All Articles Tagged 'ships' (6)

Alternate universes and parallel words are full of weird warships. But reality is sometimes even more weird than fantasy.

One of the most popular althistoric concepts is the big-gun aircraft carrier. Such ships look good on paper or forum board: big enough to carry a heavy gun battery and substantial air wing, well-protected against enemy shelling and torpedo attacks, fast and…

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A monitor was a class of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns.

During World War I, the Royal Navy developed several classes of ships which were designed to give close support to troops ashore. Termed 'monitors', they owed little to the monitors of the 19th century, though they shared the characteristics of poor seaworthiness, shallow draft and heavy armament in turrets.…

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Three cruisers / aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy were probably the most Dieselpunk ships ever built, although powered by steam turbines.

Together with the M-class submarine monitors they belong to "Fisher follies", invented by Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher, the First Sea Lord. With the start of the Great War he found a way to to obtain another three fast, lightly armoured ships which…

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"The most fatal error imaginable would be to put steam engines in a submarine."

It is not a piece of anti-steampunk hate speech but an opinion of John Arbuthnot Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher of Kilverstone, former First Sea Lord, expressed as early as in 1913. Of course Admiral Lord Fisher had his own follies that, together with hot… Continue

In the 1930s, a trio of diesel-electric ferries was built at the Cockerill Yards Hoboken for the Belgian Maritime Transport Authority (RMT). They were named after the children of Leopold III - Prince Baudouin, Prince Albert and Prince Philippe.

The first of them was completed in 1934. During the trials, she established the world speed record for the diesel ferries: 25,25…

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Modern cruise ships are incredibly large, luxurious and comfortable, but charm is not their strong side. Interwar era liners are charming. Here's a short review. Let us begin with the German advertisement for the Norddeutscher Lloyd (c. 1930):

In the middle there is S.S. Columbus, originally named Hindenburg. Launched in 1914, she made her maiden voyage only in 1924:

Her sister ship was ceded to to Great…

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