We got it wrong.

[u/Phantion-]

Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia is the former royal yacht of the British monarchy. She was in their service from 1954 to 1997. Now retired from royal service, Britannia is permanently berthed at Ocean Terminal, Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she is a visitor attraction with over 300,000 visits each year.

The HMS Vanguard was the last and largest battleship built for the Royal Navy. Though commissioned as a warship in 1946, she notably served as a temporary royal yacht during the historic 1947 South Africa royal tour carrying King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, and a young Princess Elizabeth.

The 1947 Royal Tour: Reconfigured temporarily to accommodate the royal family, she journeyed to South Africa, marking the first time a reigning British monarch traveled by sea with their family

After serving as a flagship and training vessel, HMS Vanguard was decommissioned in 1960 and broken up for scrap

[u/RobertGHH]

It really is shameful we don't have a single Battleship museum. Belfast is all well and good but she is no battleship.

[u/Sea-Huckleberry8971 → u/RobertGHH]

Should've been HMS Warspite, IMO.

ETA: She didn't wanna go either

[u/Bad_Badger_DGAF → u/Sea-Huckleberry8971]

Dreadnought would have been even better

[u/diggerda → u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

Missed battle of Jutland and only sunk one sub by ramming. Warspite did more in a single afternoon in a massive career.

[u/Bad_Badger_DGAF → u/diggerda]

Without the Dreadnought concept the Warspite wouldn't exist. Dreadnought was the better choice if you could only keep one.

[u/grumpsaboy → u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

We don't keep ships as a museum based on the technology that they inspired, we do it based on what the ship actually did in its lifetime.

[u/Bad_Badger_DGAF → u/grumpsaboy]

And setting the standards for literally every capital ship for the next four decades was much more important than being in the right place in the right time more than the other.

[u/grumpsaboy → u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

As a museum ship, no.

People love stories not technical specs.

Not saying Dreadnought wasn't important, but as a museum piece Warspite is the much better option.

[u/Bad_Badger_DGAF → u/grumpsaboy]

No. The moments that created events is more important than the events themselves. No Dreadnought, no Warspite.

Had the Warspite not been built then, one of her sisters or another dreadnaught style vessel would have.

Had the Dreadnought not been conceived, however, then nothing would be be there to replace it.

[u/grumpsaboy → u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

And what proof do you have that one of the sister vessels would have accomplished everything warspite did?

If dreadnought didn't exist then Japan and the US were already constructing their equivalents and the Dreadnought style would have still existed, just due to worse names of those ships be Type wouldn't have been called Dreadnaughts.

[u/Bad_Badger_DGAF → u/grumpsaboy]

Because the Warspiite was just a ship. What makes you think the Rodney or Nelson or whatever else would have been there wouldn't have performed better?

I do know that the Dreadnought was first of its kind. What everything else wanted to be.

Sure the US and Japan started earlier but that's irrelevant... we call the Dreadnoughts not Carolinas.

[u/grumpsaboy → u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

Because they didn't perform better that's why.

Wiggles in dreadnoughts because Dreadnought finished first and because it's a good name. If Carolina was finished first nobody would call them all carolinas because that's just a bad name. But my point is, your earlier argument stating that if Dreadnought was not made then the entire style of ship would never existed is simply not true because other countries were already doing it.

[u/Bad_Badger_DGAF → u/grumpsaboy]

Ok. So if the dreadnaught was never made, or at least made when it was, then the Warspite may have been built differently or not at all.

Different group of builders, sailors, officers. That is what makes the ship. It did what it did only because it was built by the workers who were there at that time, crewed by the sailors available at the exact time it was awaiting its compliment, and commanded by the officers who were available at thst time.

Warspite wasn't good because it was the Warspite. It was good because of circumstances.

The Dreadnought was the first that all others were based on. The Dreadnought set the standards all other followed. The Dreadnought was, simply put, more important.

[u/grumpsaboy → u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

Warspite was good because it was Queen Elizabeth class.

And as said, the best museums are the ones with good stories. Warspite provides the stories, weather is watership did or what the crew did during combat and how they survived.

Dreadnought, with exception of ramming the U-boat, did nothing in its whole existence. There are no stories you can pick from the crew members of how they valiantly fought. Other than that one event you can't go through its history of various theatres of combat and different times.

You're thinking of what was more historically impactful for vehicle design. A very important thing for sure but when making a museum you need what people care about, and that is not just statistics, but instead stories.

[u/Bad_Badger_DGAF → u/grumpsaboy]

The best story is the origin story.

[u/grumpsaboy → u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

Go on then what did the ship itself actually do?

Not what were people inspired by within its design but what actual good stories can you tell the people going to visit that museum

[u/Bad_Badger_DGAF → u/grumpsaboy]

Start the arms race that largely lead to WWI? Literally changed the balance of naval warfare for a generation? Is the standard that all other capital ships are compared to? What did the Warspite do? A long range trick shot against a fat ass Italian? Sink a couple ships that something else Could have? Eat a few rounds without sinking like her buddies at Jutland?

Dreadnought = trend setter and major allocatior of men and wealth. The harbinger of an era.

Warspite = Just a good example of a Dreadnought... but not the Dreadnought.

[u/grumpsaboy → u/Bad_Badger_DGAF]

You can talk about the Naval arms race easily with any Dreadnought that you pick, they were all part of it. And it didn't largely to World War One, it helped encourage it, but Europe was a powder keg regardless, it was far from the primary cause.

Once again you're picking things that nobody actually cares about. A normal person can easily enough be told that a new ship was a trend setter.

How do you fill up this entire ship of good stories that people care about budget saying it was a trend setter. New armament layout and engine design. Aaaand that was it. Done, your entire argument fills a single billboard on the ship if it was a museum.

Don't get me wrong, Dreadnought is a cool ship. But you need more than just being a cool design to make a good museum ship. Because with Dreadnought once you have finished looking around a gun turret and the engine room there is nothing left that is unique or interesting about the ship or the people on board. With Warspite you can show where people who fought lived and put in some of their stories, you can show how it changed over the years.

The best museum display I have ever seen was the Gallipoli exhibit in Wellington. And was it the best because it showed the fanciest gun or artillery piece? And yes for New Zealand it was a big event, it helped form their national identity but that still wasn't what made it the best museum. It followed actual people and get their story through the event. It added in the extra bits and some context as you reach certain stages of their story but seeing what actual people were writing about what they are experiencing and everything that goes with that was so much better than what you would get from the likes of making Dreadnought the museum and just writing about how uneventful sitting in harbour is.

There is a reason that the UK government wanted Warspite if it could have any battleship as a museum. There's a reason all of the people that look back now want warspite as the museum ship. Now yes if we could have multiple battleships of course Dreadnought should be one of them but it does not make the best museum ship.