage in the UK than even U.S.S. Enterprises scrapping in the US. I'm lucky enough to be about 20 minutes from the Essex Class carrier U S.S. Yorktown and visit regularly. I'd love to be able to walk the deck of a British BB.
Growing up in Portsmouth after the war, I vividly recall the bus to school (the 45A for anybody curious) wending its way through miles of bomb sites. Britain had taken a terrible hammering in WW2. Victory was not glorious, most of my father's generation wanted to forget the war. I am not in the least surprised that Vanguard and Warspite were scrapped. We were lucky to get Belfast.
They barely turned ANY ships into museums. In fact, one of the only ironclad/dreadnought era warships that is a proper museum ship is one they gave to JAPAN (where it is a museum ship).
At least we have HMS Belfast
HMS Vanguard, not The HMS Vanguard.
You are saying "The Her Majesty's Ship"
That’s the least of this video’s mistakes.
Blame the ignorant American scriptwriters and editors.
@@owenshebbeare2999this isn't a dedicated naval history channel so you overeach in your use of the word "ignorance" which you say with infliction intended. A buzzword you love pairing with "American" for likes. So get over yourself Sir Knowseverything.
It's here!! That is epic
Excellent the best doc on the Vanguard!
There are a lot of inaccuracies in this for anyone who has served at sea, or knows their capital ship history, but I guess he is trying to keep things "general" for the average person.
Vanguard's mounts came from the Courageous class when they were converted to carriers. He calls them battleships, but they were essentially battle cruisers, although never called that, they were called "large light cruisers" by the RN until converted. as they had even less armour than most battlecruisers (and they were light on for armour); but they had to skimp on armour, as they were designed for a specific area, so had to have a shallow draft. But they had more in common with a battlecruiser than any "large light cruiser."
Furious had 18 inch guns, but not for long. They were totally impractical. The other two had the 15's, and it was these that went to Vanguard.
The 15 inch guns were arguably the best all round large calibre gun the RN had, far less troublesome than the newer 14 inch fitted to the KG5's, and were used in Vanguard, the Revenge class, and the QE class. So, they essentially equipped all WW2 battleships (and battlecruisers) except the KG5's (14's) and Nelson's (who had 16 inch guns.)
Most people's contact/experience of Vanguard would be limited to seeing her loading sequence within the mounts, as she was used to depict both loading sequences/mount interiors in the movie "Sink the Bismarck!"
Excellent megaproject wow 👏
Watched it twice.
The carriers made them obsolete, carriers could launch planes from hundreds of miles away and battleships could never get near them.
Lots of people deride Vanguard for having the older guns but fail to realise that Mk1 15” 42cal gun was one of the best naval guns ever designed and the turret was significantly upgraded to allow for much more rapid loading than say Warspite or Hood that carried the guns from new. This coupled with new advanced radar sets and fire control computers meant that those “old” guns could still very much ruin your day if they were used in anger.
You mentioned the Superchargers! Somebody’s done some decent digging!
Thanks for also using the metric system!
So sad that there are NO British battleships as museum ships. The United states has 8 ( EIGHT) Museum battleships.
I can count 7.... Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey, Wiscnsin, Massachuetts (sp), Alabama, and Texas (dreadnought)
The US wasnt subject to an extensive bombing campaign on their mainland that needed to be rebuilt though.
@@667crash North Carolina. As well
That rhino with a question mark caught me off guard. Had me cracking up.
The Vanguard is an example of a powerful ship that came at the end of the era she was designed to operate in. Same with the Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri and Wisconsin.
It’s not “THE” HMS Vanguard. You can’t have “THE” Her Majesty’s Ship
Even "Drach" sometimes makes this mistake.
I cringe every time I hear someone do this.
She was the Apex of a class of warship which had its day
Shows the level we got to from Sail just 70 years prior
An eventual mega projects video about Simons RUclips empire is inevitable
You would have thought that after the Battle of Taranto, the loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, and sinking of the Bismark. that the British would have figured out that the age of the battleship was over. The Vanguard was a horrible misuse of scarce shipbuilding resources when the Navy desperately needed Fleet and convoy escort ships.
Which was why (despite what Simon said) it WASN'T given priority
Fun fact: the turrets for vangaurd were from the Courageous class "large light cruiser" or battlecruiser to some. The 3 ships were uncommonly large for a light cruiser of the time and had 2x2 380mm guns, however the ships were more of a threat to themselves as the blast and recoil would damage hull plating due to the armor of its light cruiser hull and fittings on deck were damaged when parts of the hull became damaged. Eventually they would be converted to aircraft carriers with the turrets from two of the three being put into storage. HMS Furious on a side note was the most heavily armed carrierc in the world having a single 457mm or 18 inch gun mounted on her stern with a flight deck on the bow.
Beautiful Ship !!!
Simon, have you covered the Thunderscreech yet? A plane so incredibly loud it reportedly gave one of it's ground crew a seizure
Nice video about HMS Vanguard British warships projects and clearly explained its superior characteristics...2WW was aircraft's carrier's existing effective weapons which US 🇺🇸 was number one on the planet
"Biggest ship England ever built". She was built in Scotland on the Clyde! Last time I checked it wad THE BRITISH ROYAL NAVY
We take the point, but as England paid for her, she was an 'English' ship.
@@EllieMaes-Grandad Britain paid for her. She was in no way shape or form an "English" ship. Britain isnt just England.
Amazing video. Though HMS Warspite was not “another British ship” lmao.
Good work. I love your channels.
He used the term "cement-based" armor. In steel metallurgy, "cementing" was the application of a carbon powder pressed tightly against, or natural gas flame blown at pressure against, the front surface of the red-hot metal plate in an oven for a prolonged period. This caused the carbon to soak into the steel for a short distance, raising just that region to a high-carbon steel metal that, when given a heat treatment and rapid cooing, would harden that thin layer to an extremely high hardness (to break projectiles to pieces for reduced penetration and/or reduced explosive effectiveness even if they do penetrate), with the rest of the plate hardened to a different, somewhat lower, though still rather high, hardness for some moderate depth, and the region at the plate middle and back being softer and able to bend, reducing cracking of the entire plate on impact (crack reduce strength significantly). This cemented side armor was rather thick plates, with thinner armor not cemented or face-hardened usually, being kept fully soft and bendable, including armored decks and such, that were more subject to glancing hits where a gradual bending/stretching failure could deflect a projectile before it could penetrate. This is why modern steel tank armor -- prior to the new super-strong laminated types -- was sloped so much in the front (see German WWII PANTHER or TIGER II tank fronts).. Metallurgy has its own private language, just like most businesses do.
A fine last hurrah for Royal Navy battleships.
The most balanced and sea worthy Battleship ever to set sail in my opinion.
Enjoyed that.
Kinda like taking all night to get ready for a party but by the time you get there it's just a few empty bottles and some dude sweeping up lol
Simon's got a lot wrong here. Vanguard was not cutting edge it was a hodgepodge of leftover pieces put into a new modern Hull. Also at the Battle of Jutland Queen Mary and invincible didn't blow up because they had magazine hits. Beatty in order to speed up the rounds per minute of his battle cruisers order that the men's store the cordite which is the propellant used in the guns in the turret houses and remove flash doors that would keep any explosion in the turret traveling down the barbet into the magazines. Vanguard was essentially a parts bin special using leftover bits from ships that were scrapped in the Washington naval treaty. They were actually the guns that were on courageous which was converted to an aircraft carrier do to that particular treaty.
Have a picture of myself standing under one of the main guns when I was about 10 during Portsmouth Navy Days. Just wish it was where HMS Belfast is now.
Hey, Simon, have you heard of Bagger 288/293 and Bingham Canyon Copper mine? They are both impressive and you should do videos on them!
HMS Hood would be a mega project in itself
Suggestions: The CANOL project of WWII, and the post-war USAF Heavy Press program.
I think the ark royal or argus would be a good megaproject video as they were trendsetters as well as test beds for new tech.
Could you do a video on Fort Drum? A concrete battleship/island in the middle of the ocean.
35 knots? That doesn't seem right. Are you sure you didn't misread 30 knots' equivalence to 35mph?
Ditto
30 knots is about 35 mph he is not the first to confuse knots vs mph
It isn't right. Maybe 30 - 31 knots on a good day.
SUGGESTION: Ilyushin IL-2
- The single most produced military aircraft in aviation history
- Visionary WWII ground-attack "flying tank" and spiritual predecessor to the A-10 Warthog
- Some WWII German nicknames for it: "meat grinder", "butcher", "black death", "slaughterer", "concrete bird"
- What Stalin had to say about it: "Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats."
The armor was not cement-based it was Krupp cemented armor which means a class one armor plate of steel secured to the Shell plating of the vessel. More specifically Krupp cemented armor was a Sheet of class one armored steel with a hardened face which penetrated about halfway into the sheet of steel with a softer inside to reduce spalling affect So it would deform instead of shattering
I have a video suggestion the Diefenbunker system. Let me know if you think it's good enough to do a video on I may be a little bias cuz I'm Canadian and it intriguing me and I know that it isn't active anymore but it's a pretty cool side of Canada in the Cold war which I know is popular on the channel also Great video guys I truly enjoyed it
Remote power control did not eliminate the need to man guns. It only means that guns would train automatically, remotely commanded from fire control. A lot of operations like reloading involve some manual operations. Think how new 40mm rounds get into Bofors guns. Do you see anything like robotic conveyors feeding them?
if your wondering what ship did that longest hit to a battleship with that 24100 metre hit, it was HMS Warspite
People saying she should have been kept as a museum, I think not. If any battleship should have been kept, it was without doubt HMS WARSPITE!!!!
Good video 👍
The RN was the largest, with over 180 destroyers, over 60 cruisers, 50 plus escort vessels, mostly sloops, 15 capital ships, 7 aircraft carriers and a large number of submarines and a large construction program underway, the Vanguard would have been an extra, additional unit to add to the 5 KGVs and the Lion class, the Lions being suspended on declaration of war to free up resources for other vessels, much like the 2 Implacable class carriers being delayed for smaller vessels etc., Ultimately Vanguard was a magnificent white elephant, which is why she was finished at such a leisurely pace.
Very interesting indeed!
You forgot to include probably the famous photograph of her. As she was being towed from Portsmouth for scrapping she split her line and ran aground in the narrow entrance. In fact she made a beeline for the Still and West pub on the harbour wall where many people had gathered to watch her go out. They got a much closer look than they bargained for!
Hey Simon! Speaking of the Britts and WWII, I've just watched a video of a wooden airplane that, well, kinda rules WWII. The RAF Mosquito - a wooden bomber, fighter and recon plane. Would love a megaprojects on this as lets be honest, given the advancements being made at the time, this was the fasted plane in WWII for around 2 years. It could also reach just about anywhere in Germany. Let that sink in.
I'm with you on that one
Forget the Spitfire and Lancaster
It was the Mossie and Typhoon whom Gerry feared most!
The bump on your noodle. Did you have a shunt inserted at some point in your life. Looks to be in the same spot they poked a hole in my head to release pressure. Love the vids and keep up the good work and sorry to ask a personal question.
That episode when Simon mispronounces "sailors" as "soldiers".
You failed to mention that when she was being towed out of Portsmouth she refused to go and she skewed in the harbour and got stuck for a while
She would've made an outstanding musiuem. Disappointing of her end.
H.M.S. Warspite was a bigger scrapping travesty. But I do agree, she would have made an excellent museum representing the last of Britain's Battleships. A ship type the UK dominated for about 80% of the types entire existence.
She was almost preserved. There was a campaign to save her and it gained a lot of political traction but in the end economics won as she was deemed too expensive to preserve. I agree it was a real disappointment.
She might have been handy when the Empire recovered Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. Certainly more impressive.
She would’ve been targeted heavily by Argentine air strikes. Perhaps she might’ve been useful for bombardment on Argentinian positions on the island before invasion.
I love your videos But by far my ALL time favourite ships are the old RN sailing vessels they are truly Majestic the Most Beautiful ships to ever sail the world's oceans, have you ever consider doing a video about these amazing ships? am sure I wont be he only one to really appreciate their beauty n functionality
Good thing the British didn’t have any disputes with any Islands after WW2 where the Royal Navy could’ve used a battleship
Ah Vanguard.
I sail her on World of Warships, beautiful looking ship.
Ahoy! White elephant off the starboard side.
I think the issue for the British ships at Jutland was the Royal Nay policy of continuous fire and having the powder charges beside the guns? However the Vanguard was a waste of money in the end.