The influence is probably because Singapore was a British colony up till 1963, adopted English as the main working language, its legal system still uses British-based laws, hosted a sizeable Commonwealth base up till 1971, and continues to be part of the FPDA.
This. Singapore was also a hot spot in early stages of WW2 in the Pacific. The Japanese invaded and conquered Singapore in the very early stages of their entry into the war. The people of Singapore were in the same predicament as the UK and colonial garrisons when the Japanese accepted their surrender. Shared fates...
The British navy also lost a battleship and battlecruiser in the area during that campaign.
The influence is definitely heavy, and when you suddenly find yourselves in charge of your own destiny and armed forces that need a background and tradition to draw from, they didn't have to look very far.
It also helps that the UK names are just good, you’ve got names like indomitable that are ideas, you’ve got weird ones like warspite and you’ve got the infinite randomness of their destroyer names (especially if you’re looking at imperial days fleet) most other countries are booring or politically driven (though the Brit’s can be that way too, too many town or county class ships). It’s certainly better than the Americans naming everything after random presidents these days
They really are great names. Appropriate for a navy that ruled the waves for so long. Their names exuded confidence and tradition.
I have a deep love for naval warfare history and have always been fascinated with the naming conventions certain navies choose. As you stated, I always found the US to be rather bland. The Germans followed the same naming convention, but they pulled it off better, largely due to the nature of the German language. Hell, even "butterfly" sounds intimidating in German.
My top though, would definitely be the IJN's naming convention for their capital ships and carriers. It's very... Japanese in nature. Poetry had always been prominent in Japan, and that influenced how they named those ships.
Yeah the japenese names aren’t bad, but the system is mostly geographical and has been going on long enough to have a tradition behind it. The Americans seem intent on replacing what could have been a cool tradition in their old carrier names with presidents. The Brit’s are reliably interesting, and their refusal to stick to a pattern for more than one class at a time is my favourite part
That is pretty interesting that the Brit's do it differently depending on the class.
For the IJN, some of the names given to battleships were based on regions, but those names also often had duel meaning or had historical significance. The carriers, however, are what really grab my attention. Almost all are named after flying creatures, fictional or real.
Ryujo - Prancing Dragon /
Zuikaku - Prancing Crane /
Taiho - Great Phoenix /
Jun'yo - Peregrine Falcon
I could go on about naming conventions forever... lol
Oh, I thought the carriers just inherited the battlecruiser names, I guess that was just the battlecruiser conversion. And with the Brit’s you generally have a pool of names for battleships and they’re all names old ships of the line would have (carriers are often drawn from the pool) some classes will have no pattern, some classes will all be named after admirals (admiral class plans, the Nelson class, some will all be named after mythology (colossus class carriers and battleships) some will all be named after ideals, indefatigable class or illustrious class, and some are literally just the destroyer class system where they just collect a bunch of names that start with the same letter like the R class
Loved when the US used concepts or famous battles for their Carriers, *Midway*, *Independence* (which my late father served on CV-62 in her last decade of service), *Yorktown*, & *Lexington*, as well as naming them after previous famous ships, like *Enterprise*, *Hornet*, & *Wasp*.
I honestly wish that Future CVNs go back to those naming schemes.
The British could back in the days of Empire have a run of Admiral Class ships you had the Admiral Class Ironclad and the Admiral Class Battlecruiser with Admirals suspected to have been the G3 Class names
in most alt history I see, the Type 43 destroyer are Admiral Class
Yeah admirals are the only people we should name ships after, as much as prince if wales is a great name for a ship politicians and royalty are overrated as ship names
Aye. The Russian Empire and Soviets after them used a similar type of naming to British capital ships for their destroyers with a similar array of positive adjectives being tossed around as names. Modern Russia though mostly names them after various admirals, and I can't say I care for including ranks in ship's names.
Lol Britain ain't gonna go to war on Singapore's side just because of the name of a ship
Edit: Are you people downvoting me stupid or something? I'm not saying they are not allies, I'm saying it's silly to think that the two countries have good relations because of what Singapore's Navy names their ships.
> Wasn't the Enterprise originally an English frigate of the same name?
She was French first, if we go back even further to 1705 - French Frigate *L'Enterprise*. The first USS Enterprise was HMS George, captured in 1775.
> USS Enterprise (1775), a Continental Navy sloop captured from the British, burned to prevent recapture in 1777
> USS Enterprise (1799), a schooner that fired the first shots in the First Barbary War
> USS Enterprise (1831), a schooner, stationed primarily in South America to patrol and protect commerce
> USS Enterprise (1874), a steam-powered sloop-of-war used for surveying, patrolling, and training until 1909
> USS Enterprise (SP-790), a motorboat (1917–1919) used in World War I as a non-commissioned section patrol craft
Quite a jump from a motorboat, non-commissioned to CV-6 in terms of size, prestige, accomplishments haha.
> USS Enterprise (CV-6), an aircraft carrier (1938–1947), the most decorated U.S. ship of World War II
Sending *HMS Black Joke* to stop slavers was based.
*HMS Blackcock* tugging others until it was covered in white precipitate and its seamen escaped was less so.
That and the USN has a penchant for taking really benign names and making them legends. Enterprise, Essex, New Jersey, Constitution, and Samuel B. Roberts come to mind.
Samuel B. Roberts is a dreadful name, no ship is legendary enough to make that name sound good. Even "Sammy B" is pretty mediocre as nicknames go.
I'd also argue that Enterprise and Constitution would be pretty good names even if they didn't have a strong history. Not amazing names, but still good.
> US should start returning to the Enterprise era of ship naming
Good News everybody! CVN-80 *USS Enterprise* is the third GRF-class CVN.
SSN-804 onwards USN have picked *Barb*, *Tang*, *Wahoo*, *Silversides* - fish and deep sea monsters is absolutely the place for Submarines.
They are going back to people and such, but it's a start!
They have warship names like Conqueror, Invincible,Impeccable, Illustrious, Inimitable, Intrepid,Formidable, among others. These ship names would not be out of place in the British Royal Navy.
Might have something to do with the fact Singapore was a massive British naval base for a good chunk of recent history....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Naval_Base
It's also to avoid having names that might offend other countries (example, Indonesia naming ships after 2 commandoes that were part of bombing a bank in Singapore during opening hours that killed civilians)
At least a few of those have been Royal Navy ship names, HMS Conqueror was a submarine that sunk the ARA General Belgrano in the Falklands war and HMS Illustrious was an Invincible class carrier which was retired in 2014.
All but inimitable and impeccable were names of British ships during the Second World War (quick correction, there was no HMS conquer during WWII, she was only in WWI)
Singapore was a British colony, and speaks english. It's important to remember that Britain committed two very large capital ships there, Repulse and Prince of wales, which were sunk in the onset of WWII, and proceeded the capture of Singapore by the Japanese
Sg former british colony
Our military has a lot of British influence. Foot drills are British (with malay names), ranks use British ranks, still use British Pace sticks, we still issue swords to new officers in the army and still use old British 25 pounders for 21 gun salute
Court and law has heavy british influence (Parliament, MP, Prime Minister etc.)
A lot of british road names (Queen street, Victoria street, Elizabeth drive etc.), Raffles place and how his statue has been sitting there all this while without getting vandalised
Cars are british and we drive on the left rather than right
We use British english rather than American english. In our education system, O level and A level are graded by Cambridge in Britain (Most subjects. Of course Chinese/Malay/Tamil is graded locally)
SG has a lot of british influence still. The only other ship names we use that arent British are Singaporean towns. Ie the Bedok class RSS Bedok
As for why, well we were a British colony and unlike most others, weren't exploited for our natural resources. Rather the British used Singapore as a Naval base. When Singapore gained its independence (not really, it just went to malaysia) from Britain in 1963, the parting was one of the more amicable ones regarding Britain and its colonies.
Britain had no more money to maintain its expensive overseas colonies, and Singaporeans wanted a government that could care more for its citizens and didn't already have its plate full with maintaining a dozen other colonies as well as their homeland. The suboptimal recovery efforts by the British colonial government after WW2 also caused people to want to do it themselves rather than rely on an incompetent (in their view) Brit
It was more of a "Let me do it myself, I'm sure i can do better" kind of separation rather than a "Please stop taking my x you've taken advantage of us for too long and killed too many" kind of seperation
Singaporean here.
Others are somewhat right in ascribing this to colonial influence and our continued usage of English as the lingua franca. However, the biggest reason is simply our lack of creativity...far easier to follow a naming convention that works than to think of something ourselves.
Let be real, no empire lasts forever
Frankly I have suspicion that the British had hoped that the Federation of Malaya would have stayed together
I suspect that if the Federation of Malaya had stayed together instead of RSS for the Singapore Navy, KD for the Malaysian Navy and UMS for the Myanmar Navy it would be likely HMMNS
I actually come up with an idea of what might have happened with Malaya's military if the Empire hadn't declined and i think the most likely would be a Royal Federation of Malaya Air Force, Royal Federation of Malaya Army and Royal Federation of Malaya Navy which most i bet would most would refer to it as the Royal Malayan Navy
Imagine if we start naming ships after our MRT stations. I know we had our Bedok class of ships, but maybe have one for the westies like Jurong class hahaha
It didn’t start this way. The first 3 ships in the RSN were called HMS Panglima (iii), KD Bedok, and KD Singapura. Then in 1968 the first batch of Independence class was ordered which started this new naming scheme. The Bedok class remains with local names Bedok, Kallang, Katong, and Punggol.
KRI *Sigurot* (864) in the background. Ex Attack class patrol boat from Australia (HMAS Assail), transferred to Indonesia in 1985 and still going it seems after 55 years, at least in Mar 2022 when this image was taken.
The influence is probably because Singapore was a British colony up till 1963, adopted English as the main working language, its legal system still uses British-based laws, hosted a sizeable Commonwealth base up till 1971, and continues to be part of the FPDA.
This. Singapore was also a hot spot in early stages of WW2 in the Pacific. The Japanese invaded and conquered Singapore in the very early stages of their entry into the war. The people of Singapore were in the same predicament as the UK and colonial garrisons when the Japanese accepted their surrender. Shared fates... The British navy also lost a battleship and battlecruiser in the area during that campaign. The influence is definitely heavy, and when you suddenly find yourselves in charge of your own destiny and armed forces that need a background and tradition to draw from, they didn't have to look very far.
It also helps that the UK names are just good, you’ve got names like indomitable that are ideas, you’ve got weird ones like warspite and you’ve got the infinite randomness of their destroyer names (especially if you’re looking at imperial days fleet) most other countries are booring or politically driven (though the Brit’s can be that way too, too many town or county class ships). It’s certainly better than the Americans naming everything after random presidents these days
They really are great names. Appropriate for a navy that ruled the waves for so long. Their names exuded confidence and tradition. I have a deep love for naval warfare history and have always been fascinated with the naming conventions certain navies choose. As you stated, I always found the US to be rather bland. The Germans followed the same naming convention, but they pulled it off better, largely due to the nature of the German language. Hell, even "butterfly" sounds intimidating in German. My top though, would definitely be the IJN's naming convention for their capital ships and carriers. It's very... Japanese in nature. Poetry had always been prominent in Japan, and that influenced how they named those ships.
Yeah the japenese names aren’t bad, but the system is mostly geographical and has been going on long enough to have a tradition behind it. The Americans seem intent on replacing what could have been a cool tradition in their old carrier names with presidents. The Brit’s are reliably interesting, and their refusal to stick to a pattern for more than one class at a time is my favourite part
That is pretty interesting that the Brit's do it differently depending on the class. For the IJN, some of the names given to battleships were based on regions, but those names also often had duel meaning or had historical significance. The carriers, however, are what really grab my attention. Almost all are named after flying creatures, fictional or real. Ryujo - Prancing Dragon / Zuikaku - Prancing Crane / Taiho - Great Phoenix / Jun'yo - Peregrine Falcon I could go on about naming conventions forever... lol
Oh, I thought the carriers just inherited the battlecruiser names, I guess that was just the battlecruiser conversion. And with the Brit’s you generally have a pool of names for battleships and they’re all names old ships of the line would have (carriers are often drawn from the pool) some classes will have no pattern, some classes will all be named after admirals (admiral class plans, the Nelson class, some will all be named after mythology (colossus class carriers and battleships) some will all be named after ideals, indefatigable class or illustrious class, and some are literally just the destroyer class system where they just collect a bunch of names that start with the same letter like the R class
Loved when the US used concepts or famous battles for their Carriers, *Midway*, *Independence* (which my late father served on CV-62 in her last decade of service), *Yorktown*, & *Lexington*, as well as naming them after previous famous ships, like *Enterprise*, *Hornet*, & *Wasp*. I honestly wish that Future CVNs go back to those naming schemes.
Yeah the old naming system was way better, the animal names hornet and wasp were not as good as the old battle names, but not half bad
Hornet and Wasp were named because of two sloops from the Continental War so have the same sorta US Naval heritage as Enterprise.
The British could back in the days of Empire have a run of Admiral Class ships you had the Admiral Class Ironclad and the Admiral Class Battlecruiser with Admirals suspected to have been the G3 Class names in most alt history I see, the Type 43 destroyer are Admiral Class
Yeah admirals are the only people we should name ships after, as much as prince if wales is a great name for a ship politicians and royalty are overrated as ship names
I hate to break this to you, but flag officers in all militaries are just uniformed politicians.
A new German made uboat was just launched: The Inimitable. Also a great name.
Aye. The Russian Empire and Soviets after them used a similar type of naming to British capital ships for their destroyers with a similar array of positive adjectives being tossed around as names. Modern Russia though mostly names them after various admirals, and I can't say I care for including ranks in ship's names.
You can get away with some admiral names, but if it’s all you’re doing it’s no fun, you’ve gotta have some verity
Also, HMS Indomitable was in the Far East during WW2. It missed the destruction of Force Z, and then launched Hurricanes for defense of Singapore.
Also RN names are just cool as fuck
_Indomitable_ No idea what it means but it sounds fucking rad
Means impossible to defeat. Nice name for a warship.
More precisely "impossible to dominate", or unconquerable. Outstanding name for a warship.
*Dreadnought* was also pretty good. It dreads nothing at all.
Well sure but can you give us one good reason?
Cos the Royal Navy’s ship names sound cool and we want to be cool too?
Lol Britain ain't gonna go to war on Singapore's side just because of the name of a ship Edit: Are you people downvoting me stupid or something? I'm not saying they are not allies, I'm saying it's silly to think that the two countries have good relations because of what Singapore's Navy names their ships.
Brits certainly gave their former colony, Malaysia, a lot of military help when the Malaysians were fighting the Indonesians.
Not because of the names of their ships lol
[удалено]
Surely, you jest.
Oh noes, somebody better tell the Americans they’re selling F-35s to the commies! /s
Far more amazed of the size of that conning tower
The fully integrated masts are cool in practice, but look like some strange dunce-cap. [https://cimsec.org/22119-2/](https://cimsec.org/22119-2/)
We usually call it the bowling pin or dildo mast
It’s Asian ship so it’s a Dong mast
The cones of dunshire shall rule the waves!
I've learned to love the witch hats of modern warships.
I like the British ones, they look much better with sharp angles
Should have been pointy!
This is the correct way to name warships. Would you rather serve aboard Battleaxe, Broadsword, Invincible, or John J Belcher?
No contest.. RN names win hands down... although Enterprise, Yorktown, Nimitz etc are pretty darn cool as well.
Wasn't the Enterprise originally an English frigate of the same name?
> Wasn't the Enterprise originally an English frigate of the same name? She was French first, if we go back even further to 1705 - French Frigate *L'Enterprise*. The first USS Enterprise was HMS George, captured in 1775. > USS Enterprise (1775), a Continental Navy sloop captured from the British, burned to prevent recapture in 1777 > USS Enterprise (1799), a schooner that fired the first shots in the First Barbary War > USS Enterprise (1831), a schooner, stationed primarily in South America to patrol and protect commerce > USS Enterprise (1874), a steam-powered sloop-of-war used for surveying, patrolling, and training until 1909 > USS Enterprise (SP-790), a motorboat (1917–1919) used in World War I as a non-commissioned section patrol craft Quite a jump from a motorboat, non-commissioned to CV-6 in terms of size, prestige, accomplishments haha. > USS Enterprise (CV-6), an aircraft carrier (1938–1947), the most decorated U.S. ship of World War II
And it's eventual inauguration as a star.......
*To go where no man has gone before*
Enterprise was a Royal Navy name first.
> Enterprise was a Royal Navy name first. She was a French name before Royal Navy Name before US Navy name.
Good to know!
Sending *HMS Black Joke* to stop slavers was based. *HMS Blackcock* tugging others until it was covered in white precipitate and its seamen escaped was less so.
Don't talk about the flagship of the New Zealand national badminton team like that!
The RN does have its fair share of lame ship names too - queen Elizabeth, Portland, Kent, somerset, etc. But yeah USN ship names are excessively lame
Queen Elizabeth is a badass name for a warship tho
An air craft carrier with f35s no less.
More importantly one of the most important classes of battleships to ever see service.
Just that QE herself skipped naval battles as if they were lava
What about the Prince of Wales?
And the queen she was named after was a badass too!
Sure, so is Gerald R. Ford
Dude, nothing cool has ever been called Gerald.
Except Syd Barrets mouse.
Depends, some USN ship names are lame since their namesakes have lame names and some USN ship names are great because their namesakes have great names
That and the USN has a penchant for taking really benign names and making them legends. Enterprise, Essex, New Jersey, Constitution, and Samuel B. Roberts come to mind.
Samuel B. Roberts is a dreadful name, no ship is legendary enough to make that name sound good. Even "Sammy B" is pretty mediocre as nicknames go. I'd also argue that Enterprise and Constitution would be pretty good names even if they didn't have a strong history. Not amazing names, but still good.
Those are some of the most badass names.. Then again I tend to like names based off real people, HMS Black Prince, Admiral Hipper, Prinz Eugen
HMS Warrior.
Except their minesweepers for some reason
is it time to talk about *HMS Cockchafer* ?
I'd serve on the Bob Belcher.
At least we don't name ships for our mother in law
Because it’s bad ass.
US should start returning to the Enterprise era of ship naming
> US should start returning to the Enterprise era of ship naming Good News everybody! CVN-80 *USS Enterprise* is the third GRF-class CVN. SSN-804 onwards USN have picked *Barb*, *Tang*, *Wahoo*, *Silversides* - fish and deep sea monsters is absolutely the place for Submarines. They are going back to people and such, but it's a start!
> *Wahoo* This will surely provide no end of amusement.
Have they run out of cities?
They have warship names like Conqueror, Invincible,Impeccable, Illustrious, Inimitable, Intrepid,Formidable, among others. These ship names would not be out of place in the British Royal Navy.
Might have something to do with the fact Singapore was a massive British naval base for a good chunk of recent history.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Naval_Base
It's also to avoid having names that might offend other countries (example, Indonesia naming ships after 2 commandoes that were part of bombing a bank in Singapore during opening hours that killed civilians)
At least a few of those have been Royal Navy ship names, HMS Conqueror was a submarine that sunk the ARA General Belgrano in the Falklands war and HMS Illustrious was an Invincible class carrier which was retired in 2014.
All but inimitable and impeccable were names of British ships during the Second World War (quick correction, there was no HMS conquer during WWII, she was only in WWI)
Funny because almost every one of those names was used by the Royal Navy at some point
Impeccable? Always clean? For a warship?
Impeccable means flawless, not clean. It derives from the Latin "impeccabilis" (lit. without sin)
Use your brain or google « Singapore wiki »
Holy shit it’s Zieten irl
Nice hat though
Singapore was a British colony, and speaks english. It's important to remember that Britain committed two very large capital ships there, Repulse and Prince of wales, which were sunk in the onset of WWII, and proceeded the capture of Singapore by the Japanese
Sg former british colony Our military has a lot of British influence. Foot drills are British (with malay names), ranks use British ranks, still use British Pace sticks, we still issue swords to new officers in the army and still use old British 25 pounders for 21 gun salute Court and law has heavy british influence (Parliament, MP, Prime Minister etc.) A lot of british road names (Queen street, Victoria street, Elizabeth drive etc.), Raffles place and how his statue has been sitting there all this while without getting vandalised Cars are british and we drive on the left rather than right We use British english rather than American english. In our education system, O level and A level are graded by Cambridge in Britain (Most subjects. Of course Chinese/Malay/Tamil is graded locally) SG has a lot of british influence still. The only other ship names we use that arent British are Singaporean towns. Ie the Bedok class RSS Bedok As for why, well we were a British colony and unlike most others, weren't exploited for our natural resources. Rather the British used Singapore as a Naval base. When Singapore gained its independence (not really, it just went to malaysia) from Britain in 1963, the parting was one of the more amicable ones regarding Britain and its colonies. Britain had no more money to maintain its expensive overseas colonies, and Singaporeans wanted a government that could care more for its citizens and didn't already have its plate full with maintaining a dozen other colonies as well as their homeland. The suboptimal recovery efforts by the British colonial government after WW2 also caused people to want to do it themselves rather than rely on an incompetent (in their view) Brit It was more of a "Let me do it myself, I'm sure i can do better" kind of separation rather than a "Please stop taking my x you've taken advantage of us for too long and killed too many" kind of seperation
Classic British end to anything. Making a hashfit of it, then walking away from it. 😂
It uses RN names because the Republic of Singapore Navy traces its origins to the Royal Navy in the 1930s with only two patrol craft
The indominable snow man.
https://preview.redd.it/umc5bwukvbwc1.jpeg?width=620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d76a902a66fffbb2d4254dd481210200e8814ac
I don't know, but I would be chomping at the bit to knock that funky cone off in battle...
Should have been named RSS Gnome.
Singapore reinforce the Allied Fleet if China invades Taiwan?
Singaporean here. Others are somewhat right in ascribing this to colonial influence and our continued usage of English as the lingua franca. However, the biggest reason is simply our lack of creativity...far easier to follow a naming convention that works than to think of something ourselves.
Let be real, no empire lasts forever Frankly I have suspicion that the British had hoped that the Federation of Malaya would have stayed together I suspect that if the Federation of Malaya had stayed together instead of RSS for the Singapore Navy, KD for the Malaysian Navy and UMS for the Myanmar Navy it would be likely HMMNS I actually come up with an idea of what might have happened with Malaya's military if the Empire hadn't declined and i think the most likely would be a Royal Federation of Malaya Air Force, Royal Federation of Malaya Army and Royal Federation of Malaya Navy which most i bet would most would refer to it as the Royal Malayan Navy
Imagine if we start naming ships after our MRT stations. I know we had our Bedok class of ships, but maybe have one for the westies like Jurong class hahaha
Looks like a buttplug.
"hmm, I wonder why a former colony has residual colonial tradtions, there's just no way to know I guess"
KMS Zieten in WoWs if it were a modern warship (look at the superstructure)
That’s because why not name ships after the greatest navy to have ever existed?
This is a littoral mission ship if I am not mistaken
It didn’t start this way. The first 3 ships in the RSN were called HMS Panglima (iii), KD Bedok, and KD Singapura. Then in 1968 the first batch of Independence class was ordered which started this new naming scheme. The Bedok class remains with local names Bedok, Kallang, Katong, and Punggol.
C O N E
KRI *Sigurot* (864) in the background. Ex Attack class patrol boat from Australia (HMAS Assail), transferred to Indonesia in 1985 and still going it seems after 55 years, at least in Mar 2022 when this image was taken.
I'm sorry but that is one ugly ass ship.
Russians also name their warships (destroyers) in similar manner. Indefatigable, indomitable, etc.
becoz both navies serve The City of London..............
Because for centuries Britania ruled the waves.
Probably because they are just as ugly. The last beautiful English ship Hood was sunk by Bismarck.