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World's Worst Warships?

Major Major said:
Blip krieg -- a mainstay of American armaments ever since the fifties.

Consider, for example, the M-28 Davy Crockett Weapons System, which fired a nuclear weapon with a blast radius sufficient to engulf the firers.

:blackcat:
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Sorry, but that's incorrect. According to nuclearsecrecy.com's nukemap, an air burst from the M-28 would produce 1 psi overpressure (just enough to shatter windows) at a range of 540 m, but even the shorter-range launcher had a maximum range of 2 km. At that distance the crew might receive an unhealthy, but far from fatal, dose of radiation (about 25 rems) assuming that they weren't protected by intervening terrain, or by taking cover in or behind their vehicle. For this reason, firing from a reverse slope and keeping heads down until after the detonation were strongly encouraged.
 
How about an entire class of vessels (or two) Big gun submarines, like the British M-class, and Submarine aircraft carriers.
 
jimbob said:
How about an entire class of vessels (or two) Big gun submarines, like the British M-class, and Submarine aircraft carriers.
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Cruiser submarines had a brief window in history where they were effective. Becoming obsolete with further technological advances doesn't make them "worst warships", anymore than being obsoleted by further technological advances makes the PBY Catalina one of the "worst airplanes".
 
theprestige said:
Cruiser submarines had a brief window in history where they were effective. Becoming obsolete with further technological advances doesn't make them "worst warships", anymore than being obsoleted by further technological advances makes the PBY Catalina one of the "worst airplanes".
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Being unseaworthy helps though.
 
jimbob said:
Being unseaworthy helps though.
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They were seaworthy enough to be useful for a brief period before better stuff got developed.

The F-117 could barely fly. The goal was the least radar-reflective plane they could possibly make. They started with an ideal shape that was completely unflyable. Then they modified it the bare minimum necessary to make it flyable, keeping as much stealth as they possibly could without automatically killing the pilot.

Needless to say, it got obsoleted pretty quick. But for that brief period of time where it was the only plane that could do that job, it was magic. To me, the F-117, the Surcouf, the PBY Catalina, and helicopters are all in the same category: Woefully inefficient solutions that are still ******* awesome because the need is real and they really fill the need.
 
theprestige said:
They were seaworthy enough to be useful for a brief period before better stuff got developed.

The F-117 could barely fly. The goal was the least radar-reflective plane they could possibly make. They started with an ideal shape that was completely unflyable. Then they modified it the bare minimum necessary to make it flyable, keeping as much stealth as they possibly could without automatically killing the pilot.

Needless to say, it got obsoleted pretty quick. But for that brief period of time where it was the only plane that could do that job, it was magic. To me, the F-117, the Surcouf, the PBY Catalina, and helicopters are all in the same category: Woefully inefficient solutions that are still ******* awesome because the need is real and they really fill the need.
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I'd agree with the rest. But what need did the Surcouf fulfil that wouldn't have been fulfilled better either by smaller submarines, or by surface vessels?
 
jimbob said:
I'd agree with the rest. But what need did the Surcouf fulfil that wouldn't have been fulfilled better either by smaller submarines, or by surface vessels?
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Firepower plus stealth. According to Wiki, the Surcouf specifically was developed to provide heavy cruiser firepower without violating the Washington Treaty.

Apparently they were slow to dive and not very maneuverable. As anti-submarine warfare doctrine and technology improved, these limitations made it obsolete. A smaller submarine, caught on the surface by aircraft, had a better chance of diving and escaping. Before submarine-hunting aircraft were commonplace, this wasn't as much of an issue, and cruiser subs still had some value.

Anyway, my point is that being rendered obsolete by advancing technology is not the same as being rendered "worst warship".
 
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The big gun cruiser submarines were never a good idea, they didn't become a bad idea years after they were designed. Think about it, they were going to sneak into combat, go toe to toe with other ships that had guns... then submerge and escape. With their 50 to 100 nm range at maybe 5 kn's. Oh, and if they took any sort of damage to their unarmored hull then they can't dive anyways! It was a folly. And its not as if ASW technology just didn't exist at all when they were built.

That said, the idea of putting some seaplanes in a long range submarine, especially for use in the Pacific wasn't a bad idea at all. Especially in the days before radar. See Japan's subs. They misused them badly, but that wasn't the vessels fault.
 
The wiki doesn't mention it, and I haven't been able to find anything online about it, but one of the K class (according to an article I read back in the eighties???) when submerging, sank to the bottom and was stuck there for some time, before 'deciding' to resurface- at the time it had royalty on board-who exactly I forget
I wish I could remember where/when I read this article, because it was extremely detailed, with accounts from people who had actually sailed them etc and was fascinating reading as at the time, I had never heard of a steam powered submarine
 
lobosrul5 said:
The big gun cruiser submarines were never a good idea, they didn't become a bad idea years after they were designed. Think about it, they were going to sneak into combat, go toe to toe with other ships that had guns... then submerge and escape. With their 50 to 100 nm range at maybe 5 kn's. Oh, and if they took any sort of damage to their unarmored hull then they can't dive anyways! It was a folly. And its not as if ASW technology just didn't exist at all when they were built.

That said, the idea of putting some seaplanes in a long range submarine, especially for use in the Pacific wasn't a bad idea at all. Especially in the days before radar. See Japan's subs. They misused them badly, but that wasn't the vessels fault.
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The Japanese sub fleet were decent enough vessels but they were always two steps behind in the evolution if the war. Their mission was inadequate or impractical before the vessel was ready.

The biggest thing a Japanese sub did was show the USN that mega subs were not practical at that point in history. The captured one was sunk by them shortly after the war ended.
 
K Class subs were a doomed attempt at producing boats that would be able to keep pace with a Battlefleet.

British subs in general performed well in the war but, being designed for work in the Med and North Sea or Western Approaches they suffered in the Pacific.
Conversely the big US boats would have had difficulty in the Med and European coastal waters.
RN Subs performed well in S.E. Asia and the Indian ocean.
 
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Dabop said:
The wiki doesn't mention it, and I haven't been able to find anything online about it, but one of the K class (according to an article I read back in the eighties???) when submerging, sank to the bottom and was stuck there for some time, before 'deciding' to resurface- at the time it had royalty on board-who exactly I forget
I wish I could remember where/when I read this article, because it was extremely detailed, with accounts from people who had actually sailed them etc and was fascinating reading as at the time, I had never heard of a steam powered submarine
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I don't know about the RN subs for sure, but USN subs always were supposed to keep slightly positive ballast, and occasionally run their motor in silent mode to keep a depth. That way if they couldn't open any valves, and couldn't turn the screws for some reason, they'd eventually float to the surface. So that may have been what saved that K class sub.
 
dudalb said:
Also, letting the authority to use Nuclear Weapons go down to the platoon level was probably not a good idea...
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While the weapon was assigned to platoons, I very much doubt they would have been deployed without higher-echelon oversight. On the other hand, the scenario in which they would have been used was a pretty extreme one. In a mass Soviet assault on Western Europe, having such weapons at the platoon level was probably not as bad an idea as it sounds outside of that context.

Especially considering the actual yield was on par with a heavy artillery barrage, which those platoons were already being entrusted with anyway
 
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