The Worst Battleship Ever Designed

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In this episode we're at Naval Institute Press looking at a blueprint for a battleship that was never built but could have been either Russian or American.

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[LeCharles]

"... another one of our friends, Drachinifel..." and to think I started watching when he was still a robot voice and now he's all grown up. :')
It has been a treat to witness the growth of naval history YouTube into a veritable genre. Thank you to all of you creators but also to the viewers that helped these channels grow, the world owes you all a great debt. <3

[edwardmeade]

I worked for Gibbs and Cox back in the 1970's. We did a lot of 'conceptual' designs even then. The point of those was to make a good faith effort to come up with the best design possible and then point out the real-world problems. Very, very few of them ever even made it to the next design step much less to actual cutting of steel.

[fathead]

This could've been a good amphibious command ship once helicopters were invented. It has the shore bombardment aspect covered. Once helicopters come in, it has the landing space for casevac and rotary CAS. It should have the compartment space to act as a hospital also. Just making lemonade from lemons.

[Ashfielder]

Was it Courbet who’s secondaries out-ranged her main battery? Surely she makes the list.

[willmetz]

I love these “what if” concepts with regards to really abused and outlandish designs

[ISAFMobius]

Makes me happy seeing all these naval history channels and groups come together and discuss stuff. The naval history community continues to grow and become more and more popular thanks to channels like you and Drachinifel and World of Warships which im a big fan of on Console. Keep on bringing awesome content like this.

[Angrymuscles]

The weirdest thing is that the original concept for it in its battlecarrier form makes more sense in the '50s as opposed to the '40s. Even with early jets being limited in their takeoff and landing runs there's a whole bunch of weird and interesting combination powerplant fighters and bombers developed, either turboprop/turbojet or piston/turbojet. But if nothing else it might end up being a half decent battlecarrier with helicopters.

[christianweagle]

If there was some way that I could like this about four times I'd do so. The amount of naval history/naval never-was discussed here is amazing. More of this, please!

[metaknight]

You should do the worst battleship ever built as well, the Courbet

[Redshirt]

I could see her being a flagship carrier, like maybe she serves as the armored center of an invasion task force instead of a BB? I think because of the size and age she’d have lasted into Korea but probably not much longer after that.

[thearisen]

Completed as a carrier & kept around for jets seems like the best answer. It'd be very interesting to explore how her existance would affect carrier & naval aircraft design.

[Mantheon]

Just by the title i was assuming this was another video about the Kaiserliche Marine's Nassau, but i was quite surprised about the topic ship of the video !
I remember that you said that Battleship Texas was the model of how you should take care of your museum in a physical way, but the team of Battleship New Jersey is clearly a great model on how to manage a museum on the modern format of the social media and Youtube.
Great job as always sir ! Can't wait to visit New Jersey next summer and get myself a curator's tour !

[clambino]

This guy made about a million circles with all his rights.

[thomaszinser]

Would be hilarious to see her completed as a hybrid battleship, with the flight deck eventually converted into a giant missile battery, although it is unlikely.

[wong]

A great "nerd out" video. Reminds me of many evenings spent with friends and pizza debating starship design in the 1970s.

[tsamoka]

If it wasn't turned into a full-deck carrier, which is honestly the better idea, then at bare minimum a 2/3 conversion would make the most sense. Remove the aft two turrets and stretch the flight deck all the way to the stern. That way you have much more capacity for larger and better planes, even jet fighters later, and still retain the ability to drop big heavy shells on some unlucky sods head. If you're really dedicated to having a battle-carrier, then that's the best you're going to get. =^x^=

[michaelimbesi]

Gibbs and Cox: for when you want something crazy and you want it to actually work

[jimcat]

I thought I had seen everything with the Tillman designs. This tops 'em all!

[calecarterii]

I could see the ship being used as a testbed aircraft carrier. She would have already been the size of the Forrestal class so that fact probably means that we would have seen Kitty Hawk and Nimitz sized carriers slightly earlier than in real life.

That would be something though if this design was built and managed to last up the Operation Desert Storm. Realistically unless it was constantly upgraded I could see the ship constantly being on the chopping block due to how fuel hungry she would have been. She probably wouldn't have made it to the 500 ship Navy era.

[stevensawicki]

Stopped once on the channel to learn more about the Lady of Camden, came back now because I'm curious, glad to see the channel growing!