I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder so I would like some opinions on the best and worst looking warships designed by all the major combatants during World War Two.

I think the yorktown class aircraft carriers and the Pennsylvania-class battle wagons had to be the best looking. I don't know about ugly but the Hog island ships both the type A- cargo carrier and the type B- troop carrier had to be the most plain.

Best looking ship class from World War II, that might be a hard one to answer. I am torn between the Bismark and Essex.

Worst looking ships of the war, simple, the Wickes destroyer/minesweeper. They were a left over relic from World War I. Several of these were transferred to England during the war.

Best looking, a tie between any of IJN Takao CA's, sleek, slender and armed to the teeth, and the IJN Fuso/Yamashiro BB's. I love the look of 6 turrets training on a target!

Worst looking, and staying within the IJN, I'd have to say the IJN CVL Ryujo, has to be the most unstable looking platform in any WW2 fleet.

Frank

The Iowa Class Battleships are right up at the top of the prettiest list in my book. And while perhaps not quite "ugly" HMS Rodney and Nelson win the prize for at least being unattractive to me, or at least very unbalanced.

Worst........Ise/Hyuga post conversion to Hybrids


Best......Takao,Bismarck,Iowa,

WWI......SMS Emden

hello all,
i think that the IJN Yamato is the nicest looking ship.and the IJN Ise Battleship/carrier was the ugliest ship made/rebuilt.
cheers,
Bruce

Best Looking: USS Guam - especially in her original 3 color dazzle scheme

Ugliest: Rebuilt Ise/Hyuga with Nelson/Rodney running 2nd place.

Hmmm.

I would have to say that the long, sleek look of the Hood is beautiful. Any of the Essex class ladies in their dazzle camo also rates up there.

While some of the Japanese battleships have very nice lines, I think the pagoda style superstructures leave something to be desired.

My vote is the Yamato initial configuration looks like a yacht to me It still looks good after they totally rebuilt the center and added the umpteen thousand AA gus, but nothing like those triple 6" on the sides.

ugliest those Japanese 4 stacker light cruisers

Best looking: American New Orleans Class, Japanese Nachi Class, German Admiral Hipper Class.
Worst looking: German carrier Graf Zeppelin & light cruisers (Leipzig, Emden et al)

Agree about the Japanese 4 stacker light cruisers being butt-ugly- no aesthetic (if you can say that about a WARSHIP) appeal at all.

For the best looking I think I have to go with the IJN Yamato. There's something about it that just gets me going.

For the worst, I really don't know.............

I'll throw in my 2 cents on Nelson / Rodney being the ugliest.

Undecided on best.