Top Ten Fighting Ships?

Question

On the Military Channel they chose the top ten fighting ships of all time based on Firepower, Protection, Innovation, Fear Factor, and Service Length with viewer polls and Expert opinion

This is their list
1. Iowa Class Battleship (BB)
2. Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier (A/C)
3. Queen Elizabeth Class BB
4. Ticondaroga Class Missile Cruiser
5. Fletcher Class Destroyer
6. North Carolina Class BB
7. Bismark Class BB
8. Essex Clas A/C
9. Deutchland Class Pocket BB
10. Hood Class Battle Cruiser

What do you think of this list?
What ship should be higher or lower based on their factors?
What would you said should be on the list?

This is not my list, This was a list created by the Military Channel. I had nothing to do with this list execpt show it to you. Don't chew me out.

Answer 1

Mine I think would look like this:
1. Iowa Class BB
2. Nimitz Class CVN
3. Queen Elizabeth Class BB
4. Essex Class CV
5. Ticondaroga Class CA
6. Bismarck Class BB
7. Dreadnaught Class BB
8. Nagato Class BB
9. Midway Class CV
10. Yamato Class BB

The list from the Military Channel only included ships of the USN, Britian, and Germany.

Answer 2

I really hate the "Top Ten" shows on the Military Channel. There's no way to objectively compare weapons and weapons platforms of different classes and different eras. Fear Factor is a greatly subjective category, and Service Length does not indicate whether or not a weapon or platform was really that succesful. How does one even begin to compare a Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser and a Fletcher class destroyer? Now, you can look at each class on the list and compare it to contemporary ships of the same type with a slight bit of objectivity.

The Iowa class was probably the best battleship class of the 30s and 40s. Highest speed, best main armament, best secondary and tertiary armament. They sacrificed some protection in order to achieve their high speed. I don't know why the North Carolinas are on this list, the South Dakota class have long been recognized as being better ships (with the best overall protection of the NC, SD, and Iowa classes).

The Nimitz class is an easy one, they are the finest post-war carriers in the world, and they have no contemporaries to be compared against (except for other USN carrier classes).

The Bismarck class wasn't any better an overall design than the King George V class, the NC and SD classes, or the Japanese Yamatos. I don't see how you include it on the list when it barely makes the top 5 among it's contemporaries.

Why in the world the Deutschland class are on this list are beyond me. They were a waste of money, nothing more than overgrown, overgunned, slow heavy cruisers.

The Hood was a great ship when first commissioned, but started becoming increasingly obsolescent during the inter-war years.

Like I said, I really don't like these lists and their categories for qualification. I mean, if it came down to firepower, any carrier and its' air group from the mid-40s and later has more firepower than any individual ship, so all 10 ships could be carrier classes. Any SSBN carries more firepower than all the ships on this list combined..........nuclear ballistic missiles anyone? Heck, let's look at Innovation. The Bismarcks were terribly uninnovative. The Essex class were merely slightly modified versions of the Yorktowns. The Iowas were longer, faster versions of the NC and SD classes. The only "innovative" ships I see on the list are Hood, which was the first "fast battleship", and the Ticonderogas, with the AEGIS radar system. The QEs were a bit innovative, given that they were oil-fired and were several knots faster than their contemporaries.

Fear factor just sounds flat out silly..............

Answer 3

Top Ten Fighting Ships

Answer 4

I think the Nimitz class should be first, only because it has no match. Thats today though. I think they do the list based on the ships influence during its lifetime, not in relation to each other. And the iowa class was one tough mother, serving for 50 years and putting a lot of hurt on a lot of people.

Answer 5

I think the list is quite good. Although I probably would rank
the Bismarck higher. And if the Iowa is first placed I don't
understand that the technically stronger Yamato class isn't
mentioned at all. Although I would likely drop the Essex. I don't
see anything particularly special in that class.

Answer 6

Sadly, due to the "service length" they missed these:

Kirov CGN (a Navy Cross just waiting to happen)
Sovremmeny CG
Yamato BB
Enterprise CVN
Kitty Hawk CV (oldest ship in the fleet and my old home)

Answer 7

Apart from the Ticonderoga class cruiser,
everything else could be taken out by a modern destroyer.
You can't really fairly compare old with new.
Each in their time were good

Answer 8

Q. What do you call a hundred,000 Frenchmen with their arms up? A. the army. and Q. Why do the the French have glass backside boats of their military? A. to work out all their different ships. are my favourites =P i admire the french yet there have been humorous!!!

Answer 9

i was surprised no x-craft or yarmoto (no idea how to spell it but the big japanese ship)