7 Famous Warships That Ruled the Modern Seas

[Riff Moonraker]

Hmmm....

A bit...American centric?

How about some more ancient ships of note?

The first ever Clipper? (can't remember a name)

The Padre Eterno, the biggest ever Galleon?

Any U-boat? They it could be argued for a very brief time in history terrorised the seas.

Edit: Oops, didn't read the 20th century bit. My bad. The U-boats still count though!

U-boats wouldnt count, submarines are not warships. A list like this of subs, though, would be cool as well. Such as the H.L. Hunley, which was the first combat sub to sink a warship, and that was during the Civil War.

However, I am failing to understand some of the complaints here, such as:

The post was American-centric or that the ships listed were fails (like the Yamato, as mentioned in one thread)..

First, the thread was about famous warships first and foremost. As an American, when I saw this thread, the first two ships to come to mind were the Bismark, and Yamato. Famous, infamous, whatever you choose to call them, the ships on this list can definitely fall into that category.

As far as American-centric, did you really sit there and take count and get upset about it or something? Argue with me alllll you want, and while you might not LIKE it, the American fleet IS the most powerful naval force in our modern times. I know folks will flip out over that one, and try to put up their reasons why that isnt so, but nothing you say is going to change that fact. With that said, the British Navy has two mentions on here as well, so they are represented pretty well. The last era prior to our modern age would have the British Navy as being the most dominant naval force in the world. Before them... the Greeks, maybe? The Romans? It seems, these days, that anytime anything related to history comes up, people immediately charge in and try to take America down a notch or to try and it gets a bit old, especially when its undeserved.

The list only went with 7 choices, and as far as fame is concerned, it picked pretty well.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

7 Famous Warships That Ruled the Modern Seas

What are the most famous warships of the 20th century?

Read Full Article

Typical pop military article, especially the last.

Dreadnought - Influential, yes.

Missouri - came too late, she was the last USS BB built.

Yamato - Sat around for most of the war due to excessive fuel use and being reserved for the Decisive Battle which never came.

Arizona - only claim to fame is what happened to her on Dec 7th.

Bismarck - hunted from the moment she first went into the open ocean and hunted to death. Her sister ship accomlished far more by sitting in fjords and tying down RN assets.

Hood - Yes, she was the golden child of the RN through the interwar period and the most balanced capital ship they had.

Enterprise - ...CV-65? Why the hell that when she was but one of many supercarriers, merely the first nuke carrier and not her predecessor which was the only thing standing again the whole IJN at times during the Pacific War???

Bloody hell....

Ok, let's go over this again!

Mikasa - Japanese flagship during the Russo-Japanese War during which Japan wiped out most of Russia's Baltic and East Asian Squadrons.

Dreadnought - see above.

Warspite - Most decorated and renown RN warship, the British equivalent of Enterprise. Always at key battles, racked up a high kill toll, held the line while many other British capital ships were sunk or too old to be effective.

Akagi, representing the Kido Butai as a whole. - The flagship of the Kido Butai and leader of the stroke on Pearl Harbour, allowed the IJN to dominate the Pacific for the first six months of the war and was their most flexible and lethal arm.

Enterprise (CV-6) - Only US carrier to constantly be in the thick of the Pacific War, holding the line single handedly at times, luckier with torpedoes than Saratoga, the only other Pacific carrier to survive the war. Most decortated and renown US warship in it's history and made Enterprise the name it is today in pop culture.

Essex CV-9 for her class ushering in US dominance in naval air power since June 6th 1942, her class and her numbers went on to become the core of the modern fleet and laid the groundwork for the supercarriers & Nautilus for ushering in the era of US nuke boats which are today's real dominate warship, both representing the USNs modern fleet, its influence and making it the second most powerful navy in history - They rule the waves and second only to the US nuclear deterrent have allowed them to maintain their global hegemony.

Honorable mentions - Illustrious for Taranto, Invincible for the Falklands War, Hood for her importance to British naval strategy in the Inter-War, Renown for taking over Hoods shoes and being the RNs fast hunter of German raiders.

Now, if these were ship classes, that would be a whole kettle of fish and include more submarines.

You're actually underselling how much of an EPIC FAIL the Yamato was.

That battle against light destroyers and escort carriers, that was the Battle Off Samar.
Japan:4 battleships (Including the Yamato),6 heavy cruisers,2 light cruisers,11 destroyers.
America: 6 escort carriers, 3 destroyers, 4 destroyer escorts.
Note that an Escort Carrier is to a Fleet Carrier as a Scooter is to a Humvee.

Result: the Yamato runs away! 3 heavy cruisers sunk. American Victory.
This was the only time the Yamato fired on a surface ship.

She was kept for the Decisive Battle which never came with the US. She was built solely for that battle and was considered too important to risk otherwise and Japan lacked the fuel to use her for more than that anyway. The Battle off Samar took place long after the Japanese realized that and were struggling to find anything to keep throwing at the USN.

She was an unwise investment, but then again, Japan's insistence on pressing their war in China was the unwise investment which caused all the rest.

A bit...American centric?

Any U-boat? They it could be argued for a very brief time in history terrorised the seas.

Edit: Oops, didn't read the 20th century bit. My bad. The U-boats still count though!

Were this a list of the greatest 18th or 19th Century warships most, if not all, would be British. Britain had an unparallelled streak of victories and ships which fought in those victories in the 18th Century to the near utter exclusion of other nations. Britannia did rule the waves - by the late 1810s more than half of ALL the worlds shipping was British and that was because the RN had sunk, captured or driven much of the remainder into port to allow their merchant marine to have a near monopoly on much of the worlds trade.

This trend continued up until the beginning of WWI and lull only passed when American accomplished a similar fleet by being the only one left standing with enough ships and enough money to maintain a large fleet by the end of the war.

The only navies which stood a chance a against the Anglo-American naval domination of the 20th Century were Imperial Germany Navy in WWI and the Imperial Japanese Navy in WWII and both were decimated by wars end, one from scuttling most of their own ships that were going to be taken from them anyway, the other one hunted into extinction by the United States Navy.

Since then they've been the only first rate navy with Britain bring crushed financially and the Soviet Union looking on their navy as a defensive assets, outside of their attack submarines, to protect the naval wing of the nuclear deterrent.

Which U-Boat then - individual subs do not stand out as much because there were many who didn't accomplish as much as capital ships did in the first half and in the second not many have had any action? As I said before, if this was a list of classes and types there'd be a lot more - the Type VII and the Gato Class would stand out off the top of my mind.

Your choice of Dreadnaught was most fitting as it changed the face of naval warfare in the early years of the 20th century.

DreadnOught!

Her name does not contain a misspelled suffix for a sailor but means "nought" as in no, don't you don't need to.

Prinz Eugen - Bismark's consort during it's famous run. Was part of the famous channel dash. A phenomenal cruiser in her own right. Survived the war and was even sailed back to the US as a war prize by her own crew. Survived two nuclear bomb blasts before finally capsizing in the Kwajalein Atoll while the wreck was under tow. Compared to Bismarck, she had a a far more illustrious career. Other ships to read up on your own that did far more than Bismarck; Gneisenau and Sharnhorst, and the pocket battleships of the Deutschland class.

Her use, like the rest of the surface fleet, was for being a fleet in being. They were a waste of money thanks to Hitler starting the war earlier than expected and were misused as raiders which were not cost-effective and saw little meaningful action or doing very little impact beyond tying down large amounts of the RN to keep watch on them, something that a warship which "ruled the seas" does not do.

But one ship, post war, that almost every US navy vet knows, it is the USS Forrestal (CVA-59).

Her only major mark is being the first supercarrier built. Essex and her class laid the foundation for the the dominance of US supercarriers during and after WWII.

If you want old war horses, even older than Arizona or the battleline at Pearl... look no further than USS Texas, the oldest surviving dreadnaught battleship... predating WWI and even HMS Hood.

Texas had very little value after WWI beyond her importance as being a museum today. She and New York were badly out of date, rolled too sharply to fire accurately and were regulated to secondary duties after WWI when the Standards were all built.

Like North Carolina, go see this ship in person. This ship deserves as much if not more recognition than an over glorified floating AA battery (the Iowa class) that got lucky and picked for surrender ceremonies (Missouri in particular).

Then look at her sister Washington and see what she accomplished in the Solomons, sneaking up on Kirishima ripping her apart as the Japanese squadron was busy focusing on South Dakota who'd lost power and was unable to use her electronics and guns.

The Kirov. If you studied naval tactics or even have a cursory idea of what a major modern warship is during the 1970s and 1980s... this is it. This ship and her three sisters were the ships that scared America enough that we actually scraped up the Missouri class and put them back in service. This ships are monsters and rightly so. Yes, they never fired a shot in anger and only one still exists in service but this is a terrifying class and worth mentioning.

She was built to protect the Soviet boomer sanctuaries by suicidally flinging herself at US carrier battlegroups and discharging her missiles before she was sunk. She and her class have accomplished little since the end of the Cold War and certainly not dominated the ocean. Nothing in the Russian and Soviet Fleets counts as significant as something from the RN, USN, or IJN because it always was the red headed step-child of the military arms beyond the attack boats and the nuclear deterrent.

The Typhoon. You can't mention modern sea terrors without mentioning the class that inspired the Red October. This is the boogy man of the 1980's. Sleek, dangerous, quiet, and indeed capable of putting far too many missiles and warheads to sea. Sure, almost all of them are gone into the pages of history but their mere existence drove the US submarine service to develop ever more capable machines, culminating in the 688i and Sea Wolf class SSNs to try and hunt and stop these terrifying machine

Typhoons early role was to act as a second strike against any surviving cities around the world and tied into the Soviets view that a nuclear exchange would a prolonged war which ran counter to the Western view of it being a shot in the dark. After that role was dropped they simply because typical Soviet boomers no different than any other. If you want to count an influential boomer class look to the first Soviet or American ones.

No they didn't. The 688s were driven by the need for faster, more flexible subs to integrate into the growing desire in the USN for submarines to help escort carriers and better protect them from Soviet subs. The 688Is were an advancement on them to make slight improvements, add VLS tubes and make them better arctic boats.

Seawolf was a return to the older US trend of slower, quieter submarines only given a larger price sticker.

I agree this article is crap. No offense but mentioning only ships that maybe the average person can come up with in a pinch isn't worth the effort. Make a list that gives people some knowledge.

Beastro, I like your list but you need to make room for two ships IMO the Turbina (*though it might be stretching the definition of modern, and warship) and the SMS Goebon, it might not of ruled the waves but you would be hard pressed to find another modern ship that effected the directly politics of a war and better served her country then that one. The fact its not on this list is an insult to the proposition of the article.

Without the flight of the Goebon Greece joins the war 1915 and Austria gets overrun from the south by Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians and Greeks. Russia puts the entire weight of her army on AH and Germany; and GB and France don't waste valuable time and resources with Gallipoli.

But thats the point, this article was about some of the most famous ships, and until you mentioned the above ships, I hadnt heard of them. Please understand, that I am not belittling their contributions or whether they deserve a place in history, I am just saying this list was about some of the most famous.

Why dont you put together a list, and make it something like... I dont know. Naval vessels that changed history, or something like that, and put these ships in it? I would definitely enjoy reading the article! I am completely aware that there are probably a TON of events and stories out there that alot of people, me included, would love to hear about, or read about! (Please note that I am not being sarcastic or anything here, and I hope it didnt come off that way, but sometimes the written word fails to put forth the sincerity that might be behind the words)

 

[Slycne]

The real work horses though for Germany would be the U-Boats of the Type VII and IX. There is so much to read there and it was these boats that scared two nations to death and nearly brought one of them to it's knees. Look at the Type XXI if you want to see the forefather for many of the submarine classes of the Super Powers for years to come till the revolutionary tear drop hull shape arrived. In addition to researching these, take a look at the US Gato, Baloa, and Trench class subs to see the machines that strangled the Japanese war machine to death... forcing ships like Yamato to sit tied to it's berth with no fuel to properly deploy.

Any U-boat? They it could be argued for a very brief time in history terrorised the seas.

Edit: Oops, didn't read the 20th century bit. My bad. The U-boats still count though!

If you're into WWII history specifically submarines, I'd highly recommend Clay Blair's Hitler's U-Boat War. It's an exhaustive study of Germany's submarine warfare which ultimately argues that its effectiveness has been vastly over-inflated.

 

[Dakkagor]

-excellent post- snip -excellent post-

Let it be known that Beastro knows his shit, and is not to be trifled with when it comes to naval history. Excellent post!

Also agree with Scorpid not having the Goeben is a travesty. Its known as the Ship that Changed the World!

 

[Albino Boo]

Hmmm....

A bit...American centric?

How about some more ancient ships of note?

The first ever Clipper? (can't remember a name)

The Padre Eterno, the biggest ever Galleon?

Any U-boat? They it could be argued for a very brief time in history terrorised the seas.

Edit: Oops, didn't read the 20th century bit. My bad. The U-boats still count though!

U-boats wouldnt count, submarines are not warships. A list like this of subs, though, would be cool as well. Such as the H.L. Hunley, which was the first combat sub to sink a warship, and that was during the Civil War.

However, I am failing to understand some of the complaints here, such as:

The post was American-centric or that the ships listed were fails (like the Yamato, as mentioned in one thread)..

First, the thread was about famous warships first and foremost. As an American, when I saw this thread, the first two ships to come to mind were the Bismark, and Yamato. Famous, infamous, whatever you choose to call them, the ships on this list can definitely fall into that category.

As far as American-centric, did you really sit there and take count and get upset about it or something? Argue with me alllll you want, and while you might not LIKE it, the American fleet IS the most powerful naval force in our modern times. I know folks will flip out over that one, and try to put up their reasons why that isnt so, but nothing you say is going to change that fact. With that said, the British Navy has two mentions on here as well, so they are represented pretty well. The last era prior to our modern age would have the British Navy as being the most dominant naval force in the world. Before them... the Greeks, maybe? The Romans? It seems, these days, that anytime anything related to history comes up, people immediately charge in and try to take America down a notch or to try and it gets a bit old, especially when its undeserved.

The list only went with 7 choices, and as far as fame is concerned, it picked pretty well.

Wrong this list starts in 1905, with the launching of HMS Dreadnought. The US navy by the end of WW1 had 16 Dreadnoughts versus the RN's 35 Dreadnaughts and 16 Battlecruisers. The Washington naval treaty of 1923 accorded the US and UK the same number of new ship constructions. Neither nation actually built all the ships that they were allowed to under the treaty. By 1939 the RN was still the largest navy in the world with largest number of dreadnoughts, battlecruisers and carriers in service. The RN was strong enough throughout the WW2 to contain the the German and Italian fleets and to keep the Japanese out of the Indian ocean allowing the US to concentrate all its major surface units in the pacific. It wasn't till post war ww2 when the US overtook the Royal navy as the most powerful in the world and even then only decisively after the UK government was forced to make drastic cuts to the size of RN in the 1960s.

 

[CaptainBill22]

The Bismark was truly a monster of a ship. I am surprised that there were no submarines on here. Despite what people might say they are definitely warships. The Typhoon class Soviet subs were monsters as well.

 

[Vie]

Small point regarding the Dreadnought.

Yes, her speed was an important part of her revolutionary design - but it wasn't the key component.
What really set the Dreadnought apart from it's predecessors was its switch from a mixed calibre guns to a single calibre for all guns.

It meant that for the first time in decades, a main line combat ship could have fully co-ordinated fire control on all of her weapons at once. Since all the main guns were of the same type, they had roughly equivalent fire trajectories, and thus could be controlled from the same range finding station. It vastly simplified command for gunnery fire, and reloading and supply for the vessel as well.

It's engines would get it into range, but it's tightly co-ordinated gunnery were it's devastating weapon against the less co-ordinated fire it could expect to receive in turn.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Hmmm....

A bit...American centric?

How about some more ancient ships of note?

The first ever Clipper? (can't remember a name)

The Padre Eterno, the biggest ever Galleon?

Any U-boat? They it could be argued for a very brief time in history terrorised the seas.

Edit: Oops, didn't read the 20th century bit. My bad. The U-boats still count though!

U-boats wouldnt count, submarines are not warships. A list like this of subs, though, would be cool as well. Such as the H.L. Hunley, which was the first combat sub to sink a warship, and that was during the Civil War.

However, I am failing to understand some of the complaints here, such as:

The post was American-centric or that the ships listed were fails (like the Yamato, as mentioned in one thread)..

First, the thread was about famous warships first and foremost. As an American, when I saw this thread, the first two ships to come to mind were the Bismark, and Yamato. Famous, infamous, whatever you choose to call them, the ships on this list can definitely fall into that category.

As far as American-centric, did you really sit there and take count and get upset about it or something? Argue with me alllll you want, and while you might not LIKE it, the American fleet IS the most powerful naval force in our modern times. I know folks will flip out over that one, and try to put up their reasons why that isnt so, but nothing you say is going to change that fact. With that said, the British Navy has two mentions on here as well, so they are represented pretty well. The last era prior to our modern age would have the British Navy as being the most dominant naval force in the world. Before them... the Greeks, maybe? The Romans? It seems, these days, that anytime anything related to history comes up, people immediately charge in and try to take America down a notch or to try and it gets a bit old, especially when its undeserved.

The list only went with 7 choices, and as far as fame is concerned, it picked pretty well.

Wrong this list starts in 1905, with the launching of HMS Dreadnought. The US navy by the end of WW1 had 16 Dreadnoughts versus the RN's 35 Dreadnaughts and 16 Battlecruisers. The Washington naval treaty of 1923 accorded the US and UK the same number of new ship constructions. Neither nation actually built all the ships that they were allowed to under the treaty. By 1939 the RN was still the largest navy in the world with largest number of dreadnoughts, battlecruisers and carriers in service. The RN was strong enough throughout the WW2 to contain the the German and Italian fleets and to keep the Japanese out of the Indian ocean allowing the US to concentrate all its major surface units in the pacific. It wasn't till post war ww2 when the US overtook the Royal navy as the most powerful in the world and even then only decisively after the UK government was forced to make drastic cuts to the size of RN in the 1960s.

Good eye, I missed the date on the HMS Dreadnought. I suppose we will have to agree to disagree as to when we consider the power switch between the naval powers of our two countries. Also, note that my comments were not meant to be antagonistic or anything, as I have a ton of respect for the Brits and their military.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

The Bismark was truly a monster of a ship. I am surprised that there were no submarines on here. Despite what people might say they are definitely warships. The Typhoon class Soviet subs were monsters as well.

Possibly a submarine list is in the future? Also did you know that the Bismark class was to be an Escort class to a larger German battleship? The war started too early for the German navy to build them but the H class ships would have surpassed Yamato. Aircraft carriers would have made them obsolete anyway but such a surface fleet would have given the Royal Navy more than just a challenge to their claim to the North Atlantic.

U-boats were the one thing that truly scared Churchill in WWII. He insisted they win the Battle of the Atlantic, which is why there were so many (fruitless) raids on U-boat bases and why anti-submarine weapons and tactics eventually evolved to a point where U-boat successes dwindled.

Anyway, a good list. All these are very famous ships if not for all the same reasons.

 

[Albino Boo]

U-boats were the one thing that truly scared Churchill in WWII. He insisted they win the Battle of the Atlantic, which is why there were so many (fruitless) raids on U-boat bases and why anti-submarine weapons and tactics eventually evolved to a point where U-boat successes dwindled.

Anyway, a good list. All these are very famous ships if not for all the same reasons.

It wasn't tactics it was fundamentally knowing where the U-boats were. Cracking the enigma code allowed the RN to route convoys around German U-boat positions.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

It wasn't tactics it was fundamentally knowing where the U-boats were. Cracking the enigma code allowed the RN to route convoys around German U-boat positions.

That too. The Germans let themselves believe they were infallible and in an intelligence war that's as fatal as traitors in the ranks. Still, the tactics were what bridged the air-gap the U-boats exploited by the use of escort carriers (which the Germans never targeted), the air to sea weaponry was improved significantly and the introduction of the Hedgehog allowed destroyers to maintain contact while firing. The Hunter-killer Groups armed with Ultra knowledge were unbeatable.

 

[Joos]

I love these kind of articles. Feel free to geek out with more detail next time.

 

[oldtaku]

Some of these posts are very informative, sure wish I could vote them up!

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

snip

I was going to say something about a few omissions, but I think you've covered them comprehensively.

The emphasis on battleships is a little underwhelming. Battleships never really did 'rule the sea'. Almost as soon as they were created in their modern form, the world became so shit scared of them that everyone was too chicken to actually use them. Jutland was like a game of naval dodgeball where everyone throws about three balls and then goes home. All through WW1 it was the submarines that really dominated the oceans and nearly crippled one or more sides.

Continuing in this vein, the first major disarmament treaty was all about limiting battleships, and that just pushed people into making 'battlecruisers' to get around the tonnage limits, as well as aircraft carriers. In WW2 it was the carriers that did all the heavy lifting, as well as the continued submarine warfare. Just look at some of your examples: Bismark had one voyage where it sunk a few merchant ships and a British battleship before being sunk - hardly much of a trade. Tirpitz then sat out the war in a fjord until the Allies bombed the crap out of it. Yamamoto was basically used in the same way that desperate CoH players use their King Tiger: fling it at the entire enemy army and hope for a miracle.

 

[Fiairflair]

I'm a bit surprised that the USS Nimitz didn't get a mention. Aircraft carriers are warships too and the Nimitz is still an impressive military asset.

 

[DSK-]

I'd have made a case for USS Yorktown and HMS Ark Royal, the "unsinkable".

Was a good list, was impressed.

 

[Draconalis]

The USS Texas is the last Dreadnought class battleship.

And she's like... 8 minutes away.

I love that ship.

 

[electric method]

Some of these ships should have just been honorable mentions with their spots going to other warships that were absolutely dominating. Admiral Sheer and Graf Spee spring instantly to mind over the Bismark or Tirpitz. U.S.S. Enterprise, CV-6, should have been the mention with the Super Carrier Enterprise being mentioned second.

Other people have done a fairly fantastic job of iterating those ships that should have made the cut, but didn't.

 

[beastro]

I agree this article is crap. No offense but mentioning only ships that maybe the average person can come up with in a pinch isn't worth the effort. Make a list that gives people some knowledge.

Beastro, I like your list but you need to make room for two ships IMO the Turbina (*though it might be stretching the definition of modern, and warship) and the SMS Goebon, it might not of ruled the waves but you would be hard pressed to find another modern ship that effected the directly politics of a war and better served her country then that one. The fact its not on this list is an insult to the proposition of the article.

Without the flight of the Goebon Greece joins the war 1915 and Austria gets overrun from the south by Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians and Greeks. Russia puts the entire weight of her army on AH and Germany; and GB and France don't waste valuable time and resources with Gallipoli.

Turbinia wasn't a warship, just a technological demonstrator. She carried no armament nor was a commissioned ship.

As for Goeben, the seizure of their two battleships under construction by the British government had more to do Ottoman entry into the war than she did.

The RN was strong enough throughout the WW2 to contain the the German and Italian fleets and to keep the Japanese out of the Indian ocean allowing the US to concentrate all its major surface units in the pacific.

Cept they didn't keep the Japanese out of the Indian Ocean. After Pearl the Kido Butai returned to the Western Pacific and went south to run the RN out of the Indian Ocean before they turned back East for Midway. The RN was stretched and only had Warspite, four of the old, unmordenized R class BBs, old, small and slow Hermes and two new armoured carriers to defend with and they chose to flee West than test the six Japanese carriers losing Hermes and many lesser warships in the process.

That tied into the massive blunder Britain did after El Alamein at Churchill's insistence by pressing on the offensive in North Africa by striping their Eastern defences of men, aircraft and ships that allowed the Japanese to storm the Malayan Peninsula. Churchill may have been a great man but he had great faults and this pretty much acts as the single event which destroyed the British Empire.

It meant that for the first time in decades, a main line combat ship could have fully co-ordinated fire control on all of her weapons at once. Since all the main guns were of the same type, they had roughly equivalent fire trajectories, and thus could be controlled from the same range finding station. It vastly simplified command for gunnery fire, and reloading and supply for the vessel as well.

Fire control wasn't much needed before Dreadnought because battles took place within 10,000 yards, after her they extended to 20,000 and beyond.

But thats the point, this article was about some of the most famous ships, and until you mentioned the above ships, I hadnt heard of them. Please understand, that I am not belittling their contributions or whether they deserve a place in history, I am just saying this list was about some of the most famous.

You don't have to be defensive, I'm not criticizing or anything, I actually really had when people overlord and bully others with knowledge, I was simply correcting error or what I felt were error. When it comes to history, especially military history, I become very pedantic because it's so distorted in popular culture (see news articles calling anything that floats with a gun a battleship). When I see a title like this list had, it triggers an itch I really need to scratch.

The emphasis on battleships is a little underwhelming. Battleships never really did 'rule the sea'. Almost as soon as they were created in their modern form, the world became so shit scared of them that everyone was too chicken to actually use them. Jutland was like a game of naval dodgeball where everyone throws about three balls and then goes home. All through WW1 it was the submarines that really dominated the oceans and nearly crippled one or more sides.

And yet they ruled for centuries. What we call battleships were for centuries called Ships of the Line in the Age of Sail. The first battleships as we know them were in fact Ships of the Line with steam engines installed before the creation of the "Armored Frigate" and the rest of the ironclad types which followed.

Battle ships were extensively used in these times, it's just that those of the 19th Century existed in a time largely of widespread peace. It was because of that peace that many different types of battleships were developed from armoured frigates, to center battery ships to turreted ones like USS Monitor as people struggled to figure out what was good with the rapidly changing technology with few wars to prove their theories in. It's for this reason why the secon half of the 19th Century was called the Age of Uncertainty in naval circles with only the First Sino-Japanese War and US Civil War having any real naval action take place, but then largely unique circumstances like the former being against secondary powers, one with a heavily out of date, corrupt and inefficient navy against a very modern one and the latter being one which took place mostly in rivers and restricted seas along Eastern Seaboards island chains.

Jutland was due to Britain having no need to press home their advantage because of the distant blockade and because Kaiser Wilhelm was too scared of losing his bath toys. Beyond that the rest of the RN and the Entente quickly hunted down the rest of the German surface naval abroad and kept the Mediterranean clear.

Subs didn't dominate over battleships or any others. It was the British distant blockade which kept the High Seas Fleet bottled while they and the French, and eventually the Italians, kept the Austro-Hungarians and Ottomans sealed tight in the Adriatic and Black Sea.

Subs were of little use to the Entente because their oppositions navies weren't very active while the Central Powers were forced to use them in a Guerre de Course which didn't do nearly as much damage as is commonly thought to Britain, though the U-Boats were a greater threat in WWI than in WWII.

Continuing in this vein, the first major disarmament treaty was all about limiting battleships, and that just pushed people into making 'battlecruisers' to get around the tonnage limits, as well as aircraft carriers.

Battlecruisers were an outgrowth of Dreadnought when Jack Fisher created the first Dreadnought Armoured Cruiser, Invincible, commonly called the first Battlecruiser. Battlecruisers are very mercurial, at least the term is and were very short lived, their heyday being only a few years before and during WWI. After that engine technology caught up and allowed navies to equip their battleships with enough speed to compliment their armour and firepower to make battlecruisers as a type obsolete. The last one completed, Hood, was modified after Jutland to become a fast battleship, though the Queen Elizabeth Class were the first to really be that, however much slower they were.

It wasn't about limiting battleships, it was about limiting costs. Most nations wanted to spot spending money, most of all the US and sought to restrict all types of ships across the board. It's for that reason that Heavy Cruisers came into existence and Light Cruisers were twisted into the form we know them as in WWII. All ship types were restricted in one or another including carriers and all navies were given a limit on how much tonnage they could build.

In WW2 it was the carriers that did all the heavy lifting, as well as the continued submarine warfare.

Only in the second half of the war. In the first half battleships were the primary assets and it's then that most of the gun battles took place. Even after you had battleships active in select areas like the Solomons fighting when carriers couldn't - at night.

Along those lines carriers only became active in the sub war in the Atlantic in 1943 and they were misused at first as the first escort carriers were sent out in hunter-killer squadrons instead of tied to convoys where the U-Boats would come to them. Before and during their time Destroyers and other lesser warships types carried the U-Boat burden while the older RN battleships like the R Class and the little or unmodernized Queen Elizabeth's escorted convoys to keep Germany's heavy hitters from striking.

Yamamoto was basically used in the same way that desperate CoH players use their King Tiger: fling it at the entire enemy army and hope for a miracle.

He had no other choice, the Army and Emperor had already made it for him. All he saw was that he had a better chance to doing leading the Navy than anyone else and threw his dice.

The USS Texas is the last Dreadnought class battleship.

And she's like... 8 minutes away.

I love that ship.

She might not be for long if money isn't found to give her the Mikasa treatment and encase her in a bed of concrete.

Salt waters eating her hull and in many places she's rotted through. The same is also happening to USS Lexington because she sits on a sand bar at low tide.

 

[Ashley Blalock]

I learned this from playing Kantai Collection, so grain of salt, but apparently the Yamato was so secret that most Japanese never heard about it till after WWII and it didn't see much service at all from Midway until Leyte Gulf and they tried real hard to keep it out of action (it was nicknamed 'Hotel Yamato' among Navy personnel who knew about it). The big famous ones were Kaga, Nagato, etc.

Only after the war and reconstruction, when the details came out, did it become the media darling in Japan it is today.

The writing was on the wall for the big gun surface combatant by the time Yamato was commissioned.

The battle of Taranto, and the crippling of the Bismarck, had conclusively demonstrated the vulnerability of large surface combatants to naval aviation.

This is also why the sister ship to the Bismarck, KMS Tirpitz, saw fairly little action (only firing her main battery in combat once ever) and mostly lurked around Norway to discourage an invasion force landing.

Yes there is a good deal of difference between being a famous ship and being an effective ship. At the start of World War II nations still had the idea that the battleship was going to be a decisive factor only to find out the age of the battleship was over and navel warfare would rule the seas.

While ships like the Bismark get all the fame for being so huge the German pocket battleships were actually a better weapon of navel warfare.