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Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "Drachinifel" channel.

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Thanks. I'd been aware for some time of the general nature of the battle but this very much added to my understanding of more of the details of what had gone on. As with the Japanese scouting bad luck at Midway - that kind of thing does happen. And yes - there is a vast difference between people trying to recreate a battle where they know what is going on and people in the real battle NOT really knowing what is going on. History is replete with examples of people making decisions based on what they thought was going on - rather than what was - much to their misfortune. What would have happened at Waterloo - if Grouchy had ridden to the sound of the guns? .
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@BB.61 Eh ... I think most of us just assumed that it couldn't take off again with all those people but since some people were asking about that I thought I'd be specific about it. I also posted a comment off the main link on this with the link to the Wikipedia Page on the Indianapolis loss - where I mentioned that this type of thing was done on other occasions by float planes that landed but then had to many people they were getting out of the water to take off again. There's some other incident where a PBY landed in rough seas to pick up a downed pilot but couldn't take off again in the current sea state. So the pilot and the PBY crew just sat in their Flying Boat which had a toilet and a kitchen and rode it out until the ocean flattened enough for them to take off again. All in a days work for that PBY crew. Sadly - that's one capability that has been lost with the end of Flying Boats in the USN & Coast Guard. .
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@deeznoots6241 Tactically - sending Force Z was ... not a good idea. It was two Capital Ships in the face of all of Japan's Navy. They were clearly not enough to protect British Interests. Anyone - including Churchill could see that. So - why did he send them? He sent them to send a message to the Japanese - that the days of the Chamberlain Government's Appeasement (as with the Burma Road) - were over. He sent them to let the Japanese KNOW that the UK WOULD fight them if they attacked. This is the same reason the Americans sent their battle fleet to Pearl Harbor from San Diego. Now - both these strategic moves by the US & UK - failed to deter the Japanese. They either had to pull back in China, to get the US to restore oil exports to them - or - run out of oil. The Japanese KNEW that going to war with the US & UK was tantamount to committing national suicide - BEFORE - the war started. They KNEW that. Yet - they chose national destruction over backing down to a colonial power - which in their eyes - was a slippery slope to becoming a colony. Committing these military forces strategically - was all that Roosevelt and Churchill could do - to try and dissuade the Japanese from doing something that both they and the Japanese KNEW would lead to Japan's destruction. It was all they could do - but it failed - and a lot more people died in that war than aboard those Capital Ships that were lost. So - these American and British Capital Ships were lost off Malaya and at Pearl Harbor - for Strategic Political Reasons. To paraphrase von K - war is politics by other means. How do you measure the loss of these ships and the men that were killed against the CHANCE that it might cause Japan to back down? That's one of the problems with being a President or Prime Minister. You get to make decisions like that - and people die because of them. .
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@deeznoots6241 The Choice seems to have been between Halifax and Churchill. Chamberlain wanted Halifax but Halifax didn't want the job and there might not have been support for him in Parliament. Thus - the GREAT thing about Churchill - was that he kept the UK in the war when Halifax wouldn't have. So - don't belittle those speeches. Yes, Winston was a pain in the ass about a lot of things and didn't know half as much as he thought he did - but - he kept the UK in the war and that was a MONUMENTAL contribution to ultimate victory. .
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Yeah ... sometimes things like that can make a real difference ... .
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@kentamitchell Yes. When the Russians did land troops in Japan it was AFTER the Japanese had surrendered. There is no way they could have conducted combat landings against an opposing force - unless - the USN did the transportation. The Japanese were ready to fight to the death - but - the Atom Bombs gave Hirohito the impetus to ask his nation to lay down it's arms. The Japanese Emperor's were much like the British Queen's and Kings of recent times and really mostly figure heads - but - they carried immense prestige. If they had interfered with the running of the country on a routine basis ... that would have diminished their prestige but - they didn't - so Hirohito had it there at the end and used it the one time - to stop his people from being killed. Americans and Japanese alike owe this one man an immense debt for all the lives he saved. .
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Yeah ... My and my friends used to Play Avalon Hill's - Jutland - game a lot when I was in High School so I'm fairly familiar with a lot of the ships that were in it. Same with the larger ships that were in the Midway game. So - it's always cool to see something about the History of my old friends. .
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Yeah ... we had a jury let O.J. Simpson off ... can't say much for that ... .
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@oceanhome2023 Argentina at the time was having some economic difficulties and it's leader took the islands to distract the public from that - which worked - but then they lost them and he wasn't around that much longer. .
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@marseldagistani1989 Eh ... not battleships but they did have some catamaran designs. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=navy+catamaran .
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"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_6#Verse_8 .
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@rutabagasteu Hmmm. Is that in reference to normal targeting procedure - or on how to avoid breaking the detonator? My understanding was that it was the dead on shots that broke the detonator but that the glancing shots might not break it.
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That PBY was NOT able to take off again, even after the survivors had been taken off by a destroyer - so it was destroyed. .
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The problem with losing guns is obvious but there were advantages If they were winning and the enemy running away - they had all their main guns up front to shoot at them. If they were losing and running away themselves - having the secondary armament on the stern put it in a good position to engage any enemy destroyers coming after them. .
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Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! "Manger to Counter Three. Discharging Karenade." .
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@sarjim4381 As to Coastal Defense Ships ... I don't believe the purpose of such ships was to stand up to major navies - so much as to simply have ... something ... so that such as pirates or other small powers didn't take advantage of a nation that was defenseless against any sort of naval power. Some form of Costal Artillery is fine as far as it will shoot but you need ... something ... that can go out to sea and protect your sea lanes against minor powers or criminal threats. A purely hypothetical example would be - suppose a small nation like Latvia and Finland got into it - and Finland had NO navy but Latvia had a small one. Latvia would have been able to blockade the Finish ports and that would have had an impact on negotiations to end the spat. Again - that's just a hypothetical example of what I mean - not something that was ever going to happen (as far as I know). And - pirates have always been a threat to any naval power vacuum. Often consisting of nothing more than opportunistic fishermen, out there on the open sea ... if there's no one around to stop them from doing it ... people with any sort of power over other people ... have a history of using it. Thus, pretty much all nations with a coast - have a navy - and some that only have rivers as well. Any where there is a power vacuum of any type - if some government doesn't step up to fill it - someone else will ... .
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Thanks. That was very interesting. I was aware of some of it but not all. Probably the best investment in Torpedo Bulges was to Saratoga ... There was actually a cartoon that was drawn where in a torpedo was headed towards the Saratoga , a destroyer was racing to intercept the torpedo and an exaggerated illustration of the Saratoga's Captain leaning out of the Bridge Yelling at the Destroyer "I've got it!!!" ... American Naval Humor ... .
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@SonsOfLorgar You are completely out of touch with reality. What all human interaction is about - is people doing what they perceive to be in their self interest - at the time. Little or no value is placed on being Moral. People have done what they did - mostly because - they could. Here - no one is any better than anyone else. Your snobbery is silly. You cry and whine about how the Indians were treated - so what? How did they treat each other? By and large the Indian Tribes treated the Whites the same way they had been treating each other for hundreds of years. Think about it. How can you be a Warrior Culture - if you don't have someone to fight? Every now and again - the Braves of a Tribe would get together and for a War Party. They'd go off looking for trouble. They'd come upon a situation and make a judgment call. Can we take them? If we can - how much will it cost? No. These guys are not worth it. We'll go find someone else. And off they'd go. They'd find some one else and it would be: Can we take them? Yes. And we can do it on the cheap. They'll be easy pickings. Then - they'd attack. They'd kill the enemy males, steal their animals, rape their women and then kidnap those of their women and children they thought they might take into their own tribe - putting the wombs of these women to work making babies for THEIR tribe instead of their enemies. The others they didn't want - they'd kill. That is how the Indian Tribes had been treating each other for HUNDREDS if not thousands of years before the Whites ever showed up. Once the Whites did - they treated them no differently. The problem for the Indians - was the Whites were better armed and better organized. That - and Europe was bursting at the seems with people to whom - Owning their own land - was an impossible dream. Those people flooded the New World and died in droves - but more kept coming. These people brought with them a level of technology that the Indians could not hope to match - PLUS - diseases the Indians had less resistance to. Those diseases killed large numbers of the Indians. This was not a plan. These people didn't think this up. They COULD NOT come over here and NOT bring their diseases with them. The other thing about this - is that these people hated each other. Tribe and been victimizing Tribe as far back as any of them could remember. Here - in this hatred - the Whites were just another Tribe - and they hated the Indians who had victimized their families and loved ones and friends and neighbors. So - yeah - they took to slaughtering the Indians when they got the chance - the same way the Indians had been slaughtering them. And - was this anything the Whites here in the New World were only doing to the Indians? No. This was no different than what the Whites had been doing to each other in Europe for thousands of years. Akkadians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Franks, Alans, Huns, Goths, Britons, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Angles, Saxons, Normans, Vikings, British, French, Dutch, Germans - they'd all been killing each other since the dawn of time. They were no different than the Indians about that. Look at how Cortes Conquered the Aztecs. Do you think that a few hundred Spanish were enough to conquer a nation the size of the Aztecs? No. Cortes conquered the Aztecs - because their neighbors all hated them. The Spanish were Shock Troops for an Alliance of Indian Tribes who - HATED - the Aztecs. During the American Indian Wars - the Lakota and Cheyenne had ganged up on the Crow and taken their land from them. The Crow - hated - them and allied themselves with the Whites. There was an American Army Officer who was trying to create Peace with the Lakota and Cheyenne. A number of their Chiefs came to his Camp to talk to him. The Crow on that base saw these Chiefs - and they killed them. Black Kettle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Kettle summed it up fairly well. He said that there were good White Men and Good Indians and that there were Bad White Men and Bad Indians but the Bad People kept getting the good people killed. At the Battle of the Washita a war party had attacked an Army Communications unit. Captain Benteen of the 7th Cavalry - under Custer - tracked the War Party to Black Kettle's Village, which it has passed through on it's way to it's own village. Whether or not they had done that to throw off the Army - is unknown. Benteen reported back - and the 7th attacked the Village - where Black Kettle was killed. Twice as many Whites were killed in the American Indian Wars as Indians - it's just that that didn't make a mole hills difference. At Little Big Horn, there were 6,000 Indians total with about 1500 Warriors. Custer had about 500 guys total - but only about 235 with him when he was killed. At Gettysburg - there were over 70,000 guys ON EACH SIDE . This isn't the poor victimized Indians being mistreated by the evil, vicious Whites. This just just people being people. The reason the Indians were forced onto Reservations - was to try and stop them from attacking each other and the Whites near by. As long as they were free to migrate north and south with the seasons - they could not be stopped from attacking people - Indian or White. The peoples of the New World were less technologically advanced that those in Europe, had less resistance to European Diseases and were vastly out numbered. Once European Naval Technology became advanced enough for them to begin exploring the World - the Indians of the New World were doomed. Stop being a silly little twit - and see the World the way it really is. .
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@sarjim4381 - Eric Bergerud said in Touched With Fire https://www.amazon.com/Touched-Fire-Land-South-Pacific/dp/0140246967/ref=sr_1_5?crid=980J35JO60ET&keywords=touched+by+fire&qid=1578507270&s=books&sprefix=Touched+by+Fire%2Caps%2C216&sr=1-5 That immediately after a unit was committed to the Jungle - it would begin to kill it and after 90 days - whether it had seen any action or not - the unit had to be withdrawn. Jack Kennedy, after the sinking of PT 109, was given a second boat and spent a good bit of time chasing barges and supporting the Marines - but - his medical condition got so bad that he was sent home and put in the hospital. When he was well enough to leave the hospital he was released from the Navy. In Africa, while the southern most portion wasn't that bad in the Central area Westerners died like flies from diseases the locals had become immune to. So - yeah - it could be pretty rough having to do a lot of strenuous stuff in an environment that was more than capable of killing you without all that. .
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Right after 9/11 - there was a British Warship that was passing an American Warship - and almost the entire crew of the British Ship Manned the Railings and Saluted. So - the gestures were not always competitive. .
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And - 3 years to the day later. .
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And about 50 years ago I spent many hours commanding this ship - and the rest of the High Seas Fleet playing Avalon Hill's - Jutland - about the same amount of time that had passed at that time, since the real battle of Jutland. .
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Yeah ... thanks. Learned some things I didn't know. I played the Avalon Hill Game Midway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_(1964_game) dozens of times with my High School War Gaming Buddies. We graduated to compass and protractor games of people playing in different rooms with moves put on vellum and sent to a judge. So ... seeing Kaga has some nostalgic value for me as many, many times I was either her commander or the opponent of her commander. With six fleet carriers and over 400 aircraft - Kido Butai was an extremely powerful naval strike force in the early months of WWII - that just went around stomping on people. Midway really changed things. .
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Except for once again wrongly referring to The Battle OFF Samar as The Battle of Samar - this was well done and very interesting. You don't hear that much about these ships after 12/7/41. .
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It's also a fact that the Dutch were up against the main German Army and not amphibiously landed troops. After Holland fell though - the Dutch fought on from exile and tried to resist the Japanese when they took their Asian Colonies. So - I'd hold my contempt for Holland. Regardless of what some informant had been telling them - they HAD sat out WWI and therefore had reason to believe that it could happen again - unlike Belgium. Belgium is the reason the allies lost in 1940. The Belgians had had previous discussions with the British and French about a future war with the Germans. There were plans for them all to cooperate - but - when Britain and France went to war with Germany after it attacked Poland - instead of inviting the British and French in to set up for the attack everyone knew was coming - they didn't. When a German staff aircraft on it's way to a planning meeting got lost and came down in Belgium - with the German plans - the Belgians gave those plans to the British and French. When asked if they wanted the British and French to come in and set up the Belgian response was "What?!? and violate our Neutrality?" IF there had been a line of French Infantry Corp through the Ardennes linked to the northern end of the Maginot Line (and IF the RAF had made a full commitment of it's fighter force to protecting the battlefield rather than Britain) the allies could have stopped the Germans. Before going into denial - Belgium had raised as large an army as it could support - but that wasn't large enough. They had all their main units in the north with but two cavalry divisions in the Ardennes. The Germans barely noticed them as they raced to Sedan. Then - the Belgian Army, holding part of the line next to the British - surrendered - exposing their position. Did the Belgian government go into exile and fight on - NO - it did not. Neither did France. So - compared to some of the other participants - at least the Dutch fought on while larger nations that should have been much more prepared - quit. Denmark and Holland were indefensible compared to Norway. I'd not however denigrate Norway's efforts. They were yet another small nation overwhelmed by the Germans. As to sitting back and depending on neutrality - that did work for Sweden and Switzerland. .
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@ottovonbismarck2443 Yes. Ajax was a Greek Warrior at the battle of Troy (according to the movie - killed by Hector though not so in the IIliad) - NOT the Greek God of War - who as mentioned - was Ares. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_the_Great .
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Well ... there were elements of both factors. There were people who claimed that no Battleship underway had ever been sunk by aircraft but there were also people who did recognize that things had changed. You should also remember that these ships actually did really well in defending themselves - it's just that the Japanese had over 40 aircraft. If the Japanese had had fewer aircraft they might have gotten away. These two capital ships were NOT just sent off without any attempts to provide them with air cover. First off they were supposed to have an aircraft carrier with them when they went to Singapore - but - it ran aground. Then - they were supposed to coordinate with the RAF at Singapore to provide air cover and that got fouled up. So, what I would say, was that the people involved in the decision making of the day - DID realize that things had changed - but - they didn't take that change seriously enough. It could have been decided to NOT send the surface ships unless they could come up with a Carrier to provide them with air cover - and - they COULD have made damn sure that the plans to provide them with land based air cover were better carried out. The trouble with that last is that it never seemed to work that well. The land based air was always to far away and communications were never good enough, that, and there wasn't enough time between the realization that they were under air attack and the time at which land based air could have gotten there. The only way to do that - would be to dilute your air cover by sending in small numbers to constantly patrol above the ships they were protecting and the coordination of something like that - wasn't something the people involved had ever really practiced a lot. The other factor in the losses suffered by the Western Allies was that ... they were in Japan's back yard and it could bring to bear the full weight of it's Armed Forces on whatever they had there. If the only criteria were the preservation of human life - then all the Westerners should have been evacuated. A lot of dependents, women and children - were - evacuated but politics was a factor here. If they had just evacuated EVERYONE that would have assured that there would have been an attack on their holdings. By keeping a military force there - they hoped to send a message that they WOULD fight and hence the Japanese should know better than to attack them - as ultimately the Western Powers DID have the strength to not only defeat Japan - but to destroy it. On the one hand - there were Japanese who DID know that and tried to prevent the war but there were others who felt that they had no choice but to attack - unless - they wanted to become yet another Western Colony. So - they did. .
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Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie also has a nice treatment of this. .
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@smokey1255 Yes - that occurred to me too. Actually though - they picked up the Japanese just after 0702 and they did report it. They'd just gotten a phone line installed and called the information center just like they were supposed to. The officer on duty though - knew - that there was a flight of B-17's coming in from the main land and figured that these were what they had picked up. That flight of B-17's did in fact come in during the raid and some of them were lost to the Japanese attacking the airfield. Watch the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" which has a good depiction of this incident. The 2001 Movie does to but it's not as good but I couldn't find that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5alr8yLZtI8 This is the Radar that made the detection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCR-270 This is the officer who said it was B-17's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Tyler This is a report from someone who knew the operators who did feel that they were ignored. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hz81I_3_AQ I don't doubt that the people this guy knew felt they had been ignored. They HAD tried to give a warning but - the system failed them. The officer making the decision was new and not well trained. The whole radar defense system (there was more than one radar - this is just the one that picked up the raid) was new and poorly trained. The military had sent officers to be trained by the British but didn't do a good job of trying to implement what they were taught. Basically - it comes down to the US having a Peace Time Military - that just wasn't Mentally ready to go to war. The USS Ward had attacked and sunk a Japanese Submarine trying to sneak into the Harbor - but - when they reported it - the officer who got the report thought it was yet another false report and didn't do anything. Despite repeated warnings Admiral Kimmel and General Short - failed - to have their commands ready and both were court marshaled. MacArthur who had 8 hours of warning AFTER the Pearl Harbor attack - also - failed in his defense of the Philippines was not court marshaled. .
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@philipjooste9075 Yeah. I'll bet that's it. "Engagements in Leyte Gulf and OFF Samar" is probably what did it. .
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Jonny B Uh ... no. China and Russia becoming a political block ... I don't see that. The Chinese - yes - depending. When Europeans complain about the Americans I tend to tell them to just wait until the Chinese are running things and see how they like that - but not in cooperation with the Russians. The thing is - Russia and China really don't have that good a history working together. The Russians tended to look down on the Chinese and the Chinese - look down on EVERYBODY ... We'll have to see how things shake out. Putin is running things now ... but ... he's not going to be running things forever - and given the somewhat iffy state of Russian Democracy ... I sure as hell don't know what's going to happen there in the future. The Chinese Communists have adopted a policy of having a Capitalistic Economy under Communist Political Rule but as seen repeatedly since the revolution - any time they started thinking they had a chance - the Democratic ideas of the population have come out. What happened in the Soviet Union was that a number of generations after the revolution - no one believed in it. The Party didn't believe in it. People joined The Party to advance their own lives - not to serve the "People". So - in contrast to the lives of people in the West - which they were aware of - the population was ready for the Soviet System to collapse. That was in fact the policy of Containment advocated by the NATO powers. After WWII as the Cold War became seen for what it was - rather than fight yet another major war - NATO adopted the strategy of making sure the Soviets never thought they could win - while waiting for the obvious flaws in their system to cause it to fail. And they were right. The thing that is different about China - is the acceptance of Capitalism in the economy. As long as they are able to meet the rising economic aspirations of the population ... they might last longer than the Soviet System did. We'll just have to see. If the Communists screw up big enough ... they could demonstrate that they have lost the Mandate of Heaven ... and find themselves undone. We'll see ... . .
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@WojciechP915 Ah yes. One of the joys of being a history nerd is the appreciation of the realizations of other history nerds. .
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@bluemarlin8138 Yeah. It's hard to say what might have happened if that runner hadn't made it from one bunker to the next - or - gotten to one a little sooner or left the other a little later ... .
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This is why Actors hate to be type cast. Get typecast as a conversion specialist and it just never ends. .
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The Magnetic Influence Exploders - like Magnetic Influence Mines - would detonate when a large metal object - like a ship - would create a disturbance in the Earth's Magnetic Field. The problem was - that the Earth's Magnetic Field - varied in strength at different places. Sometimes it would set the torpedoes off to soon - other times it wouldn't set them off at all. The idea - was to use the MIE's to set off the torpedo - UNDER - the target - so - they were set to run below their targets. Thus - if the MIE didn't se the torpedo off - it was already set to run under the target - so the contact exploder wouldn't have a chance to work. The thing was - that IF the Earths Magnetic Field was the same at the location of the target - as it was where the torpedo was calibrated - THEN - it would work. As anyone who has ever tried to deal with intermittent problems knows - they are a real pain in the ass to figure out. The only thing really wrong with the British and German Torpedoes - was the Magnetic Influence Exploders. They figured out right away that these did not work. When Warspite entered the fjord where it would sink all those German Destroyers - it sailed right by a U-Boat that fired 4 torpedoes at it. All four of these Torpedoes detonated prematurely because of the MIE's. On the way out of that fjord - the same U-Boat fired another 4 torpedoes at it - with the exact same results. When he got back to Germany - the Captain of that U-Boat went into headquarters and was literally pounding on a desk with his fists screaming at the top of his lungs - that he would NEVER use those MIE's again. Not only had the Germans missed a chance to sink a British Battleship - but - that ship had sunk 10 of their destroyers. All because the MIE's had failed to function properly. They stopped using them. Once the British and Germans stopped using the MIE's - their contact exploders worked fine and their torpedoes ran at the depth they were set at. Sometimes the MIE's worked. One sub had a destroyer bearing down on it and fired a torpedo at the destroyer. The MIE worked and broke the Destroyers back. Getting a contact hit on such a slim target as the bow of a destroyer was not likely. The MIE saved that sub. Still, the MIE's were deemed much more trouble than they were worth. The Mark XIV's also had problems with their depth settings and their contact exploders. Having multiple problems served to cause confusion as to what was wrong. Sometimes they did sink ships with them. Sometimes they didn't. Entirely due to the independent initiative of local commanders - they gradually came to figure things out - all in the face of instructions from above - not - to do so. Another problem they had - was that one of their Submarine Fleet Commanders had been in charge of the Torpedo Facility that designed and built the Mark XIV's - and refused to acknowledge that there was anything wrong with HIS torpedoes - even after the other Fleet Commander had shown that there was. The Mark XIV's had been tested two times against an obsolete sub used as a target. They failed one of those times. So - the US went into WWII - with a Torpedo with a 50% failure rate in the only testing it got. The reason they were not tested further - was the Depression. The Navy didn't want to spend the money on further tests. For one thing - torpedoes were expensive and they didn't want to expend them on tests. This was a very poor decision. .
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Yes ... the Americans tended to name their ships for political reasons - unless - they weren't considered important at the time. The important ships (at the time) - Battleships and Cruisers were named respectively after States and Cities - thus - hopefully from the Navy's point of view - gaining political support from these places for the Navy. However - aircraft carriers and submarines (before they were proven) - had some fanciful names early on like Wasp and Hornet or were named after previous ships (Enterprise) and battles (Saratoga). The Submarines were named after fish. But as these ships came to be seen to be important ... that changed after WWII. The first crack in the wall was naming a carrier after Franklin Roosevelt when he died then Forrestal after he died. You still had some of the older names like Saratoga, Ranger and Independence, then Kitty Hawk and Constellation, then Enterprise and America. Then you had the Kennedy after he died and that was the end of naming Carriers after anything but political figures. Rickover - changed naming the submarines after fish because "fish don't vote" - and began naming them after Cities, States and People. Thus - the American ships had good names for a while - but now anything of any importance is named after a person or a place. Those named after medal winners and such - also are intended to get support for the Navy from friends and relatives of the people they name the ships after - was well as their communities. .
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Yes. I noticed that too - thought not which class it was. This one being a heavy cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Helena_(CA-75) as opposed to This one which was the light cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Helena_(CL-50) .
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@7thsealord888 Don't forge HMS Glowworm, HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glowworm_(H92) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Acasta_(H09) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ardent_(H41) .
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It seems that Essex lost to Phoebe for a combination of two primary reasons. First - Phoebe was a little faster (which the loss of her main-topmast by Essex before the battle only made worse). Second - Phoebe had a lot higher percentage of long guns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Valpara%C3%ADso In contrast, Constitution survived largely because she was faster and like a Battle Cruiser - could run away from anything she didn't out gun and out gunned anything she couldn't run away from. .
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Yes. That is the 59 boat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrol_torpedo_boat_PT-59 In the movie PT 109 the incident where JFK participates in rescuing a Marine Diversionary Force - that had done it's job well and drawn Japanese Forces to attack it - was actually done with the 59 Boat. It's just that the name of the movie was PT-109 - so ... they simplified things - and had this mission happen before the 109 was sunk. Considering all the things Hollywood has done - this is far from the worst. Yes - the Navy had a policy of granting Survivors Leave for 30 days - to anyone who had been on a ship that was sunk. Kennedy - took a pass on this leave - and was given the 59 boat. His back was part of the reason he was sent home but the primary reason was all the tropical diseases he had. He'd lost 20 lbs and only weighted 145 lbs which isn't much for someone 6 ft. tall. They sent him to a local medical unit and from there they determined to just send him home. This was common place in that theater. In his book "Touched With Fire", Eric Bergerud mentioned that if you put a unit into the Jungle - the Jungle would start to kill it. Whether or not the unit saw any combat - in 90 days - it was used up and had be withdrawn to be reconstituted. After Kennedy got back home - he spent some time in a Hospital Recovering. When he was healthy enough to be released from the Hospital - the Navy determined that he was NOT healthy enough to resume duties in the Navy - and he was given an Honorable Discharge. This was not uncommonly done with casualties who - while no longer needing to be in a Hospital - were not ever going to be fully recovered - and were not people the Navy wanted to send into a Combat Zone - where they might just have to end up being sent back. Military Service is hard - and they wanted people sent out to at least be fully healthy at the start of their deployment. A modern example of Military Policy towards individuals health - is Joe Biden. When his deferments ran out - he was drafted. When he reported in for his medical exam - they determined he had Asthma - and they sent him home. .
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Yeah ... it doesn't pay to get to excited ... There was a ceremonial gun crew in New Orleans maybe 50 years ago - where the didn't swab out the gun properly - and the guy ramming the powder charge in - had the rammer blasted from his hands - taking part of them with it - when said powder charge encountered a still burning ember ... How Not to Lose Your Hand While Firing a Cannon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0yjU7Z05A4 Another example of getting to exited - is in Band of Brothers where one guy throws a grenade through a window - then charges in through a door before his grenade had detonated ... .
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@Solidboat123 Your comments on the age of the F-4's are irrelevant. All that would matter was if they could take on the aircraft the Argentinians had - not if they were as good as F-14's. As to the capability of the Harriers - you are aware I trust that ( many ) some of the Harriers they had were lost in operational accidents to the point they were trying to replace their losses ( with Army ) by putting Sidewinders on Gr3 RAF Harriers? And - VSTOL Being superior to CATOBAR because of weather? What reality are you in? That is pure bull shit. .
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The impression I got of Mahan's thinking was the observation that the important ships - were not your warships - but your merchant ships. The purpose of the warships - was to protect your merchant ships and attack the enemies - but - warships were in and of themselves ... not that useful to a nation. Thus - if you didn't have a merchant fleet or trade using others ships to protect and you didn't have an enemies merchant fleet to attack - you didn't really need a Navy - but if you did - then you did need one. Here - the Japanese did not really understand Mahan. They were amongst those who got the idea that what was important - was the Decisive Battle. Because of this - during WWII - they preserved their main fleet for that Decisive Battle - at the expense of losing earlier battles which the commitment of that fleet might have let them win. More importantly though was their neglect of warfare against the enemies lines of communication and a relatively weak attempt to protect their own. Thus the Japanese commitment of their submarines to trying to sink enemy warships. Here - they did have some major successes - but in contrast to the Germans - made insignificant efforts against Allied Convoys. On the flip side - Japanese ASW was woefully lacking. Here - at the beginning of the war when US torpedoes sucked - this didn't matter so much. Later on when the US got their various torpedo problems sorted ... US submarines were able to eviscerate their merchant ships and largely cut off Japan from the rest of the world. This last resulted in their not merely having a lack of fuel for their war machine but a lack of food for their people. I don't know enough about Mahan to say if this is in line with his thinking but my opinion of nations - is that Maritime Nations such as the US & UK are better strategic thinkers since Naval Warfare is inherently strategic. Land powers tend to lack that quality of strategic thinking. Thus - you have Germany in WWII driving all the way across Russia trying to get to the Oil in the Caucuses (yes I know it's more complicated than that) - when if they'd not attacked the Soviets - but turned the Med into an Axis lake - they could have gotten all the oil they wanted from the middle east - and then - at their leisure - attacked the Caucuses from the south ... In WWI - building the High Seas Fleet - made them a concern to Britain - which responded with a building program they couldn't match. To what end? Just what was it that the High Seas Fleet was going to do? There are those who think that if Wilhelm could have chosen between being Kaiser and being an Officer in the RN - he'd have chosen the RN. Of course, they weren't going to let him do any such thing so it was never a consideration - but - since he was Kaiser and he could just build his own Navy ... he did ... Then - going into Belgium was certain to bring Britain into the war. France by itself - they could beat as they had in 1870 but with the British (whom the French were begging to come in) they were not able to win. Then - they began unrestricted submarine warfare (not to mention that stupid telegram) - which they knew would bring in the Americans. Building the High Seas Fleet made Britain a potential enemy. British entering the war because of Belgium stopped them from winning. Americans entering the war guaranteed their defeat. And ... don't get me started on Ludendorff ... this is long enough. The Germans were fairly good operationally - but strategically - they were imbeciles. .
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The Mark 14''s were American Torpedoes. They would have used British Torpedoes. Now - the Americans, British and Germans all tried to get Magnetic Influence Torpedoes to work - but - they all gave up on it. The thing is - the Mark 14 torpedoes the Americans used had more problems than the Magnetic Influence Detonators - where as other than their failed Magnetic Influence Exploders - the German and British Torpedoes - were fine. .
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The actual fight (iirc) didn't go much better. The way I heard the story ... (this isn't - intended - to be a joke - as the way I was told the story - it was like this literally happened). The Iraqi Commander drives up in his tank to the Syrian HQ and goes in side. "What do you want me to do?" he asks. The Syrian Commander grabs his arms at the shoulders and looks him dead in the eyes. "Fight!" he says. The Iraqi Commander Salutes, about faces, goes out to this tank and gets in it, then he and his men ... drive on down to the battle. The problem was ... the Syrians there didn't know who these strange tanks were - and the Israelies didn't know who they were - so both sides shot at them. The Iraqi unit was quickly wiped out .... and with it Iraq's contribution to the Yom Kippur War. [Note: Subsequent research has indicated that the Iraqi force was not indeed wiped out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War#cite_note-335 ] .
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@Drachinifel One of the causes of the War of 1812 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812 was the pressing of American Sailors - at sea - who the British Believed to be British Sailors - into the RN. The stopping of American ships and pressing of members of their crews was not appreciated by the Former Colonies while the ex-Mother Country tended to claim the men were deserters. A number of American Sailors had experience with the RN - but - claimed to have completed their service. Each side disputed the reasoning of the other. .
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Yeah. Most people don't realize that WWII started in 1937 at the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo_Bridge_Incident .
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@genericpersonx333 OK. I see it all the time where you have people who cling to some theory partly because they believe in it and party because they don't want to be proven wrong. For the rest of it - yes - as mentioned here - there were some highly intelligent people wrestling with these issues and - some of them came up with solutions that were different than others. Here - one issue that deserves more thought - is that each of these groups of people were deciding what they were going to do - based on their nations priorities. The British, Americans, Japanese, French and Italians all had different perceptions of what they needed to prioritize. Italy, for example, never built any aircraft carriers because they considered their large boot of a nation, sticking right out into the middle of the Med. a sufficient aircraft carrier for their needs. They were wrong about that - but they weren't just being stupid. As with Force Z - land based air and naval forces just ... never were able to work together that well. In the '30's - you had all these people with all these theories ... and most of them were wrong. If you look at what those Air Power guys like Billy Mitchell and Douhet actually said - they were horribly wrong. Yes - Air Power turned out to be fantastically important - but NOT in the way these people had thought it would be. Some people have wondered about the naming the B-25 after Mitchell - since it being a Medium Bomber - it was just the kind of aircraft this Four Engine Minded Air Power Advocate hated (according to the person making that remark). [shrug] .
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Thanks. That was interesting. There were any number of ways and reasons for attacking the enemy. The Americans were focused on getting to where they could attack Japan Directly. Japan's Strategic Defensive Plan - was to create a series of Island Barriers - for Air Bases - that would screen Japan from being approached by enemy forces. The Americans were focused on penetrating those chains and capturing bases and anchorages from which to move on. One thing that the Allies wanted to do - was cut off Japan's supplies. Japan had launched the war to gain access to materials it didn't have. There were 3 ways to cut them off. Attack the Source of their Materials. Take bases astride their route home. Attack their shipping. The American Navy used submarines to attack their shipping. MacArthur took the Philippines. The British Empire attacked the Source. I knew a little about what the Australians had done but nothing about those carrier raids on the refineries. Thanks again. .
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@MUSIC7052 Don't let Elon hear you - he might just do it ... .
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