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Absolutely but kinda glad we did, I mean look at the museum ships we have, one sunk a year or two ago and had to be raised/pumped out, the battleships are very rusty and not looking the best (paint), and the carriers aswell. Some visitors really know and appreciate what the ship and sailors aboard did, but most are kids that don’t really care from schools on school trips. Or families whose husband really wanted to go and were dragged along. But yes USS Enterprise CV-6 was the best carrier/ship in WW2 or I’m my opinion ever.
@@WoeStinkBeUponTheenot enough funds, even after the war Admiral Halsey did a campaign to save the ship but ultimately failed, but also due to age, battle damage, and the Essex class being better in almost every way why keep her.
Ships going obsolete quickly was common in that time period. Even HMS Dreadnaught was outclassed by 1911 with the Iron Dukes and obsolete by 1913 with the Queen Elisabeth class
The Royal Navy had some obsolete warships at the outbreak of WW1 . The 3 Cressy class ships were sent to the bottom of the Channel with most of their young crews,,,
@@HiddenHistoryYT Good work,yes I agree,it was a waste,as its small size allows waves to flood the deck,even if they aim guns at the same side there could eazely fire and flood half of the port deck
The mast of the USS Oregon is prominently displayed in Portland's Waterfront Park. Considering it's one of the few military monuments in the city, I think most Portlanders assume the USS Oregon was a highly distinguished naval ship -- not a poorly designed, boondoggle.
The USS Oregon had to run full speed around South America in order to get to the first naval battle of the Spanish-American War in Cuba with no time to spare. It took almost a month but demonstrated the need to build the Panama Canal if America expected to have a two ocean navy.
She *was* quite distinguished in terms of her service history. She might not have been well-designed but her crew performed admirably during the Spanish-American War and she played an important role in the defeat of the Spanish navy.
BB-3 Oregon was a museum ship in Portland from the early 1920s to 1941, when the Navy took her back for scrap. When the superstructure was mostly cut up, they decided to use the hull as an ammunition barge for the invasion of Guam, and she wasn’t scrapped until the mid-1950s. The mast is currently on display in Portland, and the funnels are in storage.
@HiddenHistoryYT he tried, the US Navy itself was responsible for the scrapping of many museum ships, perhaps it was seen as a unneeded drain on a navy whose funding ranged from a few million to pocket change.
Just so. It might almost be better, as Drachinifel among others has suggested, that it's better to look at dreadnought and pre-dreadnought battleships as entirely separate categories in making assessments like "best," and "worst." (I suppose you could even break out ironclad battleships and fast battleships as further categories...but I think Dreadnought marks the most important dividing line.)
Nah, by 1903 the pre dreadnought era was in full swing with many nations having successful pre dreadnought designs and even ships considered semi dreadnoughts. These things look like they came from 1880s. Just terrible design.
@@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24 Well, you could throw the Indianas into the "Ironclad battleships" category if you want. But honestly, given when they hit the water, I think they deserve to compared to what was dominant by that point, and that was pre-dreads. And these were surely pretty inadequate by any pre-dread standard you like.
@@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24 where did 1903 come from? Massachusetts was designed in 1890. Maybe it looks like it’s from the 1880s because it nearly was.
Fascinating history! I also saw “monitor” in the design. One thing for certain was that while the Monitor classes were essential for the US Navy during the Civil War, their limitations were well known to the sailors of the day. On the other hand, to this day there is a place for fast shallow draft and coastal craft that pack big fire power. Trying to get the formula right amidst bureaucratic bickering is an art. Nothing’s perfect. Got to leave some room for American kids having to go into harms way in them to exercise some ingenuity.
Very insightful and delightful comment! Appreciate this information and perspective! Completely agree with you on everything you’ve said here, especially the bureaucracy aspect. Thanks for watching and have a great week :)
the issue isn’t so much the draft, it’s the balance and height above the waterline…this design was fine for its intended role. it was only when foreign policy and firepower abroad was brought into the equation did the design have issues and even then it was better balanced than ships in the past thanks yo splitting the firepower fore and aft and on both sides
Others made some good points about the pace of technological change and obsolescence of ships in this era, and they're right- the whole era from the 1870s to the 1900s was one of unprecedented and probably since unequalled pace of change in naval design and gunnery and armour technology, despite several contending later periods. But these ships certainly are among those that were frankly failures even as built but, all the same, interesting failures that still managed to give some service. Good video!
BB-3 the USS Oregon was the first museum ship prior to WWII. During WWII she was activated as an ammunition ship at the Battle Of Okinawa. She was scrapped after the war. During the Spanish American War, the Oregon became famous for her speedy run from San Francisco to Cuba in 66 days (this was before the canal). During the Battle of Cuba, Oregon bracketed the Spanish ship Cristóbal Colón and caused the Spanish captain to scuttle his ship. She was also the fastest battle ship in the US navy at the time. She also did convey escort during the allied intervention in the Russian Revolution, and the Philippine-American War and the Boxer Rebellion. I would argue that this class of battleship was a work in progress. As a fighting ship she did the job at the time.
7:21 There is a sizable part of me that misses the design choices of this particular time period. The white hull, beige upper decks and opulent bow, stern and turret ornaments just look so damn classy to my eye.
I do wish we would bring back the white paint schemes, is quite stunning in my opinion. Appreciate you watching and engaging Will! Have a great week :)
Just found your channel. Really great video. WW2 is 1 of my favorite part of history. The bravery of everyone that sacrificed so much makes me beam with pride. Being a believer in we need that bravery now more than ever. Keep up the great work.
they did put electric motors on Gatling guns in the late 19th century, but at the time no one could see a use for such a fast firing gun, at the time armies had magazine cut offs in rifles to prevent excessive ammo usage, so a gun that fired 1500 rounds a minute (as built by Crocker-wheeler motor company)was too expensive to run!
I can see a few parallels with the Royal Navy's HMS Hood of 1891. The First Sea Lord wanted one of the new Royal Sovereign class to have its four 13.5" guns in a pair of old style heavy turrets instead of the new armoured open barbettes which had been introduced. Because of the extra weight of the fully armoured turrets they had to be mounted a deck lower. The lack of freeboard made her like a half tide rock, taking aboard 200 tons of water on one occasion and was difficult to maneuver. She had been for sale at the start of the first World War but no buyer being found it was decided to scuttle her as a blockship at Portland Harbour. Even that didn't go well as she capsized as she sank and now lies upside down across a disused harbour entrance. She is apparently a hazardous dive due to the strong tides through the narrow entrance.
Great info Mike, thanks for sharing! Seems that British battleships have a thing for not allowing themselves to be scrapped 😂 Appreciate you watching and have a great week :)
Hood is also a rusting hulk on the sea floor, and she was built earlier as part of the 1889 programme. So does that make her the "oldest battleship still in existence"? The steel battleships of the 1890s were rather wonderful machines for their day. Finding fault in them is a comparative thing. But definitely a lot was attempted on very limited displacements with the first American trio. Not until the start of the 1900s did they really strike the right balance, IMO. Dropping the heavy and by then nearly useless twin 8-inch turrets was the right way to go at the start of the 20th C.
HMS Hood is blocking the southern entrance of Weymouth harbour in Dorset UK. I have dived the sea wall but was told to go inside is very dangerous as it’s upside down and the wreck is now very unstable.
the committee who designed these confections of incompetence had obviously never heard of the English 'Mary Rose' of King Henry VIII or the Swedish 'Vasa' of King of Gustavus Adolphus, both so overloaded with cannon that they turned turtle and sank.
The Oregon did several things that changed the United States into a world power. The ship was the most famous vessel in the world during its trip around sailing from the west coast around Tierra Del Fuego and sailing to Cuba to arrive at San Juan Bay. The Oregon's Captain kept his ship's boilers hot and steam up with his Cardiff Coal waiting for the bottled up Spanish Navy to make a run for it. Most the rest of the U.S. Navy ship's had let their steam run down,and when the Spaniards made the breakout the Oregon was able to run them down. That trip around South America gave Teddey Roosevelt the ammunition to complete the Panama Canal, and inherit The Phillipines, and a host of Pacific Islands that the Japanese tried to occupy and keep in 1941. So was the Oregon and her sisters were supposedly the worst Battleship's in the world? The only way Congress in the 1890's would approve more Naval vessels would be to classify them as "coastal defense ships". The U.S. was very protectionist minded in those years. They were as stated, just upgraded river monitors.
Bilge Keels are basically a metal fin running down the port and. Starboard side usually at the corner of the sides. They are angled and help with stability. It's one of the few things you see still riveted on the hulls of modern ships. FYI Mare Island could have handled the conversion.
If I may add: Bilge keels are there to provide resistance to the ship rolling from side to side, extending the rolling period. Ships with a low GM ( centre of gravity not very high above the keel, as a very basic explanation) tend to have very short rolling periods which can be very unpleasant to the crew.
You think yourself a student of history and along comes a story like this and reinvigorates my thirst for historical knowledge. The fact that port and starboard secondary guns dipped into the water when the big guns swiveled to the side blew my mind. Then you said it was designed by politicians instead of engineers and it all made sense. Very fascinating story!
Why didn't they balance the guns in the turret in such a way that the center of mass matches the center of rotation?? I don't need to be a genius or an engineer to consider that obvious.
Just to clarify, the United States Navy never changed their doctrine of putting a gun in every available space. So in the future they didn't put less guns on their battleships, they just made bigger battleships so they could handle the weight.
Strikes me that those ships were also top heavy - an incredible clutter of gewgaws above the deck. It's a wonder they didn't roll over and sink on launching! Interesting video . . . and I wonder how these compared with British ships of the time, and then with the "Dreadnought".
The contemporary RN ships were the 8 Royal Sovereigns which were regarded as being a fairly successful design for their time. They were retired just after Dreadnought was launched
This review of these committee designed battleships reminds me of the early attempts of the French Navy trying to come up with battleship designs to out class the English Navy. The French designs are referred to as being like Hotels.
Completely respect the opinions expressed here - but one must consider - the Indiana Class were a pre-dreadnaught battleships using the best 19th century technology available (laid down in 1891, they were authorized in 1889). USS Oregon performed quite well in the Spanish-American War - and while it's true it's sea keeping issues were never fully resolved - one must look at the Kearsarge Class pre-dreadnaughts for some real problems with design. Consisting of the USS Kearsarge and USS Kentucky, they were two classes after the Indiana's (after the pre-dreadnaught Iowas) and their main armament were two turrets, fore and aft - with two levels of guns - two 5 inchers over two 8 inchers per turret - the only time this configuration would ever be used with good reason.
Thanks .. good video, As a long time resident and fisherman out of Pensacola.. we go to the 'Mass' dozens of times to catch bait and fish. In the 70' both turrets were awash and you could see the openings for the 13 inch guns .. now only the west turret becomes exposed at very low tides or between swells ... And I have lost at least one cast net there. Every so often a boat piles up on here, despite having a large red buoy with flashing red light near by .. A boat hit a turret and eventually sank at the last Blue Angels Air Show July 2022
Thanks for watching Keith and sharing this great local information that helps to paint a better picture! How is the fishing there? I’ve heard it’s not the safest place to dive or be out swimming! I also read the account of the “Sea Monster” the other day as well. Also interesting to hear that she’s still sinking ships a 100 years later here! Hope you have a great week :)
@Hidden History Since the Mass holds a lot of bait its good for Spanish and King Mackerel.. and occasional cobia in the warmer months .. lots of spad fish and huge remora .. I have heard of a Jewfish hanging out there too.. some sheepshead early spring and a few mangrove snapper in the fall. In the early summer we have an incoming tide in the morning .. and from daylight to mid morning may, June July there may be a dozen boats or more catching bait,mostly with sabiki rigs. You are 100% correct about catching slack high tide as the prime time to dive or snorkel.. but when it's right its spectacular
It's not really the "oldest battleship still in existence". HMVS Cerberus was launched in 1869 and is, similarly, a marine reef off a beach in Melbourne, Australia. The USS Massachusetts is around 27 years younger. There may even be older ships, if "in existence" means a few fragments of rust are left. The Cerberus design was based on the USS Monitor.
Design, while flawed, was not as bad as video suggests. The list caused by the gun barrels did limit the gun elevation to 5 degrees and exposed a bit of hull under the armor belt on the opposite side guns were trained at. But nowhere near as dramatic as described in the video. These problems were later largely resolved by installing counterweights into the gun turrets. The bilge keels were also later installed, and since the ships were designed as coastal defense battleships it wasnt expected to be ocean going anyway. All the pre-dreadnought ships were obsolete by 1910. because of, you may guessed it, HMS Dreadnought and increasingly more capable classes that followed. To summarize, this ship was a learning experience for the fledgling US navy. I would not call it the worst battleship ever designed (HMS Captain has that honor). This video on the other hand, is bad. Hopefully it will be a learning experience for the author and we can expect better researched content in the future.
she was caught between two beliefs and times: isolation and defense vs. being a world power, then of being the 19th century emphasis on bombardment vs. ship to ship battles… she wasn’t a slouch in any category, she was simply caught in the state if flux for the time period. she at least survived far longer than the vast majority of her contemporaries and managed to be useful until the end! she was far from the worst, she was just misunderstood and overlooked because of shiny new toys
Worst US battleship? - Perhaps the original steel Texas. The old Oregon rounded the Horn on her way from Bremerton to Santiago - not bad 4 N old low-freeboard ship. After a string of stacked-turret & other ideas, the Massachusetts' porcupine gun layout was basically returned 2 4 American predreadnoughts 'til our pocket South Carolina dreadnoughts brought us halfway N2 a new age
Wasn’t the USS Oregon nicknamed McKinley’s Bulldog? I believe it fought in the battle of Santiago at Cuba in the Spanish American War. It had to sail all the way from the west coast, around Cape Horn to get to the fight.
And I am always confused by all other videos about ships because I'm not a sailor. Personally, I appreciated that he used units I could relate to so I could better understand the scale of things. I get that it may not have been as proper, but given the casual nature of the video, I like that I can understand it vs knots and "gross registered tons" or other units that carry no meaning to a land-lubber like me.
The things that made _Dreadnought_ special weren't things you could retrofit onto a ship. You'd have to replace the engines, rebuild the hull to get some more freeboard, and get rid of enough of the superstructure to fit more 13" turrets (and associated machinery) and/or replace the main guns with something smaller. You would spend less money building a larger, more capable ship. Or you could do what they did, cheap out and do the minimum to make it not suck too badly.
They also suffered from mutual blast effect issues, 8" on 13" and 13" on 6" batteries. Many designs in the Dreadnought era were crammed more or less. It's a miracle the Oregon didn't founder on her journey to Cuba and a shame she was scrapped in WW2.
I saw an article a few months ago titled “The Worst Battleship Ever” and it was about THIS Massachusetts. However, it used pictures showing the Iowa class. I was confused at first. Edited: I mistook the USS Massachusetts for the USS Missouri
The later USS Massachusetts (BB-49) was a South Dakota class battleship, the class immediately preceding the Iowas. She was shorter, slower by a few knots and carried a somewhat less powerful 16” gun than the Iowas, but had a similar appearance and secondary armament.
If it could have gotten onto the great lakes then it would have made an excellent training ship like those ships that were converted so carrier pilots could have been trained.
Except that would have been a violation of the Rush-Bagot treaty which demilitarized the Great Lakes. The treaty wasn’t suspended until 1942, after the U.S. allied with Canada and the U.K. for WW2, and then amended in 1946 to allow training cruises.
@@zxjim I didn't know about that history. Speaking about great lake treaties, the great lakes have got themselves an agreement when would prevent states like Nevada and their corporate farmers from running a pipeline to the Great lakes. The south west is in a water crisis and you still see farmers growing onions to sell to china to feed their pigs. I wish the Great Lakes would look forward the next 100 years with how the south West & Mid west keep sinking deeper ground water wells.
Actually the USS Oregon was saved by the donations of school kids from the scrap heap. However inWWII it was taken by the Navy and used as an Ammo Barge in the Pacific where it was sunk in the Island Hopping Campaign.
'Harked back', not 'hearkened back''; one craft, several craft. Please kill me. This was really interesting and very well scripted. So much worthwhile information about the ship and its current occupants, and how to get to visit them.
Actually just read that story the other day. Very interesting! I personally believe it to be the stress of the situation that cause him to think it was a sea monster that killed his friends. Thanks for watching!
2nd Greatest, the Royal Navy was the premier naval power from the 18th century through WW1, and for the early part of WW2, the USN in contrast is today barely equal to the WW1 grand fleet in ship numbers and the Royal Navy's once global reach.
I loved the story and history you presented, great job!! I do have a question though, I enjoy studying the archival photographs you’ve added, but why add in the fake surface dirt over them? Except for a brilliantly researched history documentary why ruin otherwise sharp, clear photographs with make believe dirt? You’re not the only history site guilty of this, it’s as if adding surface dirt adds validity to an otherwise perfect photograph.
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Oldest battleship still in existence.. you mean that hulk of rust that sits below the waterline????? Laughing in several European languages.
we may not be an imperial power but it sure did look like one at one point.
Is that Flounder???
If you "love WW2" please subscribe for an psychologist!
You feel like the UK used USA to learn what worked and what did not only to build the better Dreadnought?
Completely unrelated, but can we all agree that scraping the original CV-6 instead of turning her into a museum was a crime?
I never understood why the most DECORATED SHIP OF WWII AND SINGLE HANDEDLY FOUGHT THE JAPANESE FOR NEARLY TWO YEARS was scrapped
Absolutely but kinda glad we did, I mean look at the museum ships we have, one sunk a year or two ago and had to be raised/pumped out, the battleships are very rusty and not looking the best (paint), and the carriers aswell. Some visitors really know and appreciate what the ship and sailors aboard did, but most are kids that don’t really care from schools on school trips. Or families whose husband really wanted to go and were dragged along. But yes USS Enterprise CV-6 was the best carrier/ship in WW2 or I’m my opinion ever.
@@WoeStinkBeUponTheenot enough funds, even after the war Admiral Halsey did a campaign to save the ship but ultimately failed, but also due to age, battle damage, and the Essex class being better in almost every way why keep her.
So much old war stuff was around. They weren't thinking about us in 2024.
And scrapping HMS Warspite was also a crime
Ships going obsolete quickly was common in that time period. Even HMS Dreadnaught was outclassed by 1911 with the Iron Dukes and obsolete by 1913 with the Queen Elisabeth class
Very true, great point! Thanks for watching and have a great week!
The Royal Navy had some obsolete warships at the outbreak of WW1 . The 3 Cressy class ships were sent to the bottom of the Channel with most of their young crews,,,
@@MrPomdownunder All nations had. All pre Dreadnaught battleship and pre Battlecruiser armored cruisers where obsolete
Good Old Warspite, never obsolete, just worn out.
@@russetwolf13
HMS Warspite has got to be the best name ever for a Warship
Love the straight forward narration
I love you, and your content! Have a great week Brett!
Indeed. The facts with no BS. 👏
@@barrysrcdump3557 Hate the fake added film noise that tries to make a zoom on a still feel like archival footage. Phony.
That's how progres is made
@@HiddenHistoryYT Good work,yes I agree,it was a waste,as its small size allows waves to flood the deck,even if they aim guns at the same side there could eazely fire and flood half of the port deck
The mast of the USS Oregon is prominently displayed in Portland's Waterfront Park. Considering it's one of the few military monuments in the city, I think most Portlanders assume the USS Oregon was a highly distinguished naval ship -- not a poorly designed, boondoggle.
She should still be a museum ship to this day! Thanks for watching Norm and have a great weekend :)
I'm pretty sure Oregon's hull was used in WW2 as an ammunition barge and was later towed to Japan and scrapped.
The USS Oregon had to run full speed around South America in order to get to the first naval battle of the Spanish-American War in Cuba with no time to spare. It took almost a month but demonstrated the need to build the Panama Canal if America expected to have a two ocean navy.
She *was* quite distinguished in terms of her service history. She might not have been well-designed but her crew performed admirably during the Spanish-American War and she played an important role in the defeat of the Spanish navy.
You’d have to be straight up stupid to live in Portland anymore so that’s not surprising at all
BB-3 Oregon was a museum ship in Portland from the early 1920s to 1941, when the Navy took her back for scrap. When the superstructure was mostly cut up, they decided to use the hull as an ammunition barge for the invasion of Guam, and she wasn’t scrapped until the mid-1950s. The mast is currently on display in Portland, and the funnels are in storage.
Still don’t get why FDR didn’t save her. She should still be a museum ship to this day IMO
@HiddenHistoryYT he tried, the US Navy itself was responsible for the scrapping of many museum ships, perhaps it was seen as a unneeded drain on a navy whose funding ranged from a few million to pocket change.
At the time, modern battleships were still a work in progress. Naval architects were still learning how to design battleships.
Very true! Thanks for watching!
Just so. It might almost be better, as Drachinifel among others has suggested, that it's better to look at dreadnought and pre-dreadnought battleships as entirely separate categories in making assessments like "best," and "worst." (I suppose you could even break out ironclad battleships and fast battleships as further categories...but I think Dreadnought marks the most important dividing line.)
Nah, by 1903 the pre dreadnought era was in full swing with many nations having successful pre dreadnought designs and even ships considered semi dreadnoughts. These things look like they came from 1880s. Just terrible design.
@@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24 Well, you could throw the Indianas into the "Ironclad battleships" category if you want. But honestly, given when they hit the water, I think they deserve to compared to what was dominant by that point, and that was pre-dreads. And these were surely pretty inadequate by any pre-dread standard you like.
@@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24 where did 1903 come from? Massachusetts was designed in 1890. Maybe it looks like it’s from the 1880s because it nearly was.
I would say the HMS Captain (1869) (that only lasted for 4 months before rolling over and sinking) may be far worse than this ship.
Or the Swedish Vasa.
Shoulda called it hms cabin boy
@@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24 LOL!
Fascinating history! I also saw “monitor” in the design. One thing for certain was that while the Monitor classes were essential for the US Navy during the Civil War, their limitations were well known to the sailors of the day. On the other hand, to this day there is a place for fast shallow draft and coastal craft that pack big fire power. Trying to get the formula right amidst bureaucratic bickering is an art. Nothing’s perfect. Got to leave some room for American kids having to go into harms way in them to exercise some ingenuity.
Very insightful and delightful comment! Appreciate this information and perspective! Completely agree with you on everything you’ve said here, especially the bureaucracy aspect. Thanks for watching and have a great week :)
the issue isn’t so much the draft, it’s the balance and height above the waterline…this design was fine for its intended role. it was only when foreign policy and firepower abroad was brought into the equation did the design have issues and even then it was better balanced than ships in the past thanks yo splitting the firepower fore and aft and on both sides
No progress in ages, then an explosion of innovation
These early US Battleships always seemed like a pretty neat topic to me. I’d love to see you come back and cover another early class of US Battleships
I will look into that and see what I can find! Appreciate the suggestion and thanks for watching :)
“Festooned with guns poking from the superstructure in every direction”. Love it! Great narration.
Appreciate you watching & have a great weekend :)
Another valuable piece of American military history.
Thanks a lot, Colin UK 🇬🇧
Thanks for watching and engaging Colin! Have a great week over there across the pond!
Others made some good points about the pace of technological change and obsolescence of ships in this era, and they're right- the whole era from the 1870s to the 1900s was one of unprecedented and probably since unequalled pace of change in naval design and gunnery and armour technology, despite several contending later periods. But these ships certainly are among those that were frankly failures even as built but, all the same, interesting failures that still managed to give some service. Good video!
Completely agree. Thanks for watching!
Then 70 sum years later Nimitz broke the mold basically
I think it was nice of the Navy to provide such a great fish shelter.
😂😂 not wrong. Appreciate you watching Colin and have a great weekend :)
Not the only one either, USS Oriskany was sunk nearby after they figured out old warships make good artificial reefs.
@butchs.4239 Actually, Oriskany was sunk off the east coast of Florida nearly 450 miles away, not nearby by any means.
Now that was one extraordinarily good; (abbreviated) documentary. *The more I watch, the more I'm glad I subscribed!*
Greatly appreciate it Jeff!
@@HiddenHistoryYT Ditto!
BB-3 the USS Oregon was the first museum ship prior to WWII. During WWII she was activated as an ammunition ship at the Battle Of Okinawa. She was scrapped after the war. During the Spanish American War, the Oregon became famous for her speedy run from San Francisco to Cuba in 66 days (this was before the canal). During the Battle of Cuba, Oregon bracketed the Spanish ship Cristóbal Colón and caused the Spanish captain to scuttle his ship. She was also the fastest battle ship in the US navy at the time. She also did convey escort during the allied intervention in the Russian Revolution, and the Philippine-American War and the Boxer Rebellion. I would argue that this class of battleship was a work in progress. As a fighting ship she did the job at the time.
Appreciate you watching and have a great week :)
I'm so glad you weren't talking about the South Dakota class Massachusetts!
😂😂 she was quite a different ship
7:21 There is a sizable part of me that misses the design choices of this particular time period. The white hull, beige upper decks and opulent bow, stern and turret ornaments just look so damn classy to my eye.
I do wish we would bring back the white paint schemes, is quite stunning in my opinion. Appreciate you watching and engaging Will! Have a great week :)
It would be nice if the restorers of USS Texas chose something other than that horrible blue paint.
There were lessons to be learned and the Navy learned them all!
Very true. Thanks for watching Thomas and have a great week!
You must've meant this sarcastically. Ha ha.
She may have made for an awful battleship, but as a nature preserve she is unmatched.
Just found your channel. Really great video. WW2 is 1 of my favorite part of history. The bravery of everyone that sacrificed so much makes me beam with pride. Being a believer in we need that bravery now more than ever. Keep up the great work.
Appreciate it Jamie! Thanks for watching and have a great rest of your week :)
I'd give the title of "worst" to HMS Victoria.
A more poorly designed USN battleship class would be the ones with the stacked turrets.
I’ll do a little deep dive on those this week. Thanks for watching and have a great week!
Solid video. I loved when you began talking about those BOATS. Just subbed my bro
Love your content! Thanks for watching!
And then Great Britain built HMS Dreadnought!
Appreciate you watching Andrew, have a great week!
@andrew allen. Which was sold for scape in 1921 because the revolution she caused spurred on a design revolution that rendered her obsolete.
@ 4:43 is that a crack in a coal burner door ?
The gatling guns were the direct predecessors to the Phalanx CIWS 20mm gatling shipboard defense system we have today.
Great info! Thanks for watching and have a great week!
they did put electric motors on Gatling guns in the late 19th century, but at the time no one could see a use for such a fast firing gun, at the time armies had magazine cut offs in rifles to prevent excessive ammo usage, so a gun that fired 1500 rounds a minute (as built by Crocker-wheeler motor company)was too expensive to run!
@@andreww2098 wow, great info Andrew! Thanks for watching and have a great week :)
I can see a few parallels with the Royal Navy's HMS Hood of 1891. The First Sea Lord wanted one of the new Royal Sovereign class to have its four 13.5" guns in a pair of old style heavy turrets instead of the new armoured open barbettes which had been introduced. Because of the extra weight of the fully armoured turrets they had to be mounted a deck lower. The lack of freeboard made her like a half tide rock, taking aboard 200 tons of water on one occasion and was difficult to maneuver. She had been for sale at the start of the first World War but no buyer being found it was decided to scuttle her as a blockship at Portland Harbour. Even that didn't go well as she capsized as she sank and now lies upside down across a disused harbour entrance. She is apparently a hazardous dive due to the strong tides through the narrow entrance.
Great info Mike, thanks for sharing! Seems that British battleships have a thing for not allowing themselves to be scrapped 😂 Appreciate you watching and have a great week :)
Hood is also a rusting hulk on the sea floor, and she was built earlier as part of the 1889 programme. So does that make her the "oldest battleship still in existence"?
The steel battleships of the 1890s were rather wonderful machines for their day. Finding fault in them is a comparative thing. But definitely a lot was attempted on very limited displacements with the first American trio. Not until the start of the 1900s did they really strike the right balance, IMO. Dropping the heavy and by then nearly useless twin 8-inch turrets was the right way to go at the start of the 20th C.
HMS Hood is blocking the southern entrance of Weymouth harbour in Dorset UK.
I have dived the sea wall but was told to go inside is very dangerous as it’s upside down and the wreck is now very unstable.
Less smokey than the Admiral Kuznetsov. At least she's got that going for her, which is nice.
The battle cruiser Olympia is still afloat as a museum at Philadelphia’s Seaport Museum. Really worth the visit as it was from the same era.
I need to see it still!
She isn’t a battlecruiser, she is a protected cruiser. Though she definitely fought like a battleship
the committee who designed these confections of incompetence had obviously never heard of the English 'Mary Rose' of King Henry VIII or the Swedish 'Vasa' of King of Gustavus Adolphus, both so overloaded with cannon that they turned turtle and sank.
Thanks for watching :)
@@HiddenHistoryYT my pleasure entirely
The people in the office got involved with the design of something and there were problems? 😂
I don't think a wreck belongs into the category "battleships in existence".
Well, as my grandfather used to say, "things are never so useless it ain't useful for something".
Sounds like a smart man 😂
Unfortunately he was talking about your grandmother 🤣😝😂
Wait wait wait, I'm just kidding I couldn't pass it up.
This battleship looks like the battleship game pieces from the old Parker's Bros "Conflict" and Monopoly games
Haha true. Appreciate you watching & have a great week :)
Don't you guys use 'tons' for heavy items at all?
Or tonnes and kg. for non US listeners. Further...the plural of "craft" is "craft"....except for ESL speakers maybe.
Build to kill and destroy, now serves a home for life. Pretty poetic of the last 100 years of history.
Completely agree! Thanks for watching and have a great weekend :)
Well narrated. I've been schooled about these ill fated ships. Thank you.
Appreciate the kind words Charles! Thanks for watching and have a great rest of your day :)
The Oregon did several things that changed the United States into a world power.
The ship was the most famous vessel in the world during its trip around sailing from the west coast around Tierra Del Fuego and sailing to Cuba to arrive at San Juan Bay.
The Oregon's Captain kept his ship's boilers hot and steam up with his Cardiff Coal waiting for the bottled up Spanish Navy to make a run for it.
Most the rest of the U.S. Navy ship's had let their steam run down,and when the Spaniards made the breakout the Oregon was able to run them down.
That trip around South America gave Teddey Roosevelt the ammunition to complete the Panama Canal, and inherit The Phillipines, and a host of Pacific Islands that the Japanese tried to occupy and keep in 1941.
So was the Oregon and her sisters were supposedly the worst Battleship's in the world?
The only way Congress in the 1890's would approve more Naval vessels would be to classify them as "coastal defense ships".
The U.S. was very protectionist minded in those years.
They were as stated, just upgraded river monitors.
Excellent information Jim! Appreciate you sharing this and watching the video! Have a great week :)
Great report sir
Good info. Nicely presented. Subbed
Thanks for watching and subbing TK, have a great week!
Bilge Keels are basically a metal fin running down the port and. Starboard side usually at the corner of the sides. They are angled and help with stability. It's one of the few things you see still riveted on the hulls of modern ships.
FYI Mare Island could have handled the conversion.
Great info Mike! Appreciate you watching and engaging! Have a great week :)
If I may add: Bilge keels are there to provide resistance to the ship rolling from side to side, extending the rolling period. Ships with a low GM ( centre of gravity not very high above the keel, as a very basic explanation) tend to have very short rolling periods which can be very unpleasant to the crew.
You think yourself a student of history and along comes a story like this and reinvigorates my thirst for historical knowledge. The fact that port and starboard secondary guns dipped into the water when the big guns swiveled to the side blew my mind. Then you said it was designed by politicians instead of engineers and it all made sense. Very fascinating story!
Appreciate you watching Ron! Have a great week :)
It wasnt designed by politicians at all
@@amblincork Perhaps "interfered with" would be a more apt description if that adds clarity for you.
"still in existence" is a bit of a stretch for whoever was the record writer tbh
Why didn't they balance the guns in the turret in such a way that the center of mass matches the center of rotation?? I don't need to be a genius or an engineer to consider that obvious.
Great question!
Great work Sir thank you
Appreciate it Jason. Thanks for watching and have a great week!
6 billion in today's money for 35 Battleships. 1 B2 bomber costs 2 billion. The defense industry is a scam.
Thanks for watching and have a great weekend :)
Precision electronics are expensive.
Also we still had a domestic steel industry back then. 😂 Fake laugh real pain.
Read Medal of Honor recipient Marine General Smedely Butler's book "War is a Racket". It's always been a way for politicians friends to make bank.
Great channel keep up the good work.
Appreciate the kind words! Thanks for watching and have a great weekend :)
Congress 1890: We're not sure we want to spent that much money.
Congress 2023: HERE'S THE CHECKBOOK!!!!
Its already overdrawn
😂😂
Just to clarify, the United States Navy never changed their doctrine of putting a gun in every available space. So in the future they didn't put less guns on their battleships, they just made bigger battleships so they could handle the weight.
Strikes me that those ships were also top heavy - an incredible clutter of gewgaws above the deck. It's a wonder they didn't roll over and sink on launching! Interesting video . . . and I wonder how these compared with British ships of the time, and then with the "Dreadnought".
Thanks for watching Richard! Have a great week :)
The contemporary RN ships were the 8 Royal Sovereigns which were regarded as being a fairly successful design for their time. They were retired just after Dreadnought was launched
@@jamesmaclennan4525 And all obsolete on the arrival of the "Dreadnought".
@@richardcleveland8549 well yes that is why they were basically hulked in 1904.
@@jamesmaclennan4525 Sunk in the right places, they might've been fine breeding places for fish . . . their highest and best use.
I really like the addition of the information about the life that lives on/in it.
Thanks for watching :)
This review of these committee designed battleships reminds me of the early attempts of the French Navy trying to come up with battleship designs to out class the English Navy. The French designs are referred to as being like Hotels.
Great info! I love the look of those old French ships tbh. Thanks for watching and have a great week Dan!
Certainly explains why Drachinifel calls his video on French Pre-Dreadnoughts: When Hotels go to war
@@justinwoolsey4269 Love his channel and that video!
Thank-you for reading out the wikipedia article while showing slowly zooming in photos with an old-timey effect
Isn’t a Wikipedia article lmao
Completely respect the opinions expressed here - but one must consider - the Indiana Class were a pre-dreadnaught battleships using the best 19th century technology available (laid down in 1891, they were authorized in 1889). USS Oregon performed quite well in the Spanish-American War - and while it's true it's sea keeping issues were never fully resolved - one must look at the Kearsarge Class pre-dreadnaughts for some real problems with design. Consisting of the USS Kearsarge and USS Kentucky, they were two classes after the Indiana's (after the pre-dreadnaught Iowas) and their main armament were two turrets, fore and aft - with two levels of guns - two 5 inchers over two 8 inchers per turret - the only time this configuration would ever be used with good reason.
Great information here Mike! Appreciate you watching the video and engaging! Have a great week :)
Designed by a panel and it ended up junk, eh? Reminds me of that old joke -
Q - "What do you call a horse designed by a committee?"
A - "A camel."
😂😂😂
HMAS Cerberus 1869 launched monitor style ship still exists too in port phillip bay as a dive attraction.
Very interesting, I'll have to check that out! Thanks for watching!
Question: Why was weight measured in millions of pounds instead of tons speed measured in miles per hour instead of knots?
I just want to appreciate that a construct so horrible at giving death is proving so good at providing a space for life.
Lovely perspective! Thanks for watching :)
Muchas gracias por compartir este dato histórico y videos, un cordial saludo, JV
Appreciate you watching and have a great weekend :)
The real failure would have been not to learn from the mistakes they made.
Like the disaster that was the Mark 14 torpedo.
Thanks .. good video,
As a long time resident and fisherman out of Pensacola.. we go to the 'Mass' dozens of times to catch bait and fish.
In the 70' both turrets were awash and you could see the openings for the 13 inch guns .. now only the west turret becomes exposed at very low tides or between swells ...
And I have lost at least one cast net there.
Every so often a boat piles up on here, despite having a large red buoy with flashing red light near by .. A boat hit a turret and eventually sank at the last Blue Angels Air Show July 2022
Thanks for watching Keith and sharing this great local information that helps to paint a better picture! How is the fishing there? I’ve heard it’s not the safest place to dive or be out swimming! I also read the account of the “Sea Monster” the other day as well. Also interesting to hear that she’s still sinking ships a 100 years later here! Hope you have a great week :)
@Hidden History Since the Mass holds a lot of bait its good for Spanish and King Mackerel.. and occasional cobia in the warmer months .. lots of spad fish and huge remora .. I have heard of a Jewfish hanging out there too.. some sheepshead early spring and a few mangrove snapper in the fall.
In the early summer we have an incoming tide in the morning .. and from daylight to mid morning may, June July there may be a dozen boats or more catching bait,mostly with sabiki rigs.
You are 100% correct about catching slack high tide as the prime time to dive or snorkel.. but when it's right its spectacular
@@keithdubose2150 very interesting, thanks for sharing! Best of luck on your future fishing outings!
Good story. Total failure as a battleship but an overwhelming success as an artificial reef. Awesome!
Thanks for watching :)
Hey! History repeats itself with the "new" LCS?
Appreciate you watching & have a great week :)
Definitely pre-drednought. And not good enough for the "Great White Fleet".
Further proof that people who have no idea how things work should not dictate how things work
Completely agree! Thanks for watching and have a great week Shane :)
It's not really the "oldest battleship still in existence". HMVS Cerberus was launched in 1869 and is, similarly, a marine reef off a beach in Melbourne, Australia. The USS Massachusetts is around 27 years younger. There may even be older ships, if "in existence" means a few fragments of rust are left.
The Cerberus design was based on the USS Monitor.
What about HMS Warrior (1860)? You can see her afloat in Porstmouth.
Must be two battleships Massachusetts seen as one is sitting in fall river Massachusetts. It's on display and there is a museum dedicated to it .
Appreciate you watching & have a great week :)
HMS Captain disagrees
Design, while flawed, was not as bad as video suggests. The list caused by the gun barrels did limit the gun elevation to 5 degrees and exposed a bit of hull under the armor belt on the opposite side guns were trained at. But nowhere near as dramatic as described in the video. These problems were later largely resolved by installing counterweights into the gun turrets.
The bilge keels were also later installed, and since the ships were designed as coastal defense battleships it wasnt expected to be ocean going anyway. All the pre-dreadnought ships were obsolete by 1910. because of, you may guessed it, HMS Dreadnought and increasingly more capable classes that followed.
To summarize, this ship was a learning experience for the fledgling US navy. I would not call it the worst battleship ever designed (HMS Captain has that honor). This video on the other hand, is bad. Hopefully it will be a learning experience for the author and we can expect better researched content in the future.
she was caught between two beliefs and times: isolation and defense vs. being a world power, then of being the 19th century emphasis on bombardment vs. ship to ship battles…
she wasn’t a slouch in any category, she was simply caught in the state if flux for the time period. she at least survived far longer than the vast majority of her contemporaries and managed to be useful until the end!
she was far from the worst, she was just misunderstood and overlooked because of shiny new toys
A very interesting time in naval design for sure! Thanks for watching and have a great week :)
whats "BB" stand for anyway? "Both Barrels"? "Battle Boat"?
Worst US battleship? - Perhaps the original steel Texas.
The old Oregon rounded the Horn on her way from Bremerton to Santiago - not bad 4 N old low-freeboard ship.
After a string of stacked-turret & other ideas, the Massachusetts' porcupine gun layout was basically returned 2 4 American predreadnoughts 'til our pocket South Carolina dreadnoughts brought us halfway N2 a new age
I’ll second that. The OG Texas (not the dreadnaught) was limited in how she could reload her guns to a comical extent
The Texas never got a hull number, so technically B1/BB1 Oregon is still the first US BB. on a technicality...
Wasn’t the USS Oregon nicknamed McKinley’s Bulldog? I believe it fought in the battle of Santiago at Cuba in the Spanish American War. It had to sail all the way from the west coast, around Cape Horn to get to the fight.
13” guns with only a 2 mile range?
US Navy: "Guns, lots of guns"
BB hulls: "I'm in trouble"
😂😂
“Fledging Navy”? The United States Navy had only been in existence since July, 1799.
But until this era it was essentially negligible to any serious naval power. Small and antiqued.
A few South American navies were bigger than the US Navy up to the 1890s.
That is quite a story. Thanks so much.
I appreciate the kind words, and thanks for watching! Have a great week!
Excellent and interesting. Please give the speed in knots and mass in Tons. All other ships are described in this manner
I need tons and knots also...thank you
And I am always confused by all other videos about ships because I'm not a sailor. Personally, I appreciated that he used units I could relate to so I could better understand the scale of things. I get that it may not have been as proper, but given the casual nature of the video, I like that I can understand it vs knots and "gross registered tons" or other units that carry no meaning to a land-lubber like me.
Ya I get both sides of it lol, can’t win either way. Thanks for watching though and have a great week Matt!
I’ll add conversion notes in the next one. Thanks for watching though and have a great week!
This is how I design battleships in Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts 😆
Lmao I need to get back into that game. Appreciate you watching & have a great week :)
I would have thought that HMS Dreadnought (1906) was a major factor in the redesign of all these types of ships during this era.
The things that made _Dreadnought_ special weren't things you could retrofit onto a ship. You'd have to replace the engines, rebuild the hull to get some more freeboard, and get rid of enough of the superstructure to fit more 13" turrets (and associated machinery) and/or replace the main guns with something smaller. You would spend less money building a larger, more capable ship. Or you could do what they did, cheap out and do the minimum to make it not suck too badly.
They also suffered from mutual blast effect issues, 8" on 13" and 13" on 6" batteries. Many designs in the Dreadnought era were crammed more or less. It's a miracle the Oregon didn't founder on her journey to Cuba and a shame she was scrapped in WW2.
Great info here! Thanks for watching and have a great week :)
I saw an article a few months ago titled “The Worst Battleship Ever” and it was about THIS Massachusetts. However, it used pictures showing the Iowa class. I was confused at first.
Edited: I mistook the USS Massachusetts for the USS Missouri
The later USS Massachusetts, BB-59, was a South Dakota class, not an Iowa class battleship.
@@JLange642 my mistake
I was thinking of the Missouri
The later USS Massachusetts (BB-49) was a South Dakota class battleship, the class immediately preceding the Iowas. She was shorter, slower by a few knots and carried a somewhat less powerful 16” gun than the Iowas, but had a similar appearance and secondary armament.
Big Mamie is a South Dakota class. Not Iowa.
BB-59
The 13 inch guns were the largest in US service. The Royal Navy was using 16.25 inch (HMS Benbow) and the French had similar sized ones too.
Great video
Thanks for watching! Have a great week!
Oldest battleship HMS Victory 1765.Oldest Ironclad HMS Warrior 1860 and oldest turreted battleship HMVS Cerberus 1871
I don’t think you can call a shipwreck the “oldest battleship still in existence”
That would be the USS Texas....
Indeed and given all the guns were removed it cant be called a battle ship at all
The perfect example of design-by- committee.
Never works out does it! Thanks for watching and have a great rest of your week Marv :)
If it could have gotten onto the great lakes then it would have made an excellent training ship like those ships that were converted so carrier pilots could have been trained.
That would’ve been a great option I hadn’t thought of! Thanks for watching!
Except that would have been a violation of the Rush-Bagot treaty which demilitarized the Great Lakes. The treaty wasn’t suspended until 1942, after the U.S. allied with Canada and the U.K. for WW2, and then amended in 1946 to allow training cruises.
@@zxjim excellent point and information Jim!
@@zxjim I didn't know about that history. Speaking about great lake treaties, the great lakes have got themselves an agreement when would prevent states like Nevada and their corporate farmers from running a pipeline to the Great lakes.
The south west is in a water crisis and you still see farmers growing onions to sell to china to feed their pigs.
I wish the Great Lakes would look forward the next 100 years with how the south West & Mid west keep sinking deeper ground water wells.
Really interesting! But why add 'old' movie effect to photographs?
Haven’t in future videos! Appreciate you watching Dave and have a great week :)
The French: "...Tiens ma Vin"
😂😂
"..40 years after the Monitor.." When you consider that......... this ship is AMAZING!
Very true! Thanks for watching :)
So, they were the Pontiac Aztecs before their time?
😂😂
How dare you besmirch the name of one of the greatest cars ever made
From the tests I read, Aztecs were ugly but useful. These ships were apparently the opposite.
As Ship designs improve on the failures from previous designs, politicians have gone in the opposite direction.
That ship design was very steampunk.
Very true! Thanks for watching!
I believe these are the battleships that the Monopoly Battleship Game Piece was designed from.
Very interesting! Thanks for watching and have a great week Scott!
The win for me was playing that piece
Actually the USS Oregon was saved by the donations of school kids from the scrap heap. However inWWII it was taken by the Navy and used as an Ammo Barge in the Pacific where it was sunk in the Island Hopping Campaign.
'Harked back', not 'hearkened back''; one craft, several craft.
Please kill me. This was really interesting and very well scripted. So much worthwhile information about the ship and its current occupants, and how to get to visit them.
the Royal Navy was the greatest naval force the world has ever known
Until after world war 2, the U.S Navy took that crown!!!!
U.S Navy still holds that crown today as well.
@@jackdaniel7465 Well, we taught them well.
@@Drobium77 we taught you well as well, when we sent you packing off this continent!!!
@@Drobium77 Don't start with the British are perfect in everything B.S.
I wish you were my teacher! Its like ASMR to my ears.
You’re too kind. Thanks for watching!
What about that sea monster that lives nearby?lol
Actually just read that story the other day. Very interesting! I personally believe it to be the stress of the situation that cause him to think it was a sea monster that killed his friends. Thanks for watching!
2nd Greatest, the Royal Navy was the premier naval power from the 18th century through WW1, and for the early part of WW2, the USN in contrast is today barely equal to the WW1 grand fleet in ship numbers and the Royal Navy's once global reach.
Great insight! Thanks for watching :)
the Austrians had one similar to this on a lake, sunk by an Italian torpedo boat.
Very cool, didn't know that! Thanks for watching and have a great week!
I loved the story and history you presented, great job!! I do have a question though, I enjoy studying the archival photographs you’ve added, but why add in the fake surface dirt over them? Except for a brilliantly researched history documentary why ruin otherwise sharp, clear photographs with make believe dirt? You’re not the only history site guilty of this, it’s as if adding surface dirt adds validity to an otherwise perfect photograph.
Appreciate the input, I haven’t used them in any of my future videos if you check them out! Thanks for watching and have a great week :)