World's Worst Warships?

Why does the "World's Worst Warships" thread keep returning to the Kuznetsov? :idea::p

Admiral Kuznetsov is in Critical Condition, Russia Blames the Shipyard

The Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier can’t be launched or it will sink,
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Same news as the old news.

And a nice dilemma, and a huuuge sign of incompetence. How do the repair go so badly that it got even worse while in drydock? What now? How do you admit that the attempted overhaul went so badly that now you have to scrap your only aircraft carrier while it is still in drydock?

Is it worth pointing out that the drydock was built specifically for the Kuznetsov? That the Kuznetsov was built in Ukraine, and Russia has no ability to build such a large warship anew?

:):):)
 
I think it's a shame, because I think "aircraft carrying guided missile cruiser" is a neat niche class of warship, and I really wish someone would do it well. But yeah, the Kuze is a miserable pile of failure.

On the other hand, I think the absolute worst niche class of warship is the "Littoral Combat Ship".

See, there was a moment in time, after the invention of the airplane, but before aircraft carriers became truly viable, where seaplanes were totally awesome. But a thing that combines the features of boats and planes will be sub-optimal at both roles. So once the boats got big enough to just let the planes be planes, seaplanes stopped being awesome and started being niche tools at best.

Same with the Littoral Combat Ship. There was a moment when a lightly-protected, technologically-advanced corvette or cutter could be super useful for coastal combat operations. But that moment had passed before the first LCS was commissioned.

I think there's a place in our future for a modular drone-tender warship. One where the modules are the drones themselves, not the shipboard hardware. And in the long run it will probably be folded into the destroyer/cruiser classes.
 
theprestige said:
I think it's a shame, because I think "aircraft carrying guided missile cruiser" is a neat niche class of warship, and I really wish someone would do it well. But yeah, the Kuze is a miserable pile of failure.

On the other hand, I think the absolute worst niche class of warship is the "Littoral Combat Ship".

See, there was a moment in time, after the invention of the airplane, but before aircraft carriers became truly viable, where seaplanes were totally awesome. But a thing that combines the features of boats and planes will be sub-optimal at both roles. So once the boats got big enough to just let the planes be planes, seaplanes stopped being awesome and started being niche tools at best.

Same with the Littoral Combat Ship. There was a moment when a lightly-protected, technologically-advanced corvette or cutter could be super useful for coastal combat operations. But that moment had passed before the first LCS was commissioned.

I think there's a place in our future for a modular drone-tender warship. One where the modules are the drones themselves, not the shipboard hardware. And in the long run it will probably be folded into the destroyer/cruiser classes.
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I think there might be a use for a litoral combat vessel. There certainly was for, say HSwMS Sverige, which did manage to be more powerful than any ocean going vessel with a draught able to engage in the enclosed, shallow waters around the Swedish coast. I have seen it claimed that this was a big reason why Germany didn't try to invade Sweden in WWII

I think one reason why the LCS concept is flawed is that it had a requirement to be able to travel oceanic distances. It would make sense for a litoral combat vessel to actually compromise on oceanic performance in order to optimise for coastal performance.

I wonder what would happen with an assault ship, say like the San Antonio class but carrying small corvettes (and drones etc as you mentioned)
 
crescent said:
Why does the "World's Worst Warships" thread keep returning to the Kuznetsov? :idea::p

Admiral Kuznetsov is in Critical Condition, Russia Blames the Shipyard



Same news as the old news.

And a nice dilemma, and a huuuge sign of incompetence. How do the repair go so badly that it got even worse while in drydock? What now? How do you admit that the attempted overhaul went so badly that now you have to scrap your only aircraft carrier while it is still in drydock?

Is it worth pointing out that the drydock was built specifically for the Kuznetsov? That the Kuznetsov was built in Ukraine, and Russia has no ability to build such a large warship anew?

:):):)
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Massive corruption.
 
I guess the Moskva must count as one of the worst, given how invulnerable it was supposed to be and how easy to sink it turned out to be.

Not even the buoyancy of the True Cross could keep it afloat !
 
jimbob said:
I think there might be a use for a litoral combat vessel. There certainly was for, say HSwMS Sverige, which did manage to be more powerful than any ocean going vessel with a draught able to engage in the enclosed, shallow waters around the Swedish coast. I have seen it claimed that this was a big reason why Germany didn't try to invade Sweden in WWII

I think one reason why the LCS concept is flawed is that it had a requirement to be able to travel oceanic distances. It would make sense for a litoral combat vessel to actually compromise on oceanic performance in order to optimise for coastal performance.

I wonder what would happen with an assault ship, say like the San Antonio class but carrying small corvettes (and drones etc as you mentioned)
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Well, the Sverige was a pocket battleship, basically a mobile barbette, augmenting the defenses of Fortress Sweden.
 
Moskva wasn't supposed to be all that, though. It's just a Slava-class missile cruiser. It was supposed to be competently crewed and well-maintained, as all warships are supposed to be. The fact that it was not doesn't indict the entire class.

A Slava-class cruiser in Ukrainian service would probably prove to be a capable, if aging design. Just as the T-72s in Ukrainian have proven to be capable, if aging designs, even though the ones in Moscow service are basically clown cars.
 
theprestige said:
Well, the Sverige was a pocket battleship, basically a mobile barbette, augmenting the defenses of Fortress Sweden.
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Yes, the early 20th Century Swedish naval planners worked out that they could optimise the design by not having requirements that navies with ambitions to global power projection couldn't ignore.

Because they only wanted a ship for litoral combat.

Unlike the Litoral Combat Ship concept, which was trying to be all things including cheap.
 
jimbob said:
Yes, the early 20th Century Swedish naval planners worked out that they could optimise the design by not having requirements that navies with ambitions to global power projection couldn't ignore.

Because they only wanted a ship for litoral combat.

Unlike the Litoral Combat Ship concept, which was trying to be all things including cheap.
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Seems like common problem with military hardware, at least for the US. We generally don't go cheap but we often try for really expensive swiss army knives.
 
theprestige said:
I think it's a shame, because I think "aircraft carrying guided missile cruiser" is a neat niche class of warship, and I really wish someone would do it well. But yeah, the Kuze is a miserable pile of failure.
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For a small navy.... maybe. For a navy that can afford a dozen or more large ships I think its always better to specialize. A carrier thats just a carrier will be better at, well, being a carrier.
 
lobosrul5 said:
For a small navy.... maybe. For a navy that can afford a dozen or more large ships I think its always better to specialize. A carrier thats just a carrier will be better at, well, being a carrier.
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Yes, especially with carriers with very specific shapes dictated by the optimisation for flying aircraft. A guided missile battlecruiser* and an aircraft carrier are probably going to be more effective than two guided missile carriers.


*especially if you don't limit yourself to surface vessels.
 
Well, I still like ancient times and Egypt, so let me nominate Ptolemy IV's tessarakonteres, aka "forty".

In the unlikely case someone is unfamiliar with the ancient galley classifications, they were based on the number of oarsmen per column of oars and side. So for example, if you had 3 rows of oars with 1 man per oar, that would be a trireme. Each "column" of oars had three men. Meanwhile a quadrireme would have two rows of oars, with two men per oar, hence 4 per column of oars, hence "quadri".

The largest that are actually attested anywhere as used in combat were the deceres, which had columns of 10 oarsmen.

Well, that didn't stop there, though. People loved building bigger flagships that were obviously useless in combat. Starting with "twelves", "fourteens", "eighteens", and eventually "twenties", and then directly a "thirty" under Ptolemy II. To which Ptolemy IV gave a big middle finger by going all the way to the "forty" (tessarakonteres).

This thing is presumed to have been a catamaran with basically a deck between two twenties, because that's pretty much the only way anyone can imagine it actually being buildable to the historical characteristics. It needed 4000 oarsmen and and 400 other crew to move, and could hold almost 3000 marines.

By way of comparison, the Yamato, largest battleship ever built, had 3,332 crew. Meaning that even without the marines, the tessarakonteres literally needed 33% more crew than the Yamato. Or slightly over twice as many crewmen as the Bismarck.

These were literal megaprojects at the time, and literally had no actual military value to show for the expense. As I was saying, there is no mention of anything above a deceres (a "ten") ever being used in an actual military action. Presumably because good luck maneuvering to ram a smaller vessel with this monster. They were just for show.

So yeah, Egyptians invented literal showboating :p
 
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Old thread, so I haven't read it all, but I assume the Vasa has been mentioned: Swedish royal flagship which capsized about 1 (one) nautical mile into its maiden voyage in 1628. Reason: The sovereign king had ordered too nanu heavy cannons on the upper decks, making the ship so unstable that it keeled over at the first squall and sank with considerable loss of life.

It has later been raised and is now on display in its own museum in Stockholm.
Hans
 
@Andy_Ross
Very good video and on point, but since most discussions are about modern ships, I thought I'd go ancient for a change :p

Not nearly enough people badmouthing the ancients, if anyone asks me :p
 
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MRC_Hans said:
Old thread, so I haven't read it all, but I assume the Vasa has been mentioned: Swedish royal flagship which capsized about 1 (one) nautical mile into its maiden voyage in 1628. Reason: The sovereign king had ordered too nanu heavy cannons on the upper decks, making the ship so unstable that it keeled over at the first squall and sank with considerable loss of life.

It has later been raised and is now on display in its own museum in Stockholm.
Hans
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Somewhat inexact. Not by far, mind you. It's not JUST that the ship was heavy and heavy at the top, which yes, you're correct, it was, but it also featured gun ports at almost water line, to fit that many guns. Which really is what sunk it. When it listed to turn, the bottom edge of those low gun ports on one side went below the water line.
 
HansMustermann said:
Somewhat inexact. Not by far, mind you. It's not JUST that the ship was heavy and heavy at the top, which yes, you're correct, it was, but it also featured gun ports at almost water line, to fit that many guns. Which really is what sunk it. When it listed to turn, the bottom edge of those low gun ports on one side went below the water line.
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Yes, I know, just gave the short story. But the two things are connected: The demand for heavy armament came when the building of the lower hull was well under way, so the expenses for increasing the load capacity of the ship would be prohibitive. Instead, to even keep the lower gun ports some distance from the waterline, they had to reduce the ballast making the already top-heavy ship dangerously unstable.

I'm not sure how much the low gun ports contributed to the sinking, as they were presumably closed. Not watertight, but still. .. I have a book about it, must re-read, soon.

Hans
 
HansMustermann said:
@Andy_Ross
Very good video and on point, but since most discussions are about modern ships, I thought I'd go ancient for a change :p

Not nearly enough people badmouthing the ancients, if anyone asks me :p
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Yes, he always justifies his choices.
He has a more general worst ships video that covers all erss but I can't find it at the moment
 
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Vasa gets a bit of a bye as it was built at a time when they were still making it up as they went along to a certain extent.
Similarly with the Mary Rose, she already had given good service when she was taken in hand for a rebuild to incorporate new design features.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Yes, I know, just gave the short story. But the two things are connected: The demand for heavy armament came when the building of the lower hull was well under way, so the expenses for increasing the load capacity of the ship would be prohibitive. Instead, to even keep the lower gun ports some distance from the waterline, they had to reduce the ballast making the already top-heavy ship dangerously unstable.

I'm not sure how much the low gun ports contributed to the sinking, as they were presumably closed. Not watertight, but still. .. I have a book about it, must re-read, soon.

Hans
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Just looked in the mentioned book ("Vasan" by Björn Landström). It does seem that the gun ports were indeed open, as they had fired salutation shots when leaving port.

It was not unusual for warships, also later, having the lower gun ports temporarily under water, during sharp manoeuvres.

Hans
 
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