In this episode we're talking about the Queen Elizabeth Class Battleships. To send Ryan a message on Facebook: / ryanszimanski To support this channel and Battleship New Jersey, go to: www.battleshipnewjersey.org/v...
The scrapping of the Grand Old Lady, HMS Warspite, remains one of the greatest crimes against naval history ever committed, and like you said Ryan, she did not go quietly.
Unfortunately her condition was really bad (just look at the photos of her when she was being disarmed). But thankfully her nameplate and bell were saved. Her captain, Andrew Cunningham kept it hanging in the front of his house until his death (it’s now held privately at Imperial War Museum) and even watched as Warspite was towed away. The nameplate was in a pub near where she ran aground but all sources say it “has since been sold at auction” which means the sale was undocumented and is therefore lost and/or its whereabouts are unknown. One of Warspite’s guns were used aboard the battleship HMS Vanguard. But unfortunately even her guns were scrapped. I personally think Vanguard should’ve at least been saved, since she would’ve had the only surviving 5.25” turrets, sextuple Bofors, and a gun from Warspite, on top of being the most technologically advanced battleship to ever exist (more than the Iowas). She was also in better condition than any Iowa at the time.
As great a sight as the fast battleships are, I would have traded all four of the Iowas for preserving Enterprise and Warspite. Both ships represented the Naval war for their respective countries. No one can deny their tenacity for survival. The Japanese reported Enterprise sunk so many times during the war it gave rise to the nickname "The Grey Ghost". I know less of Warspite but if the war was based only on the naming of ships, the British would have won single handedly.
@@177SCmaro The Warspite was going to be a tough save, because of her material condition. She had as Ryan pointed out a partial concrete bottom. Enterprise they tried to save, but the money wasn't there. Texas barely got saved. As Ryan said, ships that have a State name or City name had local pride that could help save them, while Enterprise was just a name.
@@wierdalien1 Yeah thats how it turned out ,but if they would have made Warspite into a museum, thinks would have played out differently for Belfast ! They were just willingly enough to do Belfast ! No way they would have kept both!
@@christianjunghanel6724 Might have happened, remember that HMS Belfast continued to serve until '63 unlike Warspite, whose underside was mostly concrete when D-Day happened. Honestly, Warspite is probably one of the IRL occurrences of the Plot Armour trope, but she would take more money to make good after so many emergency repairs that worth. At best, she would have to be a dry dock exhibit
Can't argue with the exploits of Warspite. Her battle honours are heavily loaded towards steaming balls out in harms way against moving, armoured adversaries. Perhaps the most significant BB in terms of sheer ass kickery...
aye, to see two world wars and was still very effective (would have said formidable but didn't want to provoke "not a CV" replies :p ) in ww2 is a feat, she seemed to be everywhere
I'm glad you mentioned the complexity and amount of expertise that go into major caliber guns. Most people don't understand just how much brainpower, effort, and skill goes into designing and manufacturing a gun that can fire a 2,000lb shell 30,000yds+ accurately.
It's such a tragedy to naval history that Warspite was not saved as a museum ship. During the Battle of Jutland, Warspite's steering jammed during an aggressive maneuver to avoid a collision with her sister ship HMS Valiant. This caused her to steam in circles thus drawing German fire away from the damaged cruiser HMS Warrior. Warspite took an incredible beating but she saved HMS Warrior. It was almost as if Warspite herself made the decision to save Warrior. Plus she is the first ship to survive an "anti ship" missile attack from Fritz-X bombs. How much awesomeness can one ship achieve!?
The Fritz-X bombs were not a joke, three or four of them sunk one of the Italian Navy's battleships. The Fritz-X bombs however were easily jammed and the wire guided versions were not useful because the bomber launching it would have had to loiter around the combat zone for too long and they would get shot down by enemy fighters. NatGeo had a documentary on this. The Fritz-X bombs are in a way a preview of the Exocat missile.
I don't know, but if a proper set of qualifications could be put together, the HMS Warspite Award should be created, for "gallant savagery in the face of withering odds".
The history of the HMS Warspite would be a wonderful video to watch. The more detail the better… but I don’t know how many others would be as in to it as I, so I understand. She had a truly legendary career. Well done!
@@OldStreetDoc Don't know how close you follow Drach, but some great recommendations are his series on the Pearl Harbour salvage operations, there is a great interview with Captain Larry Seaquist (USS Iowa captain in '80s) and his coop with Matt Warwick on the KGV's development history was eye-opening for me.
For context on how warspite is viewed to brits then I'd say we view her the same way Americans view enterprise. Both great ships that took huge beatings repeatedly and yet refused to lose and just carried on truckin no matter how hard they got hit
Enterprise took beatings. But it was better known as at one point being the only carrier in service across the entire pacific theater. I think the one you’re looking for is the USS Nevada, which took 2 nukes, 5 days of shelling, and a torpedo to finally sink it.
"Captain, there's a World War I battleship coming at us kind of slow. Just 23 knots." "So we've got them outclassed in every respect. This should be easy" "Sir, it's the Warspite" "Oh!"
Just to clarify, four battleships made a Division in the Grand Fleet, not a Squadron. The subsequent R class battleships were authorised as an 8 ship class, the five as built with the last 3 the original Renown and Repulse to the R class design and the eighth cancelled which was to be called Resistance. The last 3 were changed in design or cancelled when it was decided that no more battleships would be laid down as it was thought the war wouldn't last long.
I'd definitely like one on the Warspite. I'm sure Drach has a video on her, but it would be cool to see your take as well. I've really gotten hooked on this type of video over the last year, keep up the excellent work.
I think it would be interesting to compare/contrast Warspite to New Jersey, especially considering they are the most decorated Battleship from each nation respectively.
Yes! and lets not make it a Versus video either. There's too much X > Y and we should remember they were on the same team and achieved similar goals with differing approaches.
It's too different a thing though... New Jersey is a great ship but mainly participated in conflicts rather than actually fought the way Warspite did. There's nothing wrong with that but they just don't compare for the most part.
Great to see one of those longer, more detailed videos again, I was a bit underwhelmed by content lately and this is exactly what I was hoping for. Please do something new in atomic series.
Great ships for sure. Maybe the New Mexico class was comparable as warships but the Queen Elizabeth Class certainly wins on practical execution of her design. They still packed a potent punch and were used as front line ships 25 years after launch, a remarkable testament to their design.
Ryan's anecdote about the Iowas trying to hit a destroyer at long range reminds me too much of me trying to hit an annoying DD with any of my battleships in WOWS.
Would I be correct in assuming the Queen Elizabeth whom this class is named after would be Queen Elizabeth I, the monarch that reigned during the defeat of the Spanish Armada?
Very entertaining vid from Jingles on Warspites history: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-07WXmSpUzns.html - think I'll repeat this as a main comment.
Queen Elizabeth is the pinnacle of 1910s battleship tech versus Iowa which is peak 1940s battleship tech so Iowa should be able to land hits better due to superior fire control. If Iowa's tech was grafted onto Elizabeth or Iowa was reduced to 1916 fire control then the outcome isn't certain. QEs can take a hit and give them, too. One thing QE class has going for it is that at least when they were flagships of the Grand Fleet the battleship was still the final arbiter, whereas when Iowas were launched they were no longer battle deciders and were arguably irrelevant in terms of their designed purpose. Repurposed as support vessels they certainly provided value, but Iowas were never going to duke it out with Yamato or Musashi. The bombers and fighters from the carriers would smack up the Japanese ships before Iowas even got in sniffing distance for the 16 inch guns to fire.
A lot of people don't seem to realize (or admit) that the big gun battleships were obsolescent by the 1940s. Not completely obsolete yet, but the Iowa class and contemporaries absolutely represent the sunset of battleship-on-battleship engagements. Air power both in terms of the aircraft themselves and their carrier ships advanced so quickly throughout the war, by it's end the carrier and carrier based aircraft really were the decisive factor. Recognizing that fact and moving away from the heavily armored gun platforms towards aircraft carriers must've been difficult for a lot of the more old school naval leadership.
@@michaelathens953 its not that simple really, yes air power was becoming dominate, but the free space, and weight, the big gun battleships had compared to destroyers or cruisers allowed them to be utterly packed full of sensors and guns without being a detriment to its fighting capability. There is a reason why destroyers utterly ballooned in size after the war
@Sergei Pohkerova Most things considering fire control etc were upgraded on ships. There is a reason why QE class and Scharnhorst have the longest scored (two side confirmed) hits of 24+km range on moving ships. Yamato has (only confirmed by US side, Japan destroyed the documents) a 31km stradle that actually did dmg and not just splash. Shell went under the escort CV and exploaded, disabling compleatly its power for some time) and confirmed 19km (if im not mistaken) DD hit with main guns (no one hit a DD till that time from such range with BB). US had overall the poorest longest hits confirmed on BB class ships. QE was nowhere match a Yamato or Iowa class BB's in terms of protection and gun's. But they still could shoot as accurate, as core systems were upgraded through time. Specially that US went out in WW2 with kinda poor long range scored hits in their BB's.
I would love to see a proper special style video with a trip to Britain to go over the details and history of HMS Warspite. One of my all time favorite ships.
Warspite is one of only two battleships to sink a Submarine, during the battle of Narvik her Swordfish spotter plane bombed and sank U-64 although the captain and crew went on to form the kernel of the very successful U-124. The other battleship to sink a submarine was HMS Dreadnought (by ramming). A great piece as always Ryan, clearly a direct comparison between the two is a bit silly, but they do bare a comparison of the thinking and principles. As an Aside the QEs were nearly built with small tube boilers which would have added about 3-3.5kt to their top speed making them, possibly, true fast battleships.
I recall Peter Cremer, one of the submarine officers, remarked he never expected to be rescued at sea by mountain troops. I suppose the mountain troops could say the same thing about rescuing a sub crew and getting shot at by a battleship. Totally not in the brochure.
Replacing coal with oil also means you could - depending on mechanical concerns - potentially maintain a higher speed for longer, because you're not relying on the stamina of your stokers holding up. They're not just feeding the boilers, they've got to move the coal between the bunkers, so that it can be fed. Once you move that capacity into other classes of ships, and rebuld your network of coaling stations, you then have an improved ability to strategically reposition forces much faster.
Interesting fact about these ships is that there was a movement to have them built with small tube boilers rather than the large tube boilers they were given. If this had happened then this class would have been capable of 27-28 kts thus making them true fast battleships
It would have been interesting to see the world reacting to this monster. A battleship not only much heavier armed and better armoured than anything else on the ocean, but also able to run down battlecruisers? That would have shaken things up. On the other hand, it would have been a great risk. Small tube boilers were bleeding edge technology at the time, and if they hadn't worked as hoped, it would have left the royal navy with a bunch of extremely expensive lame ducks that spent most of their service life in drydock having their engines fixed for the &%")@+*%/-th time.
@@Bird_Dog00 This is true but the RN at the time already had such a superiority over any conceivable opponent plus the Japanese alliance so the risk could have been taken. This was always Fisher's dream a warship more powerful than any ship afloat with a speed able to run down cruisers
My favourite QE Class is HMS Warspite. Her first successful attack was against SMS Von der Tann in the maelstrom of the Battle of Jutland and her last, against German positions on Walcheren Island. She scored a direct hit against the (sailing) Italian battleship Giulio Cesare at a range of nearly 15 miles and was the 1st ship to open fire on D Day. She still holds the record for the most battle honours awarded to a single ship of the Royal Navy. Even in her twilight she refused to go to the ship graveyard quietly. While under tow to Faslane to be scrapped, she dropped an anchor and eventually ran aground at St Michaels Mount in Cornwall. There she remained, despite numerous attempts to refloat her until two "experimental" jet engines were brought in and she was moved a grand total of 130ft closer to shore. She finally disappeared from view in 1955. Scrapped on the shore she decided was her place to rest. After thirty two years at sea. Seven and a half of them fighting in two total wars.
@Rob Bowes As HMS Warspite holds a special place in your affections, are you familiar with Lieutenant Commander R A B Mitchell's wonderful poem about her. It's a very fitting tribute to the Grand Old Lady. The Subject You say you have no subject And your brushes all have dried; But come to Marazion At the ebbing of the tide. And look you out to seaward, Where my Lady battle scarred Hugs the rock that is more welcome, Than the shameful breakers yard. Paint her there upon the sunset In her glory and despair, With the diadem of victory Still in flower upon her hair. Let her whisper as she settles Of her blooding long ago, In the mist than mingles Jutland With the might of Scapa Flow. Let her tell you, too, of Narvik With its snowy hills, and then Of Matapan, Salerno And the shoals of Walcheren; And finally of Malta, When along the purple street Came in trail the Roman Navy To surrender at her feet. Of all these honours conscious, How could she bear to be Delivered to the spoiler Or severed from the sea ? So hasten then and paint her In the last flush of her pride On the rocks of Marazion, At the ebbing of the tide.
I believe that the Warspite holds the record (and likely always will) for the longest range artillery hit on a moving, maneuvering opponent. She was never modernized to the same extent as Valiant or Queen Elizabeth. It is too bad that Britain simply didn't have the resources or time to modernize the Revenge class ships which were somewhat better armoured than the Queen Elizabeths.
@@stephengardiner9867 Didn't even have the funds to upgrade Barham and Malaya, much less the R class ships. And both Rodney and Nelson were due for major mid-life refits when the war started.
True. The British economy had not truly recovered from the previous war and the great depression. It is interesting to envision what American shipyards might have been able to do with these ships had the funding been available early-war. They did occasionally do heavy repair work on British warships. One British light cruiser (Delhi) had its main armament replaced by 5x 5" 38 cal. D.P. guns (turrets and all) giving it quite a unique appearance (and the broadside of a Fletcher class destroyer). @@timclaus8313
@in desperate need of a scotch The USN had the same in-class and between class variations based on whether ships were sunk at Pearl. Colorado did not receive all the mods Maryland did, but no US standard battleship received the modifications and upgrades West Virginia did. You can easily make the case it was by far the most capable pre-treaty battleship of any navy after it's rebuild. When it returned to service in '44 it was pretty much a slow version of a South Dakota battleship. Tennessee and California also received extensive rebuilding and upgrades, none of the New Mexicos received the same level of increased AA firepower.
Good evening, I was wondering Is there any chance Ryan could go over this new Chinese Fujian "super" carrier? And how it differs from current U.S Models?
Yeah, but the British were broke after 6 years of war and had to sell everything they could to fund the development of three different types of large jet powered bombers that could nuke the Soviets.
If you are in a fair fight your tactics suck. Those 15 in guns would not tickle. An opening salvo from a Queen Elizabeth would still make an Iowa have a very bad day. That relevance with a twenty year design gap on a platform that big is still impressive. On smaller scales the gap matters less. The ma deuce is a hundred years old, and the last M2 gunner has yet to be born. Great vid.
I know others have done a detailed look at Warspite, but I would still like to hear Ryan do one. I especially would like to know his opinion on taking a battleship into the confines of a Fiord (2nd battle of Narvik) something I would imagine your not ment to do.
@@kevg3320 it still amazes me that there were pilots who flew both types operationally! I’m lucky to have a preserved Vulcan so near I can hear it’s engine runs, and see BBMF lancasters fly over head a couple of times a year
Are you comparing their as-built numbers, or their post-1930s modernisation numbers with the new machinery and added bunkerage? The 5000nmi @ 12kts range seems quite low.
No, not at all. Abercrombie was fitted with US 14"/45 guns ordered for the Greek battleship Salamis. Eventually offered to the RN when WW1 prevented shipment to the German naval yards that where building the ship. Those monitors where basically designed around this offer.
The Barham magazine didn’t explode, the explosion that you see in the film is the main boilers exploding since they were still operating when she capsized and they came into contact with the sea water running down the funnels. If it was the magazine the explosion would have occurred more forward than what the film show.
I think you should review the film of the HMS Barham again. If you observe the explosion it appears to occur at the point in-line with the aft mast just in front of the no 3 turret. Also it was stated and recorded The "Board of Inquiry" into the sinking ascribed the final explosion to a fire in the 4-inch magazines outboard of the main 15-inch magazines, which would have then spread to and detonated the contents of the main magazines." People not familiar with naval vessels don't realize that battleships have secondary guns. Those magazines are located along the side of the hull. And it was stated that all 3 torpedoes fired by U331 struck so close together amidships on the port side, penetration and detonation of those magazines is highly probable.
@@AngryMarine-il6ej Not to mention a boiler explosion wouldn’t have been nearly as energetic, nor would it produce a huge column of black smoke from burning propellant.
Do a episode on the USS West Virginia. It was actually the last Battleship VS Battleship in Surigao Straight. My favorite Ship because my Grandfather served on her in WW-2 on one of the 5 inch guns. In fact I have the war scrap book from it plus my Grandfather’s War Diary.
According to Drach's Wednesday video on Operation Torch, the Massachusetts hit a French cruiser at 28kyds. There is some uncertainty about the actual range but it like to be at least equal to the Scharnhorst and Warspite hit. The Yamato might have had an even longer range hit at Samar but again there is a lot of ambiguity about which ship and the actual range
That's truly incredible- particularly since Massachusetts' after- action report makes no such claim for any hit on any cruiser. Her report actually states the following: "During the second phase of the battle, enemy light forces were engaged. The radars were inoperative and the rangefinders were ineffective due to own ship changing course and because of enemy smoke screens. Enemy ships maneuvered in circles, ellipses, figure eights in and out of the smoke screen. Accurate ranges were not possible and range lines on the graphic plotter, with deduction of range rates, were out of the question. Target angle changed so rapidly that the spotter had trouble keeping up with it. The best range obtainable was set on rangekeeper along with target angle and estimated target speed. Shooting was "from the hip" with application of spots in range and deflection when salvo landed." The cruiser in question (light cruiser Primauguet) was hit repeatedly by dive bombers. Yamato landed two near misses at 34,000+ yards off Samar with two shells right alongside the escort carrier White Plains- one of which exploded and severely damaged her.
Small tube boilers would've given the qe class 28 ish knots. That would most deffinately have made them fully fledged fast battleships. They could've done it too but chose not to
Any other battleship or battlecruiser would have been sunk at Narvik. Bringing such a large ship into the narrow confines of a fjord against 9 destroyers and 2 submarines (plus 2 more submarines waiting outside and did fire off torpedoes at Warspite as they exited) is outright irresponsible, and everyone was prepared for the loss of the capital ship. The crew knew this too, for in the news, before they went in, they simply called her an "old battleship and veteran of Jutland" despite being modernised. But Warspite is magic, and all the torpedoes failed, one U-boat sunk, another rammed the seabed and aborted her attack, and the 2 outside had torpedo failures.
HMS BARHAM, sunk by U-331. And years later I find out (thanks to something called the Internet), it was a former bank client of mine (In Vancouver, B.C.) that was the Kaptain of said U-331.
The QE class was superbly balanced for their day, and even in WW2 their armament was quite respectable. Against most any WW2 battleship, though, their armor, gun range, and gunnery accuracy would leave them at a massive disadvantage which they could not overcome.
Given that the warspite still holds the record for longest hit in a lot harder situation compared to the other record holder I don't think you can fault their accuracy
2 world wars and only one lost, that to 4 torpedos hitting in rapid succession in a very small area (Barham). Unlikely any WWI era battleship without extensive rework could have survived the strike that caused Barham to capsize. The QE was a pretty advanced design for the time.
@@mcduck5 Longest CONFIRMED hit. There is strong evidence that Scharnhorst hit HMS Glorious at a longer distance. Also, you fire enough rounds and eventually you'll get lucky. These 15" guns were not known for great accuracy compared to later ones. At 23 knots, I would not consider them a fast battleship influencer as 23 has no real measurable advantage over 21 knots. The true fast battleship line is around 26 or 27 knots.
How would the Iowa-class battleships hold up against a Kirov-class battlecruisers? If they were recommissioned and end up facing the Russian fleet. What would be her main mission role?
Queen Anne Mansions was an apartment block in London, people who did not like the rebuilt high rise superstructure in the QEs made fun of its resemblance to the apartment block
I'd love to hear a historian's opinion of Warspite. My Grandpa was damage control officer on her during the bombardment of Salerno when she was hit by the radio controlled bomb. He talks about it some in a conversation with the Imperial War Museum at www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80024892.
Queen Anne Mansions was an apartment block in London, people who did not like the rebuilt high rise superstructure in the QEs made fun of its resemblance to the apartment block.
Ryan, I'm always one of the first and most vocal about arguing that Texas is never going to be brought back to service. I feel it's Ludacris to even think about that. However, the iowas may be a different story. In my opinion, what killed the conventional steam powered plants was when OPEX raised the price of oil to a point that Bunker C increased 10 fold. These steam systems burned oil like it was water. They depended on cheap fuel to make them practical. So, to bring back these ships they would have to be repowered. One option for that would be a Nuclear Reactor. However, the problem with any form of repowering it would require cutting through a lot of armor. But, there might be a way to get around that. Being that they've already been converted to fire missiles they probably don't need 9 16 inch guns. So, they could remove one turret and put a reactor there. I believe with today's technology a reactor large enough to duplicate their power afforded them by their conventional oil burning system in that space. Before you pass judgment on my idea, please realize going in that I know it isn't going to happen. This is just another discussion point if interest. But I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
I would rate the Nagatos, Colorado's and QEs as pretty much even up. Any advantages one design has over another is offset by a deficit to the other two classes.
@@SealofPerfection And those 16" 45s were beasts. Their only limit was the lifts could not handle the length and weight of the super-heavy 2700lb AP shells used in the WWII era US battleships. Weight capacity could have been addressed, length would have required rebuilding the entire lift assembly.
Ok, i have to ask, how do you patch a leak with concrete? Between you and Drachinifel, i've heard that phrase probably 100 times, but i simply don't understand. Sure, concrete can set underwater because of how it works, but how do you isolate it and keep it where you need it without 'flooding' huge chunks of compartments with dead weight so as to be a useful patch? As an aside, how much concrete would a battleship carry with it? Surely not alot. I'm very curious about this particular damage control measure.
They used concrete to make a caisson over the hole in the bottom of the hull and used that to repair it. Whether the actual hole was patched with concrete or a steel patch I do not know.
Idk, while I do & did enjoy the history lesson it didn't really feel as though you were making a comparison of the 2 different types. However, considering that the Iowa class battleships basically had a different use during WW2 than the Queen Elizabeth & the Iowa Class was like you said 20 years newer so it's not really fair to compare the 2.
Considering the battleship supposed to be built after the British Queen Elizabeth and Revenge and before the N3 was a larger Queen Elizabeth design with 8 16" guns or 10 15" guns with enhancement from the Admiral class battlecruiser
Don't know if you've done any other Iowa comparisons, but matching the Iowas against other contemporaries would be a better test than against QE. Maybe Bismarck, Yamato, Richelieu, Littorio, or Vanguard. They were all the last of their respective navies, and were the best designs they produced, although Vanguard was limited by decisions made after the design, especially her guns, but still a better choice than a KGV.
you neglected to mention one way rebuilt Q.E., Valiant, Warspite were more modern than an iowa. they did away with multiple hundre ton, high up conning tower. i do believe several rebuilt pearl harbor BBs did likewise. curiously iowas kept them
Not sure who suggested this comparison. It's quite obvious a battleship built 30 odd years after the QE class with larger guns (and more of them), thicker armour and about twice the displacementl, is going to over match the QE class. RE the range of Royal Navy ships: 5000 miles is all they needed due to the Empire being so vast, they were never more than 5000 miles away from a port they could coal up at. So why design for more range?
