Battleship Warspite Smashes German Destroyers- Second Battle of Narvik Animated
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Video on the first Battle of Narvik: • Allied Destroyer Ambus...
On April 13th 1940, the British battleship Warspite charged into the narrow waters off Narvik in Norway and attacked german destroyers anchored there. In just a few hours of battle, almost half of Germany’s entire remaining destroyer force was eliminated,
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Credits:
Artwork by:
/ chrisbyflanker
Lead animation by CKD Productions
Written, Animated, Directed and Produced by:
/ addaway23
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Sources:
David Greentree & David Campbell, British Destoryer vs German Destroyer: Narvik 1940
Richard Petrow, The Bitter Years: The invasion and Occupation of
Denmark and Norway April 1940-May 1945 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1974).
Corelli Barnett, Engage The Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (London: Penguin, 1991)
James Holland, The War in the West - A New History Vol. 1: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941 (kindle edition)
Henrik Lunde, Hitler’s Preemptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940. (kindle edition)
Earl Ziemke, German Northern Theater of Operations 1940-1945. (kindle edition)
Check out our video on the first Battle of Narvik, a dawn ambush that preceded this battle by a couple of days: th-cam.com/video/XSvn4uD8tjc/w-d-xo.html
очень понравился перевод, очень качественно у вас выполнен
Your work is among the very best. Truly.
Early Naval battles of WWII are often not talked about. So please keep up these video's.
Great video, can you do the battle of Tsushima?
Man that swordfish out on recon just casually taking out a U-boat with one precise hit. "oh what do we have here?! GOTCHABITCH!"
That Swordfish crew earned their pay for the entire war in one sortie
also that was the first u-boat sunk by a aircraft during WW2 ;) so double gotcha
And is credited to Warspites long, loooong list of military achievements!
@@petergreen9322 Its also the only ship lauched aircraft not originating from a carrier to sink a submarine
@@sgtplopThat's a real baseball sort of record. 😂
A couple of thoughts come to mind:
1) Destroyer crews have balls of steel, irrespective of which flag they serve under.
2) But the biggest balls of all must belong to a task force commander who says "I'm taking the battleship in with me. Might come in handy, wot, Ol' Chap"
3) Warspite's crew owed that Swordfish pilot and navigator all their Rum Rations for a week.
4) As did the destroyer crews.
I am sure that the destroyers were thoroughly screening for the battleship.
The role of a Destroyer is to put itself in harms way.
Laffey, Johnston, Glowworm and many more
Props to that first Swordfish pilot: sank a U-boat and stopped an ambush!
Definitively MVP of that battle
fist torpedo attack of the war, first night carrier landings in combat, first kill of a submarine by aircraft, crippling the french battleship Dunquerke and the attack on taranto, sinking italian ships and, quoting " On 22 August, the three aircraft destroyed two U-boats, one destroyer and a replenishment ship in the Gulf of Bomba, Libya, using only three torpedoes"
the swordfish were really not joking around. despite considered obsolete at the start of ww2
@@thecursed01excellent snippets, thanks. I've seen photo of that Swordfish, in if's actual dive, and it looks hilarious and sedately reassuring. If I were gazing up at it from an hostile conning tower, I'd be anticipating a checkered cloth full of warm pumpkin scones rather than a 100kg bomb.
I saw one flying earlier this year and imagine it would have been a different story if there had been a slightly stronger wind; very manoeuvrable but very slow.
I can only imagine how the Swordfish's crew felt when they got a direct hit on it
A float-equipped Swordfish trying to dive bomb must've been the slowest dive bombing in history. Damn thing probably just hovered in the air like a helicopter.
They weren't float-equipped, but the Swordfish pilots were very brave, nonetheless.
@@iansmith7929the catapult launched one from the Warspite was I think, the ones from the carrier definitely weren’t though
@@iansmith7929 Warspites was, do not know how many she carried but there are paintings, pictures of her and her Swordfish on the net :)
@@iansmith7929I had the opportunity to sneak into a hangar and sit inside the cockpit of a restored Swordfish. You are surrounded by nothing but some aluminum tubing and canvas, and stuck high up, incredibly vulnerable. Those pilots were more than brave.
@@iansmith7929 Those carried by the Battleships most certainly WERE float equipped. How else do you think they operated? The Walrus didn't replace them until 1942. And yes, they must have been ACHINGLY slow with floats on!
German flotilla leader: No battleship commander would be crazy enough to pursue destroyers into such confined waters! Captain of Warspite: Hold my tea and watch this, chaps.
German flotilla leader: "That's a fucking big destroyer."
Seriously, if Warspite hit a mine or was to be heavily damaged by torpedoes in those treacherously confined waters, admiral Witworth was bound to be labeled suicidal. Instead, as often happens (not always), audaces fortuna iuvat, and he came out a hero.
Ayo, what’s he on about?
Tally Ho Lads!
*Barrage Intensifies*
The benefit of employing such insane tactics is that your enemy will always be taken by surprise
No one expects the -Spanish inquisition- Battleship up narrow Fjord!
The Royal Navy has the most glorious and storied history of any navy on Earth, you could fill entire libraries with stories of exploration, innovation, battles won and lost, wars, disasters and whatever else you could think of. As an American it’s pretty awesome to have the Royal Navy as our closest ally 💯😊
Our American cousins are not without their own battle honours too - USS Johnston at Samar springs to mind :salute:
@@dallassukerkin6878and I hope I speak for others, we massively respect USS Enterprise's achievements in WW2
@@chrisk_nfl4120 Greetings from North Carolina to our awesome cousins across the pond. I only wish _HMS Warspite_ were still afloat as a war museum. She certainly earned the right to be preserved!!
I've toured the USS North Carolina BB-55 in Wilmington many times and it's a great experience to walk her decks, and man her 20mm Oerlikons, and climb into the turrets of her big 16" guns.
🇺🇸🤝🇬🇧
Churchill in his WWII memoirs memorably spoke of Warspite's 15" guns blasting the German destroyers as ' the voice of doom'.
"Thats a big destroyer"
Some German Destroyer Commander
3:41 - Everybody's got a plan until they are straddled by 15-inch shells
"We're going to need a bigger boat. Much bigger!"
HMS Warspite is an absolute legendary battleship, the greatest Dreadnought ever built, and greatest Royal Navy warship ever built. One of the greatest crimes in history was allowing her to be scrapped, which I say allowing, she ended up breaking free and slammed into the shallow waters of Prussia Cove, which the skeleton crew onboard thought she did it herself as a means of stopping her from being scrapped, or her own way of fighting back against her fate. Either way, she was scrapped on the spot which took several years, not the ending of a ship like her deserved. There is a reason she was given the honour to be the first ship of the hundreds of other ships that took part in Operation: Overlord (D-Day) to open fire on the beaches, to mark the start of the invasion, among the American, Canadian, and other nations that took part, all allowed her to be the first. A pre-WW1 Dreadnought among somewhat larger and faster battleships, and more modern, able to do so much more, proved herself to be the most capable battleship on the seas, a battleship that fought all 3 major axis powers in WW2 from the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Oceans, and the Mediterranean. If there was the possibility of taking part in an engagement, she was there, not only because she was Admiral Andrew Cunningham's flag ship, soon to be Sea Lord, but she was just so capable that you want her to be in those engagements. Even with her number 3 turret disabled after being hit by a bomb, it didn't stop her from throwing 15inch shells at things and just generally being the most badass ships you could face.
Britain simply did not have the money to keep Warspite as a museum ship
A shit ton goes into Belfast alone , now imagine a battleship
I've literally just come back from Narvik, and to say that the second and third battles of Narvik were nothing short of a turkey shoot is an understatement. Beautiful wrecks as a result though.
They should have kept this absolute beast of a ship as a museum.
Incredible skills from the swordfish crew to get a direct hit on a uboat with only a 100lb bomb. They saved many lives stopping that uboat
now they enjoy pakistani grooming gangs from their war mongering actions against Germany
Heinrich "is that big dark shape a battleship"? Gunter, "nah the fjord is too narrow and shallow for a battlesh! Shittttttt "
one of my ancestors served on HMS Cossack during the war. Very bizarre battle considering we plonked a whole battleship in the fjord
Was this while Cossack was still captained by Sir Philip Vian, or afterward?
Been there aboard ship for NATO exercises in the fiord. I still cannot believe that they had a running battle complete with a battle ship and aircraft is such a small space. It seemed as if you could just reach out with your arms and touch each side of the channel
Not only was the sinking of U-64 by Warspite's Swordfish very useful in the terms of this engagement it was also the first ever sinking of a submarine by a ship launched plane.
I swear this was the Grand Old Lady's way of throwing shade on every single Aircraft Carrier ever.
Sailing Warspite into that fjord always seemed like a real ant meet boot situation.
IIRC, there were 8 German destroyers and 2 U-Boats in the fjord at the time, and together they masses ~28,000 tons. Warspite alone massed 32,000 tons.
Very big boot.
@@toddkes5890 Not really, as being in the bay would limit Warspites movement , all it would of took was 1 of the destroyers getting close enough to Warspite and firing its torps and well bye bye Warspite
It was not a ant meet boot situation it was a very very ballsy move
Loved the video @Historigraph! Can't wait for the next video man! Things couldn't have gotten any worse for the Kreigsmarine at Narvik. You usually hear about HMS Warspite and the Destroyers with her going into the Fjords and Unleashing absolute Hell on the German Destroyers but you don't ever hear about HMS Furious Launching about a Dozen of her Fairey Swordfish Torpedo Bombers for the Attack as well! I did remember seeing a Picture of Tribal-class Destroyer HMS Eskimo after her Bow had been blown off in this particular Battle of Narvik and the fact that she made it back to England for 5 Months of Proper Repairs still leaves me Impressed with how much of an Icon in Naval History she and her Sisters became to the World. Shame that the Atlee Cabinet went on to sell Warspite for Scrap, She and her Sisters were Great Ships and Served the Crown and Realm well and Should've been made into Museum Ships in or nearby to Scapa Flow along with HMS Ramillies and her Sisters and Possibly even HMS Vanguard and that's just the Larger Caliber Gun Armed Battleships and Battlecruisers.
It's been a while since you've done a video on the Ground Warfare, Maybe see if you haven't covered the Fighting in Norway yet and if not, then you might have another video idea to have a look at.
Let me know what you think about this and I'll catch you in your next video man!
My favourite Warship of all time. HMS Warspite. So cool, so many action, OP in Azur Lane, everything is there want is needed. Scrapping her is the second saddest event of 20th century UK history just after the Great Smog of '52.
Are you forgetting the entire Battle of Britain?
@@goldenfiberwheat238 Nothing sad about the Battle of Britain, the cream of the Luftwaffe learnt they weren't as good as they thought they were, or spent the rest of the war in POW camps or fertilising crops in South East England.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 a lot of civilians died tho
@@goldenfiberwheat238 The British are proud of the battle, it showed their resilience.
@@SennaAugustus ah
Absolutely wild courage. What a story.
Ahh, Royal Navy Destroyer Captains. Mad Dogs the lot of 'em.
Excellent video. You are truly in a class by yourself
Thanks for yet another great historical video
Shouldn’t be that surprising yet it always surprises how far north fighting actually happened in WW2
Warspites gunnery in WW2
was always a good measure of slick and lucky... unless you were on the recieving end..
And she also had a fearsome damage control .. to go with the courage of her command and crew.
I think just about all of the ships that survived the Battle of Crete must have had fearsome damage control. The ones that didn't, sank.
@@DarklordZagarna
Warspites reputation goes back to the battle of Jutland WW1 probably THE most Honorary, wayward, fighting ship in the history of The Royal Navy. Never ever quit getting into trouble and away from the scrappers even at the end she made them come to Prussian cove .
Really should have been dry docked next to HMS Victory and Warrior.
Mind you Belfast had a few close calls in her brief service life. 🇬🇧
Norway proved that the overwhelming British superiority in ships of all classes helped doom Nazi expansion. Hitler went into a world war with a navy that was woefully inadequate in most regards and they paid for that lack of foresight.
Not at all. Hitlers empire was going to be in the east, you don't need ships for that just a very large army.
@@mikemines2931 If that's the case then why did he authorise the "Z-plan" navy that he hoped to have in place in the mid to late 1940s?
The world war part of the war started a few years earlier than expected.
“Mein Fuhrer,you know those destroyers we have in Norway?” “Yes!” “Well,now we don’t!”
In the Norway campaign Germany's destroyer fleet was permanently maimed. Never to recover.
AKA: "British cruiser strikes mine while en route to day job, British battleship responds by having ABSOLUTELY ZERO CHILL"
Looking up some pictures of the Rombakfjord makes you realize this was basically a naval version of trench warfare.
Swordfish pilot was an MVP, scoring hits with bombs like that is not easy.
2:41 if you are a surface German U-boat you have a 50 percent chance of receiving free gifts from Santa... I never said the gifts were friendly
Great job 👏🏻 I didn’t even know about this particular battle and I’m a serious ww2 aficionado my father served in Samoa with the navy and my father in law was in the marine corps in the Philippines
2:05 p.m Erich Giese finally gets its engines working.
Charges for Punjabi, Punjabi does the complete business of a handbrake turn, incredibly dodges four torpedoes.
Gets hammered by 3 shots from warspite, 18 shots from the destroyers and is left dead in the water burning, and abandoned at 2:10 p.m.
So five minutes.
I used to think Jackie Chan or Arnie Schwarzenegger movies were action packed but they're antiques roadshow levels of excitement compared to this stuff.
Lovin the video, just straight in this is what happened stuff, no namby pampering around. Marvellous.
Closing the distance with a battleship, even at great risk? Cunningham would be proud.
It's even more ridiculous than that. Warspite, you know the one with the broken rudder, was deemed the "most manoeuvrable battleship" available to be sent in there.
They should have just sent the Warspite to intercept Prinz Eugen and Bismarck. That ship had unusual luck and would have somehow managed to sink both of them.
On paper Bismarck would have made mincemeat of her. In reality, not so much.
Warspite had the uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time, she was able to take fearsome amounts of punishment but could still fight and was also able to hit any type of enemy at any range with unnerving accuracy.
Bismarck was newer and better armed and armoured so should have destroyed the WW1 relic but you just know that Warspite would have pulled off a Death Star manoeuvre and somehow put a 15" shell through the window of the Captain's personal bidet, the resulting hit somehow sending a shard of shrapnel 50 yards through Bismarck to explode an otherwise impervious ammunition store.
Warspite may have had a wayward rudder but they left reverse gear out completely.
@@laszlokaestner5766Not really, Warspites disadvantage was its low speed but it had good armour.
And a super human ability to hit stuff at long range, the Italians thought they was under bomb attack by aircraft.
Great explaination, now I finally have an idea of what happened! Thanks!
Swordfish always makes me laugh. Basically an obsolete aircraft design by the start of WW2. A plane seemingly more suited to WW1. And yet, it dealt carnage time & again to both the German & Italian navies. Every dog has his day.
Nice work
Let's not forget the courage of the Germans. A battleship against destroyers is like a heavyweight boxer taking on flyweights. The flyweights know they're in for a severe beating but don't give up.
Forgotten the Battle of the River Plate have we.
It must be a nightmare Destroyer guns bouncing off WW1 armour
An incredible history to this remarkable battleship that was sadly sold for scrap
Kriegsmarine *exists*
HMS Warspite: “and I took that personally”
My Father a Royal Marine was one if the 17 inch gun crew he was just 22.
HMS Warspite, a Queen Elizabeth-class dreadnaught battleship, main armament of 8 381mm (15 inch) guns in 4 twin turrets. A truly formidable ship.
One thing that isn't clear to me is why William Whitworth was in command of Warspite when Commander-in-Chief, Andrew Cunningham, claimed Warspite as his flagship in 1939. I am guessing Vice Admiral William Whitworth just wanted a go with Warspite, which I wouldn't blame him because I would do the same if I had the choice over HMS Rodney which was William Whitworth's flagship.
British came in and wreck the Germans for sure. also Eskimo would be repaired and fight several more campaigns during ww2.
Jutland AND Normandy - few boats in that club.
Warspite also fired at the ship-wrecked sailors from Erich Giese. I just wonder where was the Luftwaffe?
Great video. 😀 Keep up the good work.
One outcome of this battle was that the Kreigsmarine was short of destroyers for pretty much the rest of the war - all of the surface raiders ended up going out unescorted etc.
Commander Shorto saved many lives with that evasive manouver !
As always instructive👍👍👍
Excellent. Thank you.
3:12 I recall an account by one of the case-mate mounted 120mm starboard gunnery officers when this action took place.
Since Warspite had been warned of the German destroyer, she had all guns loaded and in position when they rounded that headland. A full broadside was fired at what amounted to point-blank range.
He said it put the fear of Christ in him. An almighty explosion, followed shortly by the utter destruction of the destroyer, not a single shell missed at such short range.
I know the Germans were our enemies then, but I do feel bad for them. Seeing that enormous battleship round the corner, fully prepared to fire, looking down it's dozen barrels and knowing it can't miss and you're about to die must have been horrific.
Great video! A question: at which range did Warspite open fire?
Anything up to 26 thousand yards was a viable target for Warspite. (I know this doesn't answer your question...)
Great docu! Bjørn, Norway
How may of the brits thought of glowworm or did they know about glowworms last stand. The swordfish may not have a place to land soon
Drach's video(s) on this event are a hard act to follow.
When you gonna do another direct to camera on location? Enjoyed the last.
"The destroyer Koellner quite simply... ceased to exist." -The Mighty Jingles
Also, slight clarification for the future - in floatplane configuration, the Swordfish was known as the Walrus.
The Walrus was a different aircraft, a flying boat built by Supermarine.
8:19 I measured out 120 meter (the length of the destroyers) on google maps. The ships really are the correct scale, so there was really no room to manoeuvre.
"Franz, ze big Destroyer is a little close, nein?
The Norwegian Campaign did not do the Kriegsmarine any favours whatsoever. Losing half your available Destroyer force and 4 Capital ships, either sunk or badly damaged, is not a good return.
Warspite, the Grand Old Lady of the Fleet. Gave us nothing but trouble from Jutland to D-day and Walcheren. A formidable enemy, and this is something we Germans respect deeply.
She should be moored in Glory beside Nelson's Victory, but they knew nothing better than to scrap her.
Victory spent 100 years rotting at anchor and only exists because they rebuilt 80% of the ship.
At the end of WW2, Britain could barely afford to feed its own population; let alone convert a battleship into a museum.
@@DomWeasel I might have overstated my point.
In the late 60s, West Germany could have bought the last German built WW1 Battlecruiser from Turkey, that had used it as a sailor school. They let this opportunity pass, even though we no doubt would have had the money at the time. So Sultan Yamal Yavuz ex Goeben also went to the breakers.
@@ralfklonowski3740
I can't imagine that it would have been popular in late 60s West Germany to preserve a relic of Germany's imperial past.
@@DomWeasel No, the political climate of the time surley did not help. 😀
Weirdly enough, the West German gouvernment had asked Turkey about buying the ship some years earlier but had been refused.
And 2 years later (I think it was 2 years) Warspite was almost sunk by Stuka bombers armed with the Fritz X guided bombs. Those Stukas put Warspite out of action for over a year
@Athrun82 - Stukas couldn't carry the Fritz X, far too heavy for a tactical dive bomber. Warspite was crippled by Dornier 217Ks of KG 100, the only plane type and air unit ever to employ the Fritz X operationally.
@@wduckworth528 Oh you are right. I thought it was done by Stuka's but yes it was the DO bombers
I would have loved to read about this battle in a book (speculatively) written by Patrick OBrian.
And now, we are just handing our country over without a fight.. our ancestors would be ashamed of us.
Time for a mug of warm cocoa and bed grandpa. No more internet for you this week.
Yeah most of them probably would be. But you'd have to be naive to think the powerful people of 100 years ago wouldn't have made the same decisions the powerful people of today did. They're all the same and always have been
is he wrong? @@hammondpickle
Warspite had 15 inch guns not 16inch.
Rodney and Nelson had 16 inch guns, the KGV battleships had 14inch.
Was the uboat sunk by the swordfish or warspite's walrus? Ive seen both though it seems the captains etc are different as well so im not sure who's right
What is up with Germans and their horrible gunnery. First a lowly, slow moving WWI biplane sinks the Bismarck and then the same slow moving WW1 biplane drops a bomb and destroys a U-Boat guarding the harbor entrance. What a joke. The Swordfish top speed is like 80 mph. If your skills are that poor, just forget fighting on the water.
The Royal Navy was under funded, had old ships and tatties were outdated, however it had moments were it would excel. This was one of those occasions.
Very good narrative of the events in this animated video.
I still love how Bismarck and Yamato were put to shame by a fucking WWI clunker. Though the Bismarck and Yamato were champs at sinking to the bottom of the ocean; Warspite never really figured out how to do that.
Didnt know German DD torpedos were such bad. They could easyily have killed 2 brit DDs but the torps didnt work. Strange If I were the German General I would have place a spotter at the entrance of the fjord, not just 2 min before the harbour
What happened to your shop? I would still like to buy some of your awesome posters!
long story short, If you are an enemy ship and you see Warspite.. RUN!.
HMS Warspite is one old lady you don't want to mess with.
When hms Warspite was decommissioned and sold for scrap she ran aground and was then towed into mounts bay nr Penzance in Cornwall England and broken up her keal is still there in shallow water and her large brass name plate resides in the “Lamorna wink”pub nearby as far as I know
Yes, Marazion beach - there’s a memorial stone there and more in Marazion Museum.
If you tried this in World of Warships, Warspite would be sunk every time! But then almost every wargame I have played, computer or paper has diminished the power of British Warships while boosting German and American.
That's because in games and just any comparison, the Queen Elizabeths are nothing much. They're old, quite small, not very fast, weird steering problems at high speed. But they have something special that can't be captured in statistics. Valiant was just as wild as Warspite, and it makes sense that the 2 of them have been kept together in their next 2 lives.
TY🙏🙏
What happened to the Captain of the Cossack?
What happened to the crew of Cossack after it ran aground? Captured or rescued?
They refloated the ship at high tide and she limped back to Britain.
She was sunk in October 1941 by a U-boat.
Thoughts of a German destroyer captain.
"Oh look, a spotter plane. Hmm... guess that means there's a cruiser around. The Englander mostly has 6" inch cruisers, but some of our guys have 5.9" guns... ja, we can deal with the cruiser."
A few moments later...
"Sheisse! Scheisse! Scheisse!"
Scheisse! That verdammter Englander brought a battleship?
The German destroyers at Narvik did not have 5.9 inch guns.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 I stand corrected.
common Warspite w
2:44 'Ave that, ya ****".
Arguably won the Battle of Britain in that one action.
The lowly, slow moving Swordfish won WWII. Didn't Germany make like 20K BF109 and then couldn't muster even one of them to fight the Swordfish. What a joke.
My great uncle served of her. He was on it when it hit the seamine
As a matter of fact Warspite was attacked by a German U-Boat when she approached Narvic but she was lucky as the torpedo exploded too early due to the northern position with a different magnetic field. This was a very risky operation and battleships should avoid narrow waters.
That was U-47 I think, then U-46 who rammed the seabed before she could launch her torpedoes, then U-51 inside the fjord, and U-48 attacked when they were leaving, and all 4 subs failed to sink Warspite due to that same torpedo failure.
Can you explain this issue of being too far north further and the effect of the polar field direction/strength. I'm curious.
@@douglasstemke2444 Unfortunately I´m not an expert on that. But as far as I have read about it, the magnetic field is stronger the more it goes to the north pole and it´s shaped quite differently. There are maps of the magnetic field, maybe you should google it.
@@douglasstemke2444early magnetic detonators suffered from the issue of only being well calibrated for the local conditions of where they were developed. Go north or south a bit or near deposits of magnetic minerals and the detonators become unreliable (either not detonating at all or detonating to early) due to changes in the strength of the earth's magnetic field.
It's also worth noting it's not only the Germans that had this issue, every nation that used magnetic detonators had similar issues early on
Great title tbh.
Kriegsmarine made a habit of running away and scuttling their ships.
You may find this hard to believe, but I almost feel sorry for the German sailors in this battle. Almost.
If the Germans had refused to ground and refused to scuttle, how different that day might have been.
Not much, they were virtually out of fuel and ammunition to the fight with
My grandfather served on hms warspite
And yet, the allies coudn't capitalise on this, and shortly after, they got their arses kicked in the land fighting- losing control of the fjords for the rest of the war, leading to the loss of many convoys to Russia and, arguably, the HMS Hood.
Only to be expected when your enemy once again launches an unannounced attack against an unprepared neighbour. The nazis favourite tactic of WW2.
They evacuated in their moment of triumph
Warspite is hands-down the coolest name for a battleship
Much better than Invincible
'Destruction', 'Devastation', 'Conqueror' and 'Thunderer' are all up there too
Thunderchild. Dreadnought. All good. But I do like ‘Warspite’. Makes me always think of ABC.
I always thought Indefatigable was good too. British ship names are badass.
As an ex Member of the RN and even as a Child I've always wanted someone to name a new warship Thunder Child from War of the World's I'm also disappointed that one of the new carriers wasn't named Ark Royal it just doesn't seem right the RN not having an Ark Royal.
It saddens me that the UK government scrapped HMS Warspite. What a museum piece she would have been! The battle honours list goes on 💪
Maybe, but the problem with Warspite as a museum ship is that too much of it would have been off-limits.
Can't have the little-uns falling into all those holes the Germans poked in her....
Mind you, she was always still afloat when the smoke cleared, which is more than can be said for many of her opponents.
They needed the cash. The UK was worse than broke - there's a reason that rationing continued after the war until 1948 for most things and until 1952 for a few things. Without the Marshall Plan post war the UK would have collapsed.
They did NOT scrap the Warspite! They tried and failed. :)
@@iatsd Thats really a fallacy. What impact on the economy did scrapping the Warspite have?
@@iatsdwell at least Europe paid us the cash it cost us for choosing to liberate them.
(Couldn't resist!)
HMS Warspite: So anyways, I started blasting.
"... I started Spite'n!"
@@TrollOfReason Nice!
Did Warspite's main battery rangefinders come with a "ridiculously close" setting ?
@@agwhitaker Yes. It was the next twist of the dial from the 'ridiculously long' setting (Giulio Cesare, 24km during the Battle of Calabria).
Warpsite went on a few rampages in her time. They had to fit a whole new super structure to fit all the battle honours. Utterly tragic she was sent off to be scrapped. But even then, was stubborn and hard to kill to the end, breaking from her tow lines and beaching herself. She would have made an awesome museum ship.
Unfortunately 03 never had a battle honour board on, it was S103 who first received it (not sure how they fit it through the hatch), and luckily S103 never had to add to that list (she did try once), and hopefully the new Number 3 of the Royal Navy never gets an honour as well (as it would be the last ever honour in human history).
@@SennaAugustus I was talking metaphorically :)
I see it all the time on forums & facebook pages that Warspite should have been saved from the breakers yard after WW2....She WAS one of the last to be scrapped but that was solely down to her metallurgical value....She was 1/5 concrete at that time due to the concrete plugs in her hull from the 'Fritz-x' attacks.