Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "USS Constitution - That Good or Just Lucky? (Special)" video.

  1. The thing that gets lost sometimes is that initially it was something of a shock that the American's beat the British at all. Britain obviously had the best Navy in the World and the very idea that any ships of this new nation could beat any of her ships was unheard of. Then - you have this silly expectation that "If we can win once we should win every time ..." which is just idiotic. Over all the US Navy did well to do as well as they did. The Case of the Chesapeake and Shannon - was that the Chesapeake had been blockaded in harbor and as with the French Navy - crew training had suffered. Then - it came out and engaged one of the best of the British Captains - and lost. This had happened to the French time and again when under blockade by the British. It is part of the reason for a blockade. The whole thing with Commerce Raiding by an inferior naval power on the ships of a superior naval power - is that while they might have some success - eventually, luck turns against them and things go badly for the raider. It's all the inferior naval power can do - they can't take on the might of the superior power - but it's something that's only going to work so far. Luck - is THE dominant factor in EVERYTHING. No amount of intelligence, competence, prior planning or superb equipment can make up for abysmally bad luck. Those things all count and other things being equal, (such as luck), really make a difference but it you have really, really bad luck .... it can go badly for you no matter what you've done. The best example I have of this is Barbarossa, Frederick I, The Holy Roman Emperor. He'd gathered a large powerful army for the Third Crusade - then he fell off his horse while crossing a river, had a heart attack and drowned in waist deep water. Most of his Army went home. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_I,_Holy_Roman_Emperor The US Victory at Midway is another example of things suddenly turning to shit. If the US carrier strikes had shown up a few minutes later - the Japanese carriers flight decks would not have been covered with bombed up air craft - and those aircraft would have been on the way to attack the US ships. Though there were a LOT of other factors that influenced this battle - the fact that two converging strike forces showed up over the Japanese fleet at just the right moment insured a devastating US victory that the Japanese Navy never recovered from. Here, also, luck played a factor in the Japanese's favor. The Hiryu was covered by a rain squall - the Attacking US planes didn't see it - and it was able to launch aircraft that hit the Yorktown. A subsequent US strike sank the now outnumbered Hiryu. The Yorktown was heavily damaged, repaired, then heavily damaged again - and abandoned - but it didn't sink, so they re-boarded it and were making progress on getting the ship running again - when a Japanese submarine found and sank it and the destroyer Hammann which was sitting along side supporting the recovery. Had that rain squall not protected the Hiryu - it might have been sunk along with it's fellows and the Yorktown never would have been damaged. Had the Japanese submarine not been able to find it - it might have been repaired and sailed back home. Luck - if only the absence of Bad Luck - plays a part in everything. The Cosmic Players roll the dice and ... "Oh ... a six ... Attacker Eliminated ..."  .
    1