Naval History Forums

If you not okay with the word beautiful, you can supplment estectically pleasing dreadnought instead. While all dreadnoughts were ships of war, some ended being very graceful and majestic looking ships while others looked like the war machines they always were intended on being.

I don't have a personal favorite design or ship but I think some are definately are better than the rest including:

Scharnhorst & Gneisenau
HMS Vanguard
HMS Hood
USS Pennsylvania & Arizona
Conte di Cavour class
SMS Hegoland class

I will post pictures later when I am not at work

This is really a matter of taste. I do find that Hood deos look aesthetically less pleasing to the eye than Bismarck, but there again, as you have already intimated Kyler, Hood was designed to do a job and not be a work of art.

The Scharnhorst ships are probably the most attractive to my eye, the only thing with them were that they were undergunned as true dreadnoughts.

As small battleships or battlecruisers go I did find the design picture for Design 1047, the proposed Dutch battlecruiser that was to be built by the KM, also appealing aesthetically. Check out the thread and judge for yourself.

Aside from Bismarck I do believe that are the british battlecruisers of WWII the most beautifull dreadnought vessels ever built. I reckon that some old USN battlewagons are also very good looking, specially during the age of range clocks and nest towers. Also the Japanese BBs are quite beautifull.

I think that, in order, my pre disposition is:

1. Bismarck
2. Hood
3. Repulse
4. Yamato
5. Arizona

Which changes a bit my "Top Ten List".

Best regards

So Repulse is no longer quite so ''repulsive'' eh Karl?

And no Scharnhorst either!

RF:

Hey man, when did I ever "repulsed" Repulse? Schanhorst is still in the list, but after No. 5... I still have a problem with Warspite and Royal Oak, two goodlooking vessels too.

I' m now building a 1/350 model of Repulse (Trumpeter) and found out how good looking she was.

Best regards,

When you got your mug??????

My Bismarck one or my Hood one?

The first one I got it for the first 500 posts about a zillion years ago. The second one I bought. And you are right, I need a Repulse one. And an Arizona one, and a Schanhorst one, and a KGV one, and.... etc. etc. etc.

I think it was the Hood one, but on checking back I couldn't find the picture......

Coffee mugs?

Well some of the ships I just like them because I do, can't quite put my finger on it but I prefer their looks to other ships. I am not much of a fan of early British dreadnoughts, especially the ones that don't have super firing turrets. Though I like the Hegoland because the ships is like a mirror image of itself. You split the ship down the middle at the center stack, and the ship is pretty much identical on both sides. It is a very symmetrical design, that’s why I like it.

Scharnhorst & its sister just look sharp in their white paint scheme (all ships look better this way) especially with the clipper bow.

Hood is just a long elegant looking ship with clean lines for the most part compared to other dreadnoughts.

Scharnhorst is gorgeous.

The Re-built Cavours are lookers too as is Vittorio Veneto.
Hood is up there with them also.

As for WW1, HMS Tiger and the Kaiser class are real good to look at

Unfortunately, Fuso is the Susan Boyle of battleships and cannot be a serious contender unless someone has a different opinion?

I think Gary is right about the HMS Tiger of WW1. She has to have been one of the most graceful battlecruisers of the war. The Luetzow and Derfflinger were rather nice looking up until they received that awful looking heavy tripod mast (however functional it may have been, it did nothing for looks.)

The Koenig Class battleship was very good looking. I just finished a 1/350 and it is awesome. More or less the same size of a WWII cruiser or an Arleught Burke DD.

I think an as-commissioned Iowa is a very, very pretty ship. That it was the best battleship of its day, just makes it prettier (or uglier, to some)

yellowtail:

That it was the best battleship of its day,

Yamato, Musashi and Tirpitz were already in comission by then, which make the Iowa No. 2 (or 3) to it´s day.

Warmest regards,