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

  1. Very, very, very well done. I especially liked the reading of the reports. These were competent, intelligent officers who were dealing with problems with the system and trying to get them fixed. Thank You, .
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  2. The Crew may have surrendered but the ship didn't ... .
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  3. One thing about the Japanese Cruiser Float Planes - they really made use of those. The idea was that they would do all their search patterns with the Cruiser Float Planes so that all the Carrier Planes could be saved for combat. .
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  4. The first years of the war - when Germany was Ascendant - were the most interesting - because - anything could happen. After 1941 - when the Germans had gone to war - by choice - with the Soviets in June and the Americans in December - they were DOOMED and nothing they could do was going to avoid that. So - with the end determined and only the route there to be decided - the rest of the war was much more predictable and therefore - less interesting than it had been (for Historians that is ... not for the people who were at that time - getting killed ....). This is not to say that it wasn't interesting - it was - just not as interesting as the first years when France Fell and Britain was desperate. So desperate in fact that they were glad to get 50 old destroyers - and were converting ships designed for hunting whales to hunt submarines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Pride Now - there's some desperation for you. Then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Churchill got his best night's sleep in a long while ... .
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  5. Leave it to the Russians to provide us with interesting history ... .
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  6. Yep. Escort did their job. An interesting account of the Battle. .
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  7. Thanks. It's interesting to see what they had in mind. .
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  8. One thing .. It's The Battle OFF Samar. Other than that you're right. Battle Cruisers. I base that primarily on the fight between Kirishima and Washington . Yes. Very much a Battle Ship tearing a Battle Cruiser apart. .
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  9. Another small ship with an interesting history. .
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  10.  @kidpagronprimsank05  You are of course - correct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_15_torpedo Thanks for catching my error. .
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  11. As a perspective on the fates of the pre-Essex class Carriers .... CV-1 - sunk CV-2 - sunk CV-3 - Survived the War - Seriously Damaged time and again CV-4 - Survived the War - to fragile - kept in the Atlantic CV-5 - Sunk CV-6 - Survived the War - Seriously Damaged time and again CV-7 - Sunk CV-8 - Sunk CV-9 on - though several were heavily damaged - no more Fleet Carriers were sunk CVL's - several were sunk and many seriously damaged CVE's - several were sunk and many seriously damaged Of course - none of the Japanese Carriers survived. .
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  12. Excellent. .
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  13. Yeah. They had all this stuff left over from WWII and were wondering what they could do with it. IIRC ... one thing they did was experiment with missile launchers on various ships including Submarines and Escort Carriers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic-Ford_JB-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSM-N-8_Regulus And Kentucky was considered as a Missile Battleship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Kentucky_(BB-66)#Guided_missile_battleship A lot of the benefit of such projects could be summed up as "They learned a lot ..." . .
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  14. Yeah. If ever there could be said to be a Winner to the First World War - it would be Serbia. They started it and millions died because of the war - but Serbia got to control what became Yugoslavia - (i.e. - The Balkans) which lasted a good long time (sort of). The Austro-Hungarian Empire was gone with nothing but tiny little Austria and tiny little Hungary in existence. Is it any wonder that most of their citizens welcomed union with Germany? .
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  15. It should be remembered why the torpedoes were so bad. The problem - was that it wasn't just one problem. 1) The Torpedoes ran deeper than set. 2) The contact exploder would break if hitting the target at a 90 degree angle instead of detonating the warhead. If the torpedo hit at an angle - then it ... might go off. 3) Torpedoes with Magnetic Influence exploders were designed to pass under the target and detonate there - doing the most damage. The problem here was the Earths Magnetic Field was inconsistent so that sometimes it would set the torpedo off before it reached the target and sometimes it wouldn't set it off at all. With the Torpedoes depth set for them to run under the ship for the Magnetic Influence Torpedo to do it's work - if the Magnetic Exploder didn't set it of - it was already set deep enough that it was intentionally passing under the target and the contact detonator wouldn't get a chance to work. Because of all these different problems - they were getting inconsistent results and had trouble recognizing what was happening. Also - at one point in time - the Officer Commanding the Submarines in one area - had been the Officer who had supervised the Torpedo Program that developed these Torpedoes - and refused to hear anything bad said against them. The crews of the subs were forbidden to modify the torpedoes but would do it anyway. One common trick was to disable the Magnetic Influence Exploders. There was a mark painted on the screws sealing the innards of the torpedo - but - the crews would repaint the ones they hadn't used when they came back to port. The problem here - was that the Torpedoes were still running deeper than set. This was determined by placing a harbor gate net out - and firing torpedoes through it. The holes made by the torpedoes showed how deep they were really running. Here - the crews would just set the torpedoes to run shallower - to get them to run at the proper depth. The faulty contact exploders were determined by winching torpedoes up with a crane - and then dropping them nose first onto steel or concrete (without of course any explosives). This showed that the contact exploders were breaking. These Torpedoes - because of budgets and lack of suitable targets - were only tested twice - and - one of those two torpedoes ran right under the old submarine that was the target. So the Americans entered WWII with a Torpedo that during testing had a 50% failure rate. The magnetic exploders had been repeatedly tested but without explosives so the torpedoes could be recovered, examined and used again. All these tests had been done at a part of the Earth where the Magnetic Field in the testing area was the same as that where they had been calibrated. The British and the Germans both tried to use Magnetic Exploders as well and neither of them could make them work either. One U Boat Captain fired multiple torpedoes at the Warspite as it was entering the Fjord to Narvik and they all exploded to soon. He then repeated the same thing as the Warspite left with the same results. My understanding - is that this Captain was literally pounding his fist on someone's desk when he got back and adamantly refusing to ever use Magnetic Influence Exploders ever again. Fortunately for the Germans and the British - their contact exploders worked and their torpedoes ran at the depth they were set at ..
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  16. Read "To War In A String Bag" https://www.amazon.com/War-Stringbag-Charles-Lamb/dp/0553136542 .
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  17. I like that picture at the end of Nimitz and Eisenhower. They're looking at each other as if thinking "Thank God. Someone I have to deal with who isn't an idiot." A few other things. Kimmel had ordered, I believe Lexington , act as a "Diversion" while Saratoga tried to relieve Wake. If_Lexington_ had been with Saratoga they might have had a better chance to deal with the Japanese there. As to MacArthur - it just made sense that the Army was in command in New Guinea since it's a pretty big island and a lot of what happened there was land based. Also, much of the Allied Troops on New Guinea were from the Australian Army. Another part of the problem the Navy had - was that they didn't have good charts for that area - and were concerned about sending ships into waters where they might have a problem. Here, MacArthur's forces organized a large number of smaller boats that were more suited and to some extent more familiar with the waters around New Guinea to carry their supplies and reinforcements around the island to the north side of it, in addition to the ships the Navy did provide. Much of what acted in support of the Army - was it's Air Power. As to the Army on Guadalcanal - it was on Guadalcanal. Recently arrived Army troops from the 25th Infantry Division - were in fact employed in defeating one of the Japanese offensives. In addition to reinforcing the Marines - the Army also eventually relieved them. The Jungle tends to use units up - and after a while - the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions had been largely used up and needed to be withdrawn. It was the Army which finished the occupation of the island. .
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  18. Thanks. It's interesting to hear about these ships - that you seldom hear about. .
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  19. You have two things First you have a general category of Destroyer, Cruiser, Battle Cruiser, Battleship Then you have a Specific Class Scharnhorst, Lexington, Invincible While you do have subcategories for Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships - there weren't enough Battle Cruisers to create a sub category - other than the specific class of the ship. Pretty much anything bigger than a cruiser and smaller than a battleship - is lumped into the Battle Cruiser category - where making category distinctions that are more granular a waste of time. If you're going to get more granular - you may as well simply refer to the class of the ship because the distinctions that would put a ship in a more granular category are going to, by and large, be reflected by the specific class the ship was in. Thus the Alaska's with their 12" guns are as much Battle Cruisers as the Scharnhorsts with their 11" guns and yet so are ships like the Repulse with 15" guns. Ships like the Graf Spees are really just their own class but can be lumped into the Battle Cruiser category by their 11" guns which they have in common with the Scharnhorsts. Then you have one off ships like - The Hood. How can you get more granular than - The Hood? The primary criteria that made something a Battle Cruiser was Speed, Size, Armor and Fire Power. These could vary with their era - so that early Dreadnought Battle Cruisers were no comparison to the later Battle Cruisers. These later ships would often have more Speed, but Armor and Fire Power more like the Battleships of earlier era's. Thus the Hood and the Kondos being Battle Cruisers despite Hood's attributes and the re-classification of the Kondos as Battleships. The Kondos weren't Battleships ... .
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  20. Yeah ... had a friend who had been on the Gambier Bay Off Samar ... those guys were in the water over a day, even though there were a lot of friendly ships about. I failed the water survival test in boot camp. They had this thing where you were supposed to take a big breath and go limp, then just float with your face in the water. Then, when it was time to breath, you'd use your arms and legs to push yourself up through the water as you were breathing out. You'd get a lung full of air, then go limp in the water again. I had bronchitis in boot camp so - I couldn't hold my breath but I didn't try to swim to the side - as they'd just kick you back out into the water if you did that (which is how people drown every now and again during these water survival classes when the instructors misjudge someone's condition ...). But - the next time we took the class it was on a pleasant summer's day - when I could actually hold my breath and I passed it with ease. I wasn't trained to tie off my pants legs but my ex-brother in law was when he went through Navy boot camp. Most of us will never be part of the sinking of a warship but - being involved in a boating accident is much more likely as in addition to oceans and seas, there are lakes and rivers every where and a lot of people have small boats. One thing you want to do as a parent - is make damn sure your kids take swimming classes. My Dad was in the Marines so - with the exception of the time he was stationed in Waterloo, Iowa - we were very close to the water and as kids spent a lot of time in it. I've had a little experience with turned over boats and being familiar with the water - makes these things into problems rather than emergencies. As a ten or eleven year old we were playing with this aluminum boat out on the river when we over turned it. I can remember we could swim up inside it and breath. We tried to turn it right side up, there were about six of us - but we couldn't do it and just towed the boat back to shore. When I was in High School I took a sailing class and turned my Sabot over. Had to swim underneath and get the mast out of it's slot because it was sticking in the mud. After that I just towed the boat back to shore and hosed the mud off the sail. You really see what a difference messing about in the water as a kid makes in the story of Jack Kennedy and PT-109. He grew up on the water and so - he just took charge of his crew - had them make flotation devices to attach their stuff to, then towed his badly burned crewman by taking a strap from the guys life vest in his teeth and towing him along. They'd swim several miles from the boat to one island and another - then he and the other officers alternated swimming out to where they thought their units would be patrolling with a battle lantern. You can see all that in the movie PT-109. He really did all those things. Again - familiarity with the water turned his situation into a problem rather than an emergency ... which if your boat has been cut in half by a destroyer - is something of an accomplishment in and of itself. His brother, Teddy, after driving accidentally off a pier and drowning this girl he had in the car with him then swam across the river to get home. So - there's a lot to be said for learning how to swim. .
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  21. Didn't see a Thumbnail for this one. Just 3 dots. Yes. One more in the long list of Ships That Never Were. .
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  22.  @pommunist  Well ... since it probably would have run aground first - quite a bit ... .
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  23.  @dovetonsturdee7033  Ha! Ha! Ha! Yeah ... Tora! Tora! Tora! which was one of the best of the "Great Battles" movies ever made but it was a box office flop, whereas this thing did really well and made a lot of money(!). [shrug] Pearls before swine. .
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  24. U571 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_(film) .
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  25. I was just looking at a video on the SBD Dauntless in European Waters and saw one of the same pictures - of SBD's on one of the Escort Carriers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbG5bkzdH8Q .
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  26.  @redjive_industries3760  And - which branch of the military did YOU serve in? Or ... Are you one of those non-vets who think they know anything at all about being a Veteran - when they don't? Restricting the Franchise to those who have actually DEMONSTRATED a sense of responsibility to the Nation by serving it - is actually a really good idea. Look at the silly little shits you have running for President in the US now. Of course - it would never work - because to many greedy, silly little shits would resent being told what to do by those who knew something about what they were doing. The last thing a silly little shit is every going to admit - is that they are a silly little shit. It could however hardly be worse than what we have now. Oh ... and for myself that would be USMC 1970-1972. .
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  27. Tactics aside - Lawrence's biggest mistake was taking on Shannon in the first place. The RN had lots of Frigates - it didn't really matter if they lost one - if they could damage a Commerce Raider and have them being repaired - as long as they were not out there Commerce Raiding - the RN had won. If they beat the Commerce Raider - so much the better. That is why Brooke was issuing those Challenges. It wasn't important whether or not he won - it was important that he do enough damage to send the Commerce Raider back to port for repairs. The RN had lots of Frigates. What it wanted to prevent - was Commerce Raiders harming it's Shipping. The American Navy did NOT have lots of Frigates so each one it lost was a significant part of it's Navy - and - a significant blow to it's ability to Raid British Commerce. .
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  28.  @bkjeong4302  Well that's where you are wrong. The issue of Aircraft Ascendancy was NOT demonstrated until 1942 during the great carrier battles. THAT is when the change over was demonstrated. THAT is when aircraft really showed what they could do. Before that it was just a theory. AND Surface action still ruled the night and bad weather. Aircraft may have ruled the daylight hours but surface forces still ruled the night - and would throughout the war. Serious night time carrier strikes were not something that was seen until the Vietnam war and even then - only with a small number of aircraft designed to be Intruders (like the A6 ... Intruder). After the big day at Midway - Japanese forces tried to catch the Americans at night - and - because the Americans did not have sufficient surface forces to engage the Japanese at night - Spruance elected NOT to pursue the Japanese fleet - and - they got away. So - if Battleships - which the Japanese had at Midway and the Americans did not - could dictate night time actions - they were still a very relevant naval force. There were two series of Great Naval Battles going on concurrently in 1942 - one during the day by the Aircraft Carriers - the other at night by surface forces. The main ships doing the fighting and taking the losses during the day - were the aircraft carriers themselves - and each side whittled the other down to the point that both sides were afraid to use what carriers they had left for fear of having none at all. Submarines also played an important role against warships during the day light hours, inflicting losses on all types of vessels, Carrier and Battleship alike. The vast majority of the approximately 50 ships SUNK during the night time engagements were primarily due to surface action. Some ships - such as Hiei - were in fact sunk during the day light hours by aircraft - BUT - it was a night time surface action that crippled them and made them easy pickings for the planes once the sun came up. Conversely, Bismarck was crippled by an aircraft - but - it was sunk by other battleships. So - your contention - that the only time that mattered - was the day time - is demonstrably wrong. On average, depending on where you are and the time of year - it is dark half the time - and when it was dark during WWII - aircraft were severely limited. As to those Battleships you listed as having "no clear purpose" the fact that Surface Forces still ruled the night - and Battleships were still Top Dogs of the night - shows that you were wrong. Also - 1943 - saw a lot of surface action as well, (though on a smaller scale than '42) and it wasn't until late '43 and into '44 that the American Carrier Forces regained the strength they'd lost during '42. The Japanese Carrier Forces NEVER regained their strength and the Japanese surface forces never recovered either. Because of what had happened during the early war - it had NOT been demonstrated that there was no need for these ships. A number of ships WERE canceled but those that were near completion were finished and did see a lot of use during the war. Some of the Iowa's would have been off San Bernadino Strait when Kurita came through there - if Halsey had left them there to guard it like he was supposed to. I'd say that alone would demonstrate a "clear purpose". Then of course you have the last battleship action in history at Suriago Strait - at night. So - your contentions - that people should have known what was going to happen in the late 1930's are preposterous. .
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  29. ​ @bkjeong4302  OK ... we should identify just what it is that we are arguing about. My understanding - is that we are arguing about whether or not the people who designed these WWII Navies - were stupid. Your contention seems to be that they were stupid - mine was that they were not. We are not arguing about the Aircraft Carriers coming to replace Battleships as the main Capital ships of the fleet. We both agree that that is what happened - and for good reason. In denigrating the Battleship though to try and make the people who built them seem stupid - you have dismissed some of the very real contributions that they did in fact make - even though these were NOT the missions they were designed for. Each time I point out something the Battleships did - you reply that it could have been done in a more cost effective way by something else. My arguments here - has repeatedly been - that the Battleships had already been built, though for a different purpose than they were mostly used for - so that it didn't matter how much it cost to build them - because they had already been built. Your argument for the stupidity of these people was that they SHOULD have known that Aircraft Carriers were going to replace Battleships. My argument is that this is all 20/20 Hindsight on your part. When these Navies were designed - it was not as clear then that Aircraft Carriers were going to replace Battleships - and therefore - that these people, operating with what they knew at the time - were not stupid people - they just couldn't predict what was going to happen in the near future. If you look at what these ships were originally designed to do - the Battleships WERE cost effective in their role - AND - the Cruisers WERE cost effective in their role. Battleships were designed to be the Capital Ships of a Naval Gun Fire Fleet. If you look at the $100 million cost of the Battleships and the $40 million cost of the Cruisers - you get 2.5 Cruisers for each Battleship. But - the Main Gun weight of fire per minute of the one Battleship would be 5400 lbs per min whereas the Main Gun Weight of fire of the 2.5 Cruisers would be 1,340 lb. per min. Then if you look at the Secondary Weight of fire - that used for Anti-Aircraft Defense - you get For the Battleship 20 × 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal 80 × 40 mm/56 cal anti-aircraft guns 49 × 20 mm/70 cal anti-aircraft guns For the 2.5 Cruisers 30 = 12 × 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal guns x 2.5 120= 48 × Bofors 40 mm guns x 2.5 55 = 22 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons x 2.5 So - what does that tell us? It tells us that for the money - as designed - Battleships make better Capital Ships than Cruisers and Cruisers make better Escorts than Battleships. So - the people designing these ships to full fill their roles - knew what they were doing. They were not stupid people. The REASON that they weren't able to see the future - is because they were caught in a transition period between one technology and another. If you look at the capabilities of aircraft at the beginning of WWII - as I have tried repeatedly to point out - it was not that clear what would happen during the course of that war. It was only in the early battles of the war - that people could see what aircraft were really capable of - even if, early in the war, what they were seeing was things these aircraft were barely capable of. As aircraft technology - and the techniques their crews developed to use it - improved, aircraft became much, much more capable. It is common place for people looking at history to judge historical characters with 20/20 Hindsight - when such judgments are bull shit. They weren't stupid people just because they couldn't see what was going to happen. Think about it. Say you've spent your whole life learning how to do something and you have become very, very skilled at using the tools you had to do that. Then - something changes. New Technologies evolve and the knowledge you had accumulated over a life time - is now marginalized. How quickly would you adapt? .
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  30.  @bkjeong4302  1) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 2) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 3) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 4) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 5) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 6) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 7) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 8) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 9) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 10) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 11) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. 12) The expense didn't matter because they had already spent the money. Have I said that enough times that you will stop talking about the expense entailed in something that was already built? What does it take for you to realize that? Or is this some kind of uncontrollable Bean Counters Reflex action? The Expense! The Expense! The Expense! You know what was a complete waste of German Resources? The whole German Navy - U-Boats included. In WWI all the U-Boats did was bring the Americans into the war and in WWII - that is where things were headed in the Atlantic. The American public wanted nothing to do with yet another European War. The very worst thing the Germans could possibly do was antagonize the Americans. Maybe - YOU being a genius and all - YOU would have figured out that Aircraft Carriers were going to replace Battleships sooner - but - THEY DIDN'T and everything I said was an explanation as to why they might not have realized that. And - even with Aircraft replacing them - there were still some fights between surface warships - some of it - including Battleships. Now - YOU being the one that is insistent that they continued to build Battleships long after they should have quit. YOU look it up and tell me just how many Battleships were LAID DOWN after 1941. Go on. Look it up. I'm not going to bother but since YOU are the one insisting that these people were so stupid that they kept building Battleships - YOU tell me how many were LAID DOWN after 1941. Oh ... and at Leyte - most of the troops had been landed - but - they still needed to be supplied. Surely you are not stupid enough to think that it wouldn't matter if their transports supplying them were driven off or sunk. And - just what the hell do you think their objective was? To stop the landings? They weren't going to do that. To ... sink the American Navy? They weren't going to do that. JAPAN's objective - was to bleed the Americans. Their whole strategy from before Pearl Harbor - was that they would bleed the Americans - and the Americans would quit (like we did in Vietnam). So - Kurita's mistake was saving his ships. He couldn't supply the ships where the fuel was with ammunition and he couldn't supply the ships where the ammunition was with fuel. After Leyte Gulf - the Japanese Navy played no real part in the war. So - what he should have done was expend his ships there. We won't ever know what would have happened but - we do know what happened when he left. As to Battleships not playing a part in the Med? If they were so useless why did the British go after them at Toronto and why did the Italian swimmers go after them in Alexandria and hit Gibraltar as well. You have been wrong in all your characterization of the Battleship usefulness - why should I accept anything you have to say about the role they played in the Med. .
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  31.  @bkjeong4302  You are operating with 20/20 Hindsight. As I tried to say - the people at the start of WWII didn't know how much things had changed. If you look at some of the things that were done at the beginning of WWII - they are rinky-dink compared to what was done later. As I said - look at what those two Battle Cruisers did commerce raiding at the beginning of the war. Anyone seeing that - would think that - "Hey - that worked really well." Look at the Bismarck. It almost got away with it. If it hadn't been for it being stupidly designed with 3 screws AND taking a steering hit AND having detached it's Heavy Cruiser - it might have made it back to port. Look at Prince of Wales and Repulse. They might well have survived but for poor coordination with the RAF and - the fact that the carrier that was supposed to be with them had run aground before they left for the Pacific. Those bombers that sank those ships had no fighter escort. Look at the British and the Italians in the Med. There were a lot of engagements between their surface ships - and - surface ships that survived a lot of air attacks by the Italian Air Force. So - all of this isn't as obvious as you might think. As to Samar - yeah - the Japanese were heavily engaged by the Taffy's - but - it was Kurita's mistakes that kept the Japanese from doing more than they did. Here's a Might Have Been Video on that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJJWG0viaZQ. The mistake YOU are making is thinking these people were stupid for not seeing all this. They weren't stupid and you aren't brilliant. YOU just have the benefit of 20/20 Hindsight. And - Bean Counters are stupid ass holes who want to save money at the cost of peoples lives. Let's just be straight about that. And - the cost comparison between Cruisers and Battleships AS escorts is a false one. What you really had - was big expensive Battleships being escorted by Cruisers replaced with big expensive Carriers being escorted by Cruisers. There was NEVER a case where someone was making a financial choice between having Cruisers as Escorts as opposed to having Battleships as Escorts. As I have said repeatedly - the only reason you had Battleships acting as escorts - is because they already had them. No one EVER built a Battleship to BE an escort. Battleships were built to BE escorted. Battleships were Capital Ships. Aircraft Carriers were Capital ships. You could have one Capital Ship Escorting another Capital ship - but no one had built it for that purpose. So - not building Battleships had NOTHING to do with how many Cruisers you built. Not building Battleships - translated into building more Aircraft Carriers - not Cruisers. .
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  32. ​ @bkjeong4302  No. That's just more bull shit. It's like this: 1) They Built Battleships to fight each other - and they had a bunch of them. 2) They could also use them for other things - and so they did. Get your head out of your bean counting ass. Quit talking about the cost of things - because that didn't fucking matter during the war. It mattered BEFORE the war. It mattered AFTER the war - but it was fucking meaningless DURING the war. Once the war got going - they mostly fought it with what they already had - or what was building. At the beginning of the war they were still building Battleships because - NO ONE knew that air power was going to become ascendant. You had Air Power Prophets like Mitchell and Douhet - but those guys were as full of shit as the people who said Air Power was worthless. The Air Power Prophets were claiming that Air Planes Could do EVERYTHING(!!!!!) I mean - actually read some of the shit these guys wrote and it's all just bull shit that NEVER happened. And - get the idea out of your head that you know something about how carrier operations are supposed to be run. At the beginning of the war - no one knew how they were supposed to be run - so they just made things up as they went along. Look at the Second Night of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. The Americans had been using South Dakota and Washington to escort their carriers - so - they needed surface ships to protect Henderson Field from another bombardment - and had all their cruisers and most of their destroyers all shot up from the first night. So - they detached the two Battleships and sent them in. After the battle South Dakota was shot up - so it left - but Washington went right back to escorting the Carriers. The other thing they did was escort Convoys - a lot. At the beginning of the war - the Germans did a lot of surface raiding. The same ships that sank Glorious had a fairly successful run. Then they tried it with Bismarck and things didn't go so well - thanks to aircraft ... But they didn't give up. Scharnhorst was sent to attack a convoy - and that convoy had Duke of York as an escort so it sank her. YOU DON'T FUCKING KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN. So this idea that - "Oh ... well ... we're smart and not stupid and so we won't ever let the enemy surprise us with a surface action" is bull shit. You don't know. People make mistakes. D'Oyly-Hughes - made some mistakes - but - if he'd had a battleship as an escort - his mistakes wouldn't have cost the UK his ship. Look at The Battle Off Samar - Halsey had made plans to leave his battleships to guard the San Bernadino Strait - but - then he didn't do it. The Japanese turned around - came through the Strait where Halsey's battleships weren't - and fell on Taffy 3 ... with THEIR battleships. Here - Kurita made up for Halsey's mistake with a bunch of his own. Talking about the cost of Battleships vs. Cruisers - is irrelevant. It didn't matter what the Battleships cost - because they had ALREADY spent the money. Since they had already spent the money - they may as well use them. Trust me - no one was thinking "Well ... we could just leave our Battleships in port so we don't take them out and scratch the paint ... But NO! We need to show a return on our investment!! Lets go find a use for those Battleships!!!" They had plenty of uses for those Battleships. They stopped building them - and did just use Cruisers as escorts for Carriers After the war - but - as long as they had them - why the fuck NOT use them? Stop looking at this like an accountant - and look at it like a historian. WWII was a transitive period. Battleships were still seen - with reason - as powerful ships. Carrier aircraft and operations were nothing like they were at the end of the war - at the beginning. So the people who didn't KNOW what was going to happen weren't stupid people - they just hadn't seen how all the things developed in the inter-war years would shake out. Look at tanks. Who at the beginning of WWII really knew how they would work out? Yeah - a few guys had some idea - but even those guys learned things during the course of the war - so that armored operations at the end of the war were nothing like they were at the beginning. .
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  33.  @bkjeong4302  Unh ... bull shit. Glorious was only 1 knot faster than Scharnhorst (because of boiler problems) and 1 knot slower than Gneisenau. So it couldn't just turn a way, fluff it's skirt at the two Battle Cruisers and leave. The Germans, not deterred by the escorts smoke, were able to get radar controlled hits on the ship and after that it couldn't launch. Then it's speed fell off, it took a steering hit and that was the end of that ... . Her escorts were sunk and so was she. Regardless of the wisdom of it's Captain - if it had had a Battleship Escort instead of just two destroyers - it probably would have survived. As to AA Support - it is going to depend on which ship you are talking about as the Kongo class were never going to have the AA of a ship like the South Dakota - but - all the American Battleships had substantial AA - more so than cruisers - that - and they had the AA support of cruisers - and - destroyers too. American Cruisers had 10 or 12 x 5"/38 dual purpose guns. American Battleships had 20 5"/38 dual purpose guns. As to Battleships not living up to expectations - perhaps it was the expectations that were to high. That - and the stage of the war at which things happened. Once they got proximity shells that concentrated AA fire was more effective. So - the Battleship could provide BOTH escort against fast surface ships and air craft. Now - escorting Aircraft Carriers was not the reason Battleships were built - they were built to fight other Battleships - and sometimes they did but as long as they had them - carrier escort and shore bombardment were mostly what Battleships did. As long as you had the Kongo Class and they could keep up with the Carriers - why not use them? .
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  34. Yes. These ships, because of their speed, saw extensive service in the early days of WWII as carrier escorts and shore bombardment. They bombarded Henderson Field on Guadalcanal because they were fast enough to run down the slot, do their bombardment and then run back up out of range of it's aircraft before the sun came up. The second time they tried that the Hiei sufferend a steering hit - thus the picture of her steaming in a circle and wasn't able to clear the area - and was eventually, after a number of attacks, sunk. The next time Kirishima got into it with South Dakota - where, after an 8" shell hit from the cruiser with Kirishima, a damage control man threw the wrong switch that killed the South Dakota's power. They fixed that - but South Dakota took a lot of super structure damage while that was going on. This does NOT mean that the Kirishima would have won a one on one duel as South Dakota still completely outclassed her once power was restored. The issue was moot though as Washington (unknown to the Japanese) was there and when her sixteen inch guns opened fire they simply tore Kirishima (yes - she was still a Battle Cruiser) apart. .
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  35. Good job. .
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  36. Ah yes ... yet another story of Communists not having any idea what they were doing but pressing onward nonetheless ... Well ... at least they didn't kill between 15 and 50 million people by accident like the Chinese did during the Great Leap Forward ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine .
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  37. (IIRC) the maritime aviation at the Battle of Jutland consisted of a number of Zeppelin's out looking for the British Fleet and a British Float Plane Carrier out looking for the Germans. They found each other. So - (myself not recalling where the carriers float planes were) - the Zeppelin which found the Float Plane Carrier proceeded to try and bomb it - but wasn't having much luck hitting the moving ship. The Zeppelins crew was however bemused by the fact that the British had a lot of Riflemen out on deck shooting at them. This was funny until the Zeppelin began to lose altitude due to all the bullet holes put in it's gas bags. At that point - it was time to leave. .
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  38. Thanks. I was aware of that in general but not in a graphical presentation. Yes ... here we have the Greatest Industrial Effort in History. .
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  39.  @solus48  You might want to adjust your punctuation and spelling here. The thanks at the end is probably enough for people to realize you are NOT cursing him but some might be confused. I would suggest something like: "Damn! It's The Nathan Okun! Thanks for the information." Something like that ... .
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  40. For what it's worth ... In my old group of beer drinking and war gaming buddies - there was one guy who had developed his own set of naval combat rules - which we used - and he was in agreement with you about those 18.1 inch guns vs. the 16" guns on the Iowas. .
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  41. There's a human thing that goes - "if you aren't the best - you are shit" that the Italians have a problem with. Of course - this is bull shit but - there are a lot of things about human beings that are bull shit. A more balanced look at the Axis Powers was that Italy rated about as good at the Japanese and better than the Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians. The Japanese had a much better Navy than the Italians but a much poorer Army. All of them were poorly equipped. The biggest problem all the Axis powers had was that they were allies with the Germans instead of the Americans. The Americans could not only nearly fully motorize their own army but contribute substantially to the motorization of the British, French and Russian Armies and - supply them with fuel. The Germans weren't capable of motorizing even a majority of their own Army - much less all of it - and did in fact have to de-motorize units as the war went on because of a lack of equipment and fuel. It's not like the Germans ever gave their allies anything - it's just that in comparison with what the Americans gave their allies - it really wasn't much at all. The thing is - none of the Axis Nations was ever prepared for WWII and none of them should have engaged in it. Of chief importance was the fact that not one of them had anything like enough oil to be going to war with anybody like who they did go to war with. The other thing is - that none of the Axis Powers was able to replace their losses. As the war progressed their enemies got stronger and they got weaker. While there was some real competence exhibited by some of the Axis Militaries much of their success was due as much to political bungling by their opponents as it was to their own prowess. In the West - the Belgians acted like utter imbeciles. The Dutch had some reason to believe that they could sit out WWII since they had been neutral in WWI but EVERYONE knew that the Germans were going to go through Belgium because they HAD gone through Belgium in WWI. For the Belgians to not beg the British and the French to come into their country to defend it the moment the Germans went into Poland was the height of stupidity. And yet, even after a lost German communications air craft came down in Belgium WITH the plans to attack Belgium - while they did show the plans to the British and the French they still idiotically clung to their neutrality. May 1940 could have been vastly different if there had been a line of French Infantry Corps going through the Ardennes instead of almost nobody. Once the British were by themselves and the Germans controlled the continent - then - until the Germans threw it all away in 1941 they were winning the war. So ... here's Italy, trying to play technological catch up and not having the ability to do it. Their stuff ... "wasn't that bad" ... but it was never the equal of the people they were fighting. They were always ... just a little bit behind. They improved - but by the time their improvements were deployed - they had become obsolete relative to others and the Italians were still behind the curve. As with the other Axis nations, after Taranto - the Italian Navy was never able to recover. Not having Naval Radar was a decisive disadvantage. Not to mention not having sonar!!!!! I had no idea about that! Hydrophones? My God ... As to not having Aircraft Carriers, the problem with the Italian Air Force's idea about all those bases it had - was that - Army/Navy Air Cooperation - NEVER worked. Ask Force Z. The British had fighter planes to try and protect Force Z from the unescorted bombers that sank the Prince of Wales and the Repulse - but - they weren't where they were needed when they were needed. A force that might suffer enemy air attack MUST have a Combat Air Patrol above it at all times. It also must have reinforcements for that CAP that can immediately launch and they MUST launch from a base that is WITH the ships about to be attacked - NOT some distance away. Even if they get the word immediately, scramble and launch - they'll never get there before the attack is over and the damage done. As to a land based CAP? While they may be able to reach the ships they are supposed to defend ... assuming they can find them ... they are going to spend the majority of their time in transit - rather than on patrol. The British, American and Japanese Navies knew that - the Italians didn't. As to Force Z not having air cover ... well ... it might have if the ship hadn't run aground ... but ... they were promised land based air cover ... As with the other Axis nations - the soldiers and sailors of Italy should be respected for doing what they could with what they had. .
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  42.  @Charlesputnam-bn9zy  Whatever. I just don't like to leave bad data behind - so I fix it. .
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  43.  @Charlesputnam-bn9zy  Eh ... If I've made an error - I want to correct it so I don't pass on bad data to someone else. So - I try not to leave that bad data laying about - and thus I edit my posts. .
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  44.  @Charlesputnam-bn9zy  The thing is - people would have to read and remember all the other comments to note that you'd been corrected. What I do ... is to edit my post ... noting that I had been corrected IN that post. That way - anyone seeing the post that caused the correction - would know that I'd been in error and see the correct information. .
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  45. Yes. Throughout the war the citizens of some of these nations fought fiercely, tenaciously and selflessly against the Axis on the land, the sea and in the air. Sadly ... for some of these people ... after the war - they went home to nations occupied now by the Communists and not as heroes ... And yes ... the Free French forces ... pretty much cooperated with the allies when they felt like it ... and not when they didn't. The Americans, who had equipped their ground forces and in whose area they operated ... after initially tearing their hair out some, gave up trying to direct them and just let them do whatever they wanted, with the faint hope that they would tell the Americans what it was. This continued after the war with France (a nuclear power) "cooperating" with NATO (when it felt like it) but not committed to it. This is mixed with some very sincere gratitude to the Allies for liberating their nation on the part of many French individuals - which - considering the large number of French civilians killed by Allied Bombing - is something. At the time of the Movie - The Longest Day - the theme song from that movie was #1 on the French charts. .
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  46. ​ @Akm72  If you call them anything other than Battle Cruisers no one is going to have any idea what that means. The most USEFUL term - is to call them Battle Cruisers. The term that is least useful is Large Cruiser - as - what the hell is a "Large" cruiser? Large? Larger than what? If you look at the development of the "cruisers" one class was typically "larger" than the one before it. Heavy Cruisers were generally "larger" than Light Cruisers. Was a "large" cruiser bigger or smaller than a "heavy" cruiser? How would anyone know? None of these terms is really hard and fast. Some ships classified as "light" cruisers were little more than "large" destroyers - others were of a similar tonnage to "heavy" cruisers but with six inch as opposed to eight inch guns. Then you had those Atlanta Class cruisers which were really AA Cruisers but used right along side the other light and heavy cruisers. So it's not like you can't have ambiguous terms. As I tried to point out before - if you want to start dividing up ship classes into more and more arbitrary classes - you may as well just refer to ships by the name of their ship class. Are there actually ANY other ships that would go in the "Large Cruiser" class? If not - then why not just use the term Alaska Class? Anything other than the name of the ship class - is going to be a generalized term. So making all these little arbitrary distinctions between generalized terms - is pointless. You have a General Term such as Battleship or Cruiser or Destroyer that something fits in - and then you have the name of the ship class - and finally the name of the ship. Eh ... Oh ... and why would the American Navy call them Large Cruisers? Because the term Battle Cruiser isn't bureaucratic enough .... The term Battle Cruiser conjures up images of Fast (!), Powerful (!) ships sweeping across storm tossed seas with a big bone in their teeth, turrets blazing with fire from their large caliber guns as they chase down a smaller ship or flee from a larger one (!!!!). Bureaucrats hate things like that. .
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  47. OK ... We have a good idea what a Battleship is. We have a good idea what a Cruiser is. Battle Cruisers are anything in between. Does this make for a very diverse class of ships? Yes it does - but so what? You could just call each of these ships by the name of their class if you really wanted to be specific about what they were like but why not just lump them all together? Battle Cruisers could be defined as "Ships larger than a Cruiser but smaller than a Battleship - that were designed for various purposes they were not in fact used for." . . .
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  48. Yeah ... the sound is pretty bad. Did you consider dubbing it? .
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  49. Thanks guys. That was fascinating. .
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  50.  @sadwingsraging3044  I was already at the point where some rooms were ... approaching their cubic capacity full of stuff ... so this is all just more of it. I have purged my stacks a few times though. I gave a lot of books to a local library once and I had worked with some of the crew on a ship that was deploying - so - I gave them several Xerox Paper Boxes worth of Paper Backs. That's just as well though as those things yellow really badly. One Damned Island After Another is available but the price fluctuates drastically. Nothing cheap on Amazon - but not to bad on e-bay. As to electronic books ... not for me. I like to be able read hard copy. You're right about all the problems. One problem a lot of the world has now - is that a lot of it's archival records are stored electronically on media where there just aren't that many things able to read it - so while you can probably still get at most of it ... if you really want to ... it won't be easy. I was always impressed by the technology of the spinning disks Rod Taylor was able to use in The Time Machine . What a clever way to access the data with no dependence on a "reader" of any kind. The Talking Rings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NRMYUpgyJ8 .
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