Q&A · 53:51-54:54

A Portsmouth museum of preserved capital ships

A preservation counterfactual imagines a single museum tracing British capital-ship development from sail through the last battleship.

Question

What if Majestic, Dreadnought, Warspite, and Vanguard had all survived as museum ships?

Short answer

Together with Victory and Warrior at Portsmouth, they could form one of the world's finest and most heavily visited naval museums.

Notes

Preservation would depend on the ships surviving their service lives in sufficiently intact condition. The four capital ships would stand at Portsmouth alongside HMS Victory and HMS Warrior. The resulting collection would let visitors move through successive eras of naval construction at one site and would preserve an exceptional physical record for naval historians.