Dreadnought Holiday

Yeah, it should have been an Excel spreadsheet really...

US Navy ships are still more or less alcohol free

Euphemia Cunningham in a white overall wearing her Medal of Order of British Empire - B&W headshot

Euphemia Culbert Cunningham OBE BEM #WWI munitions worker at HM Factory Gretna (aka Devils Porridge} 1st person from Edinburgh awarded Medal of Order of British Empire for bravery in rescuing injured workers during explosion in cordite factory. d. #OTD 2 Aug 1989 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemi...

They're amazing - have you ever seen the internal structure of the casque? And as a dinosaur fan they're a great hint that the prehistoric world must have been weirder than we can possibly imagine.

If you could visit one ship that's no longer around, which would it be?

SS Bessemer, mostly to see if my conviction that I will never get seasick can withstand the ultimate test - a ship designed to prevent seasickness (with predictable results)

What category at the fair would you be host interested in entering?

I'm genuinely a reasonable photographer, though I don't share those classes in the craft tents because it's hard to be silly about them.

I wouldn't though, lest my mother start yet another village feud if I didn't at least place...

What's your least favourite naval history argument that keeps hanging around and getting rehashed?

Not arguments as such, but as an account that shitposts history, mostly through images, there are certain stock responses I know I'll get every single time and they're muted for my own sanity

Has there ever been an attempt to build a zeppelin/airship carrier?

A barrage balloon vessel built, or at least adapted, to handle a barrage balloon to interfere with enemy air raids in ww2

An airship sitting on the rear deck of the Royal Navy's favourite way to discover how not to build aircraft carriers, HMS Furious

Probably not what you're thinking of, but...

Which ship or class do you have an irrational soft spot for despite all the available evidence

The flotte d'échantillons, without a doubt. The French pre-dreadnoughts par excellence, and all the funnier when you realise they tried to build a class of five ships with identical performance by sharing them out amongst five yards and letting them do whatever they wanted...

Sweet or savoury?

Both? Sometimes I really, really need one or the other.

I'm legally banned from talking about chocolate though.

Should we still do the Iowa-class battlecarrierv with F-35Bs, just as a flex?

We've already done the weird big-gun carrier nonsense. Surely with modern technology we can find new and idiotic ways of pushing the multirole envelope?

Have you been to HMS Caroline in Belfast and if not why not?

I've not been to Belfast, is why! There's a huge list of vessels I really need to see, Caroline is definitely on it.

I'd like to sail to Belfast, tbh - feels like the right way to visit. I just need my own yacht now...

Still not read it despite taking it on holiday twice now! Really ought to sort that out...

What, if anything, is a destroyer (with reference to the historic change in roles and displacement etc)

Knowing the line of evolution that got us to this point, I'm pretty chill about it. It's a testament to how useful the first destroyers were, really - they started bolting extra bits on and never really stopped

Favourite "outgunned, outmanned, fights like a & b don't apply" engagement?

Turbinia happily charging up and down past the assorted piquet boats of the Royal Navy counts here, right?

Beatty or Halsey?

I mean, I'm not a fan of Beatty...

I've had a couple of questions about Halsey, and I really don't know enough about him. From what I do know though he strikes me as closer in attitude to the Royal Navy than is typical for US Naval brass

Favourite nautical movie?

Master and Commander! Can't believe this is even a question!

Who would win - Hornblower or lucky Jack Aubrey in a) a fistfight b) a naval battle

Full confession: I've never read any Hornblower.

Aubrey is basically a Cochrane-expy though, turned into a fictional character because you'd never believe it otherwise, and you *definitely* don't pick a fight with Cochrane...

Would you rather fight a hundred duck sized Jackie Fishers or one Jackie Fisher sized duck

A hundred Jackie Fishers?! Can you IMAGINE the correspondence?

Non-historically I'd love to go for a pint with the Venezuelan chap who came off second-best to a cruise liner, just to get his side of the tale and to ask whether, in retrospect, a little bit of discretion might have been sensible...

Which historical admiral or captain would you like to be able to spend an evening with, putting the world to rights over a bottle of rum?

It's obvious, really, but Nelson. He could be vain and silly and I suspect a large part of the conversation would be him anxiously enquiring about his reputation two centuries later, but it'd be fascinating to see how he matched up to his contemporaries' assessment.

Of course the correct answer to this really is Moby Dick. Such a strange, difficult, thrilling and beautiful highwire act of a book. You could spend a lifetime rereading it and not stop finding new things in it.

What is your favourite book about a disastrous shipwreck?

Not a wreck, but Madhouse At the End Of The World is an extraordinary tale from the golden age of polar exploration

How many minutes of stand up do you think you could do on the topic of the Zumwalt class destroyers?

I've never tried stand-up - I suspect I'd be terrible at it.

My wife is a professional procurement manager though. I suspect she'd either die laughing or need counselling afterwards...

Opinion of the German F125 class, aka the cruiser sized littoral combat ship

They're an almost stereotypical (modern) German concept, is my immediate thought.

And not just because they insist on calling them (and everything else) frigates.

There's a lot of ugly ship designs now, bit is there anything worse than the littorals?

Well, they win points for also existing purely to fulfill a service the navy rightly doesn't want to provide (ie rocking up to a hostile shore and having the shit kicked out of them)...

Modern naval vessels are mostly bland though, rather than ugly. Littorals included.

Turbinia, the first successful steam turbine vessel, casually tooling about at full chat. It's unbelievable gorgeous, and still somehow looks like the future. Notice the casual attitude of (I think) Charles Parsons up top.

LOOK AT IT!

Favourite non-French ship?

Turbinia. Epitomises how quickly technology was advancing, discovered whole new realms of how water can hate you, looks gorgeous. What's not to like?

Do you think the Royal Navy should bring back rum rations? Bold not to mention sodomy and the lash, tbh

Being entirely serious, there are good reasons not to and no compelling reason to bring it back other than to taunt the Yanks.

The very rare instruction to "splice the mainbrace" is one of the great naval traditions though, and long may it continue.

Hi. I'm commanding a British fleet in the Mediterranean on exercises. My plan is to have the ships line up in two columns and reverse direction by turning inwards. How far apart would you recommend I deploy the columns initially?

It's a measure of how bafflingly stupid the loss of HMS Victoria was that Vice Admiral Tryon is apparently still trying to work out what the hell happened from beyond the grave.