Exclusive Screen Study of British Navy at Spring Exercises in Med.

(31 Mar 1930) Battleships in Line Ahead, shots of HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney.
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[@meakinroy4341]

What a fitting tribute it would have been to see the names Rodney and Nelson applied to the Royal Navy's new carriers in recognition of their pasts and their namesakes history.

[@davidmichaels8934]

Yes far better than the royal names,I suppose they want to be remembered!

[@smc1942]

Or Warspite and Ark Royal. Even Royal Oak.

[@bigships]

@@smc1942 Eagle and Ark Royal would be better

[@Makeyourselfbig]

How about "White" and "Elephant"? Or "Money" and "Pit"?

[@evo5dave]

I really wish Rodney had been preserved.

[@bacharles1]

I agree --- walking on her deck would have been an amazing experience! Unfortunately, the UK was so economically devastated by the war that even famed ships like the Rodney and Warspite had little chance of being preserved.

[@Bruce-1956]

'for reason of national economy the guns are not fired', very little changed in the last 90 years !!

[@Lancaster604]

Gunnery standards, as a result, was so bad back then they had to devise a doctrine of high volume of fire to compensate for poor gunnery accuracy due to a combination of lack of practice and to a certain degree, limitation of technology.

[@HRHooChicken]

We didn't learn from WW1 it seems. RN gunnery was crap in the Great War and it was crap in WW2. Our strength only lay in our numbers.

[@Calum_S]

@@HRHooChicken gunnery standards for the Grand Fleet were good in WW1, it was just the Battlecruiser Squadron that were poor because they couldn't practice at Rosyth. This was addressed by bringing the 5th Battle Squadron down from Scapa Flow; 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron was sent to join the Grand Fleet for gunnery practice.

[@lukedogwalker]

@@HRHooChicken So why then did the Grand Fleet have the best reputation for naval gunnery in the world? HMS Iron Duke was the most accurate ship afloat! When the US joined, their gunnery beyond 10,000 yards was next to useless. It's a matter of record that they learned a great deal about accurate shooting from their time with the Grand Fleet. You're thinking of Beatty's battlecruisers. That's a completely different subject.

[@peterasp1968]

There has been one change in the last 90 years. Britain does not have much of a navy now.

[@jcwoodman5285]

'And for the sake of the economy they were not fired'... speaks volumes to the era's training doctrine...

[@waynesworldofsci-tech]

The Nelson’s were such beautiful and innovative warships. If only they had 60k hp!

[@dobs862]

Originally Rodney and Nelson were to be much bigger and have more guns but after the UK signed the Washington Naval Treaty which placed restictions on the size and number of ships each country could have the plans were changed which resulted in cut down versions of the original designs .The Japanese ignored this treaty and built the super battleships Yamato and Musashi which had 18'' guns .

[@raywarman]

Big ships, thank goodness I was on small ships, started on destroyers and worked my way down, another 10 years and it would have been whalers.

[@grahamprice3230]

Yes Melvin ask the 36 survivors of Bismark whether they were successful or not

[@lajosnagy8586]

:D they pulled the whole fleet together becouse of the bismarck even from the meds.

[@thomasmaloney843]

The experts credit most of the damage done to Bismarck by the heavier guns of the Rodney.

[@richhughes7450]

@@lajosnagy8586 it was a case of get the job done ASAP to protect the convoys. Bismark was faster than most of the British ships and its battle tactic was to hit and run. So sending more ships to intercept made sense.

[@smc1942]

Bismarck had 110 survivors. Scharnhorst had 36.

[@grahamprice3230]

Oops!😃🥳

[@shanecagney7451]

What year is this? I wonder how much would it cost to fire a gun.

[@Kevin-mx1vi]

More than just the cost of the shells - Both Nelson & Rodney had a problem in that the shock of firing their main batteries broke the light bulbs below decks, so every time they fired the crew had to be ready to put new bulbs in. I worked with someone who was a sailor aboard Rodney & I remember laughing when he said "What no-one tells you is that every time they fire them guns, the light go out !" :)

[@PHDarren]

01:38 Middle gun barrel of turret A not working in the elevation. Early teething problems still with the guns.

[@k956upg]

Lucky for the camera man the guns didn't fire.....my Japanese gf told me that the Yamato blew test cattle off the deck when the guns fired..& once in a hurry she opened fire & killed some crew on deck that hadn't scrambled out of the way in time.blew them overboard...

[@bb-6359]

replying to a 2 year old comment, but yeah, the blast radius of those huge 18 inch guns are massive. I mean, battleships in general used to have problems of their own guns in certain arcs blowing their own windows in.

[@theram4320]

I'm guessing that in those days, the Spanish weren't brave enough to rattle the sabre at Gibraltar.

[@itzjustbryan123]

1:10

[@melvinjohnson7033]

HMS Nelson and Rodney were the most powerful yet disappointing battleships in the Royal Navy.

[@thejudge-kv2jk]

Disappointing? Rodney played a major part in sinking the Bismarck. Could not be more wrong.

[@sandydennylives1392]

@@thejudge-kv2jk And it stopped a major attack from panzer's trying to cross a bridge in Normandy, and many other vital interdiction's in Normandy, and many convoy escorts to Russia and Malta. I love Rodder's.

[@HRHooChicken]

Agreed. Rodney was barely seaworthy during WW2. She fired at point blank range at Bismark and still couldn't sink her.

[@sandydennylives1392]

@@HRHooChicken Her forth salvo from about 9 miles away took out her no 2 turret and the shock wave temporarily disabled no 1 turret, and she scored several other key hits including taking out the bridge and the aft range finder before closing the range and blasting through her hull. A cruiser took out one of her range finders also. Barely seaworthy? Her record was second only to HMS Warspite due to this ships actions also during WW1. She made Bismark a complete hopeless wreck. Check wikepedia. One of the most decisive weapon's for democracy at sea in WW2.

[@adrianstent7009]

Yea joke disappointing,Rodney in my opinion greatest battleship we had,turned Bismarck into scrap,instrumental in destroying huge amounts of German military armour on D Day,helped get the oil tanker Ohio into Valletta harbour,numerous other engagements,tragic we didn’t keep her at the end of the war,in comparison Nelson done very little in the war.