What is the worst ship ever when it comes to design and function?

Is there a model of that ship?

The Titanic was pretty bad for an unsinkable ship!!

In all honesty I think Titanic gets an unfairly bad rap. Her fate was due less to any interent defect in her design or construction than to greed, averice and simple human error. She was actually quite advanced for her time. At the risk of being hanged, drawn and quarted by her fans, I would suggest that H.M.S. Hood is a far better candidate. Her deck armor was little short of pathetic and being blown in half some 8 minutes into her engagement with Bismark with the loss of all but 3 crew hardly commends her. Granted, she was a thing of beauty, but as a fighting ship?
I shall await the tar and feathers.

Bob

Robert, believe it or not, my first thought was World War 1 British battlecruisers so the Hood is not that far fetched for me.

No Tar and Feathering from here, pretty poor showing from HMS Hood.

Andy

how about the Vasa? Swedish Ship sank after one mile on her maiden voyage due to being to top heavy... A ship that doesn't swim seems pretty bad to me...

Cheers!
Stefan

IMHO it was HMS Furious as a battlecruiser... with two 18" guns.

Cheers

Wojek

I agree Andy. The Royal Navy had several years to up-armor the Hood to make her a legitimate battle line ship. Sending her against the Bismarck wasn't a wise decision, even though it was a decision that had to be made.

I will go with the IJN Shinano. She was a major waste of resources. Poor construction, poor crew, poor damage control. Excessive weight above the waterline. Just an all around waste of men and material.

Sunk 10 days after being commissioned.

I would put my vote in for HMS Captain (1871) designed as a ocean going masted turret ship, capsized and sank on it's first encounter with heavy seas.

Or the K class steam powered submarines, 18 built, 6 lost in accidents, only one managed to hit an enemy with torpedo & that failed to explode. 5 minutes to "crash dive", and at 30 degree down angle, the bow exceed the safe dive depth before the stern was under warter, and all that with 2 4" and 1 3" not enough to fight off a destroyer on the surface.


The failures of the British battlecruisers was more due to operational mismanagement than design fault, i.e putting rate of fire above ammunition handling safety and stowing additional propellent & shells in the Barbettes. As ships they can't have been that bad, both Lion and Tiger survived poundings at Dogger bank and Jutland. Hood again had her design issues, but there ware ships out there far worse than her.

The Germans almost had the same issue when Sedlitz was hit on the after turret at Dogger bank, and the time German practices were almost as lax as the British, but the XO managed to flood the magazine before the ship exploded, which according to some sources is when Hipper had the their system tightened up and the double flash doors installed.

Si

IJN Shinano did not have much luck.
Remember though, she put to sea, late in the war, incomplete, missing many of the internal water tight fittings, with a scratch crew - many young and novice sailors, trying to avoid American air attacks.

Once at sea they were found by the submarine USS Archerfish. Only took 4 torpedoes

I think I have to agree with you on the Vasa... The Ship Never survived her Maiden Voyager...

Gray

Im gonna third the vote on the Vasa, anything that poorly designed that it turns turtle in a slight wind has to be up there with the most terrible design ever.

And as for the Hood and most British Battlecruisers, I wouldnt consider them poorly designed, more poorly employed. If the scenario ever existed where the ships were used in the capacity they were designed for, fighting cruisers and commerce raiding, Im sure they would have preformed they roles adequately.

To fault their design for going up against ships they were not designed nor equipped to fight is, to me, the same as claiming a destroyer sunk by a Battleship to be of poor design.

The Hood was a victim of poor Strategic Planning and employment. Design-wise she wasnt terrible, I have read she was a bit of a "wet-ship" but that is about the worst Ive heard of her design.

Confederate States Ship H. L. Hunley. Sank . Killed a crew, was re-floated. Sank again , killed another crew and was re-floated. Destroyed a Union ship in the first combat from a submersible and then mysteriously sank again with all aboard. She was recovered again in year 2000 and her crew of eight were buried with honors. Gotta admit though , that sub was a new technology for its day. Hunley and her crew are honored with great respect .............I believe there is a model of her, not sure.

Rob, I think your point is well taken. Hood was clearly over matched by Bismark. A better measure would have been a one on one engagement between Hood and Prinz Eugen, a heavy cruiser. But, her thin deck armor would still have made her vulnerable to plunging fire, so I think the case still stands.
My humble opinion. But, the great thing here is that reasonable minds can disagree without being disagreeable.

Bob

I agree the Hood's deck armor was basically non-existent, but at least she didn't turn-turtle in a slight breeze like the Wasa did. Was it because she was too top heavy, or was it because the gun doors were all open and she got flooded when she heeled over in the breeze and could never right herself? Or was that another ship?

Anyway, the Hood wasn't a bad design as such, it is just that the design SHOULD have included armour for the decks instead of wooden planks, but the Wasa was just not designed correctly.

Warren ;
I believe the Wasa gun ports were located too low on freeboard for a ship that size. And the Wasa was heading toward a Naval review with all her gun ports open, a breeze to her port side caused her to heel to that side and begin to take water on and eventually sank. But that is off the top of my head so I may not have the facts 100% on the mark.

Rob:
Yeah I see your point of view as well, I guess its just differing interpretations on what constitutes a poor design.

In defense of the Vasa:

She was in many ways an experiment, one of the first big gun ships-of-the line ever designed. She was bigger than most, and she carried more and in particular heavier guns than any ship before. Put it this way - fire-power wise she would still be among the bigger ships 150 years later (!).

And apparently the original design was not flawed, but the changes implemented thereafter during construction were, and doomed her.

Mind you also that back then ship-design was based on experience and what was thought possible, The design development was almost purely based on trial and error. There was little scientific knowledge to aid the designers, unlike the situation in the early 20th century.

As a contrasting illustration for the 17th century, many experienced shipbuilders and even many members of the Admiralty board did not believe that the HMS Naseby/Royal Charles let alone the Sovereign of the Seas/Royal Sovereign could be used effectively in battle (or even survive at sea). Both ended up very successful ships.

Put in contrast the later British battlecruiser designs, like the Furious, even though by that time the weaknesses of the battlecruiser concept had already become painfully obvious. I find those less excusable than mistakes made in what was basically an experimental model - a mistake that might not even have been made if the original designers had not died before completion of the ship.

So my vote goes for the later British battlecruisers - including HMS Hood.