Which warship designs would have been better never built?
Short answerHMS Captain is a leading example, although even disastrous ships and awkward ocean-going monitors taught navies something.
NotesHMS Captain is the immediate example of a ship whose design should not have reached service. Even so, an unsuccessful warship is not historically worthless. Navies learn from failure as well as success, and a bad design can expose the limits of an engineering idea or operating concept. Some American Civil War ocean-going monitors were similarly troubled but revealing experiments.