10 Worst ship designs

[yak_v]

Out of curiosity, why the lack of love for the Soviet Alfa?  While it was loud as Hell at 40+ knot, it could also ourun and outdive most of the West's antisubmarine torpedoes.  According to books like Polmar's "Cold War Submarines", the noise at lower speeds was pretty overstated and it was actually fairly tough to detect with late 70's/early 80's sonar technology.  While the first sub, K-64, had a failure of the liquid-metal reactor the rest weren't hangar queens, although there were difficulties along the way.  Beyond that, the great strides in working with titanium, automating the submarine and allowing a 30 man crew were pretty impressive.  Finally, faults aside, it was a gutsy response to the problems of countering the US and British carrier groups. Had NATO been facing significant Soviet carrier forces, we would have needed to come up with something similar. 

 

Besides, they actually remained in service for close to 15 years until the SU fell and kept going out on sorties and bugging the carrier groups.  Might not have been the best sub of all time but God knows that there are plenty of worse ones.

 

Matt

266399[/snapback]

 

The main problem is the price. Sure their peroformance was spectacular, but they had to invent entire Titanium production industry for them (and several experimental subs before and after them), for the price that Alfa's cost, they could have probably built 2 Victors for one Alfa. And in the end they were made obsolete by new 80 knot torpedoes, which were much cheaper to make than the subs temselves.

 

Vladimir

[nitflegal]

The main problem is the price.  Sure their peroformance was spectacular, but they had to invent entire Titanium production industry for them (and several experimental subs before and after them), for the price that Alfa's cost, they could have probably built 2 Victors for one Alfa.  And in the end they were made obsolete by new 80 knot torpedoes, which were much cheaper to make than the subs temselves.

 

Vladimir

266411[/snapback]

Fair enough, but for a period of about 5 years they were about the only Soviet undersea asset that had a chance of taking out a US carrier group. Since that was the primary maritime threat that kept the Soviets up at night, one submarine that could actually get close enough to sink a Nimitz seems worth far more than two submarines that couldn't.

 

Matt

[TheSilentType]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Fisher's Follies yet.

[FITZ]

Couple points.

 

Calling the Spruance a poor design based on lack of armament isnt totally fair since the ships were designed with lots of space for additional armament to be added. I would be willing to bet that this was done intentionally by the Navy to get the ships built. Its easier to build a cheap ship then get the money later to upgrade than it is to get an expensive ship built.

 

266193[/snapback]

 

Some items intended for the Spruance were not available when the ships were initially introduced - SQR-19, Phalanx, Harpoon, SLQ-32, Mk 71 MCLWG. Other items such as the Mk 41 VLS, LAMPS III and the SQQ-89 ASW combat system proved easy to add even though they came after the Spruance class were designed due to the previously unheard of growth margins that were a part of the Spruance concept.

 

Their predecessors, the Charles F Adams class were, OTOH very cramped ships that could take little in the way of modernization and then only at high cost, explaining why only 3 were upgraded in the 1980's and the whole class was discarded early.

 

The DDG-51's that came after were similarly designed in the traditional way with little room for future growth or a change of role to suit changing requirements.

[philgollin]

Fair enough, but for a period of about 5 years they were about the only Soviet undersea asset that had a chance of taking out a US carrier group.  Since that was the primary maritime threat that kept the Soviets up at night, one submarine that could actually get close enough to sink a Nimitz seems worth far more than two submarines that couldn't.

 

Matt

266415[/snapback]

 

Why only five years ?

 

It wasn't just their speed, it was their diving depth which was beyond western torpedoes.

 

Supposedly two failed, but the other four were truely difficult targets (much like Nautilus when first commissioned, she was hellishly noisy even to the sensors of the day, but pretty much invulnerable).

[John(txic)]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Fisher's Follies yet.

266461[/snapback]

 

 

Perhaps because they turned into pretty good aircraft carriers?

 

[nitflegal]

Why only five years ?

 

It wasn't just their speed, it was their diving depth which was beyond western torpedoes.

 

Supposedly two failed, but the other four were truely difficult targets (much like Nautilus when first commissioned, she was hellishly noisy even to the sensors of the day, but pretty much invulnerable).

266485[/snapback]

 

I cited 5 years simply because the Soviets started fielding high-speed torpedoes in the mid-80's that allowed more conventional boats to have a shot of taking down a US carrier. According to some of the recent texts on the Alfa, the diving depth was quite high but not as high as estimated by the West so was less of a factor. Supposedly the hull itself could handle more pressure than some of the gaskets and equipment extending through the titanium.

 

I'd have to agree that the Alfa stayed a useful system until the SU fell. As to failures, of the seven made the first had a complete reactor failure when the metal hardened and one other had a partial failure that required a reactor replacement. However, it did go back into service.

 

Matt

[gnocci]

Alfas are cool. Case closed.

Project 665 are cool, also. But 664 are not.

[yak_v]

Alfas are cool. Case closed.

Project 665 are cool, also. But 664 are not.

266597[/snapback]

 

Yeah... 664 was a half-assed conversion that was very useless...

 

Vladimir

[DavT]

In fact, I am aware of no warship in human history even approaching the size of a Type 21 where the hull was constructed from aluminum. With current technology there is a definate upper limit to the maximum size of an aluminum hulled ship.  I can't recall exact figures but it's about 1/3 the size of a Type 21.

266389[/snapback]

 

Isn't the OHP all aluminum? She appears slightly bigger than the Type 21, too.

[Richard Young]

In no particular order....

 

Japanese 1-400 class sub - tremendous effort and money expended to carry slow fragile light attack aircraft...to do waht, exactly?

 

Japanese 2-man Type A midget sub, (and follow-ons) - considereing their effectiveness when used, the continued production of this type is baffling - IJN would have been money ahead to just shoot the volunteer crews in the head without going to all the trouble of actually BUILDING them.

 

Panzershiff/"Pocket Batleship" - way over-gunned for their intended role of commerce raiding, as the larger calibur guns inherently shoot slower - too slow and underarmored, (and slow firing...) to duke it out with cruisers. For the resources expended, Q ships, or just more cruisers, would have been better.

 

Scharnhost class battleship - if they ever had received their intended replacement twin 15" turrets, might have been another story. As they actually went to war, they were neather fish not fowl - a battleship carrying a heavy cruiser's guns. They could take it, but that ability was more than overcome by their inabiliity to dish it out.

 

The mighty Hood. (There...I said it...HERESY!) Much like the Scharnhorst, if she had had her major refit and supplimental armor, might have been a different story. If...If...If.... As things worked out, she was forced out, down on speed and under-armored, to try to slug it out with the Bismark. Da Biz took care of business...

 

Yamato class battleship (Hey...if I'm going to burn for heresey, I might at least as well burn HOT!) Beautiful? YES! Practical? NO! For the time and money spent on these three white elephants, (whose contribution to the Japanese war effort was somewhat LESS than the Type A midget subs, (at least they got to SHOOT at a battleship...), they would have been better served with 3-4 modern equivalents of the Kongo class, (look at how much time and effort the USN put into countering the Kongos) AND 3-4 carriers that they could have had instead.

 

Shinano. The third white elephant. Lets start with a bad idea, almost complete it, covert it into a carrier (with little more than a fleet carrier's complement), and go for a sail through sub infested waters before we have the water tight doors correctly fitted. And keep steaming for 8 hours after being torpedoed. Stupid is as stupid does.

 

Hyuga class - Structurally weak as built, further impaired by an ill-concieved refit in the thirties, and then converted into butt-ugly hermaphrodite carrier/battleships. Also neither fish nor fowl. What can you say about battleships so lousy that you feel like you CAN withdraw them for half-arsed carrier conversion in the middle of a shooting war? If the Kongo class was a Polaroid picture, the Hyuga class is the part of the same picture that you peel off & throw away...

 

Vindictive. Cavendish? Vindictive? Cruiser? Carrier? Cruiser? Training ship? Like car rental places, theres Hertz, and theres..."not exactly".

 

 

Enterprise - the last one, I mean. One-of-kind lash-up of modified sub reactors shoe-horned into a modified Forrestal hull, (this is why she is the longest AND tallest carrier in the fleet...) only the extensive time she has spent in the yard and the enourmous cost of deactivating her keep her in the fleet today. With her fixed phased array radar on her square island, and nuclear power, she was an experiment. The fact that she is the ONLY ship of her class reveals that the experiment was not a complete success, although the lessons learned in her will make the Nimitz class better, so its not a COMPLETE loss.

 

 

 

Honerable mentions - Long Beach and the Kirov class

[nitflegal]

In no particular order....

 

Japanese 1-400 class sub - tremendous effort and money expended to carry slow fragile light attack aircraft...to do waht, exactly?

 

Yamato class battleship  (Hey...if I'm going to burn for heresey, I might at least as well burn HOT!)  Beautiful?  YES!  Practical?  NO!  For the time and money spent on these three white elephants, (whose contribution to the Japanese war effort was somewhat LESS than the Type A midget subs, (at least they got to SHOOT at a battleship...), they would have been better served with 3-4 modern equivalents of the Kongo class, (look at how much time and effort the USN put into countering the Kongos) AND 3-4 carriers that they could have had instead.

 

Shinano.  The third white elephant.  Lets start with a bad idea, almost complete it, covert it into a carrier (with little more than a fleet carrier's complement), and go for a sail through sub infested waters before we have the water tight doors correctly fitted.  And keep steaming for 8 hours after being torpedoed.  Stupid is as stupid does.

 

Enterprise - the last one, I mean.  One-of-kind lash-up of modified sub reactors shoe-horned into a modified Forrestal hull, (this is why she is the longest AND tallest carrier in the fleet...) only the extensive time she has spent in the yard and the enourmous cost of deactivating her keep her in the fleet today.  With her fixed phased array radar on her square island, and nuclear power, she was an experiment. The fact that she is the ONLY ship of her class reveals that the experiment was not a complete success, although the lessons learned in her will make the Nimitz class better, so its not a COMPLETE loss.

Honerable mentions - Long Beach and the Kirov class

266669[/snapback]

 

My only criticism of the list is that several of the ship designs themselves were fine, they simply came out too late for them to be useful or the world had moved on. When I think worst ship I think a ship that, when built, someone in the yard should have looked at the blueprints and said WTF!? As examples, the Yamatos were excellent battleships, although they suffer in comparison to Allied ones of the time because of the sensor fit. The fact that they were a decade too late doesn't make them worse examples of battleship design. Besides, at the time they were designed the idea was to make a BB that would be the equal of 2-3 Allied BB's, which a Kongo would not have been.

 

Shinano makes sense as a carrier group replenishment ship, especially as they already had the hull completed. Knowing that Japanese waters were becoming a bad place to be, anything that could keep a Japanese carrier group on station longer was a good idea. The fact that it sailed before it was unready with an untrained crew doesn't mean the design was awful.

 

I-400 makes sense in the original problem, how do you close down the Panama canal? The submarine itself was apparently a pretty good one, especially considering what they were trying to accomplish. The mission itself might not have been a good idea but again that's mission failure and not design failure.

 

And the Enterprise was a prototype, but we needed one before embarking on a CVN program. As a prototype, I'd say she's been pretty damned successful; serving for decades in front line service isn't the sign of a failure. Considering that she was a relatively cheap way to get a CVN into service so that the obvious virtues of a nuclear powered carrier would become apparent, had she truly been a failure then the US CVN program would have been set back terribly.

 

Matt

[Daniel Papp]

...

Austro-Hungarian Viribus Unitis class DNs (1914-18) - turrets that had no ventilation and TDS system that sucked...

...

265925[/snapback]

 

Vlad,

 

could you get some source for this info (no ventillation)? I keep meeting this one all over the internet, without any clue where this came from.

 

About the TDS: I do not know of any WWI battleships that survived more than one torpedo hit, Szent Istvan was hit by 3 or 4 torpedoes, at least 2 of them exploded.

[yak_v]

Vlad,

 

could you get some source for this info (no ventillation)? I keep meeting this one all over the internet, without any clue where this came from.

 

About the TDS: I do not know of any WWI battleships that survived more than one torpedo hit, Szent Istvan was hit by 3 or 4 torpedoes, at least 2 of them  exploded.

266687[/snapback]

 

I got my info from the internet as well . If you can find him, talk to Tiornu, I think he had some info on the subject (through I can be wrong). Also ask here:

http://p069.ezboard.com/falltheworldsbattlecruisersfrm1

Lots of knowlegeable people there.

 

As to the TDS, there there really was none. The basically had a double bottom of 1.5m thickness armored with 25mm armor. It was useless because according to German trials the minimum width if TDS agains WWI weapons had to be 4-4.5m away from the side of the ship and 2m thick on the bottom, below these thicknesses TDS was useless.

 

Vladimir

[Daniel Papp]

I got my info from the internet as well .  If you can find him, talk to Tiornu, I think he had some info on the subject (through I can be wrong).  Also ask here:

http://p069.ezboard.com/falltheworldsbattlecruisersfrm1

Lots of knowlegeable people there.

 

As to the TDS, there there really was none.  The basically had a double bottom of 1.5m thickness armored with 25mm armor.  It was useless because according to German trials the minimum width if TDS agains WWI weapons had to be 4-4.5m away from the side of the ship and 2m thick on the bottom, below these thicknesses TDS was useless.

 

Vladimir

266705[/snapback]

 

I asked about the lack of ventilation on a Hungarian forum. The preliminary answer (no one digging up obscure references) was that this wasn't the first turreted battleship of the AH navy, why would they forget it?

 

BTW the Viribus Unitis was finished before the Dante Alighieri so it was the first triple-turret BB.

 

The TDS was yes, faulty, partly as the chief naval designer Her Popper was said to be more than half blind at the end of the detailed design - German suggestions to increase TDS depth to 4-5m, belt armor to 300mm was ignored, and the final design had 2 more main guns. Moreover, the coal bunkers were placed to the sides of the boiler&engine rooms to dampen any explosion - was considered a good design feature in dreadnoughts, but they just soak up water when the hull was breached, so the crew wasn't aware most of the damage that was done by the torps. It didn't help either that one of the exploded torpedoes hit exactly at the bulkhead separating the boiler&engine room. The Szent Istvan IMO could have survived a single torpedo hit after some damage control, so she could have been towed to Pula, but not four of them.

 

My vote for the worse WWI BB design goes for the Italian dreadnoughts - weak armor, too many turrets, and they got a rebuild which gave only a debatable increase in combat efficiency - turning them into BCs on par with 20-year old designs, when the could play fleet-in-being with similar efficiency withour reengining them.

[yak_v]

I asked about the lack of ventilation on a Hungarian forum. The preliminary answer (no one digging up obscure references) was that this wasn't the first turreted battleship of the AH navy, why would they forget it?

 

Agree. It is very weird. From what I read on various naval forums the crews were unable to be in the turret after 15 minutes of firing. Where it comes from I have no idea.

 

The TDS was yes, faulty, partly as  the chief naval designer Her Popper was said to be more than half blind at the end of the detailed design   - German suggestions to increase TDS depth to 4-5m, belt armor to 300mm was ignored, and the final design had 2 more main guns. Moreover, the coal bunkers were placed to the sides of the boiler&engine rooms to dampen any explosion - was considered a good design feature in dreadnoughts, but they just soak up water when the hull was breached, so the crew wasn't aware most of the damage that was done by the torps. It didn't help either that one of the exploded torpedoes hit exactly at the bulkhead separating the boiler&engine room. The Szent Istvan IMO could have survived a single torpedo hit after some damage control, so she could have been towed to Pula, but not four of them.

 

BTW where did you get the information that it was hit by 4 torpedoes? My sources say that the second MTB attacked Tegethoff and missed, and that Szent Istvan was only hit by two. The comission that investigated the sinking came to the conclusion that the ship simply couldn't survive two torpedo hits amidships due to insufficent metacentric height and bad construction quality. Somewhere recently I read that during trials one of the ships dipped the gun ports in the water during hard turn.

 

Vladimir

[Daniel Papp]

Agree.  It is very weird.  From what I read on various naval forums the crews were unable to be in the turret after 15 minutes of firing.  Where it comes from I have no idea.

BTW where did you get the information that it was hit by 4 torpedoes?  My sources say that the second MTB attacked Tegethoff and missed, and that Szent Istvan was only hit by two.  The comission that investigated the sinking came to the conclusion that the ship simply couldn't survive two torpedo hits amidships due to insufficent metacentric height and bad construction quality.  Somewhere recently I read that during trials one of the ships dipped the gun ports in the water during hard turn.

 

Vladimir

266740[/snapback]

The diving to the wreck happened in the '90s. A discussion on the sinking and the wreck investigation was published in a Hungarian book, and of course there were many things that happent differently than previously thought. There might be some German sources for it too. I could scan you a drawing of the wreck itself.

Edited January 5, 2006 by Daniel Papp

[yak_v]

The diving to the wreck happened in the '90s. A discussion on the sinking and the wreck investigation was published in a Hungarian book, and of course there were many things that happent differently than previously thought. There might be some German sources for it too. I could scan you a drawing of the wreck itself.

266748[/snapback]

 

I'd love to see it and any websites related to diving to the wreck.

 

Valdimir

[Daniel Papp]

I'd love to see it and any websites related to diving to the wreck.

 

Valdimir

266768[/snapback]

 

A websearch found a Hungarian (1996 exp.) and an Italian (2003 expedition) DVD, and an article in 1997/4 Warships International by Erwin Sieche, google for "Szent István wreck"

[yak_v]

A websearch found a Hungarian (1996 exp.) and an Italian (2003 expedition) DVD, and an article in 1997/4 Warships International by Erwin Sieche, google for "Szent István wreck"

266792[/snapback]

 

Thanks.

 

Vladimir

[Bob B]

What about the pre dreadnought US Battleships Kearsarge & Kentucky?

 

Their two story turrets were almost impossible to operate together at the same time. The blast effect from one gun would overwhelm the other gun crew.

 

IIRC, they were offered to warship starved Greece, just prior to WW1. Greece was hoping to counter Turkish ships on order in the Great Britain with anything they could come up with. Wilson offered them these two nuggets. Upon closer inspection the Greeks said, " No Thanks!"

 

FWIW, they later purchased the more advanced pre dreadnoughts Mississippi and Idaho.

[EchoFiveMike]

The blast effect wasn't the problem, the optical distortion was, given that every gun was fired under local control. The increased rate of fire brought about by training meant that it was possible for the 8" guns to interfere with the 12" and 13" guns, and that was unacceptable for naval engagements. For bombardment, would have been fine. S/F.....Ken M

[Bob B]

The blast effect wasn't the problem, the optical distortion was, given that every gun was fired under local control.  The increased rate of fire brought about by training meant that it was possible for the 8" guns to interfere with the 12" and 13" guns, and that was unacceptable for naval engagements.  For bombardment, would have been fine.  S/F.....Ken M

266906[/snapback]

 

 

This is also true accordinding to Friedman (US Battleships) the gases tended to linger after each discharge making it impossible to point the next shot until the had wafted away. He also states that the concussion from one turret firing would preclude the other from firing for a few seconds. I interpeted this as blast effect.

 

The turret design was repeated in the Virginias because it saved weight and required less machinery. As E5M stated the rapidity of fire did knock out the supperpossed turret concept, they were shooting so fast that they got in each others way. To overcome this, they tried all sorts of combinations of firing including double and single barrel salvos in combination with both the 8 and 12 inch guns but the conclussion was that the supperposed turret a dead end.

 

While all they were trying to solve the problem, the Dreadnaught appeared making them entirely obsolete.

 

They did look a bit funny. but no worse then some other's of the period.

[Fermi2]

I cited 5 years simply because the Soviets started fielding high-speed torpedoes in the mid-80's that allowed more conventional boats to have a shot of taking down a US carrier.  According to some of the recent texts on the Alfa, the diving depth was quite high but not as high as estimated by the West so was less of a factor.  Supposedly the hull itself could handle more pressure than some of the gaskets and equipment extending through the titanium.

 

I'd have to agree that the Alfa stayed a useful system until the SU fell.  As to failures, of the seven made the first had a complete reactor failure when the metal hardened and one other had a partial failure that required a reactor replacement.  However, it did go back into service.

 

Matt

266588[/snapback]

 

 

 

BS, the Alpha was never a usefull system. It was WAY too loud and for all it's speed it was a remarkably slow accelerator (TERRIBLE reactor plant). I've always heard that BS about how they'd outrun a USN or Brit Torp which is true provided

 

A: She could hear it coming and was absolutely ready.

 

B: She even knew a USN sub was around.

 

They had troubles with cracks in the hull, and spent maybe 12 % of their time at sea.

 

As an Ex USN Submariner I'll tell you we weren't concerned at ALL with the Alphas. They were worthless, deaf and their only usefull advantage was speed, which was only usefull if they were already at speed.

 

Polmar by the way has never been a very reliable source and tends to make crap up when he doesn't know. NO Alpha ever reached a satisfactory level of Quietness. LONG before they'd ever reach a CVBG they'd be sunk by the SSN escort.

 

Mr Victor on the other hand...

 

Mike

[Fermi2]

If they were meant to hunt subs then how much armament do they need? They carried 2 helicopters, which were the best ASW weapons around.

266102[/snapback]

 

 

Another Myth. Helicopters are essentially Surface ASW which is a joke. The BEST anti sub weapon is another submarine.

 

By the way, I find it strange that all the OHP sailors I ever knew refuted the myth they were underarmed and poor seakeepers. That stuff only comes from people who have never been or served on warships.

 

Mike