History's WORST Warships 

Could you make a what if Oceanic 3 was built I think it would be interesting

Mike, you forgot to mention the SIXTH worst warship in history. She was the H.M.S. VICTORIA. She was top-heavy, had too low a freeboard, and had a massive main gun turret; which caused the ship to sink in minutes.

Do you plan on meeting up with Drachinifel during his trip to Australia?

I'am actually impressed with knowledge and the work you put in the video....and i know what i'am talking about, becouse i was marine engineer for 8 years and fisherman until today. But i also have slovenian bestseller book. Novel about life and contraband in the 80s on the merchant ship. So, good work, keep it real and greetings from Slovenia, brother.....

Sapient was a great interesting and enjoyable book

Great video from Sam O Nella

Asians win even in failure

​@@cpt_nordbartthat's all I could think about.

That's failure with flying colors!

Miss the ship's hull. Bomb explode under the ship. Creates a gigan bubble that lift the ship over theceater thus snapping it.

It is probably lucky that Captain Coles went down with HMS Captain...

It’s a safe bet that at least one man in the Admiralty privately thought ‘Oh thank God’ when hearing that Cowper Coles was no longer around.

I was just about to post the same point myself. Not good that such an omission of fact happened on a channel normally so good for accuracy...

@@johncunningham6928 , was going to say, he wouldn't have been very popular had he survived.

I believe it was well noted that HMS Captain was sailing with other ships that also encountered the same storm, all of which came through relatively unscathed. Just a truly tragic and awful ship all around.

Also, before the development of Captain began Coles was arguing against the issues Captain was most problematic for; excessive topweight, low freeboard, and minimal stability Thus he designed his perfect ship, with extremely low freeboard and dangerous levels of instability. Captain being the last royal navy warship built without Admiralty oversight and engineering.

A line from the Navy court marshal over the sinking of the HMS Captain says it all. "the Captain was built in deference to public opinion expressed in Parliament and through other channels, and in opposition to views and opinions of the Controller and his Department" Basically they just told the British Government "We told you this was a bad design, you didn't listen, stop trying to meddle with the navy's business."

He did cover that part....He just didn't name Coles or go into the fight details as much. But covered the basics for the most part. He could've added the detail of the PRESS being weaponized to push the ships construction more clear admittedly.

I'm surprised she didn't make the list, but it's also nice to learn about ones I hadn't heard about before.

Shinano: "I was sunk at my test-drive" Vasa: "Hold my crispbread"

the English "grace dieu" might be up there in bad design

Strong breeze and down she goes... only good bit is that the area where she settled kept her remarkably well preserved allowing for her to be salvaged.

A sistership to Vasa actually did have a long career before it was deliberatly sunk nearby Vaxholm to prevent the russians to get in to the harbour of Vaxholm.

Yeh apparently Michael has decided to ignore that massive and we'll known part of the story to get a few cheap comments and likes...

Like Tsar Ivan the Terrible?

Don't forget that she also had rammed her sister IJN Mikuma in which made both of them have to reduce speed and this lead to a bombing raid carried out by USS Enterprise where Mikuma was sunk

Ouch!

It was one of those strangely beautiful ships, even after being rebuilt as a half carrier/half cruiser. Also, a floating example of how "multi-role" typically translates as "not particularly good at anything".

Well, given the rivalry between the Japanese navy and army I'd say it managed to kill one enemy. ;)

@@timtheskeptic1147 the f35 would like to have a word about multirole, as the multirole aircraft is most capable fighter aircraft ever ;)

"I didn't vote for him. Sir." 😊😂

"He's a democrat sir"

Drachinifel just posted a video about this

I believe they were nicknamed "Spurious and Outrageous" but I can't think of the last one!

@@christopherhill4438 perhaps Inglorious?

​@@christopherhill4438 "Laborious/Uproarious" (Glorious) and "Curious" (Furious)

And became the ugliest carrier of the war. Even moreso when she got the 4” guns and tiny island. Still Males me wish Wargaming chose Courageous/Glorious instead of Furious for the mid-tier carrier

@@christopherhill4438 Spurious, Uproarius and Outrageous I believe. HMS Furious was temporarily the most heavily armed aircraft carrier in the world. One 18" gun and a flight deck. Insanity but experimental insanity. I have a lot of time for the early conversions. They taught a lot of lessons.

Ah yes, because the problem was TOOOTALLY that it was built by a "private individual". Who do you think the royal navy employs to design ships? Soldiers? Civilian engineers of course. Let's not act like the ship sunk because "muh incompetent civvies". It sunk because the people who ordered it never actually wanted it, took no serious part in the design, and didn't provide crucial input into the design. You get what you pay for. Don't blame others because the people you employed to design a ship couldn't read your mind.

Battlecruisers worked well at the tactical level when used correctly, but at the strategic level they just cost too much to be justifiable for their role of cruiser killers. It’s only once battlecruiser designs intended to kill other capital ships came along that they really became sensible at all levels.

@@bkjeong4302 You are right, also the role of cruisers as merchant raiders have been increasingly taken over by submarines diminishing the need to for 'cruiser killers'.

@@misarthim6538 Very true. They suffered because of misuse, they were supposed to follow the doctrine of outgun anything you cant outrun and outrun anything you cant outgun. Instead they were being used as ships of the line....

Like HMS Hood trying to go head to head with the Bismark.

@@lawv804 That was actually a roughly even match, partly because Hood was a battlecruiser specced like an unusually fast fast battleship, and Bismarck was a partly obsolete battleship (well, even more obsolete than the entire battleship concept already was) for WWII standards meaning that the two ships actually had a similar amount of speed, firepower and protection.

Fires aboard passenger ships would indeed make a good video. The Morro Castle, the Scandinavia Sun, the Dona Paz, Nironic, and others.

The ship's name was spelled S.S. 'Naronic'. Get your facts together.

@@charlestaylor253 The Noronic and the Naronic are 2 different ships. SS. Noronic burned in Toronto Harbour in 1949, and SS. Naronic sank in a storm in the North Atlantic in 1892.

@@charlestaylor253 ouch that’s gotta hurt

@@chuckaddison5134 not trying to be "that guy" but i think you mean the Scandinavian Star? (unless you mean another ship and i'm just very wrong)

'British ridiculousness' has kept the World laughing at a respectful distance up to this very moment!

Exactly! What in the world could possibly go wrong!?

She actually sunk in the Bay of Biscay, a notoriously stormy stretch of sea. There appears to have been some sort of political in-fighting between the professionals in the Admiralty [ who opposed building the ship] and politicians responding to a publicity campaign run by Cowper Coles. One of the officers lost was the son of a politician who had insisted he serve aboard to prove his support of Coles was right.

Yeh except the story told here wasn't true, so...

Britannia rules the waves. So waves will do as Britannia says and stay calm.

+1 yet another ship that should have been on this list.

I agree, you would think that a ship that hardly made it out of the port before sinking because of slight breeze to be on this list. I visited the Vasa museum this summer, it was ming boggling to see the huge ship that spent over 300 years in the bottom of the ocean preserved in whole, with skeletons and facial reproductions of the deceased found on board.

+1 Another great example of a ship that should have been on this list.

Hey, atleast she has a hand in sinking ships.

Friendly I think you mean, as 'allied' is a descriptor of their opponents in that war. In Mogami's case I think luck had less to do with it than competence.

@@mandowarrior123 the only incompetence was the helmsman (and possibly the captain). But other than that she did ok and had a hand in sinking enemy ships. But in terms of the level of incompetence, I wouldn't put her ramming her sister ships above almost sinking the US pride battleship with the president on board and the depth charge incident. The only "bad luck" part about the Willie D was the kamikaze she shot down still managing to sink the goddamn ship even in death.

​@@mandowarrior123the

That was weird, the British Admiralty really was forced unto this

Strange that, it's almost like this video was pandering to a particular audience.

​@@rustlemyjimmyswhich one?

Kamchatka!!!

Unfortunately some WW2 US submarines were lost to their own torpedoes which circled back. Don't remember if they were Mk 14's.

I've always thought of it, as people trying to use a fine knife as a screw driver, or good adjustable wrench as a hammer. They can work very well for their intended purpose, but if you try using them for something their not made for, they'll not work well and you'll probably end up ruining them.

I second this statement. When used to bully smaller ships like they are intended, Battlecruisers are really good at killing other cruisers.

The battlecruisers of both sides were never intended to fight battleships, nor did they do so voluntarily. It's an old myth that battlecruisers were meant to be part of the battle line. At Jutland, the British and German battlecruisers engaged each other, not the battleships.

@@Cailus3542 Firstly, we shouldn't just say "battlecruisers" as a whole as there are at least 3, if not 4 generations of battlecruisers. What's true for 1st gen battlecruisers (eg Invincible & Indefatigable) is not nessasarily true for 2nd or 3rd gen ones. Okay, during a fleet battle (like Jutland) the battlecruisers were meant to scout for the fleet and engage the opponents cruiser (or battlecruiser) screen, allowing your destroyers etc freedom of action for when the battleships engage. But once you've sunk the enemy cruisers and the battleships are engaging, you've got a bunch of ships with battleship calibre guns, what are they going to do, go home then? No, the intention was for the battlecruiser squadron engage the enemy battleships, adding their weight of fire, while not receiving much in return because they should be firing at the battleships, then to accelerate out in front of the rest of the battle line and cross the T of the enemy. But then by the time you get to 3rd gen battlecruisers (eg Hood, the "basically a fast battleship" stage), they definitely were being thought of as being used to go toe to to with battleships when the need called for it.

Same I also think if they shot down planes, they did thier jobs. Planes that were probably bombing larger ships in a formation they were escorting

Your take on the Willie D's luck reminds me of Roscoe Turner. Race pilot Roscoe Turner was well in the lead of one race and just about set to win it when his engine came apart in his face. Through sheer skill, guts and luck, he managed to make a safe landing. (He didn't even crash!) As he staggered away from his plane an onlooker came up to him and said, "Gee, Roscoe, what bad luck that you lost the race!" "BAD luck?" Roscoe boomed. "Boy, when something like that happens to you and you walk away from it, that's GOOD luck!"

@@jasonstanley7326 Running AA picket was an important role for US Destroyers.

The Fletchers only had shooting enemy warships as a secondary purpose, after all. Their primary purpose was to add their battery of five 5" guns to the carrier's.

Happy counting!

Inventory of what

@@goosehubtheshipnerd Cannabis 😶‍🌫️😆

@@NealBones right…

My next door neighbor was the commanding officer of the Newman K Perry. CDR Curtis Christopher Davis. He and my father were good friends. Everyone called him Skip.

I'm not so sure, as animals often senses danger before humans do. If the rats are the first to leave, the ship's cat would probably follow shortly after.

@blondbraid7986 Sensing danger is different from being able to escape it. And while cats are agile and generally good at looking out for themselves, a sinking ship is a fraught place. As they submerge, cavernous spaces fill with water and anything nearby can get sucked inside. You can fall through air pockets too, and if it's a military ship, burning oil floating on the water is often a danger as well. Good hearted people might think of the cat, but wouldn't necessarily want to risk being trapped inside the ship trying to catch the wiley critter. In general, animal suffering wasn't a high priority in times past.

Oscar/Unsinkable Sam, survivor of the Bismarck, HMS Cossack, and HMS Ark Royal: "Weakness disgusts me."

@remkirkthegamer1157 sure, there are some. Most weren't so lucky.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NofUhqh-S7U.html Here's a slightly more in depth video from a naval historian

The Duquesne-class gets a bit of unfair treatment. Alex Clarke did a good video last year looking into what that class were intended to be and why they were what they were. There was logic behind it, not bad design.

Also: - I-400 class submarine and aircraft carrier hybrid. After Admiral Yamamoto died no one knew what to do with them - KMS Graf Zeppelin, again a ship no one knew what to do with it. Wasn't even completed - SMS Lützow, only lasted 3 months before getting sunk at Jutland - IJN Ise class battleship after being converted into battleship-carrier hybrid - KRI Irian, basically a big f*ck you to Dutch aircraft carrier

Thanks so much Nikki!

I’d love to at least see an Ocean Liner Designs + Drach collab!

@@andrewp8284 A colab on armed merchant cruisers / raiders would be an obvious choice. The UK - Austraila time difference might make it a bit difficult though

Not the Indie! 😂

I love that show!

@Tenacious Rodent I honestly don't know what show you mean. If my comment is a reference to a show that's totally coincidental.

@@bo7341 Hornblower.

@@bo7341 I think it was more in reply to my comment which was yes....a Hornblower reference!

Indeed, as a Swede, I'm borderline offended she wouldn't make the list.

+1 that's atleast 4 other ships mentioned in the comments that deserved to be on this list over some of the entries.

The Novgorod wasn't the only one, there was a sister ship 'Popov' too, named after the ships designer Vice Admiral Andrei Popov.

Actually, there are two very good videos about the 'Voyage of the Damned' on Drachinifel's channel

That was what inspired IJN doctrine during WW2, focusing on a single decisive battle

I expect Mike is trying not to clone a recent(ish) video that Drachinifel made on some poor engineering choices on warships, including some different vessels as well.

​@@oriontaylor or spare the repeated beatings the Invincible and Indefatigable classes.

HMS Commodore by GBDanny96 is an example

Most of her screwups also never happened (the torpedo incident, however, is real).

Wasn't there a sailor that survived the willy d, the lusitania, and the titanic?