Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: c8636248@cc.nu.oz.au
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Nicknames (was Re: Battleship Nelson)
Message-ID: <1990Aug2.042311.3031@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 2 Aug 90 04:23:11 GMT
References: <1990Jul24.024932.21117@cbnews.att.com> <1990Jul28.161240.2473@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: University of Newcastle
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From: c8636248@cc.nu.oz.au
    < stuff deleted >


>   This was at a time when nearly any ship in the RN would be given a nickname if
> it had an unusual enough appearance or some annoying quirks.  HMS "Renown" and
> "Repulse", because they were poorly designed and structurally weak - the armor
> belt did not extend up the lower deck side as they were originally constructed,
> and the scantlings were too light for a ship armed with 15" guns - went into
> drydock fairly often in the years immediately following their construction.   
> They came to be known as "Refit" and "Repair".

   A book I have at home on modern submarines and submarine warfare has a 
similar reference to the Royal Navy submarine HMS Explorer ( I think the
class name was Safari ). This had been fitted with an experimental hydrogen
peroxide propulsion system of such dubious propensities that the crew took to
calling it 'HMS Exploder'.

      Andrew Hide
      Computer Science Honours
      University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia