Comments by "Gregory Wright" (@gregorywright4918) on "The Raid on St Nazaire - How to make an explosive entrance" video.

  1. From southern England to St. Nazaire is a minimum of 300 miles, much further than a Dauntless can reach. Plus the Nazi airfields just north of there were heavy with fighters defending Brest and the sub bases. A bunch of torpedoes might be better than bombs, but delivering them was the problem with heavy fighter and AA defenses. The AA was probably heavier than a Japanese CV because it was all facing inward toward the flight path, rather than outwards around the ship.
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  2. The walls of a drydock gate are different height than the walls of a dam, and the surface of a lake is calmer than the surface of a port connected to the ocean. Probably more AA around St. Nazaire as well.
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  3. The Brits made one in 1952, originally called The Gift Horse, now Glory At Sea, starring Trevor Howard and Richard Attenborough.
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  4. It was not directly in the bow, but behind the forward gun mount housing. May have been mistaken for reinforcement of the fuel tanks.
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  5.  @sadtown  The height was desirable for range-finding, but the other items on the "mast" may have multiplied because the Japanese emphasized night fighting with searchlights and huge binoculars.
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  6. Do you count the shoot-out a day later when the delayed-action torpedoes went up and the Nazi guards started shooting French civilians?
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  7. There is always action-reaction learning effects, the Dieppe "raid" was looking at how hard seizing a port would be, but caused the Nazis to heavily reinforce all the northern French ports, so the Mulberry harbors were designed instead to cover the time until Cherbourg could be taken (which was badly damaged anyway).
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  8. Watch the Nelson Extended review...
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  9.  @thomascabaniss1709  Cats and mouse-traps...
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  10.  @maxbuster1508  The Bearn was carrying gold to the US to buy planes for France, but was diverted to Martinique in the West Indies. She was deliberately run aground in harbor to prevent the Free French from taking her, but when they took the island she was fixed up in the US and used for ferrying aircraft.
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  11.  @ProjectSeventy  The torpedoes were under water, right? Might that have changed the temperature? Also, wasn't the fuses on the Campbeltown encased in cement to prevent defuzing? Was that before departure or during the voyage there?
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  12. You would risk our two most vulnerable to torpedo carriers so close to coast where Nazi dive and torpedo bombers were taking out Arctic convoys?
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  13. Great movie, though...
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  14. Check out "The Gift Horse" 1952 with Trevor Howard and Richard Attenborough...
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  15. See the Nelson Extended review...
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  16.  @toddwebb7521  All that you suggest there would take years, rather than days or months. The UK still had slower BBs, they would have to bring them all out and surround Tirpitz, get a few slow-down hits with air or ship torpedoes, and then blast her to bits ala Bismarck. All US BBs were built on the East Coast, so they could do their shakedown cruises in the Atlantic when they became available, but only the NC & WA were available in '41.
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  17.  @henriquekonradt541  The secondary guns were 12x 6-inchers and 16x 4-inchers, plus she got two quad deck-mounted torpedo tubes in '42.
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  18.  @Niels_Larsen  Have you read any of the reports on the attacks on Tirpitz in '41 and '42? The Nazis had fighters and layered AA defenses, plus she was in a narrow fjord. Talk about "high risk suicidal mission with low probability of success"...
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  19.  @craighagenbruch3800  Why do the extra work? The engines were old anyway. They were more concerned about making it look like a German ship at night for deception.
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