While I'm still extolling HMS Victory as the greatest ship, reading he various messages has led me to add a few more that I think deserve mention. 1unknown to me) Themistocles flagship at Salamis- an ancient trireme, odd and fantasticships. 2:Mikasa-Admiral Togo's flagship at Tsushima 3 a sentimental favorite-IJN Mogami- not only considered one of the world's worst warships(Anthony Preston in the book of the same title-but he also considers Bismarck and Yamato in this group) but a ship that took incredible punishment at Midway, was repaired and had its after turrets removed and was again pounded at Surigao Straits and sunk after ramming another ship and pounded again by US Cruisers 4 and although the Japanese built some of the ugliest ships ever (see above Mogami) with the Fuso and Yamashiro leading the pack, my favorite greatest ship(s) are the IJN Ise and Hyuga after their modification as battleship-carriers(S>E>Morrison called them hermaphrodites) which made them fairly useless in either role but still created one of the greatest photos (my opinion) of one of these babies under attack-just chugging away- you just feel for this ship.5: I mentioned USS Washington and HMS Warspite before. Just wanted to again. Best JWC

The greatest ship from my nation's history undoubtedly is the "Averof", an armored cruiser of Italian design with british guns. It was used in the sea battle of Lemnos in the Balkan wars against the Turks. The Turks were restricted in the Dardanellia pass (that is the pass linking Aegean pelago with Hellispontos for those unaware) by the greek navy and the battle started as they attempted to come out. After the first maneuvers, it became obvious that the Averof was faster than any other ship possessed by both the Turks and Greeks and admiral Kountouriotis (aboard the Averof) wanting to exploit the ship's capabilities separated himself from the rest of the Hellenic fleet. On the ensuing fire exchange with turkish ships (3-4 battleships + as many cruisers) he managed singlehadedly to turn the Turks back by severely damaging 1 of the enemy vessels and also damaging other ones. It looked like a dog shepparding a pack of lambs... After a second also failed attempt (more or less the same scenario) the Turks never attempted to exit Dardanellia again in that war. Deciding factor in the conflict was the good accuracy of the Averof shots, contrasted by the minimal accuracy of the turkish ones. The only loss on the Averof side was one wounded. Truly one of the greatest pages of Greek naval history (The Greek navy in its 2500 years of history has never lowered its flag, on any occasion.)

Now that's the kind of stuff I was hoping to hear - ships I'd never heard of before that made a mark for all of your countries, and what they did to achieve it. What was the date of this battle?

Originally Posted by Charge 7

Now that's the kind of stuff I was hoping to hear - ships I'd never heard of before that made a mark for all of your countries, and what they did to achieve it. What was the date of this battle?

The first engagement ("sea battle of Elli") was 3rd Dec 1912 and the second ("sea battle of Lemnos") was 5th Jan 1913.

Not only was it a battle against the odds, but Admiral Kountouriotis refused to follow certain orders from Athens in order to achieve this extraordinary result.

for a better (still very brief) description visit:
http://members.fortunecity.com/fstav...n_battles.html

for some photos and other references to the Balkan wars visit:
http://www.bsaverof.com/uk/valkanikoi.htm

i think that for her time the bismark was the best ship around and it was massive skill and luck on the british part that she was damaged then sunk.

While the previous post rightly praised the British skill in the sinking of the Bismarck, there was little luck involved if you consider that the Germans knew that the Bismarck did not manoever well with her rudder disabled and failed to "top off" with fuel when the Prinz Eugen refueled. There were so any German blunders that you have to wonder how the Germans could be so tactically brilliant on land and inept at sea. Allegedly it was once noted to Admiral Cunningham that an opposing Admiral kept a copy of the Life of Nelson by his bedside and he responded that he evidently didn'tread it. Tradition can't explain everything(At Jutland, Admiral Franz von Hipper greatly outperformed the hugely inept Admiral Beatty).

Originally Posted by melkor the first

While the previous post rightly praised the British skill in the sinking of the Bismarck, there was little luck involved if you consider that the Germans knew that the Bismarck did not manoever well with her rudder disabled and failed to "top off" with fuel when the Prinz Eugen refueled. There were so any German blunders that you have to wonder how the Germans could be so tactically brilliant on land and inept at sea. Allegedly it was once noted to Admiral Cunningham that an opposing Admiral kept a copy of the Life of Nelson by his bedside and he responded that he evidently didn'tread it. Tradition can't explain everything(At Jutland, Admiral Franz von Hipper greatly outperformed the hugely inept Admiral Beatty).

While it is true they knew the it couldn't manoeuver with a damaged rudder I don't think that anyone seriously thought a Swordfish biplane was capable of disabling it therefore there was a certain amount of luck in there to add to this being spotted by the reconnaissance aircraft was also unlucky given the weather conditions at the time.

I also don't think the Germans were as much inept as inexperienced at surface warfare simply because they have never been a maritime power and don't have the centuries of naval tradition and knowledge of the British which by WW2 ingrained into their training and design.
The other thing to remember is that in most of the engagements where the Germans were not completely outnumbered they did acquit themselves well (admittedly they were few and far between (In fact only two really spring to mind Jutland and the Hood/Bismark clash).

In WW2 the German surface fleet was handicapped by Hitler's and Raeder's fear of loss, even changing the name of the Deutchsland to the Lutzow. Nevertheless, their ineptness in the battles of the Barents Sea and the action off the North Cape as well as lackof aggressiveness on other occasions(Lutjens with the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the Atlantic and failure to follow up on the Prince of Wales) is really in marked contrast to German Army performance which semed to put a premium on seizing he advantage of any tactical position. As far as the rudder problems go, if your craft has an operational deficiency it is best to prepare for the worst and attempt to rectify it before you omit to action. And going back to the thread, At the battle of Lepanto, the Christion commander had an enormous galley La Reale and also 6 enormous galleasses which for the time must have seemed incredible, apparantlylooking like huge armed merchant barges. And HMS Dreadnought which changed the fleets of the world, precipated the Naval Arms rece between Germany and Britain and whose sole victim of WW1 was a submarine(?).

U.S.S Bainbridge DLGN 25, worlds first nuclear poweres guided missle frigate
U.S.S Enterprise CVN 65, worlds first nuclear powered aircraft carrier.
U.S.S.Nimitz, CVAN 68, first "super carrier"
Finally the U.S.S Saratoga, CV60, only ship I've ever been on that can sink 10 feet stern down and still put out to sea.

Charge-7 asked us to list the greatest surface ships of all time.

How can a consideration of greatest surface ships of all-time be considered complete without including the H.M.S. Dreadnaught - the model after which all the other battleships were made.

HMS Dreadnought, an 18,110-ton battleship built at Portsmouth Dockyard, England, represented one of the most notable design transformations of the armored warship era. Her "all-big-gun" main battery of ten twelve-inch guns, steam turbine powerplant and 21-knot maximum speed so thoroughly eclipsed earlier types that subsequent battleships were commonly known as "dreadnoughts", and the previous ones disparaged as "pre-dreadnoughts".

(courtesy of www.history.navy.mil)
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BTW - Charge-7, regarding your concern that someone might want to include submarines: In or out of the submariner community, submarines have always been considered "boats". Or as one old mariner told me a long time ago - a "boat" is anything that can be hoisted aboard a "ship"

Wonder what he would have thought of the U.S.S. Cole's voyage home from Yemen.

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Since we're giving credit where credit is due on the Bismarck question, let's credit the lucky aircrew of the H.M.S. Ark Royal, whose 1920's era Swordfish biplanes actually struck the crippling torpedo blow on the Bismarck, proving (at least somewhat) the value of the aircraft carrier over the battleship in the Atlantic theater.

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Regarding the US Dreadnaught class battleships - the USS Tennessee (which was trapped but hardly damaged at Pearl Harbor) and USS West Virginia (whose Captain ordered her flooded deliberately to prevent her capsizing from multiple torpedo strikes - she sat just outside the Tennessee on battleship row) - were among many survivors of Pearl Harbor who went on to distinguished service in the Pacific Theater.

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On the more obscure front - the SS Patrick Henry, first of 2,751 Liberty ships launched on Sept. 27, 1941. She was 441 feet long and 56 feet wide. Her 5 holds could carry over 9,000 tons of cargo, plus airplanes, tanks, and locomotives lashed to its deck. A Liberty could carry 2,840 jeeps, 440 tanks, or 230 million rounds of rifle ammunition. - These were the backbone of the US Maritime logistics chain to Europe, and without them, it is quite possible the US would not have made such a large contribution in WWII.