Portsmouth Naval Museum Pt 4

Hello again. 

To finish up my brief look at the Portsmouth Dockyard Naval Museum hee's a few random pictures i took in the actual museum itself. 

  The Naval Museum is spread across two different buildings, both dating from the 18th Century. Naturally the life of Admiral Nelson and the battle of Trafalgar feature heavily in the first part with subsequent  displays devoted to the Navy experience in the 19th Century through to modern times.  It really is impressive and definitely worth a look if you're in the area.. 

I think it probably says a lot about me that I only chose to snap certain things I thought were "cool".   

 Although the artist was clearly a master craftsman, my immediate reaction to this figurehead was "He's wondering how to cover his junk when he's only got a silk scarf to work with."

Figureheads really need to make a comeback.  

Meanwhile this saucy miss doesn't seem at all bothered by her wardrobe malfunction. 

Snarking aside, the carving and expressions on both of these are delightful.

It's like somebody looked at the Classical statues in the British Museum and thought "I can do that...but much less formal."

Over in the other building I was fascinated by this:

The guide says this is the gun that fired the first Royal Navy shot in WW1 when the destroyer HMS Lance

ran into the Imperial German minelayer Konigin Louise.  

After a brief scrap Lance and her consort HMS Landrall 

put the German ship down, the first of many ships to find a 

cold, lonely home on the seabed over the next five years. 

More here: The museum article on this gun.

That's a sophisticated bit of technology considering that the Navy had been using cast-iron muzzle loaders only 50 years before. 

Note how little protection there is for the crew. 

They were more cold-blooded times, I feel. 

A collection of promotional posters.

Finally I took some pics of another model

This is an aircraft carrier from... somepoint in the 1950s I think. 

 Th selection of aircraft is interesting, being a mix of WW2 designs and more recent turboporops with jets yet to make their appearance. 

At the back you have Fireflies and Gannets, with AEW Skyraiders and Wyverns ranged forward and a couple of choppers standing by. 

The carrier itself - and I have no idea which one she is - is practically unchanged from WW2 with a full suite of AA guns 

and before the RN saved a lot of pilot lives by introducing the angled flight deck, among other innovations. 

The best part is, if you press a button underneath the radar starts rotating. 

I happily spent ten minutes at a time studying all the models they had here, and over at the Jutland exhibition. 

Geek that I am, that's my kind of fun day out.  

Anyway, I'll get back to posting metal and underclad women soon. 

I might even get some film reviews up. 

That's all folks.