Ship Trivia Quiz

Ok, here's a quickie - neither RN nor USN!

Which battle saw the first ship to be sunk by gunfire?

Rick

Congratulations RickF You got it! That was billed as the US Navy's 'first' battleship to show off the Navy's prowess at the World's Fair.

USS Illinois it is. You got the next question. 

I don't know a lot about the US Navy, but I smell a rat here. Are we talking real ships, or something else? Didn't they build a battleship out of bricks for the Worlds Fair in Chicago in the 1890s? I think it was called USS Illinois.

Rick

Good answer but not the one I'm looking for. This Battleship never sailed an ocean.

Maybe I should try a clarification: First battleship, not first 'commissioned' battleship. 

Does that make it a bit more confusing? 

The first USS Maine, a second-class armored battleship, was laid down at the New York Navy Yard 17 October 1888; launched 18 November 1889; sponsored by Miss Alice Tracy Wllinerding, granddaughter of Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Tracy; and commissioned 17 September 1895, Capt. Arent S. Crowninshield in command.

I know the Texas was commissioned first.

Thanks guys.

What was the US Navy's 'first' battleship?

Thank you for the compliment subfixer,

Let Duke Maddog have the next question.

Duke Maddog wrote:

I think I have a question that might work. If no one else wants to post one.

I have no objections. Do any of us object? It's up to Shannonman to decide I would suppose.

And congratulations to shannonman for completely skunking us.

Sorry no,

She was the Gunboat PETEREL , stationed at Shanghai until Dec8th 1941 when she rejected Japanese demands to surrender.

Her crew fought a one-sided battle ! against the cruiser IDZUMO , a destroyer , a gunboat and various shore batteries.

When the ship cought fire , the crew set off the demolition charges and she sank.

There is a very good book on the China station called,The Royal Navy and the Sino-Japanese incident  1937-41 by Martin H Brice

Would someone  else like to post a question?.

Don't worry runk, the question was already answered.

subfixer, I was working on the ship but can't find the Commander.

24 Oct 1956: Jean Bart sails for Algiers, to take part in Suez operations.

You sure have that right, Rick. Just follow this topic from the first page and you'll see a multitude of examples of multiple correct answers.

Just my two cents worth here -

We should keep our minds open to the possibility that sometimes there may be an answer that is correct, even though it is not the one we framed when we wrote the question.  Sometimes words have more than one definition, that we hadn't realized until after we have heard other folks start to intepreting the questions through their own set of ears.

Rick Heinbaugh 

How about HMS Victory on a technicality - still in commission and commanded by Lt. Cdr. John Scivier.

Rick

Was it Albert L. Kaiss of the Battleship USS Missouri ?.

billydelawder you get to ask the next question.

Surface_Line wrote:

Well, this is the vortex I didn't want to get sucked into.  Warhorse nicely summarized the missile variants (although I would have forgotten the Northampton) But previous to those were the gun variants.  And I am just going to major versions - there were certainly many updates that could qualify as "variants", depending on the mood of the questioner. CL?  During the war, there were round bridge and square bridge variants.  Then the Fargo class with the single stack. (Shall we count Atlanta IX 104 in her final days as an experimental ship with all those different ship types' upperworks?)  For the CA, I guess I'm happy naming the two stack ships with one aircraft crane (round stern - Pittsburgh) and those with two (square stern - Baltimore) Then the single stack Oregon City class. For all of them, 20mm came and went, 40mm came and went, 3"50 came and went, various radar suites evolved, various aircraft handling facilities evolved, and Regulus came and went.  Rick

Phew! That was what I meant by simplifying the question. Very complex, I just hope that is what he was looking for so we can get going again. I mean, if every little difference in the ship's of a class can count as different variants, then every ship is a unique variant of its class.