"Ugliest Ship Ever?" Topic

Vertical sides, no sheer forward, hogged aft. Just ghastly!

She is an Eagle-class patrol vessel (c.1918). Photo from Navsource:

navsource.org

Ron

P.S. I don't know for a fact that she is the ugliest, but she is definitely in the running.

Yes, but oh so easy to scratchbuild! No compound curves to worry about.

Re: Brian

There is a plan for her here:

hnsa.org/index.htm

Look under "Knowledge Base". Scroll down to "Manuals & Documents". One of the links on that page is "Booklet of General Plans". Her plan and a number of other ships' plans are on the page.

Ron

I always thought the round Russian ones were pretty ugly.

You cannot beat French pre-dreadnoughts for sheer "oh-my-god-the-goggles-do-nothing".

The Faa Di Bruno has to be up there….

imgur.com/r/WarshipPorn/bcKgVKW

Those poor french Orky pre-dreads always appear on these ugly ship threads.
The eyes still get offended by them.I heard that the water got out of the way when they launched.

oh that`s not good look Dom, what were they thinking

Oddly I *like* the French pre-dreadnoughts – they have a kind of shanty town charm to them – somehow I always feel they'd benefit from a few washing lines added though….

Me too- the French Predreads are my favorite. But then I'm a sucker for tumblehome!

The French pre-dreadnoughts are odd, but the era saw a great deal of experimentation, so new and odd ideas shouldn't seem that out of place.

For my vote I'd go with the Nelson Class.

The French, one can make excuses for, but the Royal Navy should have known better.

The Nelson really is an ugly ship.

link

[URL=http://s957.photobucket.com/user/ptjudy/media/Chinese%20Citadel%20Ship%20TING%20YUEN/new177.jpg.html]

My vote would go for the New Zealand and Indefatigable (the WW1 battle cruisers, that is).
Proportions all wrong on those ships.

French Predreadnaught Hoche, she was nicknamed Le Grand Hotel

I don't think that Chinese ship is that ugly.

Love the French ships by the way :)

Bah! Nobody out-uglies the Dupey de Lome:

Or the cruiser Bruix:

Ugly as they come…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I do love the massive fighting tops on the French cruisers, what were they thinking?

I do love the massive fighting tops on the French cruisers, what were they thinking?

Here's my hypothesis on how best to simulate the French naval architect's world view while designing a warship during the 1880s:

1) Drink a bottle of Bordeaux.

2) Drink another bottle of Bordeaux.

3) Drink yet another bottle of Bordeaux.

4) Start drawing.

5) When done with the drawing, celebrate your genius with a bottle of champagne.

6) Make revisions.

7) Celebrate your genius with a bottle of champagne.

8) Make more revisions, and celebrate your genius, repeating this cycle until you are convinced the design is perfect, or you pass out, whichever comes first.

It's a foolproof system, really. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

The design concept with the bridge placed well forward and the exaggerated beak became known as "fierce-face." (Some have rolled the dramatic tumblehome and proliferation of guns into that as well, but I don't know if they properly should be included.) There's a ghost of "fierce-face" in contemporatry Russian battleship designs, to my eye.

BWP

The only possible addition would be some old-school absinthe.

Ken Hall,
I think the Russians used some French shipyards early-on, perhaps they picked up some "tendencies" then.

And here is the good old USA's contribution – no freeboard and double-decked turrets. Instead of Bordeaux, perhaps we used Bourbon.

The Kearsarge was commissioned February 20, 1900. The dual turrets looked impressive, but in practice this double-decker gun mounting was problematic. Since the turrets swiveled as a unit, there was no independent training possible for the smaller guns. The 8" fired at a faster rate than the main armament, thus creating difficulties in coordinating the ammo lifts. Lastly, blast and vibration from the 13" main guns interfered with the operation of the 8" guns above. The turret used two 50 hp electric motors for training. Elevation, hoists and chain-driven rammers were also electrically powered; exposed electrical switch gear caused a powder burn in one of the Kearsarge's turrets on April 13, 1906, killing ten men and seriously injuring four more. Major re-engineering of the ships' turrets followed to correct this hazard. While the 13" turret section was protected by 15-17" Harvey armor, the 8" turret carried only 7 to 9" armor, providing a soft point of entry to the main turret in the event of a direct hit in action. Despite the problems, a similar dual mounting arrangement was repeated after a hiatus in the five-ship Virginia class (completed 1904-06).

But seriously guys, designing complex cutting-edge technology (which is what these ships were in their day) is harder than we think.

MH

The only possible addition would be some old-school absinthe.

Yes, but only for the most "forward" "thinking" of the naval architects of the era…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Russian 'Novgorod' – circular
link

Got to hand it to the French, come up with idea of a ship's hull with all the elegant sea going stability of a cork, add substantial upper structure then just to make sure……add the world's heaviest mast . Boy they must have been fun at sea ;-). However going on the principle of so bad,so goooood….I think they are gorgeous and really evoke Pre Dreadnought for me, especially in cream and black livery.

Ps Yes the Absynthe surely helped :-)

Having said all that, I present l'minger francais…..

They say a picture is worth a thousand words , Hoche afloat….just

Le Grand Hotel is always a favorite of mine from this era and er, design school… just wrong on every level yet too cool not to want to have in one's predreadnought fleet, just because…

Apparently, Hoche had a prominent submerged ram bow as well:

Yikes! This thing is just so WRONG!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

LRE, that middle image is nice! I assume though it is colorized…

MH

MH,

the question is *when* was it colorized and is it reasonably accurate. What I find interesting is the similarities with the colors on the museum scale model in the picture below it (as well as some significant detail differences between the ship in the photo and the model).

I expect the Hoche underwent more than a few refits like some of the other French predreadnoughts to try and make her more seaworthy (LOL!!!! Yeah, right!!).

For me the attraction is using the Hoche as the basis for a kitbashed "generic" pre-dreadnought for colonial gaming to give the landing parties some badly needed (if eccentric) covering fire…

The Hoche's ram bow makes me think of the apocryphal H.M.S. Thunderchild from War of the Worlds… might be fun to someday stage a War of the Worlds "Martians on the Riviera" game event pitting the French Republic against the evil Martian invaders…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Love the Nelson class\design. The Capri of its day :)

Would this be the Nelson class you're referring to:

Or did you mean the later truncated-by-conomics-and-naval-treaty design?

Either way, one wins up with a design only a mother (or an engineer) could love…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I vote for the French pre dreadnoughts. They really look like somebody took a front end loader to a junk yard and piled up all the stuff into one corner.

I am inspired by the way these ships kept changing and evolving. Practicality aside, there are a lot of cool design elements in the ship designs,both engineering and artistically. True many of them are pretty dreadful,but man-they have personality!

In contrast,look at today's modern naval vessels. Boxes with a few angles! Who wants to put that on a gaming table?

Cheers
Ths