by Matthew Wright | Mar 23, 2026 | History Article
One of the stories that circulated in the Royal Navy after HMS Rodney was involved in sinking the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941 was that the British vessel had reached 25 knots during the pursuit, about two knots over her design capability of 23. The crew...
by Matthew Wright | Jan 20, 2026 | History Article
The recent announcement from the United States that it would resume building battleships – not the classic big-gun variety of the twentieth century, but a modern concept with advanced technology[1] – came as a surprise at a time when the largest surface combatants...
by Matthew Wright | Dec 4, 2025 | History Article
One of the major challenges faced by the combatants of both sides during the First World War was finding submarines underwater. The issue was particularly important for the Allies because Germany turned to U-boats as an equaliser. If they could whittle down British...
by Matthew Wright | Apr 5, 2025 | History Article
In 1919 an embittered Admiral Sir John Fisher published a trenchant criticism of the British Admiralty’s latest heavy warship. He did not name her, but he didn’t have to: there was only one. To Fisher, HMS Hood had too much weight devoted to armour. ‘And so bang went...
by Matthew Wright | Feb 19, 2025 | History Article
It is not often that previously unknown photos of HMS Hood are discovered. A set were found recently in a New Zealand archive, and are reproduced here for the first time on a naval website. The quality is typical of the day: the slightly blurred imagery typical of the...
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