Comments by "William Cox" (@WildBillCox13) on "Tribal Class - Guide 025 (Human Voice)" video.

  1. I spoke on the absurdity of significant ASW capability being appended to the Fleet Destroyer concept in your video on the Atlanta class. I will make the point again for this excellent class of Fleet Destroyer. The last thing you want to do with a valuable warship, when in an enemy submarine operational zone, is leave it dead in the water (which cruisers and battleships had to do in order to recover floatplanes), or trawling along at very low speed and in straight lines. That latter is exactly the procedure for detecting and combating enemy submarines. Zut alors! But the Destroyer, you might well object, is the "Greyhound of the Sea"! She is neither slow, nor likely to move in straight lines . . . unless she is detailed to be left behind, holding a suspected enemy submarine at bay, while the more valuable component units in its task force escape. So we take a very fast, light, ship and make it do slow trawling . . . ASW trawling is done at 3-8 nauts per hour. Any faster and your hydrophones can't hear anything over the susurrus of the sea*. As for active SoNAR Illumination ("Pinging" SoNAR), world war 2 SoNAR illuminators had a very short effective range, i.e.: 100-200m to either side of the ship, except in very calm seas. When the carrier group suspects a submarine, it moves off at high speed, leaving behind a Fleet Destroyer or two to keep the enemy submarine at bay. While the tactic is effective enough as a deterrent to further interference from that particular enemy submarine, it also weakens the carrier group. Fleet Screening--especially carrier screening--requires your physical presence on site and, if your Fleet Destroyer is "back there somewhere", you aren't with the carrier(s). In a war of attrition that can be crucial. Two destroyers stripped from the enemy carrier group by one of your submarines . . . is a tactical victory. A cheaper, more expendable . . . no kidding . . . alternative was sought, and found, in the form of the ASW Frigate. Smaller, lighter in displacement, slower, optimised for the ASW Trawling Mission. An ASW Frigate doesn't need the same high speed performance as a Fleet Destroyer, and, in result, does not travel with the carrier group. Instead, the ASW Frigate sails with the Fleet Replenishment Train, which is composed of ships much slower than the Carrier group's Fleet Carriers, Fast Battleships, Cruisers . . . and Fleet Destroyers. The Fleet Destroyer merely waits for the ASW Frigate(s) to show up, then hands over to it (them) and races back to its intended role of Fleet Screening. That seems reasonable, doesn't it--to let specialist ships, more expendable ones, to boot, take the load off the Greyhounds of the Sea? Except . . . anyone remember that WW2 Carrier Air Wing Strike group that followed an enemy Destroyer back to its parent carrier group? Yep. I sure do. But, to make the Fleet Destroyer carry all that extra armament . . . its fantail overloaded with 30-50 500lb bombs . . . I mean Depth Charges . . . as if deck mounted torpedo ordnance wasn't enough risk on an unarmored ship already . . . is both superfluous and dumb. At best, the Fleet Destroyer only needs a few DC or a single Hedgehog to render it capable of its effort diverting ASW role. The ASW Frigate will soon be on the scene. What the Fleet Destroyer needs isn't more ASW ordnance--it needs more AA Dakka! *It's still like that today, btw.
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