The most successful and most unsuccessful Warships

[Jellicoe]

Yes, I had mistakingly ommited the parts of the Goeben's career before arriving in Constantinople on 10 Aug. 1914, such as the aforementioned bombardment of Philippeville, a clash with the light cruiser Gloucester, and the remarkable evasion of superior forces across the Mediterranean.

[Guchi]

You have a contradiction.
You mention KGV as successful and
PoW as unsuccessful.
Both same class of ship?!

[RF]

Why should the same class of ship be a contradiction?

[Rick Rather]

Most unsuccessful: Vasa

Most successful in that she did what she was designed to do in an exemplary fashion: USS Enterprise (CV-6).

Most successful in that they accomplished far more than they were ever designed or expected to do: USS Hoel, USS Johnston & USS Samuel B. Roberts.

[sailor]

Can you imagine what it would be like to stand on the deck of Warspite today in preservation in Britain? To place your hand upon the plates and feel the incredible spirit of the ship, the men who fought her at Jutland, Narvik, the Med. The incredible punishment she bore. And the way she was wasted in the end. Sheer glory.

[RF]

Indeed.

[Wild Goose]

Hello, all. I am not as well rounded on warships and was drawn to this page when trying to find out more about the HMS Warspite's visit to the Puget Sound Shipyard for repairs in 1941. If I may acknowledge a couple of very unlucky ships that were more war related i.e. merchant vessels and not true warships, but extremely integral to their given war effort and instantly coming to my mind were the Port Chicago Disaster ships, SS Quinault Victory and SS E. A. Bryan. The Quinault didn't even have her maiden voyage but at least she wasn't pulverized beyond recognition like the EA Bryan.

It is fortunate that only 320 or so died in that WW2 disaster. Perhaps something was learned from the even more disastrous SS Mont-Blanc, or, Halifax Explosion back in 1917, and those ships in Suisun Bay were located further away from populated areas?

Perhaps you might know of some other merchants that were incredibly unlucky and as short-lived. And to balance out the unlucky merchant/convoy ships that were preyed upon in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, I wave a dead albatrosses wing and salute the SS Ohio, that tanker (Operation Pedestal) that made it all the way to Malta after surviving repeated raids by Axis planes and taking on nearly enough water to sink her, which she eventually did- at her berth in Valletta. But her precious cargo that kept Malta's sub fleet was successfully pumped out of her hold.

[RF]

Mention of Ohio also brings to mind the San Demetrio as well.

[lynn1212]

on a bit of time limit so i haven't read the whole thread. has anyone offered up the Wahoo as an important ship? if not i would like to do so now. in her first few patrols she set a standard of practices that can be traced through the rest of the war. mush morton rewrote the standards and led the silent service from a cautious almost timid group to become a ruthless and daring group that "swept the seas of japanese". ok that's perhaps a bit much but there is more that a bit of truth still. it was officers that were once wahoo sailors or were influenced by wahoo men that became the hard core responsible for much of the success american subs had. without the example of wahoo there would have been far fewer hulls sunk and the war would have lasted much longer. at the start of the war sonar shots were almost standard and hits took a backseat to safety. after wahoo aggressiveness became expected and that payed off. can you see a flasher style attack from inshore with water too shallow to dive against multiple tankers at night by a prewar skipper? very unlikely.

[BobDonnald]

Unsuccessful:
USS Ranger CV-4. Too small and too slow for the aircraft of the day. Unable to operate in the Pacific theatre where she was desperately needed.

Successful:
Essex Class of carriers. Backbone of the fleet for 20 years.
USS Washington BB-56. Did everything the Iowa's did and was cheaper.



Note: I think HMS Hood was a successful ship. That she failed 20 years after commissioning would be like condemning USS Enterprise CV-6 for not being able to operate jet aircraft.
General Belgrano is in the same category - 1937 warship versus a 1980's SSN fast attack. Yeah, she is going to lose. The class did pretty well in the Solomon's though.

[aurora]

My vote for most successful goes to USS ENTERPRISE and most unsuccessful KMS GNEISSNAU-both down to their WW2 sevice records


aurora

[RF]

I don't think that KMS Gneisenau had that bad a service record, in the context of the situations that ship was placed in.

If Gneisenau is the worst, then where does that put the KM light cruisers?

[aurora]

RF-I was purely contrasting the active service records of two "big" ships. I must say, however, I do think comparisons are somewhat odious.I confess I did not consider the KM light cruisers

aurora

[paul.mercer]

Gentlemen,
I have to say number 1 Warspite and as number 2 possibly Graf Spee or one of the German armed merchant cruisers like Pinguin

[Benjamin]

I think Admiral Scheer was most successful than Graf Spee.