Naval History question.

Does anyone know of any historical combat admirals (or equivalent rank for the navy they belonged to) who also served as ship designers at some point in their careers? I got into a debate on the topic an I'm certain there are some but I'm having trouble finding them and thought someone here might no better then I.

Admiral John Fisher - British Royal Navy - Dreadnaught & Invincible

Roguevictory wrote:Does anyone know of any historical combat admirals (or equivalent rank for the navy they belonged to) who also served as ship designers at some point in their careers? I got into a debate on the topic an I'm certain there are some but I'm having trouble finding them and thought someone here might no better then I.

Roguevictory wrote:Does anyone know of any historical combat admirals (or equivalent rank for the navy they belonged to) who also served as ship designers at some point in their careers? I got into a debate on the topic an I'm certain there are some but I'm having trouble finding them and thought someone here might no better then I.

Not sure if he ever saw combat but Andrei Alexandrovich Popov was a line admiral before being assigned to build ships for 30 years. Some of which were circular, as seen from above or below.

Thanks. I couldn't remember if he commanded a naval force in combat or not.

When did Admiral Fisher see combat?

Sir John Hawkins, Francis Drake's old commander,
was later assigned to design and build warships
for Queen Elizabeth.

And then there was Benedict Arnold, who oversaw
construction of the Lake Champlain fleet which he
then commanded.

So let's see ... Hawkins the slavetrader, Arnold traitor,
seems that there might be something dodgy about men
who both build and command warships!

HTM

Daryl wrote:Admiral John Fisher - British Royal Navy - Dreadnaught & Invincible

Roguevictory wrote:Does anyone know of any historical combat admirals (or equivalent rank for the navy they belonged to) who also served as ship designers at some point in their careers? I got into a debate on the topic an I'm certain there are some but I'm having trouble finding them and thought someone here might no better then I.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:When did Admiral Fisher see combat?

HTM

He spent time on the China Station commanding the sloop HMS Furious beating up the local pirates. Later when he commanded the HMS Inflexible he took part in the Bombardment of Alexandria during 1882 Anglo-Egyption War.

Mike.

It seem to be a not uncommon combination in the Imperial Russian Admiralty. At least two of Peter the Great's Admirals, Fyodor Apraksin and Matija Zmajević were ship builders, and some of the first Icebreakers were designed by Stepan_Makarov, a Russian admiral KIA during the Russo-Japanese War

Isoroku Yamamoto was involved in the development of Japan's first aircraft carriers, and had his share of combat.

I thought there were some Japanese admirals which had done both just couldn't remember which ones and research is slow because of how many Admirals there have been throughout history. Thanks

There was Alexander Kolchak who was a Russian combat Admiral who helped design icebreakers and later was leader of the White government during the Russian Civil War.

As for ship designer/admiral combinations tending to be dodgy well three of my RPG characters who combined the roles might be considered dodgy.

One had developed Disassociative Identity Disorder, aka multiple personalities, and helped a revolt which overthrew a Republic whose military his family had served for hundreds of years but which had nearly killed him and driven him into exile after a Kangaroo court-martial linked to him putting now a mutiny while refusing to support the favored political candidate of most of the rest of the military command council. (He was head of the navy and the combined stress of the civil war that was going followed by the court-marial, attempted execution, and exile sparked the personality split.) He didn't do anything to abuse his authority and retired before the resulting dictatorship hit its really evil stride but after the revolt that overthrew the Dictator 50 years later and the ensuing century long civil war he was damned by historians for hundreds of years.

The second was juggling four full-time roles and raising a son alone when the coalition he served broke up so he loaded everyone and everything he cared about on his flagship which was a Heavy Frigate, and took a battleship converted to a mobile shipyard, and his personal ships with him when he set out for a recently established Empire where he was made a minor noble and resumed his ship design work which had mostly fallen to the wayside as he juggled his military and political duties after the bulk of the coalition's leadership jumped ship long before he did. Though that one did break a few of the coalition laws in his own interest in the gap between the coalition's head of state resigning and him leaving he didn't do any major harm until the coalition was basically dead at which point he copied all the blueprints from the defunct shipwright the coalition controlled, and bailed with the mobile shipyard and the most advanced ship in the coalition fleet.

The third was driven to join a rebellion after his father was killed by his native empire's state security service then the Republic the rebels formed sold out some of their allies during a later war. He hijacked his ship with his crew's support and crew to become commander of the republic's naval forces that refused the order. Then a new government formed from much of the remains of the republic and its neighboring systems but a number of systems which had been occupied during much of the prior war, including his home system which had been one of the republic's largest shipbuilding centers before falling, decided not to join the new government and while he initially remained loyal to the new government he discovered a plot to spark an incident that would justify an invasion of the major systems belonging to the loose alliance that the systems that refused to join the new government had formed he defected. Then after a couple of decades of him commending his home system's defense fleet a new war started, the Alliance refused to honor its mutual defense pacts with many neighboring states and systems, and sick of being driven to treason by every government he served he launched a military coup and set himself up as a benevolent dictator.

And in all fairness to Benedict Arnold he might not have turned traitor if the Continental Congress hadn't been obsessed with screwing him at any convenient opportunity.

Ship designers, or the manager of ship designers?

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk