Bolivian navy ship Overkill.
Overkill class stupendously overblown warship of extreme doom.
Following a series of wars in the last decades of the nineteenth century Bolivia had lost its entire coastline to the Chilean Republic. This, understandably irked the Bolivian government and several attempts to regain their former territory were made over the next years, both military, diplomatic and international efforts being tried but ultimately all failed. Bolivia watched with envy as its neighbours spent hideous sums of money on fleets of cruisers, destroyers, torpedo boats and even battleships. Wishing that they still had the coastline to justify the expense of having such a ship.
Enter Honest Abe McScrewer, chief salesman of the Vickers-Armstrong company to the South American nations. This remarkable man had already managed to sell several shippments of weapons in the form of Lee-Enfield rifles, horsedrawn artillery, Webley revolvers, siege guns, and even an airship, to various nations on the continent. For each weapon he sold he received a small commission. Which, for a twenty dollar rifle was just under fifty cents, a trivial sum, even when multiplied several thousand times. You see, McScrewer had enormous gambling debts and needed all the cash he could get.
Unfortunately for him the nations of Argentine, Brazil and Chile, the nations with the money to afford large warships, was outside of his territory, these nations being the area of operations for other Vickers-Armstrong representatives. Thus, the huge commission he would get from the sale of a proper battleship, or even a cruiser, was outside of his reach. Or so you would think. You see Honest Abe McScrewer was a very shrewd man, and he knew how to work people over.
In 1909 Abe went to the Bolivian government and informed them that Chile, and indeed all the other south American governments that could afford them, were buying the new Dreadnought battleships. And that if Bolivia ever wanted a coastline again they would need such ships. Afterall he argued, how could Chile refuse to give Bolivia its coastline back if Bolivia bought a battleship to defend their coast? The argument seemed to convince the Bolivian government. Even if similar speeches got him thrown out of the governments of Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Venezuela and Panama (though as Panama was also outside his territory he should have been thrown out) Bolivia thus ordered a battleship.
Abe then talked them into making this ship the biggest and baddest vessel afloat anywhere in the world. Insisting that the ship should mount enourmous fifteen inch guns at a time when the 13.5 inch was just being put on the latest British ships. He even advocated that four quadruple turrets should be used instead of mere twins or even evil triples. So within his power was the Bolivian government that they merrily went along with this ploy, despite the tremendous cost to develop the massive warship and Abe's untimely death in 1911 in an inland whale hunting accident (whale hunting being a popular pastime in Bolivia before their coastline was lost, and Bolivians being people to never give up a good thing the sport continues to be played to the present day, despite their being no recorded instances of a whale being killed in Bolivia)
The ship was only halfway complete when the great war kicked off and the ship would remain in such a state for the entirety of the war, the British not being crazy enough to complete her. After the war the Bolivians continued to pester the British to complete the ship, despite her massive cost, even naming the ship in English rather than Spanish as an homage to the man responsible for her construction. The ship was finally completed in 1921 and made the voyage to Bolivia in 1922 after fitting out.
Or at least she would have if Bolivia actually had a coast, which the nation did not. And no amount of begging Chile to give it back helped. In frustration the Bolivian government ordered the Overkill to attack the Chilean navy, which the ship did not as she still had a British crew that could not do so as citizens of the British empire. The ship also lacked any ammunition, which was something of a problem when you were ordered to fire on enemy vessels.
Nonetheless the Chileans intercepted the order to fire on their territory and sent out their own Dreadnought, the Latorre to duel the Bolivian monster. The ships British crew informed the captain of the Latorre of their situation and as a consequence the Chilean battleship ordered the British crew off the ship before using her hulk for target practice. Initial suggestions that the ship be brought into Chilean service being squashed when it was realized that there was literally no reason to have a ship this big, this slow (top speed of 12 knots due to the decision to carry only eight boilers and one engine to save cost) and this outrageously big. The ship was finally torpedoed by the Latorre after her crew got bored and with the Overkill sank the hopes and dreams of Bolivia ever again having a coastline.
Any Bolivians out there please don't be mad, this is just meant as a joke and if it helps I can say McScrewer was a witch.
