Worst Warship From Every Era Explained

The worst warship from every era, explained: in 1628 Sweden's mightiest warship, the Vasa, sank about twenty minutes into its first voyage, less than a mile from the dock, with 64 bronze cannons it never fired at an enemy. This animated naval history ranks the warships that failed in every era and why they failed: Ptolemy IV's giant galley with more than 4,000 rowers that was built only for show; Henry V's Grace Dieu, which sailed once, suffered a mutiny and burned after a lightning strike; the top-heavy Vasa; Spain's four-decked Santísima Trinidad, nicknamed the Ponderous; HMS Captain, which capsized in 1870 with its own designer aboard; Russia's perfectly round ironclad Novgorod; the British battlecruisers that blew up at Jutland; Japan's carrier Shinano, sunk on its first trip by USS Archerfish; Russia's smoking carrier Admiral Kuznetsov; and the USS Zumwalt, whose big guns never got ammunition. Plus dishonorable mentions: the Mary Rose, the K-class steam submarines and the Royal George. Chapters: 0:00 The warship that sank in twenty minutes 0:32 ~200 BC: the galley too big to use 1:36 1418: the Grace Dieu and its one voyage 2:28 1628: the Vasa 3:37 1769: the Santísima Trinidad 4:31 1870: HMS Captain 5:32 1873: the round Novgorod 6:37 1916: the battlecruisers at Jutland 7:53 1944: Shinano, the carrier that never launched a plane 9:10 1991: Admiral Kuznetsov 10:28 2016: USS Zumwalt 11:37 Dishonorable mentions 12:23 What makes a warship the worst Almost every ship on this list was built to impress a king, a tsar, an admiral or a parliament before it was built to fight, and the sea always won that argument. Sources: Vasa Museum, Stockholm; Historic England (Grace Dieu protected wreck); Plutarch and Athenaeus on the tessarakonteres; Royal Museums Greenwich (HMS Captain); records of the Battle of Jutland (1916) and the Admiralty's investigation into cordite handling; U.S. Navy history of USS Archerfish and the Shinano; reporting on the Admiral Kuznetsov (2016–2025); U.S. Navy and Congressional Research Service reporting on the Zumwalt-class Advanced Gun System and the 2016 LRLAP cancellation. Ancient figures and some casualty numbers are approximate and presented as such. Next in the series: the worst warplane from every era. #Warships #MilitaryHistory #SketchyWarfare #Vasa #NavalHistory #Jutland #Shinano #Zumwalt #History #AnimatedHistory #HistoryExplained #Navy #Battleship #WW1 #WW2