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What is your Favorite type of ship?

Discussion in 'Other Weapons' started by f6fhellcat, Jan 12, 2010.

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What is your favorite type of warship?

  1. aircraft carrier

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. battleship

    23.1%
  3. submarine

    26.2%
  4. cruiser

    15.4%
  5. destroyer

    15.4%
  6. frigate

    20.0%
  1. USMC

    USMC Member

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    Very true. I've been to the USS Massachusetts.
     
  2. f6fhellcat

    f6fhellcat Member

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    I've seen the USS Missouri and the guns are huge.
     
  3. Tomcat

    Tomcat The One From Down Under

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    I am torn between the destroyers and battleships, the work horses of the navy and the iron battlewagons of the sea. I found myself voting for the battlship though.
     
  4. catsandcradles

    catsandcradles Member

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    I picked battleships. Yes they served pretty much as AA escort for the carriers during the war - but for some reason I still picked them.

    Battleships for some strange reason are the symbolic strength of a nation. It's almost as if it were some sort of early 20th century nostalgia that remains with us to this day. And in many ways battleships were the cause of the First World War with the Kaiser's Kreigmarine construction program for the High Seas Fleet that tried to wrestle control away from the Royal Navy.

    A nation cannot be a truly great nation unless it has battleships!

    Just look at all the video games out there in the stores - the emphasis is on the battleships. Believe me, there are a lot of young children out there who know about the Bismarck, Hood, Yamato, - it's almost as if these ships became legendary just because they were lost at sea.

    Personally, I have this thing for the HMS Hood. I wish Tamiya made a 1/350 model of Hood. Whenever I see a picture of it, it makes me proud. And I'm not even British - far from it.

    There's also HMS Warspite - a ship that they should have preserved! I still can't get over the fact that they didn't try to make that thing a memorial!
     
  5. mac_bolan00

    mac_bolan00 Member

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    light criuser USS helena. gutsy ship (besides being lucky.)
     
  6. A-58

    A-58 Cool Dude

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    I picked aircraft carriers, but was torn between them and battlewagons. Now that I think of it, I should have went with the battlewagons, since none of them were lost after Pearl Harbor, and a number of carriers went down or were pounded pretty good during the war. Well, both carriers and battlewagons have ice cream parlors in them, so either choice wouldn't be that bad.

    If I was in the USN in WW2, and had my druthers, I would like to have been on a motor torpedo boat instead of the bigger ships. Maybe I watched "They Were Expendable" too much, I don't know. But this thread asked for favorite ships, and PT boats are boats, so my real choice was not included.
     
    bronk7 likes this.
  7. T. A. Gardner

    T. A. Gardner Genuine Chief

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    The one I'm not stuck on deployed. I served on a number of ships. Being at sea is like being in jail.....
     
  8. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    The sub thanx to the film "Das Boot". However I´d not enjoy being in the depths and hearing bombs and sonar around me but otherwise the sub is my favourite.
     
  9. marc780

    marc780 Member

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    You didn't mention my real favorites, those were the American PT boats and the German E-boats. The idea of a fast (relatively) small ship attacking on the surface using stealth and speed, for a fast furious engagement with full-size warships using small caliber guns and torpedoes, is very exciting, a lot more than huge warships duking it out by firing shells at each other.

    Displacement:55 tons full loadLength:78 feetWidth:21 feet 6 inchesRange:~500 milesSpeed:44 knots maximum, varying with load and sea conditionsMachinery:3-1,550 HP Packard enginesArmament:2-Mark 13 torpedoes, 2-twin .50 caliber machine guns, 1-twin 20mm machine gun, 1-single 20mm machine gun, 1-single 40mm machine gun [1]
    I know the PT boats were not nearly as glamorous as their press made them out to be, because the boats tended to be slower than advertised(due to hull fouling, worn engines and low-grade fuel etc.) but a lot of them did do a lot of damage before getting blown out of the water by a Jap destroyer or something.

    "There were 43 PT squadrons, with a normal complement of 12 boats. Some 300 PT boaters were killed in World War II, an extremely high loss rate for this comparatively small, elite service. [3]

    "PT boats were a significant American naval warship type in World War II. They were responsible for numerous enemy losses, in warships, materiel, and personnel. They spawned a number of offshoots - the Japanese "Shinyo" suicide boat; the fast, hydrofoil missile ships of today; and the numerous inshore patrol craft used by many navies of the 1980s"

    National Park Service: World War II Warships in the Pacific
     
  10. JimboHarrigan2010

    JimboHarrigan2010 Member

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    Bismarck- Very nice looking Battleship, well armed,well protected and gained infamy from the events of May 1941. Playing a one week game of cat and mouse with the Royal Navy is an excellent achievement.
     
  11. Erich

    Erich Alte Hase

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    I'll take one of these any day even if it isn't mentioned as stated above

    [​IMG]
     
  12. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    Glad to see this bumped. I've missed it somehow. My vote went to the Battleship. I walked the USS Massachusetts while on a family trip at Christmas time and it was a short drive to Fall River, Mass. And I do mean "Walked!" Not as big as the Iowa's but still huge and impressive! Next to "Big Mamie" was the USS Lionfish and after 'crawling' through the sub' the BB seemed even bigger!
    Just found out this past Winter that my Aunts husband was stationed aboard the Massachusetts and the USS Washington at the end of the War. He was assigned to the projectile handing floor and has told about moving the shells when he was all of 140 pounds!
     
  13. belasar

    belasar Court Jester

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    Not on the list are the Battlecruiser's. I always felt the Sharnhorst and Alaska class ships looked elegant. Even if they were out of date mission wise.
     
  14. USMCPrice

    USMCPrice Idiot at Large

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    I voted for the Destroyer, though it was a hard choice. The US Fletcher class DD's were probably the finest all around DD in WWII. The best preserved example is the USS Kidd in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I highly recommend you tour it if you ever get a chance. There was no more ballsy naval engagement during WWII than when the destroyers Hoel, Heermann and Johnston, and destroyer escorts Dennis, John C. Butler, Raymond, and Samuel B. Roberts took on 4 Japanese battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and 11 destroyers.

    My next choice would be the Battleship. Probably the USS Wahington for it's action at the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. It was the last ship standing between the Japanese and the destruction of the Marines on Guadalcanal. Washington sank the battleship Kirishima in a night surface action. The USS North Carolina is the Washington's sister ship and preserved at Wilmington, NC. I've visited it many times and am really fond of it. Several posters have mentioned the USS Massachusetts well there's also he sister ship, the USS Alabama in Mobile, Alabama toured it many, many times, good stuff. I've also toured the Iowa class BB's Wisconsin (Norfolk at the time) and New Jersey (Camden across the river from Philadelphia) and the old USS Texas in Houston, TX.

    As a close third I'd say the Essex Class Aircraft Carriers. Best carriers of WWII without a doubt. I've toured the USS Yorktown, located in Charleston, SC many times. Well worth the trip and Charleston is a really cool city. Not it's WWII configuration but none of the Essex class that have been preserved escaped modernization. I also toured the USS Lexington when I was a kid and it was still an active Navy ship. My dad was attending flight school at Pensacola to become an RIO (Radar Intercept Operator). He was a CWO at the time and finished the ground portion of the course but when they started the flight portion he would experience severe pain in his head. He tried to hide it for a while but eventually went to medical. They found tiny bits of shrapnel, from wounds he had suffered on his first Vietnam tour, in his sinus cavities that could not be removed and medically dropped him. He went back to his infantry MOS, was sent to OCS and commissioned as a 2nd Lt., then back to Vietnam. I think the Lady Lex is now located in Corpus Christi, Texas. Help me out with this Carl, Belasar and any of you native born or naturalized Texicans :D While we're on the topic of Pensacola I cannot too highly recommend the Naval Aviation Museum, it is one of the finest museums in the country. If you're ever visiting Panama City, Destin, Gulf Shores, Mobile or Pensacola it is a must see, I've probably been twenty or more times.
     
  15. belasar

    belasar Court Jester

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    She is at Corpus Christi, but sadly I have yet to get down there to see her. Definitely on my to do list!
     
  16. Poppy

    Poppy grasshopper

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    I'll say Cruisers. Tough enough and if not, fast enough to run away. Long legs. Who doesn't like long legs? ...Thanks for sharing about your old man there USMCP. Sounds like one tough dude. I'll bet you were a good kid growing up...or else... lol
     
  17. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    HMAS Perth - She went everywhere and covered herself in glory wherever she went...one of the best captains of WW2 and went down fighting...Three cheers for the Perth!
     
  18. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    But neither of these classes were battlecruisers .... :)

    Hard to pick a favorite class. If you are going to include submarines (boats rather than ships) why not include the various MTB's? Monitors aren't on the list either. I have a soft spot for those ugly beasts.
     
  19. belasar

    belasar Court Jester

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    If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.....:)
     
  20. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    But neither of those really do. When you look at the twins they are pretty well balanced diesigns and thus battlships (all be it small ones) as the Germans rated them. The Alaskas on the otherhand clearly show their linage as upscaled cruisers in particular lacking a TDS which is one of the key features of "modern" battleships. By WWII the Renown and Repulse may have been the only ships that still deserved to be called battlecruisers although a pretty good argument can also be made for Hood. Indeed the Iowas may be closer to battlecruisers than the Atlaskas.
     

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