"The Best Naval Guns Ever Made": The Queen Elizabeth-Class

In another reality the Warspite now sits next to the Victory, both examples of Battleships from the two era's. But alas, the old girl was sent for scrap in the post WWII economic downturn. I have to support the Valiant, as the original 'Portsmouth Bill' served on her as a Marine gunner in one of the 4.5-in turrets - which made him deaf in latter life. I don't know if this is a true story, but he told me that when being allocated ships, they grouped the recruits by birthdays (or was names by alphabet?). His group went to the Valiant, another group went to the Barham, so he was lucky.

In one of my realities the Warspite and the Queen Elizabeth are still in ceremonial service and on special occasions their 15'' guns open up.

I think its fair to say they were the perfect culmination of all the design work done since 1905. While later ships like the Nagato's etc. may have been more powerful the Queen's did sterling work and took heavy punishment (human torpedoes and X-Fritz) and kept on going. The Resolution Class although dating from roughly the same period were not as successful nor as loved, I guess the changes made to go back to oil and coal mixed firing must have made their mark.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

I just picked up Trumpeter's 1/700 WW I Queen Elizabeth and I have Airfix's early WW II Warspite buried in my stash.

I've read Castles of Steel and IMHO Jutland was lucky to have happened due to two conflicting strategies. Jellicoe had served in the department that oversaw the construction and fitted out of England's warships and had studied the construction of the warships of Germany's High Seas Fleet and knew that the German warships were better in withstanding heavy damage in battle. The British warships designs were limited by their dockyards and requirements for overseas deployment. German dreadnoughts and battlecruisers had better sub-division and armor which made for cramped living conditions on board but German crews lived onshore when the fleet was in harbor. When Jellicoe assumed command of the Grand Fleet he was constantly demanding dreadnought construction speed up because he only wanted to face the High Seas Fleet with superior numbers and when he put to sea he deployed the entire fleet. Germany on the other hand was outnumbered and there plan was to try to get the Brits to deploy part of the Grand Fleet so the could destroy it piecemeal and when confronted with the entire Grand Fleet they were to retreat (the Kaiser didn't want his pretty warships sunk after all). In fact at Jutland Scheer believed only the Brits battlecrusier force had deployed and as soon as he was confronted with the entire Grand Fleet his game plan from that point was to get the hell out of dodge.

So much is going on in my life, so I sometimes stumble over drawings that I've finished but never gotten to post. This is one. The completely redone HMS Queen Elizabeth as she appeared in lieu of King George VI:s Coronation Fleet Review, 1937. I'm posting it here, so that those who are interested can refer back to the first page where my original posting of this vessel is.

Anyway, here's Tin-Lizzie in her Interwar-guise:
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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

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Stunning as usual Bezobrazov

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