Board has been very slow recently, so I thought I'd throw out a new topic: What is (in your opinion) the ships that best fit the following catagories (mind you, 1906-1946 time period!!) Most beautiful battleship / dreadnought Most beautiful cruiser Ugliest battleship / dreadnought Ugliest cruiser My votes: Beautiful battleship: Tirpitz Beautiful cruiser: Hipper-class Ugliest battleship: No contest, Gangut after refit Ugliest cruiser: ...pending (haven't decided yet. there's some OOOGLY ships out there!)
Best Looking Battleship: HMS Renown Best Looking Cruiser: Hippers Ugliest: Rebuilt Ganguts (though I rather like them in their WW1 guise) Ugliest Cruiser: So many to pick from. Most USN Treaty Cruisers save for the Atlanta's.
Best Looking Battleship: SMS Derfflinger Best Looking Cruiser: Zara (candy stripe for the win!) Ugliest: Rebuilt Ganguts (can't even begin to make an argument otherwise) Ugliest Cruiser: Pretty much any Armored Cruiser out there
Best Looking Battleship: SMS Konig (or IJN Kongo, if we count battle cruisers) Best Looking Cruiser: HMS Exeter Ugliest: Rebuilt Ganguts (with the battleship/carrier Ise a close second) Ugliest cruiser: Maybe the Finnish coastal defense ship Ilmarinen?
@Garret - the rebuilt Kongo's are quite lovely. How about Best Looking Predreadnought: RN Napoli Uglliest Predreadnought: Any thing French before the Verite's.
I said "Pretty much." There are some nice ones out there but for the most part, they're ugly....and I'm usually a fan of the ugly ships.
Cool topic. Best looking battleship: Rebuilt Conte Di Cavour Best looking cruiser: DKM Lutzow Ugliest battleship: Regina Elena Ugliest cruiser: USS Cleveland Maybe another category, Best looking carrier: USS Yorktown
Best looking battleship: Littorio class, with the 1943 refit QEs close behind. Best looking cruiser: Zara Ugliest battleship: Rodney Ugliest cruiser: Still thinking on this one **Thoroughly double-plus-disagree with Sworrior on armored cruisers.
Tuggy, I tend to disagree with you on the Rodney. I want to build one of those someday. Garret: I think the Graf Zeppelin is much cooler looking that Soryu. Besides, it's German, what gets cooler than that?
The Rodney is certainly a unique ship. As for the Graf Zepplin, well,I guess I like the look of the curved funnels out the side
If you like cool funnels, take a look at IJN Kaga's funnel when she was first built. Totally cool. Probably the all out winner of the "Worst looking carrier contest" is IJN Hosho. Though she did look better after the conning tower was removed.
Thanks to all of you that have responded! I'd have to agree that the Rodney is a contender for ugly. And that Derff is a good runner-up for beauty. For carriers: I have to say the HMS Ark Royal was pretty. My vote for ugliest cruiser: Northampton class
Hey, leave Rodney alone....Gangut is far uglier. For beauty I will nominate North Carolina. Carriers, well Lexington has the best looking funnel ever, and what a hull! Cruisers are all pretty enough to my eyes till you let a mad frenchman paint them, so I will nominate Gloire in her disruptive scheme as hideous.
Most beautiful battleship/dreadnought: WW2 Scharnhorst with the Atlantic bow. She's got a lovely round hull, with perfect curves thanks to the engineers who did the bow enlargement. I know she got her original bow from an earlier age, but those earlier designs are too blunt for my taste. Iowa is a cool ship, but those slab sides that let her fit the Panama Canal just can't compete with Scharnie's shapely splines. Better yet, they didn't have to do a bulge job to deal with torpedoes, and that means she doesn't have any junk to hide below the waterline like most of the modernized interwar ships. Her armor belt is simple, yet bold, showing off her strong defenses without getting too fancy like Littorio or the QEs. Now the stern is a bit thin, but that is just part of her German heritage. It is more than made up for by the triple screws and twin rudders that she uses. When you look at the superstructure, it rises up then gracefully slopes back down to the deck. Its not blocky like the British, and doesn't go over the top like pagoda superstructures. Scharnie borrows the sweeping Japanese funnels without getting too ridiculous. Thel mast behind the aircraft hangar makes her tall enough to make any cage mast jealous but without all the fat. The triple 11" turrets are a bit petite, but she has plenty of fight in her. The layout with two turrets forward, one aft shows both the aggression and confidence to pursue whoever she wants and the prudence to cover all sides. She carries an exquisite array of secondary guns, spread evenly throughout the structure. She's not overloaded with AA guns, refusing to become just another floating AA barge. Aircraft may be the future, but this lady is proud of the days when ships fought ships, and refuses to go down to any modern planes, much less the flimsy biplanes that crippled her bigger brother Bismarck. Now, many of the same descriptions can be applied to Bismarck (and many think he is the most beautiful battleship), but he just lacks that certain aggressive quality that Scharnhorst has. Scharnie looks both beautiful like a femme fatale and dangerous like a shark. Poised and graceful, yet armed to the teeth. The perfect combination of balance and fighting spirit. The most beautiful battleship.
Get a room, Gascan. LOL. After that writeup, I can't wait to read your write-up for "ugliest battleship".
