The Burial of Australia's First Flagship HMAS Australia 

It would've been nice if it was preserved but IIRC the terms of the Washington naval treaty didn't permit this and if it was to be disposed of by scuttling it it had to be done in water that was sufficiently deep to prevent it being salvaged.

@@thegermanempire489 I'm not familiar with the details, but the Brits scuttled a swathe of battleships and battlecruisers due to the Washington Treaty, so it was hardly an either/or. Combined with the large reduction in the RAN's budget post-WWI, I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least in part an economic decision made in Australia.

@@thegermanempire489 The RN scuttled a great deal of their fleet. Everyone had to because of the Washington Naval Treaty. For the RAN to keep HMAS Australia we would have had to scuttle the entire cruiser fleet. Plus post war it was costly having a battlecruiser fully manned after Australias wartime losses.

@@nicholasmaude6906 which is fucking bullshit because Britain got to keep all of there capital ships, she was the only capital ship Australia had

Amen to that. I would love to see the underwater footage of HMAS Australia in her present stage.

Hmmm, and hows that worked out for the rest of the world.

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TommyTwobats British stopped producing 12 inch gun rounds, plus the cost of her being fully remodeled was about the same cost of buying the new HMAS Australia.

Alfredo although the British stopped the Americans did not and they had 12inch gunned ships in ww2 we could have got the shells from them or made them ourselves.

No, she wouldn't have. While people like to moan about it, the treaty did us a favour, for two reasons. Firstly, the RN was already ceasing the production of 12 inch shells, so we wouldn't have had any ammunition for it. The RANs financial position at the time was such that they had the ship in and out of reserve so they could run the rest of the fleet; as that single ship used as many as to run the entire rest of the Navy; and to start making already obsolete 12 inch shells in Australia was out of the question. Secondly, by WW2, there were NONE of those era (first battlecruisers/battleships) left. ALL the ships upgraded for WW2 were of newer designs (Renown class BC/QE BB). So we were forced to get rid of an already obsolete ship; THAT forced us to re-equip with modern heavy cruisers (Australia/Canberra). If they hadn't forced us - we would have had Australia in and out of reserve; by 1930 hopelessly obsolete, and then too late to build heavy cruisers that would be viable/ready in time. Look; it is always sad when a ship goes (I have decommissioned a fair few in my time) but reality is that it forced us to do the best thing. Won't stop people complaining that we "should have kept everything" though.

Umm no we could of built our own 12 inch shells or we could of upgraded it into a battleship and replace the 12 inch guns with 14 or 15inch and completely rework the ship as it would of been refitted before ww2 if it did not get scuttled and it could of been the flagship of abdcom and it could of helped us win the battle of java so in short words fuck the British and fuck the Americans cause they didn’t even listen to there own treaty and started building the New Mexico class battleships along with the Colorado and the Pennsylvania class

She would have been 30years old by the time Japan declared war. The “Indefatigable” design wasn’t the RN’s best effort by some margin and she would have been helpless against Japanese airpower (as were all battleships). A symbolic loss? Definitely. Material loss? No. Her time had come and passed

How about the HMAS Shropshire

Britain literally scuttled every 12-inch battleship and battlecruiser they had - every single vessel Britain kept was substantially more capable than Australia. Keeping Australia in place of even one of the Revenge class would have been strategic bone-headedness, and for the RAN budgetary madness.