Here is another comic featuring great warships that never had a chance to fight in a real war. Click here to see my previous comic about great warships that did not get a chance to fight in a real war.
HMS Vanguard (23) was the last battleship to enter service in the UK's Royal Navy. Having been commissioned in 1946, it came too late to fight against Germany and Japan, which were both vanquished in 1945. HMS Vanguard (23) did not even get to fire at communist forces during the Korean War, and it did not even get to fight against Soviet Russia throughout its 14 years of active service. Its only major role was for the 1960 film "Sink the Bismarck!" And that film was made shortly before the decommissioning of HMS Vanguard (23), in which the decommissioning was filmed as part of the Look at Life film series.
Did you know that Spain operates aircraft carriers? One of those aircraft carriers was Príncipe de Asturias. It was commissioned in 1988. By that point, the Soviet Union was on its last legs, meaning Príncipe de Asturias did not have to fight against Soviet Russia. Príncipe de Asturias did not take part in Spain's involvement in Operation Desert Storm, nor was it part of Spain's involvement in the Allied invasion of Iraq, meaning the Spanish aircraft carrier had a largely uneventful career by the time it was decommissioned in 2013.
Sweden's Sverige-class coastal defence battleships had a largely uneventful career. Other than HSwMS Drottning Victoria and HSwMS Gustaf V having to bring a dead Swedish queen back to Stockholm from Germany in 1930, HSwMS Gustaf V running aground off Malmö in 1933, and HSwMS Gustaf V having a boiler explosion in 1940 that killed ten people, the Sverige-class coastal defence battleships were to never see combat at all. This could be due to Germany having no interest in invading Sweden during World War 2 and Russia having no interest in invading Sweden during the early days of the Cold War.
The German Federal Republic had some great fighting ships during the Cold War. Among them were the training cruiser Deutschland and the Hamburg-class destroyers, both of whom along with the Lütjens-class destroyers, were among the biggest ships of the German Federal Republic's Navy. But neither the training cruiser Deutschland nor any of the Hamburg-class destroyers were to see any real combat whatsoever. In fact, no warship of the Federal Republic of Germany was to see combat throughout the entire Cold War because the Federal Republic of Germany took back East Germany when the East German communist regime blundered and as a result, surrendered without a shot being fired.
Little information is known about the career of USS Narwhal (SSN-671). It was eventful, however, because it was involved in monitoring Soviet vessels. USS Narwhal (SSN-671) sustained minor damage during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. It was also the venue of a 1993 reunion of the USS Narwhal (SS-167) crew, and it was also the stealthiest submarine in the US Navy until USS Seawolf (SSN-21) came along.
Denmark's Willemoes-class missile boats did not get to fight against the Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet because the Danish Navy did a very good job at keeping Russia's Baltic Fleet bottled up without any direct confrontation, and none of the Willemoes-class missile boats were involved in Denmark's participation in Operation Desert Storm. However, one of these Willemoes-class missile boats, HDMS Sehested, achieved a top speed of 42.5 knots, which were the highest recorded and documented speed ever achieved for the Willemoes-class missile boats. This was good enough to get HDMS Sehested preserved by the Royal Danish Naval Museum alongside frigate HDMS Peder Skram and submarine HDMS Sælen. So if you ever visit Copenhagen, please pay a visit to the Royal Danish Naval Museum and their three Cold War era museum ships.
