HMS Rodney - Guide 146

[Music] [Music] hms rodney named for admiral rodney of the mid to late 18th century was the second of the two nelson class battleships which of course were built as the result of the Washington Naval Treaty with both ships laid down on the same date 28th of December 1922 in Rodney's case she was built at Birkenhead by the camel lead shipyard launched about three years later in December 1925 and after trials commissioning in November 1927 three months after her sister ship whilst Nelson would spend much of her time before World War Two in the Mediterranean and traveling across parts of the world Rodney would work out the various issues with the class's guns and turrets whilst serving exclusively in the Atlantic North Sea and channel as she would continue to do for most of the rest of her career as such her crew would be involved in the invar garden mutiny which was a dispute over pay in 1931 with the crew expressing their participation in this mutiny by doing their regular maintenance and cleaning jobs whilst ignoring any other orders from their officers as well as finding a piano from somewhere so that they could have a nice sing-along on the main deck of that particular incident aside with most of the other issues affecting her main battery resolved she started to become something of a technological testing vessel becoming the first Royal Navy battleship to be equipped with radar in 1938 which was good and later on she was fitted with better radar which was also good and also the unrotated projectile rocket launchers which were less than good and during the Second World War amongst other things she went out looking for the tushan horst's in the aftermath of their sinking of the armed merchant Cruiser Rawalpindi but she had to head back when her rudder had stopped working properly which was a little bit of a problem once this was fixed as she was back in action she was bombed by the Luftwaffe but her armored deck did its job rejecting the bombs sideways out of the ship all relatively minimal damage after which it was back to anti invasion patrols and convoy escort duty the Shan horse would remain something of a perennial bug bear in Rodney's side during the opening stages of the Second World War as she went on another hunt for them in 1941 that didn't have any rudder issues bird also had no success whilst a couple of months later the two ships showed up near a convoy that rodney was escorting which probably brought some joy for the crew who'd Hance he actually seen the ships with their own eyes yet but then the twins rather sensibly decided to break contact when they saw what exactly was waiting for them so it was in May 1941 whilst heading to for the USA for repairs and a refit she heard the news of the battle of the Denmark Strait and was ordered to join the hunt of the Bismarck she did a quick 180 and plunged straight back into the Atlantic where her captain at the time captain Dalrymple Hamilton showed a remarkable skill in command of his ship not only did he work out what Bismarck's actual course was and thus avoided most of the wild goose chase that King George the fifth went off on he also managed to drive the ship up to a reported 25 knots at times despite the ship itself being designed for 23 knots and in need of a desperate engine overhaul which was the main point of why had been heading for the USA in the first place according to reports the scenes in the engine room sometimes were more akin to an exceptionally loud sorna than any kind of propulsive room but nothing major broke that couldn't at least be temporarily patched up and fairly quickly at that as a result of not going off on said wild goose chase despite being the slower vessel Rodney arrived in the operational area that Bismarck had been reported to be occupying in good time meeting up with King George the 5th of the day before they headed for battle with Bismarck in this battle captain Dalrymple Hamilton again showed off his ship handling skill weaving the 35,000 ton plus battleship through the Germans fire chasing previous salvos and keeping Rodney thus undamaged except for a few splinters from near misses in return of Rodney did the lion's share of systematically demolishing the Bismarck with her shells knocking out the bridge fire control systems much of the secondary battery and crippling or destroying most of the Bismarck primary armament she would also score the only battleship on battleship torpedo strike in history with a single hit landed out of 8 torpedoes launched with the battle over and having to head home for fuel Rodney then set out again for America this time arriving untroubled by the need to send further German capital ships to new homes on the ocean floor and would receive the much-needed engine repairs as well as upgrades to her anti-aircraft suite largely in the form of multiple octuple pompom 40 millimeter mounts that she'd brought over in crates by September she was sent to join force H from Alta convoy escort work for a couple of months before heading back for another small refit where she received her third set of radar and were one of many tranches of 20-millimeter Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns then it was back to the Mediterranean from warm water operations as well as supporting operations Torch and husky the invasions of North Africa and Sicily she was kept on a relatively short leash by the Admiralty who wanted her to be able to sail back to the UK at any time when Intel might indicate that Tirpitz might be about to sail and having developed a taste for sure bombardment she would be assigned to the d-day landings in 1944 where once equipped with anti-missile jammer in case of Fritz X or similar devices appearing in the skies she would fire her 16-inch guns miles inland in support of Allied troops often to their great approval with a few unfortunate German armored fighting vehicles learning in all three landings that a 16-inch high-explosive shell was remarkably bad for things like their health of their continued existence and indeed their remaining upright however she had entered in into the war in quite the need for an overhaul and various defects and leaks would occur be patched reoccur get worse get patched again etc etc in an ongoing cycle throughout her career in the Second World War finally after her fire support mission off Normandy plans were drawn up for a full modernization as in early 1944 that been some question as to whether or not she was even seaworthy but these were not executed as the war in Europe had shifted more and more to a land war and for when the Pacific needed fast battleships that could keep up with the carrier's which broke knee for all her other superlatives definitely wasn't thus by the end of 1944 Rodney found herself as a flagship of the home fleet but very rarely went much further than the occasional sweep in the North Sea due to the aforementioned leaks and other defects with the end of the war therefore she was fairly rapidly decommissioned and sold for scrapping eventually going to the breakers in 1948 that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for drydock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 366,740

Keywords: wows, world of warships, HMS Rodney, Nelson class, Washington Naval Treaty, World War 2, Battle of Denmark Strait, Operation Husky, Operation Torch, D-Day, Operation Overlord, Bismarck

Id: VGaGBImx62A

Length: 8min 37sec (517 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 05 2019