The 7 Deadliest British Battleships Of All Time (Ranked By Combat Record)
British Naval History
25,451 views
The 7 deadliest British battleships of all time, ranked by combat record: what they sank, what they survived, and what they actually decided.
Not classes. Not paper specifications. Not displacement, belt armour or theoretical broadside weight. This countdown ranks individual Royal Navy battleships on documented combat performance alone, using a weighted rubric declared on screen before a single ship is profiled.
The largest, fastest and best protected battleship Britain ever built never fired her guns at an enemy. A ship laid down before the First World War killed a U-boat with her own aircraft, wiped out half the German destroyer force in one afternoon, took thirteen heavy shells at Jutland and three guided bombs at Salerno, and was still bombarding the Scheldt in 1944. That gap between capability and record is what this ranking measures.
THE RUBRIC
Enemy capital ships sunk or crippled (40%)
Decisive surface actions won (20%)
Damage absorbed while staying in the fight (15%)
Campaigns materially decided (10%)
Length of frontline combat service (10%)
Shore bombardment in support of an army ashore (5%)
SHIPS RANKED (order revealed in the video)
HMS Warspite, HMS Duke of York, HMS Rodney, HMS Valiant, HMS Queen Elizabeth, HMS King George V, HMS Prince of Wales
ALSO COVERED
HMS Vanguard as the paper-capability control case, HMS Dreadnought and the only submarine ever sunk by a battleship, HMS Barham, HMS Royal Oak, HMS Malaya, and why HMS Hood, Renown and Repulse are excluded by the rubric
ENGAGEMENTS EXAMINED
Jutland 1916 and Warspite's jammed helm, the Dardanelles bombardments, the Second Battle of Narvik, Calabria and the long-range 15-inch hit on Giulio Cesare, the Denmark Strait, the sinking of Bismarck, Cape Matapan and the first radar night ambush, the Alexandria manned-torpedo raid, the loss of Force Z, Salerno and the German glide bombs, the Battle of North Cape and the destruction of Scharnhorst, Normandy and Walcheren, the bombardment of the Japanese home islands
THREE CORRECTIONS MADE ON THE RECORD
Whether Bismarck was sunk or scuttled, and what the wreck surveys actually show
Whether the Alexandria raid sank two British battleships
Whether Rodney's torpedo hit on Bismarck is confirmed or merely claimed
PRIMARY AND BRITISH SOURCES
Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser's North Cape despatch, London Gazette No. 38038, 7 August 1947
ADM 234/509, HMS Prince of Wales gunnery report
HMS Warspite's captain's action report, Battle of Jutland
Roskill, The War at Sea (British Official History)
Raven and Roberts, British Battleships of World War Two
Norman Friedman, British Battleships 1906 to 1946
D. K. Brown, Nelson to Vanguard
Iain Ballantyne, Warspite: From Jutland Hero to Cold War Warrior
Imperial War Museums collections, including Rodney's torpedo action chart
Royal Museums Greenwich, Jutland damage photographs
Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships
ENEMY-SIDE SOURCES
Karl-Hinrich Peter, The Sinking of the Scharnhorst, US Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1956
Burkard von Mullenheim-Rechberg, Battleship Bismarck: A Survivor's Story
Heinrich Bredemeier, Schlachtschiff Scharnhorst
Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare official histories, and Bragadin
Vincent O'Hara and Enrico Cernuschi on the Regia Marina at Matapan
Kriegsmarine war diaries and Admiralty survivor interrogation reports
FURTHER READING
Angus Konstam, The Battle of North Cape
Vincent O'Hara, Struggle for the Middle Sea
Norman Friedman, British Battleship Design
Ludovic Kennedy, Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Bismarck
WHERE SOURCES DISAGREE
The range of Warspite's hit at Calabria is given between 24,000 and 26,000 yards depending on the account, and the script says which figure it uses. Casualty figures for HMS Barham range from 841 to 862. Warspite's battle honours are stated as the fifteen awarded to this hull, not the higher totals that include honours inherited from earlier ships of the name.
CORRECTIONS POLICY
Every load-bearing figure in this video is traceable to a source above. If you find a verified error of fact, comment and it will be corrected in this description within 48 hours and named in a pinned comment. The video stays up. That is how this channel works.
British Naval History covers Royal Navy vessels, weapons and operations from 1900 to the present day, researched from Admiralty records and enemy-side sources, with the evidence shown on screen.
Subscribe for new Royal Navy deep dives every week.
#RoyalNavy #Battleships #NavalHistory
20 Comments
The HMS Drippe, a Walla Walla Class battlecruiser, commanded by Rear-Commodore Schlitz Kravec Esq, second Duke of Earl, neutralized the harbor blockade by sinking 2 cruisers by reversing the dreaded but previously effective Malachi Crunch Maneuver (the cruisers named Flim & Flam, rammed each other and sank by underestimating the Drippe's advanced acceleration) and blowing up 1 battleship (formerly known as the RS Uh Oh Chongo) to the sudden delight of the Wild Turkey Surprise regime (gobble-gobble) before a sudden explosion from a shrouded sea mine disguised as a rubber duck sent her straight to the bottom of the sea where she rests today next to a '64 Galaxie 500XL that once belonged to Dr. Robert, however that's a story for a different day.
In post WW1 Britain this was the navy's first finest hour and shamefully forgotten in this video presentation. The bell of the HMS Drippe can be observed at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry therein...as it were.
It was a brand new system that due to wartime constraints they were unable to fully sort out before the ships were sent in
All new weapon systems always have kinks and things that need to sorted out American, Japanese and French guns had similar issues when they first used new turrets
And the issues with the 4x14” turrets were all sorted out by the time the last three KGV ships (Duke of York, Anson, and Howe) entered service in 42, 43 and 44
The 7 Deadliest British Battleships Of All Time (Ranked By Combat Record)
British Naval History
25,451 views
The 7 deadliest British battleships of all time, ranked by combat record: what they sank, what they survived, and what they actually decided.
Not classes. Not paper specifications. Not displacement, belt armour or theoretical broadside weight. This countdown ranks individual Royal Navy battleships on documented combat performance alone, using a weighted rubric declared on screen before a single ship is profiled.
The largest, fastest and best protected battleship Britain ever built never fired her guns at an enemy. A ship laid down before the First World War killed a U-boat with her own aircraft, wiped out half the German destroyer force in one afternoon, took thirteen heavy shells at Jutland and three guided bombs at Salerno, and was still bombarding the Scheldt in 1944. That gap between capability and record is what this ranking measures.
THE RUBRIC
Enemy capital ships sunk or crippled (40%)
Decisive surface actions won (20%)
Damage absorbed while staying in the fight (15%)
Campaigns materially decided (10%)
Length of frontline combat service (10%)
Shore bombardment in support of an army ashore (5%)
SHIPS RANKED (order revealed in the video)
HMS Warspite, HMS Duke of York, HMS Rodney, HMS Valiant, HMS Queen Elizabeth, HMS King George V, HMS Prince of Wales
ALSO COVERED
HMS Vanguard as the paper-capability control case, HMS Dreadnought and the only submarine ever sunk by a battleship, HMS Barham, HMS Royal Oak, HMS Malaya, and why HMS Hood, Renown and Repulse are excluded by the rubric
ENGAGEMENTS EXAMINED
Jutland 1916 and Warspite's jammed helm, the Dardanelles bombardments, the Second Battle of Narvik, Calabria and the long-range 15-inch hit on Giulio Cesare, the Denmark Strait, the sinking of Bismarck, Cape Matapan and the first radar night ambush, the Alexandria manned-torpedo raid, the loss of Force Z, Salerno and the German glide bombs, the Battle of North Cape and the destruction of Scharnhorst, Normandy and Walcheren, the bombardment of the Japanese home islands
THREE CORRECTIONS MADE ON THE RECORD
Whether Bismarck was sunk or scuttled, and what the wreck surveys actually show
Whether the Alexandria raid sank two British battleships
Whether Rodney's torpedo hit on Bismarck is confirmed or merely claimed
PRIMARY AND BRITISH SOURCES
Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser's North Cape despatch, London Gazette No. 38038, 7 August 1947
ADM 234/509, HMS Prince of Wales gunnery report
HMS Warspite's captain's action report, Battle of Jutland
Roskill, The War at Sea (British Official History)
Raven and Roberts, British Battleships of World War Two
Norman Friedman, British Battleships 1906 to 1946
D. K. Brown, Nelson to Vanguard
Iain Ballantyne, Warspite: From Jutland Hero to Cold War Warrior
Imperial War Museums collections, including Rodney's torpedo action chart
Royal Museums Greenwich, Jutland damage photographs
Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships
ENEMY-SIDE SOURCES
Karl-Hinrich Peter, The Sinking of the Scharnhorst, US Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1956
Burkard von Mullenheim-Rechberg, Battleship Bismarck: A Survivor's Story
Heinrich Bredemeier, Schlachtschiff Scharnhorst
Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare official histories, and Bragadin
Vincent O'Hara and Enrico Cernuschi on the Regia Marina at Matapan
Kriegsmarine war diaries and Admiralty survivor interrogation reports
FURTHER READING
Angus Konstam, The Battle of North Cape
Vincent O'Hara, Struggle for the Middle Sea
Norman Friedman, British Battleship Design
Ludovic Kennedy, Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Bismarck
WHERE SOURCES DISAGREE
The range of Warspite's hit at Calabria is given between 24,000 and 26,000 yards depending on the account, and the script says which figure it uses. Casualty figures for HMS Barham range from 841 to 862. Warspite's battle honours are stated as the fifteen awarded to this hull, not the higher totals that include honours inherited from earlier ships of the name.
CORRECTIONS POLICY
Every load-bearing figure in this video is traceable to a source above. If you find a verified error of fact, comment and it will be corrected in this description within 48 hours and named in a pinned comment. The video stays up. That is how this channel works.
British Naval History covers Royal Navy vessels, weapons and operations from 1900 to the present day, researched from Admiralty records and enemy-side sources, with the evidence shown on screen.
Subscribe for new Royal Navy deep dives every week.
#RoyalNavy #Battleships #NavalHistory
To hand her over to cutters was a grave injustice to her records, career and sheer endurance.