The only armored cruiser still in existence

[Rhetor]

Hello All,

I have always thought that all the armored cruisers are long gone. I was wrong - the Greeks have preserved one of theirs:

http://www.steelnavy.com/AveroffTour.htm

So there is a reason to visit Greece after all; I don't like countries where there are no real trees :-D

[Blackcloud6]

That is very cool! Thank you for sharing!

[Philistine]

There's the USS Olympia. A protected cruiser (launched in 1892) that is kept up as a floating museum in Philadelphia. Website (http://www.phillyseaport.org/ships_olympia.shtml)

--Philistine

[Bullethead]

There's also the Russian Aurora, also a protected cruiser, which had a sister at Port Arthur.

[Rhetor]

There's also the Russian Aurora, also a protected cruiser, which had a sister at Port Arthur.

On February 10th I have posted here a shortcut to a nice gallery of the "Awrora" - look it up, really worth seeing.

The battlecruisers are all gone; there weren't so many of them, though. "Goeben" (under the name of "Yavuz") survived to mid-1960s; it's a pity nobody thought of preserving her.

[Rhetor]

There's the USS Olympia. A protected cruiser (launched in 1892) that is kept up as a floating museum in Philadelphia. Website (http://www.phillyseaport.org/ships_olympia.shtml)

--Philistine

I took some time on the site. Nice one. What especially appeals to me, is the apparent luxury of the admiral's and officer's rooms. Those were really the times, when everything was elegant.
Of course, before some major engagement, all those wooden decorations would have been ripped off and tossed away.

[Bullethead]

Of course, the battleship Mikasa, Togo's flagship in the RJW, still exits over in Japan.

The next oldest battleship I'm aware of is USS Texas of 1914, at San Jacinto, Texas. If you go there, do whatever it takes to get down inside and look at the reciprocating machinery. The USN reverted to the old-school motors on this class due to problems with US turbine manufacturers.

There are a few older battleships still around. From the 1870s there are a couple of turret ships, the Huascar in South America and a similar ship in the Netherlands. And of course, the very 1st sea-going, iron-hulled, armored battleship afloat, HMS Warrior, which is just around the corner from HMS Victory.

[Bullethead]

The battlecruisers are all gone; there weren't so many of them, though. "Goeben" (under the name of "Yavuz") survived to mid-1960s; it's a pity nobody thought of preserving her.

Actually, Blohm & Voss, who built Goeben, tried to buy her when the Turks decommissioned her. But the deal fell through, unfortunately. All they managed to get was 1 porthole cover, which they have on display in their main offices.

There are, of course, quite a few old German ships still on the bottom of Scapa. 3 of the 4 Konig-class, a couple of light cruisers, and a few destroyers, for instance. These ain't war graves like most sunken warships are, so could be refloated and restored if anybody had enough money. Problem is, they're all upside down so the upper works are crushed, and most have had their bottoms cut open to salvage the copper tubes out of their boilers. Still, it could be done, given the money.

[Rhetor]

Of course, the battleship Mikasa, Togo's flagship in the RJW, still exits over in Japan.

But she's not a ship any more - she's set in concrete - the first really unsinkable battleship :-D

The next oldest battleship I'm aware of is USS Texas of 1914, at San Jacinto, Texas. If you go there, do whatever it takes to get down inside and look at the reciprocating machinery. The USN reverted to the old-school motors on this class due to problems with US turbine manufacturers.

I'll keep that in mind, although, given my income, I can only dream of ever going to the US. The list of places I would like to visit is long; it begins with Chancellorsville and Spottsylvania National Military Park.
Britain is more probable :-D

Actually, Blohm & Voss, who built Goeben, tried to buy her when the Turks decommissioned her. But the deal fell through, unfortunately. All they managed to get was 1 porthole cover, which they have on display in their main offices.

Didn't know that. Thanks. Too bad they failed - it would have been a real turist magnet today.

The wrecks in Scapa Flow must be a real haven for divers. The same thing with the Bay of Gdansk, where there are many wrecks - a few U-Boats, two Polish warships sunk in 1939 - the destroyer "Wicher" and the minelayer "Gryf", both sunk by Stukas in Hel harbor on Sept. 3rd, and later salvaged, towed out, and sunk as practice targets.
I have seen once on Discovery Channel about the Japanese wrecks in Truk Atoll.

[Bullethead]

But she's not a ship any more - she's set in concrete - the first really unsinkable battleship :-D

I dunno. Although I've never been there, the pictures I've seen have always looked like she was in the water. Used to be said USS Texas was in concrete, too, but it wasn't true. Some years ago, she had a total refit which involved towing her off to a drydock. Before the refit (which she needed badly), she did, however, have concrete on the deck. Fortunately, they replaced that in the refit with wood, just like she had originally.

I'll keep that in mind, although, given my income, I can only dream of ever going to the US. The list of places I would like to visit is long; it begins with Chancellorsville and Spottsylvania National Military Park... :-D

Chancellorsville isn't 1 place where you can stand and see the whole, or even the major parts of, the battlefield all at once. Several of the key areas, scattered some miles apart, have their own little parks. In between, there's a lot of development and/or what was then farmland but's now been abandoned and gone back to woods. You can also follow Stonewall Jackson's road around the flank, although of course it looks nothing like it did back then. But there were many battles all fought over the same ground there, so in many cases certain places are actually part of several battlefields, or at least were used again in minor battles of the more famous campaigns.

The wrecks in Scapa Flow must be a real haven for divers.

I know there's some diving up there, but from what I heard it wasn't really that great. The water is very cold, also very murky so you can't see much, there's hardly any fish or other marine life, and the currents are very strong. I went out with an ROV crew to look at some of the wrecks, and can attest to the murkiness, the cold, and the currents.

There's also the problem of war graves. Most of the ships on the bottom are still there because they went down with all or most of their crews. IOW, their graves, so you can't disturb them. The scuttled Germans were fair game, but most of them were raised long ago, and most of those that remain aren't interesting due to being belly up.

The same thing with the Bay of Gdansk, where there are many wrecks

Is it OK to dive on ships lost in action there?

I have seen once on Discovery Channel about the Japanese wrecks in Truk Atoll.

Most of them were transports, though. What I'd like more info about is the wrecks off Gallipoli. There are at least 6 predreadnoughts on the bottom there (including 1 sunk as a breakwater), plus a bunch of smaller ships and boats. I saw some show about the land campaign, and at the end of it the historians left in a boat that stopped over IIRC HMS Majestic, which is in very shallow water. They scrooped up some cordite sticks off the bottom, which had survived the rotting of their silk bags, took them to the surface, and lit them!! After being in water for 80 years, the stuff still burned. Amazing.

[Rhetor]

I dunno. Although I've never been there, the pictures I've seen have always looked like she was in the water.

I havent been to Yokosuka; yet the authors of the recently published Polish book on the russo - japanese war have written about it. I've looked up the "Mikasa" in Google Earth, and indeed, she looks like a part of the pier. I have published the coordinates in my thread about the gallery of "Awrora".

Chancellorsville isn't 1 place where you can stand and see the whole, or even the major parts of, the battlefield all at once.

Well, I am a Civil War freak, and I have researched this very battle - it was the theme of my master thesis, and I have written a little something about the battle, due to be published next month. Therefore, my interest in the Chancellorsville battlefield is huge :-D

Is it OK to dive on ships lost in action there?

Not many ships were lost in action in the Bay of Gdansk. The Polish warships were mostly sunk during target practice, and therefore cannot be considered war graves. As far as the U-Boats are concerned, most were lost to accidents during excercises, without personnel loss.
Nevertheless, there are some wrecks in the Polish territorial waters (but not in the Bay of Gdansk) that certainly are war graves, in fact the biggest underwater graves in history - these are "Wilhelm Gustloff" and "General von Steuben", sunk in 1945 by Soviet submarines while evacuating civilian refugees from East Prussia. In the former over 5000 people perished. It is forbidden to dive to those wrecks, and Polish border watch and Navy often catches some illegal divers (from all of Europe, in fact) there.

Here is one of the maps of the "legal to dive" wrecks near the Polish coast:
http://www.explorer.cnet.pl/Ciekawostki/Images/mapa_wrakow.jpg

Most of them were transports, though. What I'd like more info about is the wrecks off Gallipoli.

I have seen the same documentary; very informative.

[Rhetor]

While looking up some sites about 1:1250 scale warship models, I have come across a very informative site on warships. Here is the section about capital ships wreck with photos.

http://www.bobhenneman.info/DiveHome.htm

The whole site is worth checking.

[Bullethead]

Well, I am a Civil War freak, and I have researched this very battle - it was the theme of my master thesis, and I have written a little something about the battle, due to be published next month. Therefore, my interest in the Chancellorsville battlefield is huge :-D

That's definitely a classic battle. Too bad Stonewall died there, or we might have won the war in the end :).

I live about 20 miles away from Port Hudson. The whole surrounding area was the scene of numerous skirmishes of various sizes as part of that campaign, including one fought across the front of my property. Most folks around here have a few artifacts they or their family have turned up over the years.

Not many ships were lost in action in the Bay of Gdansk. .......... Nevertheless, there are some wrecks in the Polish territorial waters (but not in the Bay of Gdansk) that certainly are war graves, in fact the biggest underwater graves in history

Yeah, it's amazing how many folks went down on those evacuation ships. Or died in all that part of the world during the war, for that matter. The German atrocities are well-known, but nobody in the US knows much about how bloodily the Russians took revenge on the Germans, plus whoever else was in the way such as the Poles, when they moved west.

Here is one of the maps of the "legal to dive" wrecks near the Polish coast:

Damn, there sure are a lot of them at the end of that sandbar. Was that mostly from navigational errors trying to round the bar?

[Rhetor]

That's definitely a classic battle. Too bad Stonewall died there, or we might have won the war in the end :).

Alas, Noble Stonewall was no more...

Most folks around here have a few artifacts they or their family have turned up over the years.

My friend has brought himself from the US a genuine Minie ball - nice souvenir it is.

...but nobody in the US knows much about how bloodily the Russians took revenge on the Germans, plus whoever else was in the way such as the Poles, when they moved west.

My grandmother, who lived near Warsaw in 1945, remebers that the Russians behaved well towards the civilians. But my other grandmother spent nearly 2 months hidden in a cellar with her sister; she lived in Gdynia, perhaps the Russians thought it was Germany... It was often prudent to hide young girls during the liberation.

Damn, there sure are a lot of them at the end of that sandbar. Was that mostly from navigational errors trying to round the bar?

Probably; I have never delved into the history of the wrecks. I am no diver; I'm only interested in the remains of the past.
There are more wrecks in the area, but these are war graves; Most diver clubs would not publish the exact location, to make life more difficult for those who would not respect the dead. That is why these were not marked on the map.

[Bullethead]

My friend has brought himself from the US a genuine Minie ball - nice souvenir it is.

A common item amongst my neighbors is a 5-inch rifled explosive shell. I've got several myself. They've got the long external lugs to fit the gun's rifling, a hole in the nose for the fuze, and originally had a complete coating of soft lead to seal the barrel. They were part of the cargo of a Confederate supply wagon train that got ambushed and burned not far from my house. During the fire, the shells cooked off in low-order explosions and just broke neatly in half, and all the lead melted away, so all that's left is the rifled iron body pieces that fit together perfectly. One of my grandmothers dug them up and the site has been forgotten these days. I couldn't find it myself.

A cousin of mine has the real prize, however: an 1848 Harpers Ferry percussion musket in shooting condition. Apparently, it was dropped in some local skirmish, picked up by a civilian shortly afterwards, and spent the next 100 years in somebody's attic without being fired again. The grandson of the finder sold it to my uncle for $10, and my uncle had my father and I restore it (we used to build blackpowder replicas from kits). This work consisted merely of getting the rust off and replacing a very small area of rotten wood around the lock, plus replacing a couple missing or broken parts. Today, it's still 99% original.

The reason I think this weapon was dropped in battle and never fired afterwards was 1) it had the bayonet fixed, 2) it had a broken main sear in the lock, 3) it was missing its ramrod, and 4) it had 3 complete rounds loaded on top of each other in the barrel. The broken sear prevented the weapon from being cocked--you could pull the hammer back but it was just loose and didn't engage the springs or trigger, so the weapon couldn't be fired. My theory is that in the heat of battle, the soldier didn't realize he wasn't firing and didn't notice the hammer was loose. He kept taking aim, pulling the slack trigger, then ramming in another round. Eventually, he dropped the weapon, but whether this was because he got hit, ran away, or realized it was broken will never be known. But obviously, it hadn't been fired since the sear broke, and the odds favor the triple-loading happening in battle as opposed to at some point in time later. I've read that most weapons picked up on battlefields of that time had multiple loads in them.

BTW, the old powder in these 3 loads still burned 100+ years later.

[Rhetor]

A cousin of mine has the real prize, however: an 1848 Harpers Ferry percussion musket in shooting condition.

Nice one;
Some places in Poland are full of world wars leftovers. Lately a complete Panther tank was dug out of a muddy river in central Poland.

Quite a discussion - from an armored cruiser in Greece, through underwater wrecks to percussion musket in Louisiana :-)

[Bullethead]

Lately a complete Panther tank was dug out of a muddy river in central Poland.

I've heard about that. I hope they restore the thing and put it on display somewhere indoors :).

The only similar thing around here I'm aware of is the USS Cairo, a yankee ironclad gunboat that was sunk on a mine in the Yazoo River in the state of Mississippi during the Vicksburg campaign. She's on display in the battlefield park at Vicksburg. Not much of the original wood remains, as it mostly disintegrated when they raised the wreck, but most of the metal parts survive and have been arranged in their original relative positions on a skeleton of steel and new wood for display. She's like a ghost of her former self in that you can walk and see through phantom walls, but you get an accurate sense of the size, shape, and arrangement of the whole vessel. IMHO it's a very effective way of displaying the wreckage.

Quite a discussion - from an armored cruiser in Greece, through underwater wrecks to percussion musket in Louisiana :-)

And now on to above-ground wrecks in Mississippi :). Amazing how we can wander around when nobody making the game is saying anything and everybody else seems to have lost interest in it as a result.

[Rhetor]

And now on to above-ground wrecks in Mississippi :). Amazing how we can wander around when nobody making the game is saying anything and everybody else seems to have lost interest in it as a result.

That's the point. The designers are silent. If the game was already published, we would be discussing our after-action reports right now :-D

[mbv]

The Mikasa is indeed still in concrete. The latest edition of the Warships IFR magazine here in the UK was a special edition on preserved historic warships around the world and carries some very nice images of the Mikasa as well as the Aurora and USS Texas. I never realised the Mikasa was actually built here in the UK by Vickers!

For anyone in, or visiting, the UK there is a new Dreadnoughts exhibition at the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.