Featured The ugliest ship ever commissioned

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The U.S.S. Neosho
16-USS-Neosho-.jpg

Built in 1863, she was an ironclad river monitor patrolling the Mississippi as a part of Rear Admiral David Porter's Mississippi Squadron. She participated in The Red River Campaign from March '64 to May '64. Afterwards she returned to patrolling the Mississippi, then supported the Union Army's operations on the Cumberland River and provided fire support during the Battle of Nashville in December 1864. Neosho was decommissioned after the war and remained in reserve until sold in 1873.
Neosho 's main armament consisted of two smoothbore 11-inch (279 mm) Dahlgren guns mounted in a single turret that had an arc of fire of 300°. Firing the guns tended to jam the turret until modifications were made to the guns' recoil system. Each gun weighed approximately 16,000 pounds (7,300 kg). They could fire a 136-pound (61.7 kg) shell up to a range of 3,650 yards (3,340 m) at an elevation of 15°. The turret were protected by 6 inches (152 mm) of wrought iron while the hull had 2.5 inches (64 mm) of armor. The armor plates of the deck and paddle housing were 1.25 inches (32 mm) thick.

USS-Neosho-30184-F.jpg
 
I'm not qualified to talk about the effectiveness of this design or that design when it comes to gunboats. Having said that, I'll just agree that she ain't no prom queen. However, beauty and prettiness are sometimes two different things. "Ugly" is a third thing. Based on the brief abstract above, it appears she served her purpose pretty well. So maybe she had a measure of beauty even if she wasn't very gentle on the eye.
 
Trimaran!

It's a clever way to get a good broad flight deck on such a little craft, though.

I'm very interested in the entire LCS program. The jury's still out if it's a boondoggle or not...
 
"ugliest ever" opens it up to a lot of contenders! :wink:

The trimaran is an interesting concept; it would been worth building a couple of simple trimarans to see how it works out in service. The USN has had success with some unconventional hull forms like SWATH.

My big beef with the LCS is its proponents' insistence that they've developed something revolutionary. It's a small frigate or patrol ship comparable to what other navies (or coast guards) are building. Rather poorly armed; the surface or ASW modules barely bring it up to what other navies' frigates carry normally. Features like the stern ramp are fairly common in contemporary ships. I don't get the emphasis on platform speed in a ship intended to engage largely by launching helicopters or fast boats.

LCS was the Pentagon program title, but it should never have become the actual designation for the ships. L in the US Navy signifies amphibious ships. A more appropriate designation would be PF, but that's not revolutionary enough. Also the next PF number in sequence would be PF-110, but a revolution in naval warfare has to be -1 :wink:
 
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