Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "Drachinifel" channel.

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  18. 1:44:09 The Mary Celeste: The ship had been rebuilt not long before the fatal trip: another deck had been added to increase her cargo hold. Her center of gravity had thus been raised and consequently she rolled more than before and, perhaps more crucially - took longer to right herself. The crew of the Dei Gratia (the ship that found the abandoned Mary Celeste) found a significant amount of water in the hold and critically - a pump which had been dissassembled while being repaired - a process which was not completed. What most probably happened is this: the Mary Celeste was in a storm, she rolled considerably, it was difficult for the crew to measure the amount of water she took, as it constantly rocked with the ship, and then the pump, that was critical for removing the said water, broke down. The crew tried to repair it but was being unsuccessful, and as time passed, for all the captain knew, the ship's hold was filling with water, the danger of ship rolling over and capsizing, killing most if not all on board becoming ever greater. So the captain at some point decided to evacuate the crew to a lifeboat, taking the basic navigational equipment to find land in case the ship rolled over and sank (had that happened the crew would have cut the rope) but, since the ship might also ride out the storm-tied the boat to the ship to re-board her if all ended well after all. Unfortunately, the crowded boat ended up being more prone to being rolled over by the storm waves than the abandoned ship - especially because the former was being steered by the latter via the rope, rather than by its occupants. When the boat rolled over, its drag increased significantly and the rope snapped. The boat then sank and its occupants all drowned in the storm. The abandoned ship, however, rode out the storm, to be found by the Dei Gratia. This is the only explanation that fits all the evidence for me
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  55. 11:37 - Hm... I can think of at least one instance where it was kind of technically the case (with a stretch). In 1793, during the French Revolutionary war, when the town and naval base of Toulon rebelled against the republican government in Paris, and in support of the monarchy - they took control of the Toulon squadron which included the first rate ship of the line named Commerce de Marseille. The royalists sailed out of besieged Toulon with it (and some 3rd rates) to prevent their recapture by the republicans. From the perspective of the revolutionary government which was de facto rulling most of France they could be considered pirates. (and if one were to reject the legitimacy of the republican government and the subsequent 1st Empire then their entire navies could be considered pirates - including the 1st rate Orient and 2nd rate Tonnant at the Battle of the Nile and the 2nd rate Bucentaure at the Battle of Trafalgar :) ). Commerce de Marseille was later seized by the British navy. So yeah, while strictly speaking Drach gave a correct answer (those weren't really pirates, but rather a party in a civil war), when you add legal shenanigans about legitimacy, you could argue that for a short while they technically kind of did. Similar things happened during the English Civil War when the defeated royalists maintained a navy under Prince Rupert of the Rhine and preyed on parliamentary merchant ships. I am not sure about the sizes of ships they used, though, if anyone knows whether they had any ships of the line I'd like to know. It would be an interesting topic for a special - "When the entire Royal Navy was pirate" :)... (since the opposing parliamentary navy which represented the government that effectively controlled England definitely wasn't the ROYAL navy).
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  60. 25:34 You seem to be describing the ROTARY engine, a short-lived design used in WW1 visually similar to the RADIAL engine while motionless. In the rotary engine the propeller was fixed to the circularly arranged cylinders and both turned together, while the crankshaft was static. The mass of rotating engine amplified the torque effect. Such a bizzare solution was adopted because the airplane speeds were insufficient to provide enough airflow to cool the engine with fixed circularly arranged cylinders that rotate the crankshaft to which the propeller is fixed - which is a basic description of a radial engine. Rotary engines had a lot problems, so once the engines became powerful enough to propel the planes at sufficient speeds to generate enough airflow to cool them properly, they were abandoned. Sopwith Camel for instance had a rotary engine. WW2 designs such as Swordfish, Zero, Wildcat, Thunderbolt, early FW-190 all had radial engines. Every propeller- driven aircraft (be it rotary, radial or inline engined) with an odd number of engines suffered a torque effect. Japanese carriers Akagi and Hiryu had islands on the port (left) side however. They were expected to operate in divisions made of 2 carriers with islands on different sides (Akagi's pair was the Kaga and Hiryu's the Soryu, both of which had islands on the starboard or right side) sailing side by side, island to island, so that planes could bank to different sides and reduce the risk of collision. By the time they were designing the Shokakus they realized that the former requirement was unnecessary and prioritized making things easier for the pilots going around torque effect-wise like everyone else.
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  70. I'd say the commander of the Spanish armada takes the cake - losing an entire fleet to a few fireships and some bad but not catastrophic weather. He was a thoroughly inexperienced guy who did have a competent advisor but it didn't work in the end. Also you had Jacob von Wassenaer Obdam, an army colonel given command of the Dutch fleet in a crisis of unity who oddly enough actually came up with a sound tactical doctrine later successfully implemented by admiral Michiel de Ruyter, but had ill suited ships and no experience to implement it, consequently getting himself killed in one of the worst defeats in Dutch naval history. Compared to those two any of the admirals Drach listed were experts since they could... sail at least. Of those he listed the worst one was the Korean guy, then Villeneuve (with Mandalzade Hüsameddin Pasha of the Chesma debacle, giving him a run for his money), then Persano. Instead of Beatty who while very flawed was still in quite a few respects competent, Drach should have listed Yevgeny Alekseev, viceroy of Russia's Far East, who had bouts of command over the First Pacific Squadron of the Russian Navy in the Russo-Japanese War, an outright incompetent. WW2... Tough call all were at least competent, I disagree inclucing Gensoul, his biggest mistake being allowing himself to be surprised through insufficient scouting... Perhaps Angelo Iachino would be my candidate (first Matapan and then failing to press his huge advantages in the Battles of the Sirte). Or Karel Doorman who lost one destroyer wrecked (non-combat loss) and another one lost in one of his own minefields... On the Japanese side Admirals Sentaro Omori (of Empress Augusta Bay debacle), Sadamichi Kajioka (1st attempt to invade the Wake Island debacle), Hiraoki Abe (who messed up the 1st Naval Battle of Guadalcanal although he had superior force) perhaps even Boshiro Hosogoya (for retreating at Komandorski Island) and three certainly competent admirals who made costly mistakes: Chuichi Nagumo Gunichi Mikawa and Takeo Kurita. Probably the Soviets have some good contenders too. Germans: Oskar Kummetz of the Barents Sea debacle, Brits? Dudley Pound (QF-17), Victor Crutchley of the Savo Island debacle. US: Carleton Wright (Tassafaronga debacle), Daniel Callaghan (messed up US plan for the First Naval battle of Guadalcanal, won by sheer luck, but got himself and Adm Norman Scott killed in the process), William Halsey (almost lost the entire invasion of the Philippines in an afternoon). French pretty much have only Gensoul out there to be considered, but many of the listed admirals from other countries were way worse.
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  105. Regarding the commerce raiding. RN was the silent deciding factor of WW1. Sure the enormous French and Russian land armies contributed significantly, but they were matched by the Central powers' land armies. It was the RN blockade of commerce to the Central Powers that tipped the scales by: 1) slowly starving the Central Powers out of the industrial pairity with the Entente in the long run, 2) Diverting all US cargoes bound for Germany or neighboring neutral countries to UK where they were bought by UK with US loans - thereby effectively ensuring US support, and, when necessity seemed to arise, active participation in the war on the Entente side. Regarding commerce raiding today - the only two navies capable of seriously endangering the US-controlled worldide maritime trade, the Russian navy and the Chinese navy are both under siege in geostrategic terms. Russia's Black Sea fleet (submarines included) cannot sortie through Bosphorus without being detected by NATO, their Pacific fleet is under watch from Japan, South Korea and Alaska, their Baltic Fleet would be spotted at Oresund and their Northern fleet would be spotted at the UK-Greenland SOSUS barrier. The Chinese navy is under siege by US bases in Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam and I believe if worse came to worst the US would absolutely make sure they are back on the Philippines. So neither of the two navies could do more than briefly interrupt the maritime trade with any SSGs they had in the open ocean prior to commencment of hostilities that were, for any reason, not tailed by NATO forces.
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  135. Reasons why Japan lost the Guadalcanal campaign: 1) Midway. Without Midway full strength Kido Butai would have, with a bit of luck, had enough planes to overwhelm USN at, say, the Battle of Eastern Solomons and neutralize Henderson Field and even raid Espiritu Santo, thereby cutting supply lane of the Americans on Guadalcanal while protecting their own and thus enabled the army to retake the island. But had Midway not happened, the US would probably not have invaded Guadalcanal in the first place (although had Coral Sea not happened either, they probably still would have invaded). 2) Given that Midway did happen: lack of engineering equipment made the Japanese overextend - they should have built airfields on Bougainville and New Georgia before Guadalcanal. Instead they found themselves trying to win air superiority over Guadalcanal from faraway Rabaul (grueling 8 hrs round trip with about 30 mins of fighting time at max - making effective air cover for transport ships an impossibility with the number of fighters available) 3) USN early warning system (air-search radar + coastwatchers) 4) Intelligence provided by ULTRA that enabled the US to parry every Japanese attempt to win air superiority over Guadalcanal using their remaining carriers. 5) USN surface radar enabled the USN to fight the Japanese in night surface engagements on overall equal terms. 6) Low fuel stocks made the Japanese reluctant to commit their battleships to shell Henderson field (they only comitted the Kongo-class battlecruisers).
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  149. 0:58:03 Goeben was sent to the Mediterranean during the 1st Balkan War (1912-1913) and the reasons are a bit complex: The Balkan League (the anti-Ottoman alliance of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro in that war) was backed by Russia which was hoping for it to chase the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans and hopefully from the Bosporus strait (as kinda proxies or at least small countries easier to bully or bribe than even the declining Ottoman Empire). Bosporus was (and still is) to Russia a hostile-held bottleneck that was shutting their Black Sea fleet in the Black Sea in case of war. Even if the League failed to take Bosporus it would still be a bite and hold step towards it - it was a long-term plan. Other European powers were for a long time doing their best to maintain the balance of power in Europe (although Germany managed to get away with the unification but the late response materialized during WW1). Earlier Russian moves towards Bosporus were countered with direct intervention in the Crimean War and a joint threat of intervention in 1878. which was diffused at the Berlin Congress (1878). During the 1st Balkan War the European powers agreed to throw the wrench into the League's plan (and indirectly Russian plans) by agreeing to form an "independent" country of Albania (in reality it was to be a kinda international protectorate mostly in the Austro-Hungarian and Italian spheres of influence). According to Balkan League agreements Albania was to be split between Greece, Serbia (thereby finally giving it a long coveted access to the sea) and Montenegro (a small part). The Balkan League quickly defeated the Ottoman field armies, failed to conquer the heavily defended Bosporus and besieged the several remaining holdout fortified towns. The poor, mountainous Albania was very poorly connected overland with Macedonia (where the decisive fighting of the Serbian theatre of that war took place) at the time and supplying a large conquering army via the existing roads was difficult to impossible.Therefore, Serbia agreed with Greece that the Serbian army which just conquered its part of Macedonia was to be ferried and supplied with Greek merchant ships from Salonika to Albanian ports to conquer its part of Albania and help the poorly equipped Montenegrin Army conquer the besieged Ottoman stronghold of Scutari (Shkoder) in their part. This was opposed by the other European powers who insisted Albania be made a separate country, The first batches of Serbian troop transports were already sent and arrived (disembarkation of one was interrupted by the Ottoman protected cruiser Hamidiye, sent to harass the Greek shipping in hopes the Greek armored cruiser Georgios Averoff would be detached from the blockade of the Dardanelles to catch her but to no avail - the Ottoman cruiser sank several ships in the shallow harbor of San Giovani di Medua but was prevented from sinking more still by the Serbian mountain guns firing from the deck of the merchant ship Trifimia which forced her to sail beyond range and the geography of the harbor, abysmal Ottoman accuracy and limited shell supply did the rest). Anyway, to stop the Serbian troop transports and ensure the creation of an independent Albania, the big powers (Austria Hungary, Germany, Italy, France, UK) sent a joint fleet to blockade the Albanian coast and prevent further seaborne transport and threatened direct intervention. That is why Goeben was originally sent there. The top left photo on the infobox montage is showing the flags of the intervening powers over the Shkoder fortress after it fell, note the German one in the foreground: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Scutari_(1912%E2%80%9313) Serbs, Greeks and Montenegrins persisted and eventually conquered the whole Albania overland including Shkoder (via bribery) but agreed to evacuate it after the war at Russian advice. (note the heavy Serbian and Montenegrin casualties during the siege of Shkoder, a testament to difficulties of properly supplying the besieging army in 1913 Albania overland) With most of the Serbian and Montenegrin armies fighting the Ottomans in 1913, Austro Hungarian army could have easily overrun Serbia and Montenegro (the League members with the greatest Russian influence) if it decided to intervene and with UK and even its ally France also backing independent Albania, Russia (and its proxies) would be defeated if they tried force their agenda. The Russians however got their Serbian proxies to intensify stirring Slav nationalism in Bosnia hoping to create national uprisings in Austria Hungary (the same tactic was used on the Ottomans by all the Balkan League Allies just before the 1st Balkan War) - which later resulted in the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The creation of independent Albania led to a dispute among the Balkan League countries about the division of spoils taken from the Ottomans, now when the total was reduced at everyone but Bulgaria's expense which resulted with the 1913 2nd Balkan War and the dissolution of the Balkan League. Goeben stayed in the region along with other ships to protect German interests during that conflict too and beyond - until WW1 started. Serbia and later Yugoslavia continued to attempt to assert its influence over Albania by supporting factions within the newly formed country and was opposed in those efforts chiefly by Italy which had the same goals and methods - that game continued until WW2.
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  174. I disagree with your assessment of the Japanese aircraft carrying submarines. Firstly they were extremely useful as scouts. Note that many of the successess the German auxilliary cruisers had were due to their scout planes leading them to prey, also FW-200 guided wolfpacks - Japanese B class submarines could deploy scout planes anywhere. It was the advent of radar that made them more vulnerable and also somewhat decreased their usefullness, but still, a scoulplane can scout beyond the horizon. The fact that their impact was not that great should be seen within the fact that the entire Japanese submarine force was not particularly successful overall in spite of some notable individual successess against warships. It was more down to weaker intelligence (with exception of the first few months of the Pacific War), failings in Japanese submarine doctrine of use and, as the war progressed increased strain on Japanese submarine force to be employed to supplied the cut-off garrissons, bypassed by the Americans in their island hopping campaign (made possible by their gain of sea and air superiority as they thoroughly out-produced and out-trained Japan). Also I'd argue the concept of submarine aircraft carrier is pretty much alive today - every missile submarine is a descendant of the concept that marries two major WW2 era developments: modern missiles (courtesy of several countries but most notably Germany with their V2) with the submarine hangars (courtesy of several countries, but the Japanese developed it the furthest). Add another major WW2 invention - the nuclear weapons and you have a nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine.
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  176. 1:02:50 By 1944 the Japanese were on the strategic defense. Their airpower, both land and carrier based was not sufficient to support large amphibious offensives the likes of which they were conducting in 1941-42 (and back then it was against weak opposition - by 1944. US has filled the Pacific with combat units). Besides they got the resources they wanted in the Dutch East Indies and all they needed to do to win the war is to beat the Chinese while repelling Allied counterattacks. The Japanese were not SEEKING a decisive naval battle. Kantai Kessen assumed a war with US - which now was the case - and in such a war such a battle would be coming to Japan anyway and the doctrine was looking for ways to offset the US superiority. One thing that seems to slip off of minds of people is that WAR IS NOT A LONG-TERM SUSTAINABLE STATE OF AFFAIRS FOR ANY COUNTRY! It is a huge burden on economy, production is focused on war materiel which, unless it conquers something, results in 0 return for the investment immediately (and in case of a loss the return is less and less long term - depending on how bad the loss was - and even a victory can return a net loss on investment). Meanwhile population growth decreases, treasury gets drained, mortality and inflation rises, productivity in many if not most spheres falls (many of the farmers and workers are at the front not producing...), trade and exports decrease... And the neutral powers, potential rivals are often making a ton of cash selling necessities to war parties at inflated prices. Think of a country at war as a man running. Running a 100 m dash at 41 km/h would be akin total war, but it can only be done for a a few minutes (akin a few years of war). A man running a marathon is akin USA in Vietnam - limited war commitment. The man can run for a couple of hours just as the country can sustain a limited war for up to a few decades, but the marathon runner still needs to stop and rest after those few hours of running. In the end a man can go farther by walking (peacetime) than by running in one go. But certain situations necessitate running. So war is a kind of a race. The invader chooses when the race starts, so it is usually better prepared, but also usually runs on an uphill track since he needs to be stronger to succeed and his supply lines are by default longer. The attacker therefore needs to concentrate his forces on sea, air and land in such a way to achieve the necessary advantage. In addition US is stronger economically overall. Kantai Kessen doctrine has correctly recognized both and was looking for a way to turn the tables. In effect it says "If we fight US or UK, they'll come at us in consecutive big concentrated fleet efforts that outgun us. Let's see how we can defeat those the way we had to defeat the Russian fleets in the Yellow Sea and Tsushima". There is no big difference in DOCTRINE between the Japanese attack on Midway and the US attack on the Marianas. Both seek to capture a strategically significant objective with a concentrated fleet action (as the most rational way) and there were hopes that a decisive blow could be struck against the enemy's fleet if it appeared (see the contemporary criticism of Spruance after the Philippine Sea for not pursuing the Japanese). It was just the US and Japanese TACTICAL dispositions that were different as they were shaped by the technology available to each at the time (the Japanese had no radar at the time hence they spread their destroyers around to provide early warning - the US later kinda did the same even with radar - posting forward the radar pickets - to provide earlier warning). A doctrine postulates how you use your forces once the war starts. It may influence the decision, but certainly not decisively, on whether a country will start a war with a given country or not.
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  186. During the 1st Balkan War, after the Serbian army took what is now North Macedonia from the Ottomans it decided to take its allotted (per prewar allied agreements) Ottoman north of Albania. Due to poor roads and railroad network there it decided to do so with a shipborne invasion, chartering the necesary ships from the Greek government with a rate of 1000 dinars per ship per day to take its troops from the as of recently Greek port of Salonika (which was close to where its troops that took North Macedonia were) to Albanian ports and supply them thereafter. The profit-minded Greeks, naturally picked the ships on the small side for the task and it went on. Meanwhile the Ottoman navy, bottled down in the Dardanelles by the Greek naval blockade decided to send their fast protected cruiser Hamidiye to run the blockade and raid the Greek sea lanes, hoping to lure the Giorgios Avereroff to chase her which would in turn enable the main Ottoman fleet to defeat the Hydras and the rest of the Greek fleet and to break the blockade, but the Greek naval command initially decided not to send anything after Hamidiye. However, after Hamidiye managed to catch a group of unprotected Greek ships offloading Serbian troops in the Albanian port of San Giovani di Medua and sink and damage several causing more than 150 Serbian dead (and it would have been worse had two Serbian artillery NCOs not set up their mountain guns on the deck of their Greek transport ship Trifimia and fired back, prompting Hamidiye to open the range and lose accuracy), the Serbian high command and government complained bitterly to the Greeks about the lack of naval escort. The Greeks then detatched the Psara (which was too slow to catch Hamidiye) and 3 destroyers to escort the subsequent Serbian troop convoys which it performed successfully.
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  195.  @dennisweidner288  Distracting the US with light carriers is exactly what the Japanese tried in the next carrier battle - The Eastern Solomons but again the result was a defeat due to lack of radar. Had they had radar they could have detected the US airstrike heading for Ryujo and got from that the locatioon of the US carriers early and launced a strike at them while no US strike would be heading for the main Japanese force. But since they did not have radar they had to wait for a scout plane to find the US fleet so the opposing main carrier fleets exchanged simultaneous airstrikes at each other with the Japanese coming off worse due to mistakes and bad luck. The reason Hiryu was able to counterrattack at Midway in the first place was because it was 10 miles away from Akagi Kaga and Soryu as they were being bombed so she escaped destruction at that time. So actually you have a vindication of division of forces at a tactical level there rather than detraction. Japanese ships were deficient in AAA. Much of their AAA (25mm) was fairly light and its effective range (1 km) was such that it was good only for self defense of the ship rather than defense of other ships. They had some 40 mm pom poms before the war but they concluded 25 mm suited them better and got rid of them replacing them with 25 mms while adding more of the latter (and kept adding as the war progressed)... Supposedly dual purpose main guns of their destroyers (with the exception of the Akizukis) did not have the elevation and rate of fire to be really effective. Also there was no VT fuze back then - instead each large celibre AAA shell had to be set manually after how much time to burst based on eye-gauged estimate of the target's distance, speed and heading while the ship is rolling in the sea. Yeah, good luck hitting two squadrons of dive bombers that just burst through the clouds with that... A few more AAA batteries, even if the ships were tightly packed would have hardly made any difference. But they would have lowered the Kido Butai's top speed (adding Yamato - by 1 knot, older BBs more, with exception of two remaining Kongos which would have made sense) making it easier to find and more difficult to retire if need be.
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  197.  @dennisweidner288  Yes. What you are talking about is true grand strategic consideration which takes into account perceived balance of power worldwide. Kantai kessen was an operational doctrine based on percieved operational doctrine of the enemy (notably plan Orange) and designed to give Japan the best operational and tactical chance to respond to it successfully. But the outcomes of the wars depend on many things other than tactical and operational doctrines. If you look at it, kantai kessen was not wrong at all... Most of the decisive US island hopping thrusts in the pacific were done with massed surface seapower and could only be effectively parried with massed surface seapower which Japan tried an the Philippine Sea and Leyte. And in both cases, in spite of them being terrible defeats it is generally recognized that doctrinally, the Japanese operational plans were sound, possibly the best available and and, superior to US plans in the same battles as ultimately implemented. The reasons for defeats lie elsewhere. Even the earlier battles such as Midway and to a lesser degree Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz involved concentration of nearly all first rate striking power of both sides in one place (sorry, battleships, you are outpaced and outranged by this point by carrier airstrikes) which is no surprise. Japan, at least in the first year of the war often fared quite well in smaller battles where the enemy managed to mass his fleet only partially or locally (Force Z, Java Sea, even Coral Sea a to an extent) which allowed Japan to concentrate enough forces to outnumber them decisively or fight under their own terms (ironically using tactics developped for the kantai kessen) - dealing with them was less of a problem than with full fleet actions. Kantai kessen essentially says: when they come, they will mostly come in full force (rather than peacmeal) since that will give them the best chance to achieve their objective. They will outnumber us due to treaties and our industrial disadvantage. Now this is how we best deal with this and defeat them... Kantai kessen does not decide whether or when Japan declares war on the US but is a plan prepared in case war is already declared. It does not contain plans for Japanese war economy, just acknowledges the current reality. It reeally gets too much misplaced hate.
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  221. Pre dreadnought fight: in 1904, after the Japanese torpedo boats attack the Russian 1st Pacific squadron at Port Arthur, France honors its alliance with Russia and declares war on Japan, UK honors its alliance with Japan and declares war on France, Germany decides to ally with France (note that they did historically help the Russian 2nd Pacific squadron with coaling) to even the odds and bring down RN (and get some colonies). Austria Hungary and Italy honor the Triple Alliance with Germany and declare war on UK. Finally Teddy Roosevelt, ever the opportunist, sees a good opportunity to gang up with the allies to take down RN and expand. So: you have RN vs Russian 2nd Pacific squadron, the French fleet, the German fleet, portions of the US fleet (plausibly - US contigent sails to Brest) and Italian and Austro-Hungarian fleet. The French Brest fleet and the USN from one side, and the allied Mediterannean fleets sail to break the British Gibraltar station, while the 2nd Russian Paific squadron sails to Germany to break out to Brest if the main RN body sails to help Gibraltar. If the latter stays put and the allied Mediterannean fleets breaks out to Brest, two combined allied fleets, one from Brest the other from Wilhelmshaven sail to jointly (coordinated by wireless) challenge the RN in, a climactic pre-dreadnought battle of Jutland. RN, on the other hand, would naturally attempt to engage the allied fleets piecemeal. Japan meanwhile battles Russia's 1st Pacifific squadron and perhaps some US reinforcements based in Manila (which may, or may not decide to sail to Vladivostok). I think the historians may have missed the significance of France not intervening for Russia in 1904. (out of fear of the superior RN) on Austro-Hungarian decision to declare war on Serbia in 1914. (banking on Russia not intervening out of fear of strong Germany, or at least France not intervening for the same reason).
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  225. 00:45:56 Apart from the RN campaign to destroy SMS Koenigsberg in the Rufiji river delta, and several battles in the Paraguay War, there was one river battle (estuary to be precise) at the mouth of the Pearl River during the 2nd Sino Japanese War: From Wiki article on Chao Ho: On 14 September 1937. Chao Ho and Hai Chow (formerly the Arabis-class sloop HMS Pentstemon) engaged the Japanese cruiser Yūbari and the destroyers Hayate and Oite. The Japanese ships were forced to retreat with the aide of the Bocca Tigris' forts land based artillery but both ships were damaged. From www.combinedfleet.com tabular record of movement for the light cruiser IJN Yubari: 14 September 1937: YUBARI is standing into the Pearl River estuary with HAYATE and OITE when they encounter two Chinese warships, the protected cruiser CHAO HO and the revenue cutter HAI CHOW (ex-HMS PENTSTEMON), leaving Humen (Bocca Tigris) Strait. The result is what might be the only surface action between the Chinese and Imperial Japanese Navy in the whole war. [2] The Japanese squadron engages the Chinese vessels and the shore batteries at the forts protecting the Humen Strait. Both Chinese ships are damaged; HAI CHOW is hit three times and loses steering control. This causes her for a short time to be heading directly at the Japanese fleet, as if on a charge. Just as it seems the cutter will be blown out of the water, HAI CHOU regains control. The more powerful CHAO HO inexplicably fights only intermittently, and her captain soon orders a retreat. HAI CHOW manages to escape upriver as well. Ironically, CHAO HO's leaving the battle does her little good: she runs aground short time thereafter. While returning to Taichang anchorage, the IJN squadron is attacked by CAF Northrop A-17 attack bombers, scoring several near misses. Five sailors from YUBARI are injured.
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  227. ​1:32:07 Best ship kill to loss from age of steam onward? Consider: 1) steam sloops of war. A lot of destroyed or taken ships, mostly unarmed or poorly armed sailing ships in the mid 19th century and I believe few losses. 2) German camouflaged armed merchant raiders are good candidates too. In WW2: only 9 deployed, 8 lost (of which 1 in an accident and 1 was repurposed as a gunnery training ship before being destroyed by the Red Air Force) and they sank or captured 142 Allied and neutral ships including HMAS Sydney and the RN armed merchand cruiser Voltaire. The total includes ships sunk in minefields they layed. https://www.bismarck-class.dk/hilfskreuzer/hilfskreuzer_introduction.html 3) In WW1 they also deployed armed merchant raiders and I believe those had even better K/D ratio The most successful one was the Moewe (K/D 40:0): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_M%C3%B6we_(1914) And the most dashing was the Seeadler (K/D 16:1 but not to enemy action): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Seeadler_(1888) There was also the Wolf (K/D 27:0): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Wolf_(1913) SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm (K/D 16:1 - interned in then neutral USA, seized after US entered the war) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Kronprinz_Wilhelm SMS Cap Trafalgar (K/D 0:1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Cap_Trafalgar Total (K/D 99:3 or 33:1) but perhaps there are more German WW1 AMRs that I am not aware of. 4) Consider that German WW1 submarines had better K/D ratio than their WW2 counterparts and most probably also the Americans in WW2 but I doubt it amounted to 33:1. Technically a ship class that sank something but suffered no losses is even better.
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  271. Roberts: OK guys, the IJN has given us a lot of trouble in the past, and uh… they somehow survived the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea and reached Taffy 3. Does anybody feel our jeep carriers and a few destroyers can fight 4 battleships and a shitton of cruisers and destroyers or can we just run away from them? Gambier Bay: Uhh, we're too slow and I think Evans on the Johnston had been spoiling for a fight for a while. Roberts: Oh, he needs those admiral's epaulettes? Does he even have sufficient connnections and backing for such hopes? Hoel: Yeah… but if he wins a Medal of Honor it will gain him the connections and he will have more backing. Roberts: [sighs] Christ. OK, uhh well what we’ll do, I’ll run in first, uh…draw their fire. We can kinda just, ya know, lay a smokescreen. Um, I will use torpedoes to kinda scatter ’em, so we don’t have to fight a whole bunch of them at once. Uhh… when my torpedo run is done, I’ll need Gambier Bay to send his planes too, uh… so we can keep them scattered and not to fight too many. Um… when his air attack is done, of course will need St Lo to run in and do the same thing. Uh…we’re gonna need torpedoes on our planes, uhh so they can hurt, uh so we can of course sink them fast, ’cause they outgun us so badly. I mean, we’ll be in trouble if we don't take them down quick. Uhh, I think this is a pretty good plan, we should be able to pull it off this time. Uhh, what do you think St Lo? Can you give me a number crunch real quick? St Lo: Uhhh.. yeah, gimme a sec… I’m coming up with thirty-two point three three uh, repeating of course, percentage, of survival. Robberts: Uh…that’s a lot better than we usually do. Uhh, alright, you think we’re ready guys? [interrupted] Johnston: Alright chums, (I’m back)! Let’s do this... ERNEEEEEST EVAAAAAAAAAANS! [steams all ahead flank into the approaching Japanese Center Force] Hoel: [incredulous] … Oh my God he just ran towards them. [follows] Gambier Bay: Save him! St Lo: Oh jeez, stick to the plan. Roberts: Oh jeez, let’s go, let’s go! [follows] Gambier Bay: [laughing] Stick to the plan chums! Roberts: Stick to the plan! Hoel: Oh jeez, oh fuck. Roberts: Gimme air support, hurry up. St Lo: Launching! Gambier Bay: It’s saying I can’t launch! I can’t move, am I lagging, guys? Hoel: I can’t move! Roberts: What the – what the hell? St Lo: I don't have time to arm torpedo bombers with torpedoes! Gambier Bay: Oh my God… Hoel: They just keep comming! More battleships!! Roberts: I don’t think your planes can hurt them just with depth charges! Hoel: Oh my God! Johnston: We got em, we got em! Roberts: I got it! I got it! [muffled shouts] Gambier Bay: Planes, take off! Take off! [muffled shouts] Hoel: Hoel's down. Hoel’s down. Roberts: Oh my God.. Hoel: Goddamit, Johnston! Roberts: Goddamit… Gambier Bay: Johnston, you moron! [various other put-downs of Johnston amongst group] St Lo: I’m on it. Roberts: Smokescreen is on. Hoel: Listen, this is ridiculous. [Unknown:] You d*****s! Gambier Bay: I’m down, Gambier Bay down. Goddamit. [shouting, then a pause, followed by other put-downs] St Lo: St Lo is down. Hoel: This is the (drowned out)th time IJN surprised us, God! St Lo: Roberts, tow us! Roberts, tow us! Hoel: Why do you do this shit, Johnston? Roberts: I’m trying! Johnston: [cries] It’s not my fault! Roberts: Who’s dead in the water? St Lo: We do have a tow line, don’t we? [everyone dies] Think I need a hull repair? Hoel: Yeah but I don’t think we brought a repair ship. Gambier Bay: [noticing everybody is dead] … Oh God… Roberts: Oh for – [sighs, nearly chokes and swallows] Great job! [Unknown:] For Christ’s sake! [indistinguishable] Hoel: Johnston, you are just stupid as hell. St Lo: Nimrod. [[Another Ship:] Oh my God… Johnston: … At least I ain't chicken.
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  287.  @Ushio01  Lend Lease was mostly an American show. Had UK even signed peace with Germany in 1940. it would have broken it by 1942 or 3 at US insistence and once the tide would begin to turn on the Eastern Front. Germany did not have the leverage to force an actual occupation of UK and they knew it and didn't insist on it. Hell they even left French North African posessions in their hands (which came back to bite them when those posessions essentially let the Allies invade in 1942 with little resistence). It would have been the same with UK. You even have an example from earlier history: UK actually signed peace with Revolutionary France for a while when the chips were down even though it never intended to honor it for long. The same did not happen in 1940. but had it happened it would not have made a big difference. British propaganda is perverting common sense in trying to overemphasize UK's importance in WW2 that is all. I laugh similarly at their insinuations that the Battle of Waterloo prevented Napoleon from winning. Really? With Prussian army still in the field (and actually deciding the outcome of the battle), Austrian, Russian, Spanish and many other forces marching on France in force yet again, even in the unlikely event that the entire Anglo-Dutch army was utterly routed at Waterlo, Napoleon would still be defeated by those other forces combined. France in 1815. was exhausted by decades of war and even with all repatriated veteran POW (which made up a good portion of Napoleon's forces in 1815) could simply no longer field an army large enough to fight even half of the, now veteran, coalition forces bearing down on it. But had the Prussians managed to smash Napoleon at Ligny, rest assured their propaganda would likewise be bullshitting about how they saved Europe from Napoleon's boot in 1815.
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  292. No country ever went to war due to "public opinion", USA included. It has always been a high level political descision based on strategic interests. Once the descision has already been made, the subordinate media would gear up and shape the public opinion to support the war in order to make the prosecution of the war less costly (for example in the price of cannon fodder). USA entered WW1 when Russia began faltering (after the February Revolution) and a threat of a Central Power's victory became real. Of the two warring sides the Entente borrowed vastly more from the US - courtesy of the Entente navies' blockade that wasn't letting anything through to the Central Powers, the cargo being immediately purchased by the Entente thereby adding to their debts, and US otherwise also had far more business ties with the Entente Powers, particularly UK than with the Central Powers. Hence a Central powers' victory would both create massive problems for the Entente to pay its debt to the US and damage US economy. The Entente victory had an added benefit of damaging the competing, rather than cooperating, German economy. The Zimmermann Telegram and its acknowledgement, rather than being a major German blunder, was obviously a desperate attempt by Germany, which was aware that the Americans are about to join the war on the opposing side, to try to scare them away from it and reassure Mexico that they meant what they promised in the telegram. It just didn't work, but had it never been sent nothing would have been different, other than the declared pretext for the US entry to WW1 on the Entente side.
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  300. 00:31:32 @ Drachinifel Kahili (or Buin) airfield on the Solomon island of Bougainville, unlike what you said, WAS completed and used by the Japanese before it was captured during the 1943. Battle of Bougainville (Yamamoto was on his way to inspect that airfield in a G4M bomber when it was shot down as it approached the strip). You may have mixed it up with the Munda airfield on the Solomon island of New Georgia which was even closer to Guadalcanal and which the USA captured in 1943. before the Japanese completed it (akin the airfield on Guadalcanal the year before...). Trivia- it took some time for the Americans to detect the construction of the Munda airfield as the Japanese did not cut all the trees on the future airstrip, but rather just some and strung wires between them that held the cut trees in place, while they were working on the levelling of the ground below - so it appeared to US aerial reconnaissance for a time that no trees were cut there and no military instalation is being constructed there. Another trivia - instead of attacking Munda directly, the US first captured the nearby island of Rendova and then stationed artillery there to shell Munda making it impossible for the Japanese to complete it while also softening the defenses before attacking. The Japanese tried a similar tactic before at Guadalcanal but the US ability to deliver and protect supplies to the forward combat area was obviously superior and that made the difference for the respective outcomes. The Japanese made a mistake of not beginning and completing at least Kahili and ideally also Munda before the airfield on Guadalcanal. It was a logistical error - they overextended an "airfield too far" (and too soon) from Rabaul to successfully contest with land-based aviation any potential allied counterattack - and paid the price for it. Time was a factor. Guadalcanal was essentially both sides rushing pretty much whatever they could throw there to dislodge the opponent before he entrenched properly (particularly the Japanese counterattacks followed that philosophy).
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  332. Drach, had Gensoul sailed to join the British or sailed to Martinique to be blockaded by them there - it would have amounted to treason to France, effective breaking of Franco-German Armistice provisions and led to German-Italian attack on Zone Libre as well as Algeria and Morocco then and there (instead of in 1942. after operation Torch). British seizure of French vessels in their harbors, their media promotion of De Gaulle and finally the attempt to force the French warships in Oran and Dakar to join them were certainly done with hope of provoking the Germans to attack the French again thereby forcing the French to defend themselves no matter how hopeless that defense might be. Such intent can be clearly seen in their subsequent attempt to create a forlorn hope Balkan front with Greece and Yugoslavia, their reasoning being that even if (I might as well say "when") those countries were defeated and occupied they would further stretch the German forces and expose them to guerilla warfare. You are hugely overestimating the importance of Gensoul's omission of relaying to Vichy of the "sail to Martinique" option. I have some doubts that it is even true, but even if it was - Vichy would certainly not have taken that option, but ordered Gensoul to sail to Toulon as he did. Reasoning that "Hitler breaks agreements, therefore one should do whatever the Allies demand" does not hold water. EVERYONE breaks agreements (or at least renegotiates them in force) when the balance of forces guaranteeing the said agreements shifts and there is sufficient need. Allies broke agreements too (the very attack on Mers El Kebir is a prime example). And there were quite a few agreements that Hitler did not break (he respected Swiss, Swedish, Spanish and Turkis neutrality just to name a few). Gensoul might be guilty of insufficient scouting (although the French did not have radar and the British sneaked up from nearby Gibraltar during the night, so it would have hardly helped anyway). He might be guilty of not mining the sh1t of the approaches to Mers El Kebir (a risky move internationally), or making sure sufficient force of Aeronavale aircraft is nearby to threaten to attack the British if they attacked (or coordinated with L'Armee de l'Air commanders to make sure they had such a force at hand if Aeronavale was depleted). But he was not wrong to reject the British ultimatum. He did his duty to his country. He got caught with his pants down (which was not all his fault) but did make the best out of a bad situation (bought time to raise steam and escaped the British with Strasbourg and all destroyers except the Mogador).
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  354. 38:19 - while the RN trolled the French, the French did respond a bit - Surcouf, Suffren, Dugay-Trouin, Massena, Montcalm, later also De Grasse for instance - named after the French naval and land commanders successful against the British. Oddly enough the British kinda trolled THEMSELVES (or showed a bit of solidarity with their French allies - take your pick) with the monitors Marchal Soult (named after a Napoleon's marshal, a fierce adversary of the British in the Peninsular war) and Marchal Ney named after a Napoleon's marshal that beat them at Quatre Bras (debatable). The Dutch navy trolled the RN with the names of their cruisers and destroyers - named after their famous admirals that successfully fought the English in the Anglo-Dutch wars (must have been fun for the captain of the RN HEAVY cruiser Exeter to be commanded from the Dutch flagship of the ABDA force at the Battle of the Java Sea - the LIGHT cruiser De Ruyter...). But the USN was perhaps the biggest troll of the British... Ships named Yorktown, Lexington, Saratoga, Bunker Hill, Bon Homme Richard... All connected to US victories over the British during the US War of Independence. And even if one got sunk the USN would give the same name to a new ship... Must have been fun for the British Pacific Fleet in late WW2 operating with the USN... In turn, one navy that nowadays kinda trolls the USN is the JMSDF - re-using the names of the Kido Butai's carriers and other major units of the IJN that terrorized the Americans in early Pacific War (although many of the names have actually had a far longer tradition in the IJN).
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  355.  @davefranklin7305  That might be true among the conservative higher ups like Osami Nagano, mostly prior to Pearl Harbor, but they were not in operational command of the Combined fleet which was handled by their younger and more up-to-date, tech savvy subordinates like Yamamoto or Ozawa. Yamamoto committed the Kongos to shell the Henderson Field on Guadalcanal only after the carriers, land airpower and lesser warships got beaten back (Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz, Cape Esperance, aerial campaign from Rabaul). At Midway - he withdrew them after the carrier debacle (USN targets too fast, the island - not worth it). Ozawa's plan for the battle of the Philippine Sea relied on long range airstrikes, battleships were only the escort. Only at Leyte Gulf where his air arm was woefully inadequate did he commit the battleships as the main striking force - because he had nothing left. No oplan survives contact with the enemy. Also applies to contact with technological advances. Whether rationalizing holding back battleships as the main strike force was used in planning papers to sell any particular carrier airpower-reliant plan to any conservative higher-ups I don't know but that is the likeliest explanation. By looking of what the Japanese actually did - they sure did not consider the battleships as a decisive weapon. Simply too slow, too heavy on resource consumption, firepower of too short a range compared to airpower, too big a moral blow if lost, too vulnerable to air or submarine attack. In short - cost innefficient. Finally - after Midway they began a huge crash program to rebuild the Kido Butai that included turning the two Ises to hybrid battleship-carriers, while after losing two Kongos at Guadalcanal they - as Drach said, converted the 3rd Yamato Class battleship hull to - not a carrier (since - low top speed) but - a huge air transport (with limited asw carrier capability for self defense). If this isn't a proof enough that they put emphasis on airpower (in case of carrier airpower - hit and run) rather than battleship guns - I don't know what is.
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  371. 00:54:48 Russian blood was up after the surprise attack at Port Arthur and they were bigger yet they lost. Granted, 1940s US and 1904 Russia has vastly different production capacities and the technology has advanced immensely, air power for instance, (the same applies to USSR vs 1904 Russia too). But high blood does not decide battles. It was still possible (albeit very difficult) for Japan to badly repel every US invasion fleet they produced and sent (and capital ships take long to produce, crews than need to be trained...). Of course they would have had to have done many things differently (pilot training x10 and MUCH better ASW), had a lot more luck (Midway), had much better intelligence (basically having their own ULTRA) and greater (and earlier) technology exchange with Germany (aircraft engines, radars, AAA...) . Nuke Japan in 1945? Assuming Japan wins a string of naval victories that includes repelling the invasion of the Marianas and beyond... HOW DO YOU DELIVER A 4+t EARLY NUKE TO JAPAN? Given that a B-29 or a heavily modified Lancaster were the only WW2 planes that could deliver such a massive bomb, you would have to do one of the following: 1) Fly them from unoccupied parts of China (assuming the Japanese failed to crush KMT in this alternate history in which they are far more successful than they historically were) - spies, much better early warning... In this alternate history Japan has not been firebombed for almost a year before nuking and its interceptor force is not bled dry... The bomb carrying plane would have been shot to pieces long before it reached Japan. 2) Fly a one-way B-29 mission (crew parachutes near a submarine) or wait until 1946 for B-36 Peacemaker and fly a strike from Anchorage - similar to above. 3) Get the USSR (which has a non-aggression pact with Japan from 1939 until it broke it in Aug 1945) to allow a nuclear bombing mission... Allowing a communist country to possibly snatch a nuclear weapon at the time USA has nuclear monopoly and falsely believes the USSR is decades from making its own bomb... unlikely. And the problems stated in point 2) still apply. 4) Battlefield use - nuke front line island bases or Japanese troop concentrations in China?... Assuming the plane does not get shot down by land or carrier based interceptors, the IJN still prevents seaborne taking of the nuked island as nukes are not that effective against fleets. On land, the troops are relatively widely dispersed. It would hurt but 10,000 troops lost is not something Japan quits a war for. Also, only one nuke in 2 weeks could be produced (granted Japan didn't know this, but in this scenario it is not Japan proper that is hit and its production capacities are not affected), and Japan (and Germany) had their own nuclear programs that would be switched into overdrive and produced some bombs of their own in a few years USSR style... If USN could not break IJN, nukes still stay far away from Japan... and in China - how far would the poorly supplied (by air bridge across Himalayas only) Chinese advance after a few nukes? Also after the first nuke the Japanese troops would start digging deep dugouts as bomb shelters (as they historically did on Iwo Jima or theGermans did on Western front in WW1 to shelter from heavy artillery) which would minimize the effects of nuclear strikes. PS Getting the USSR to join the war - again, depends how it fares against Germany in this alternate history, but assuming war in Europe ended as it did, would have done the trick, but only on Asian mainland - thus - peace, not capitulation.
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  410. Russia didn't focus on capital ship production simply because of priorities. They were a huge country with most of the raw materials at home, with few if any friendly overseas trade partners to have sea trade routes with that needed guarding but were not yet a superpower who could challenge much of the rest of the world for world domination. Instead they were a huge mostly pariah state that could expect a broad coalition to gang up against it from land at any moment, so powerful land army and air force were the absolute priority - and that asset can spoil any crazy Galipoli 1915 style amphibious attack since unlike during such successful foray named the Crimean War, by 1930s USSR had a powerful rail network and land vehicle industry so sea supply system could be countered by a well organized land supply system. They were also bottled up by geography with no faraway depliyment bases, so their navy had no need to be more than a coastal defense force whose old Imperial Russia era dreadnoughts outclassed the Nordic neighbor's coastal defense battleships and the Turkish Yavuz Sultan Selim (ex Goeben) battlecruiser. In the Far East - just forget about competing with Japan at the time in naval terms, better keep them in check with land power via the Trans-Siberian railway - finished, greatly modernized and double tracked since its failure to ensure land victory during the Russo-Japanese war (cough compare to Khalkhin Gol) . So there was little point in building capital ships. All that said they started getting into capital ships in late 30s but never finished them due to the German 1941 invasion (in retrospect they would have mattered little to nothing in the war that followed had they been completed)
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  421. You got something wrong here. In 1876 there were no Ottomans in Belgrade (except the ambassadors of course) which was the capital of the Principality of Serbia which was TECHNICALLY still part of the Ottoman Empire but was for all practical intents and purposes independent of it, having its own ruler, army, currency, schools, parliament and even cannon factory but no Ottoman garrisons since 1862. Although in practice its foreign policy mostly followed "advice" either from Russia or Austria - depending which of powers' influence was dominant in Serbia at the time (with a bit of French and German influence here and there). In 1876. it was Russia. The only thing Serbia lacked for full independence was full international recognition (won on Berlin Congress in 1878) and Austria-Hungary was not hostile to Serbia at the time. In 1876. Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire wishing to liberate Serb-populated areas outside of the principality but still held by the Turks, and help Montenegro and rebels against the Ottoman rule in Bosnia both of which were already at war with the Ottomans. Austria-Hungary was neutral in that conflict and while not entirely friendly, nevertheless sold materiel to Serbia (like lead pipes which were smelted into cannonballs since apparently sale of ammunition was banned). I assume the monitor may have been deployed near Belgrade on something like a neutrality patrol and/or observation mission but it ceartainly didn't fight anyone around Belgrade at the time. Also Sava is not south but west of Belgrade. PS the hull of SMS Bodrog, the ship that fired first shots of WW1 (at Belgrade) is in Belgrade and its restoration is nearing completion.
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  453. With regards to the speculative night action at the Indian Ocean in 1942: Both the Japanese carriers and their escorting Kongo class battleships were significantly faster than the British battleships (30+kts vs 23kts, the exception being the slightly faster Warspite at 25kts). With the advantage of radar the British could potentially position their ships to have moonlight to their advantage and surprise the Japanese with opening salvoes and cripple a couple of ships, but they would never be able to close as much as at Matapan since the Japanese had 19 destroyers screening their fleet, whereas the 2 Italian cruisers sent to tow the damaged third one at Matapan had just two destroyers with them. And time and time again the WW2 night engagements showed that the fighting power of smaller, torpedo-armed ships was much closer, or even superior to that of bigger gun-ships at night with prime examples being the battles of Cape Bon, Bali, Tassafaronga, naval battles of Guadalcanal (Washington retired out of fear of being torpedoed), US PT boats' successes against the Tokyo Express at night, opening moves at Surigao Strait or sinking of the Haguro. And in 1942. Indian Ocean, we are talking IJN at its prime armed with long range type 93 torpedoes, good night optics and night fighting training not behind that of the RN. So at best the British would be able to hurt the Japanese, perhaps sink a capital ship or two and then the action would turn into a destroyer brawl and the remaining Japanese carriers and battleships successfully fleeing the battle firing only if necessary (see Chuichi Hara's handling of the fleet during the battle of the Coral Sea in the night before the final day of the battle). And in the morning the livid Japanese would send all the planes they have to get Revenge (and other RN BBs :)) - last day of the Coral Sea or Midway style and unless some very bad weather saved them the British would be hit. However, the Japanese would certainly not manage to sink all the RN battleships (that too goes for the ideal Japanese scenario where all the carriers launch a comfortable concentrated attack in the morning). Just check the battle of the Sibuyan Sea or even the Pearl Harbor itself. My estimate is that they would manage to sink between 1 and 3 battleships depending on the size of the attacking force and luck. The British would not scatter but rely on mutually supporting AAA. Even at the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse the escorting RN destroyers got away. Their 90 attackers had been heavier twin engined land based bombers with bigger bombloads than the D3A carrier dive bombers, (albeit with lower accuracy). The 5 Japanese carriers had something like 120 torpedo bombers between them, but the far stronger escort of destroyers and cruisers would lay a far stronger AAA barrage than the one defending the PoW and Repulse.
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  478.  @strub6732  Trifimia. A humble unarmed Greek merchant ship used as a transport for the Serbian troops that were to take part in the Siege of Scutari (Shkodra) from the recently liberated port of Salonika to Medua in present-day Albania in 1913. during the 1st Balkan War. She was carrying a battery of Serbian mountain guns. When they reached their destination on 12. March 1913. and while they were offloading the troops, the Ottoman protected cruiser Hamidiye, engaged in commerce raiding and fresh from the previous day's shelling of Allied-held Durazzo, approached the port that was filled with only 9 unarmed merchant ships including the Trifimia and started shelling them. With two mountain guns still on-board, their Serbian crews set them up on the deck and fired back turning the humble merchant ship into an ad-hoc warship. While Hamidiye's fire did damage some of the ships including the Trifimia and eventually sank other two, she sailed away in face of the comparatively humble return fire without finishing off the other ships so as not to risk damage since the closest Ottoman-held port where repairs could be made was as far as Egypt. A similar arrangement was made in WW2 when the USSR-bound convoy PQ-17 scattered due to false information that Tirpitz sailed to intercept them. In attempt to avoid detection and resist if need be Lt Leo Gradwell sailed 4 merchants and trawlers he commanded into ice packs, painted them white with paint he happened to be transporting and redied the Lend-Lease Sherman tanks he was transporting on decks to fire if any Germans appeared. However, unlike the aforementioned Greek ship his ships were never detected by the enemy and after some days they managed to sail to Archangelsk. While there were numerous instances of merchant ships being outfitted with guns as auxilliary cruisers, subchasers etc. and ad-hoc use of transported guns on ships to shell other merchant ships, I would really like to know whether there was another instance of a merchant ship repelling a purpose-built cruiser-sized warship just using its cargo. This was in effect a mini Greco-Serbo-Turkish Battle of Samar.
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  499.  @Drachinifel  Hey, thanks for the response. Btw I believe I was a bit stingy on praises in my comments on your videos thus far since I commented almost exclusively about the things I disagreed with you about, but I should say: whatever I did not comment about I either mostly agreed with or simply learned from :) So kudos, a great effort! (I've been a subscriber for a while) The reasoning in my comment above is based on the following historical examples: 1) Polish pilots: they trained extensively on their PZL fighters in the 30s expecting to face the Soviets sooner or later, but once the Germans attacked with more numerous and technologically superior aircraft and mostly rush-trained pilots (there weren't all that many Spanish Civil War veterans), they won. Sure the Poles proved elusive targets and shot down some planes but it was futile. But once the survivors got up-to date Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain - they shone. You may check the "Bloody Foreigners" - The Untold Story of The Battle of Britain (available on youtube) 17:59-18:37 the testimony of one of the Polish fighters from the RAF 303 Squadron (Polish) who fought both at home and in Britain about how easy it all was in a Hurricane vs the old PZL-11 2) The Soviets. They got massacred in the beginning although they had veterans as well as the Germans - from Spain, Finland and Khalhin Gol. They also had the numbers. But most of the aircraft were outdated (I-15, I-16) sub-par (LaGG-3) or poorly suited for the battle ahead (Mig-3). So by late 1942. the rookies held the line and the training was the most basic. But then they got Yak-9s, and La-5s which were a match for the German fighters in Eastern Front battle conditions. And by mid-1943. they turned the tide. 3) The Japanese vs US historically, mid 1943. Just watch Dogfights: Zero killer (available here on youtube) from 12:00 to 15:00 - how a US rookie in a new Hellcat easily killed a Japanese 9 kill ace in an A6M3 Zero in a 1:1 dogfight just thanks to the superiority of his aircraft. Sure there were accounts of skillful Japanese pilots being a headache to hit for the green Americans, notably the Japanese ace Saburo Sakai, blind in one eye by this point in the war, in an A6M5 Zero evading an attack of 15 green Hellcats in late 1944. off Iwo Jima, but one needs to hurt the enemy badly enough too in addition to surviving in order to win a war.
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  533.  @chrisknight6884  France, although defeated in 1940, still had some negotiating options. Firstly their fleet could be useful to the allies. If the Germans pushed too far with thrir demands France could continue the war from their colonies, some of which were beyond Axis reach, with their fleet being the major asset. The Axis needed to balance their desire to grab the French fleet against having to invade the whole of France, garrison it, therefore dispersing their troops, and fight even more resistance fighters. And even then they would likely not grab their fleet as it could sail to the allies (as bulk of the Italian fleet did in 1943) or scuttle itself (like the French ships in Toulon did in 1942). On the other hand the French knew that price for continuing the war was a straight away full occupation of the metropolitan France by the Axis, further destruction there, executions due to resistance (see Klaus Barbie - butcher of Lyons to see what I am talking about). Now many of the German-occupied countries faced the same dilemma, with certain members of the government and army command fleeing the country just before it was overrun with some military forces, and joining the Allies to continue the fight, while back at home some sort of puppet government was formed as some sort of administration was needed to keep order and prevent general famine (even if some of those were forced by the Germans to commit terrible atrocities against parts of their populace). Therefore it was a dilemma: make a modest contribution to the fight for the greater good against the Germans at massive cost in lives and property to your country (see Yugoslav, Greek or Polish guerilla resistance movements during WW2) or mostly shy away from further provoking the Germans by attacks and/or sabotage and be largely left alone by them to sit out the war that could only be won by huge unoccupied industrial powerhouses like USSR and USA and to a lesser degree UK anyway (see Denmark, Norway - their resistances, while existing and active came nowhere close to near all-out commitment made by the first group of countries). Sweeden, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain and Turkey played the latter part masterfully, avoiding the war altogether (some joined symbolically just before it ended). Now France obviously did not avoid the war altogether but it was still a highly developed industrial country. Continuing the war for the Allies as a mere auxiliary would incurr a disproportionately high cost compared to contrubution. The poor countries like the newly resurrected Poland or the Balkans had little to lose other than lives of their mostly simple folk. France was a great power before the war, it had industry and a critical mass of highly educated populace that could help it stay a great power after the war. I think trying to prevent war from destroying those was on Vichy officials' mind all along - Gensoul included. As a vindication of this stance note that most of the resistance leaders were upstarts - those who were clawing their way to power, not those who already had it before the war (Polish, Yugoslav, French, Italian and Greek communists that never held power there before the war and Mihajlovic in Yugoslavia, De Gaule in France - mere colonels etc. With the possible exception of the heads of Armia Kraiowa in Poland). Had Gensoul joined the Allies or sailed to US, Germans would have seen that as betrayal of the Armistice terms and invaded the Zone Libre in 1940. - just as they historically did in 1942. after receiving information that the French largely allowed the US and the British to invade their North African possessions without resistance in the operation Torch - whereupon the French Fleet in Toulon scuttled itself. Other than disrepair, the British attack on Oran and Dakar in 1940. probably was a major reason why, at that point, when they had nothing more to lose, they refused to sail to join the Allies instead.
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  586. @UNSCForwardontodawn No successful propaganda ever stated "This is propaganda, now listen:" History books are full of various types of propaganda you need to learn to spot them by applying critical thinking on facts only and ignoring conclusions the book is trying to shove into your head since that is one of the places of the book where the propaganda is most often found - be it by the propagandist author or by other propagandists whose spin the author has bought into and is repeating. Excellent example of propaganda BS is the notion (found in, among other places in Encarta Encyclopedia no less) that the sinking of the Lusitania was an important factor in US entry to WW1; in reality US entered the war about a full year later and just used it as a rallying cry, having no single better event during which Germans killed Americans to point to. K/D is always important, but that does not mean more than 1:1= victory, it differs from battle to battle, not to mention war to war - based on balance of power between the combatants, but could be other objectives too. But sufficiently favorable K/D was the HSF objective at Jutland and they achieved it. It was achieved at considerable risk - but due to the balance if power that was HSF's ONLY (slim) CHANCE to beat RN. Scheer effectively had ptsd after the battle so he to a degree chickened out instead of continuing with the strategy with the same drive as before Jutland (he actually did, but more timidly). But a cooler head would have drawn different conclusion - since, it is not just hindsight to say that Germany was slowly being starved into defeat by being almost completely cut off from world trade by Entente powers, in which the RN blockade played a very important part.
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  589.  @gwtpictgwtpict4214  Nope The problem with Jutland is the British propaganda LIE (more like implication actually) that the German intention was to set sail, sweep the RN in one battle, win command of the sea, blockade UK out of the war and then focus on defeating France. In reality the German naval staff had no illusions that such a scenario is even remotely possible. They instead, quite sensibly intended to nibble away the British naval superiority in number by a succession of lesser victories, ideally by defeating RN in detail - so quite literally WITH A FAVORABLE K/D RATIO in this particular case. Jutland unquestionably qualifies as such a victory as the Germans achieved a ratio (~3:1) by which the overall plan would have worked had they managed to produce more such victories (since RN had just under 2:1 advantage). Compare it to Verdun where while they did lose bit less than the Entente they failed to achieve K/D rate good enough for the attrition strategy to work - hence Verdun was a German defeat. The irony is that the whole British narrative is likely born out of their own nationalistic notion born during the Napoleonic war (when the two main rival navies were numerically larger but in organizational and, sometimes morale crisis and boarding was a thing) that the RN would just sweep everything before itself in a single decisive battle. When that failed with losses 3x that of the enemy the propaganda rationalized it by saying "look, the enemy wanted to sweep US in a single decisive battle and THEY failed - so we won since we still have the command of the sea Rule Britannia!". In reality the German fleet would have ran out of shells before it could sink the Grand Fleet even if it all went their way.
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  629.  @HootOwl513  O'Hare was last seen at the 5 o'clock position of the TBF. About that time, the turret gunner of the TBF, Alvin Kernan (AOM1/c) noticed a Japanese G4M "Betty" bomber above and almost directly behind O'Hare's 6 o'clock position.[39] Kernan opened fire with the TBF's .50 cal. machine gun in the dorsal turret and a Japanese gunner fired back. O'Hare's F6F Hellcat apparently was caught in a crossfire. Seconds later O'Hare's F6F slid out of formation to port, pushing slightly ahead at about 160 knots (300 km/h; 180 mph) and then vanished in the dark. The Avenger pilot, Lieutenant Commander Phillips, called repeatedly to O'Hare, but received no reply. Ensign Skon responded:[40] "Mr Phillips, this is Skon. I saw Mr O'Hare's lights go out and, at the same instant, he seemed to veer off and slant down into darkness." Phillips later asserted, as the Hellcat dropped out of view, it seemed to release something that fell almost vertically at a speed too slow for anything but a parachute. Then something "whitish-gray" appeared below, perhaps the splash of the aircraft plunging into the sea. In Chapter 16, "What Happened to Butch", the authors write, "Butch fell to his old familiar adversary, a Betty. Most likely he died from or was immediately disabled by, a lucky shot from the forward observer crouched in the rikko's [Betty's] forward glassed-in nose ... the nose gunner's 7.7 mm slugs very likely penetrated Butch's cockpit from above on the port side and ahead of the F6F's armor plate."[42] In the index, Ewing and Lundstrom flatly state that Kernan is "wrongly accused of shooting down Butch."
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  653.  @grandadmiralzaarin4962  Japanese heavy battleships 1) Were slower than the Kongos (which were used). They were likely to be hit by US airstrikes if they faild to neutralize the Henderson field or US carriers happened to be around. 2) Consumed too much oil to be comitted to bombard an island which was really not that important. Taking the island would just extend the Japanese defense perimiter further and isolating Australia would require taking many more islands (which US would likely also contest) as well as basing large naval forces there to hit any supply ships going to Australia which would all be a logistical challenge to Japan. On the other hand, letting the US have Guadalcanal did not seriously endanger the vital Japanese shipping lanes in the Yellow and South China Seas as well as Dutch East Indies. Guadalcanal came to be a flashpoint for battle for both navies and it was the destruction of the enemy naval assets rather than the island itself that was more important. 3) Intelligence failure. One determins the size of the forces he plans to commit based on intelligence estimates of the enemy. Commiting too few loses him a battle. Committing way too many wastes precious resources and runs the risk of leaving some other theatre with insufficient forces. Intelligence on committed enemy forces is the input used for making the decision. The Japanese made the former mistake obviously. 4) Night actions are messy and risking Nagatos or Yamatos after both sides lost most of their pre-war carriers (we are talking after the Battle of Santa Cruz) for, again, an island that was not crucial in itself was a bad idea for a nation dependent on maintaining regional sea control just to sustain itself as a great power.
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  667.  @allangibson8494  No. American forward bases were much closer to Japanese economic sea lanes than Japanese bases were to US economic sea lanes. The Japanese could only hit transports carrying troops and equipment to those forward bases, but as I explained, those were concentrated into heavily guarded convoys, and those bases bristled with ASW assets. Economic sea lanes are sea lanes which carry vital strategic raw materials for the war industry. That's many more ships than those carrying concentrated end products in form of armament, manpower and provisions to the front. Japan, being an island nation with scarce resources relied heavily on maritime transport to feed its industry and population and those sea lanes became exposed to US submarine attacks fairly quickly as US had a forward pase at Pearl Harbor and continued to establish new, closer ones as it advanced throughout Pacific. US economic sea lanes that Japanese submarines could theoratically hit albeit briefly were those along the US West Coast, but there were others beyond Japanese reach (East Coast, Great Lakes) the former of which, granted, Germany could hit but also only briefly. However, USA constituted a better part of a resource-rich continent crisscrossed by railways, so sea lanes were not that vital to the US was industry in the first place. Japanese submarine doctrine largely reflected the geostrategic reality of the Pacific War. It did not have an island-nation enemy, heavily reliant on sea lanes right next door like Germany did once France fell, so it simply had far fewer merchant ship within its reach to target, even if some of their submarines were indeed some of the longest range ones during the war...
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  720. 33:54 Yes, 3 Austro-Hungarian monitors that included the monitor SMS "Bodrog" fired the first shots of WW1 at Belgrade (capital of Serbia which was separated from Austria Hungary to the north only by Sava and Danube rivers) a little after 01:00 AM on 29. 7. 1914. (A-H declared war on Serbia the previous day) while escorting a troop transport named "Alkotmany". The shelling was responsible for the first soldier KIA in WW1 - a young Serbian paramilitary volunteer named Dušan Đonović (Dushan Djonovich). The first Central powers' KIA followed soon after when the Serbian Army pontooneers commanded by captain Mihailo Alić (Mihailo Alich) blew up the Belgrade railway bridge over the Sava River (which still exists as "Old Railway Bridge") as the "Alkotmany" was sailing underneath, the collapsing steel truss killing its captain Karlo Eberling. The monitor "Bodrog" survived the war, was captured by the Serbian Army in the closing days of the war (in a grounded state), renamed "Sava", joined the navy of the Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes (the country was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929), was scuttled during the 1941. German invasion of the country , was raised by them, repaired, given to the collaborationist Independent State of Croatia, was scuttled towards the end of WW2, raised again by the postwar communist Yugoslavia, used for a while, then retired, turned into a gravel barge, later hulked and left to rust until being recently restored and turned into a museum in Belgrade. I visited her. Main guns are fake look-alikes, but light guns are real. It has a nice collection of photos, uniforms and crew items, but I believe work on her is not complete.
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  728.  @mishkata348  In order for Japan to win the USSR would have had to be neutralized by Germany, otherwise the Soviets would crush the Japanese in Manchuria as they historically did in 1945. sooner or later. Also by the time the US developed nuclear weapons Germany would have to develop its own and occupy Britain. Japan would consequently invade the British India (creating a puppet state if wise), Ceylon, and Madagascar (to maintain control over its maritime trade) starving the Chinese into surrender and possibly occupying Australia. Cooperation, coordination and tech-exchange between Germany and Japan would have to be far better than it historically was. In Britain the Germans could have gotten their hands on centimetric radars and advanced fire control computers. If passed on to Japan and mass-produced it just might have enabled the Japanese to beat back US carrier offensives (faster aircraft engine development, better ASW and better use of their own submarines would also be imperative for the Japanese to win). Invading Oahu? Just maybe once all of the former was done. The war would then turn into a race for nuclear-armed aircraft carriers and intercontinental bombers, but if the kind of Cold-War tech pairity was achieved the war would end with US in firm control of the Americas, Germany controlling Europe, a puppet USSR/Russia and Africa and Japan fusing with China, controlling Austraila and a pupet India. The future would be determined by the relations between Germany and Japan. If cordial, the US would slowly be marginalized.
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  737. 3:29:50 The 800+kg modified 16 in shells used as aerial bombs at Pearl Harbor were NOT carried by the Japanese dive bombers (Aichi D3A "Val") which could not take off with such a heavy combat payload (their heaviest payload was the 250 kg bomb). The modified shells were carried by the B5N "Kate" torpedo bombers which were not capable of dive bombing (their wings were not designed with sufficient strength and would have broken off if they tried to pull out of a steep dive, especially with a 800 kg payload in case of an abortive attack). They were used at Pearl Harbor in a level bombing attack during the first attack wave but due to the surprise (and hence little AAA opposition) and the fact that the targets were stationary the attack was successful (destroying the USS Arizona). They were not used again to my knowledge as such favorable circumstances were not available any more. That is one detail that the Micheal Bay's movie Pearl Harbor actually got right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RebMpyuYtHI Btw there is the old turn-hex-based strategy video game "Pacific General" by SSI to which fans made some outstanding free downloadable add-ons: Armory Equipment file and the East Wind Rain (the former improves the number and stats of units and the latter completely redesigns both the US and the Japanese campaigns improving their quality immensly) and in the 3rd Japanese mission (named East Wind Rain, which deals with the invasion of Luzon) you actually can face Fort Drum with a fleet of a Nagato, a Fuso a pair of Takaos, a Kuma class light cruiser and a few destroyer divisions (though if you decide to buy some other ships prior to the start of the mission in the campaign you can try different fleets too). I definitely recommend it to the poser of the question.
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  771. Wrong about what would make the most difference for the Japanese in WW2 of those three. Had they kept pace in aircraft design, it would in their case, before anything else, mean that they have AIRCRAFT ENGINES OF THE SAME POWER AS THE ALLIES. A6M2 Zero engine: 950 hp, Wildcat engine: 1350hp, and it only gets worse mid-war. If Zero had the engine as powerful it would have been designed very differently. The design would have been able afford sturdier construction, self-sealing fuel tanks, boosted controls, some armor etc. The plane would have been far less perishable. The same goes for dive and torpedo bombers. BOOM - casualty rates go down compared to history. I doubt it would have saved the Japanese carriers sunk at Coral Sea, Midway or Eastern Solomons in itself, though - it would take at least radar for that - but it would have made the battles of Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz more damaging for the USA - Enterprise would have been sunk. With that and fewer losses in the air - Shokaku and Zuikaku remain in the field, drive away USN from Guadalcanal, together with Rabaul (or if brains prevail faster-built Munda) based aircraft neutralize the Henderson field and 1st marine division gets captured. Furthermore, it is not the experienced prewar pilots that won WW2, it was the wartime-trained rookies/regulars. With up-to date machines the Japanese would have had some chance to keep beating the batches of Essexes as they got sent to the Pacific until the war across such a distance became too expensive even for the USA to prosecute and it agreed to some kind of compromise. But it is true that keeping their carriers would have made the least difference (It would have made a difference at Guadalcanal though - an overwhelming air attack on Enterprise and Hornet by four-carrier (not 6 due to air losses) Kido Butai would have driven the USN away, knocked out the Henderson field and won the campaign. But they'd lose 2 more carrier's worth of aircraft so they'd be out of breath for the upcoming major USN counteroffensives.
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  773. 30:46 Germans: Schlezwig-Holstein actually fired the opening shots of the war by shelling the Polish troops in Danzig on 1. Sep. 1039. In 1944 as mentioned the Prinz Eugen but also Scheer and Lutzow and some destroyers shelled the advancing Soviet troops in the Baltics, directed by ground spotters via radio supposedly causing significant losses (see Task force Thiele). Imperial Japanese Navy : Kongo and Haruna bombed the Henderson Field in 1942 destroying 40 planes. Before that heavy cruisers also bombed it destroying 10 planes, During the battle for the Philipines in 1945 a Japanese naval task force shelled one of the landings. Royal Italian Navy: Armored Cruiser San Giorgio supported the Italian defense of Tobruk. Protected with torpedo nets it shrugged off up to 39 torpedo attacks by the British torpedo bombers and was eventually scuttled when the city fell. The French National Navy: The battleship Paris ineffectually tried to shell the advancing German troops in 1940. Soviet Navy: Marat, Oktobarskaya Revolutsiya, Maxim Gorky, Kirov and many other ships shelled Finnish coastal guns in the Winter War and the Axis in the Baltic including around Leningrad and Parizhskaya Kommuna, Molotov, Komintern and Voroshilov and many other ships shelled the Axis around in the Black Sea. Royal Hellenic Navy: The destroyer Vasilissa Olga took part in the shelling of Catania, Sicily. Possibly also of Panatelleria just before the garrison surrendered. Royal Yugoslav Navy: River monitor Drava shelled a Hungarian airfield just as the hostilities commenced. Also the destroyer Beograd was to shell the Italians at Zara but was damaged by bomb near misses by the Italian aircraft so it had to limp back to port for repairs. Spanish Navy: Shelled the Rif (wrecking the Espana battleship in the process...) and later ships of both sides in the civil war shelled the opposing positions.
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