Time-traveling battleships

Fulcrum · April 08, 2011, 02:21:48 AM

I came up with this idea today(though it was inspired by the Axis of time novels)...

1912: An international fleet of battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers & destroyers assemble in the North sea for an international naval review...

then....

A sudden electrical storm transports all of them to 2002, where alot of stuff have happened between 1912 & 2002.

NATO, Russia, Japan, etc. all have to figure out what to do with all these obselete, yet surprisingly young battleships, so the best way forward is to modernize them.

(Got a idea for a VLS-armed Moltke-class battlecruiser from a couple of years ago.)

Rheged · April 08, 2011, 02:36:28 AM

I can think of a lot of industries that will pay a very high price for pre-Hiroshima non radio active steel plates. They could be worth a lot more as bits than as complete ships.

jorel62 · April 08, 2011, 02:41:31 AM

Sounds like an old movie........ I once watched. Only with an Aircraft Carrier.

Fulcrum · April 08, 2011, 03:25:55 AM

Quote from: jorel62 on April 08, 2011, 02:41:31 AM
Sounds like an old movie........ I once watched. Only with an Aircraft Carrier.

Yeah, I was also partly inspired by that movie, The Final Countdown.

beowulf · April 08, 2011, 05:52:53 AM

Quote from: Rheged on April 08, 2011, 02:36:28 AM
I can think of a lot of industries that will pay a very high price for pre-Hiroshima non radio active steel plates. They could be worth a lot more as bits than as complete ships.

i was thinking the same thing before i got to your post

jorel62 · April 08, 2011, 06:28:48 AM

I still like the idea......

GTX · April 08, 2011, 11:36:32 AM

I'm thinking naval museums and historians would go wild.

Regards,

Greg

jcf · April 08, 2011, 12:04:33 PM

Quote from: GTX on April 08, 2011, 11:36:32 AM
I'm thinking naval museums and historians would go wild.

Regards,

Greg

Yep, as they, along with the previously mentioned 'clean' steel sciency types

, would be the only folks
who could get any use out of such 'living' dinosaurs. The period design, engineering, power-plant and
construction methods argue against economical 'modernization'.

tigercat · April 09, 2011, 12:33:09 AM

It would be interesting to see the consequences from a 1912 perspective as the disapperance of most of the worlds Naval power would leave a vacuum.

Which ships would you choose to save for Museums as the pre dreadnaughts wouldn't have the chance to distinguish themselves in WW1

Jschmus · April 09, 2011, 06:10:02 PM

Most likely they'd be cut up for recycling. I read a story last night that there are four US carriers that were originally slated for sinking as artificial reefs (Forrestal, Saratoga, Independence and Constellation, I think). Some environmental impact review found that the last few sunken ships had been sunk without full removal of either recyclables or hazardous materials. Given the prices on recovered metals these days, that fleet of hundred year-old iron would fetch a pretty penny for someone in the industry.

JoeP · April 23, 2011, 11:15:17 AM

One alternate way to bring back old ships is to posit a long-lasting, fiercely-fought, but non-nuclear WW3 in the 1950s or 1960s. Both sides lose many ships, too many and too quickly to build sufficient replacements, so their navies must pull ships from reserves and even museums.

pyro-manic · April 26, 2011, 02:15:32 PM

IIRC, there weren't actually very many ships in museums at that time. Most "preserved" ships are ones that were retired around that time. The vast majority of the dreadnoughts were scrapped before, during or shortly after the war. The pre-dreads all went even before that (with the exception of a very few, those being Mikasa, Schleswig-Holstein and Schlesien, etc).