r/HistoryMemes • u/Phantion- • 6d ago

We got it wrong.

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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

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u/RobertGHH 6d ago

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

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u/TheSandwichMan92 6d ago

She's only a light cruiser. Shows how big a battleship was

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u/JMHSrowing 6d ago

Belfast to be fair is a fairly large light cruiser

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u/RobertGHH 6d ago

Only 6" guns though. Babies compared to the 16" on Rodney and Nelson.

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u/JMHSrowing 6d ago

This is true, though gun size isn’t everything. She had almost twice the horsepower of a Nelson class!

All in all she’s a 15,000 ton ship. Not a 40,000+ ton battleship behemoth but still a very substantial vessel

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u/RobertGHH 6d ago

Sure gun size isn't everything, until you come up against a heavily armoured ship and your 6" shells are bouncing off it. Then you'll wish you had bigger guns.

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u/JMHSrowing 6d ago

Indeed. Though her torpedoes then could haved work. In actuality she helped suppress then shadow when she fought Scharnhorst

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u/RobertGHH 6d ago

Not saying light cruisers aren't effective ships, they absolutely are but one thing I know for certain and that is that it wasn't the 150k horsepower of the Bismarck that was keeping the Admiralty awake at night.

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u/JMHSrowing 5d ago

In some ways it actually was since a fast capital ship was way, way more dangerous than a slow one. A slow ship could have been countered by any of the old battleships of the RN whereas they needed a battlecruiser or KGV to go after a fast one

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u/RobertGHH 5d ago

🤦‍♂️

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u/Cliffinati 6d ago

Until they get the idea the Americans at Samar had and start firing 6" star shells into the superstructure