Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "The Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron - Voyage of the Damned" video.

They needed the icebreaker to make it through the Baltic sea. It was never intended to accompany the fleet beyond the Baltic (and that is why it was sent home). Btw the icebreaker was the "Yermak - the first icebreaker ever and one of the longest actively serving ships ever. A very busy ship that was essential to Russia's maritime trade via St Petersburg.
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If you are referring to Dogger Bank incident: at the time UK and Japan were allies and UK bitterly opposed Russian interests. It had been altogether a plausible assumption that the Brits might have allowed basing of Japanese torpedo boats, or built some on Japanese order during the war with crews that are to operate them sent from Japan as they were being built and those torpedo boats be used to launch a surprise torpedo attack against the passing Russian fleet. There were countless examples of similar cooperation before and since, notably German submarines and surface raiders using friendly neutral countries' ports to re-supply and launch attacks on enemy and neutral shipping in areas thought logistically inaccessible to Germany in both world wars, various UK-still neutral US deals, Confederate raiders operating out of French and British ports against Union merchants during US Civil war (some having been built there) etc. Russians made a mistake but were not at all crazy for being edgy while passing near UK.
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@bkjeong4302 Mogami had at least 3 screwups: 1) Battle of Sunda Strait (torpedoed some Japanese transports, although in all fairness other Japanese ships like the destroyer Fubuki and the light cruiser Natori launched many torpedoes too (88 all in total) as did the Americans, so exactly who hit what is somewhat sketchy), 2) Collision with her sister Mikuma at the Battle of Midway, that decisively contributed to the loss of the latter tu US aircraft 3) Collision with the Japanese heavy cruiser Nachi at the Battle of Surigao Strait which resulted in herloss and contributed to the later sinking of the Nachi in the Manila Bay.
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@bkjeong4302 War was started by the Japanese, and the first act was a surprise torpedo boat attack in Port Arthur. . They had the initiative. They could have pre-positioned ships just in case the Russians decided to send their Baltic fleet (and since the Russians had actually pulled off a successful similar redeployment to the Mediterranean and consequently achieved naval superiority in a Russo Turkish war in the past, the Japanese could be expected to assume the possibility of redeployment to the Pacific too) or had some on secret orders from before the war. It is altogether possible to keep such things secret (hell in WW2 the Japanese kept secret launching of two biggest battleships ever built, and during the Russo-Japanese war managed to conceal from the Russians the loss of Hatsuse and Yashima, 1/3 of their first rate battle line to mines.). Many new technologies were being developed at the time and commanders had to account for increased number of possible threats. Admiral Makarov even considered a possibility of the Japanese discharging a large amount of oil just outside of Port Arthur when the tide was sure to carry it into the harbor and seting it alight to attack his fleet at anchor and devised countermeasures for such a scenario, even though it may sound a bit ludicrous in hindsight.
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@bkjeong4302 Battleships DID win WW1 for the Entente (by maintaining a blockade of Germany and ensuring US would join the Entente). Evidently, damaging as they were, the submarines did not change the outcome of the war. The all big-gun battleship concept was born before the Russo-Japanese war, it was merely vindicated there, steam turbine propulsion was too. Dreadnought would have been built even had there been no Russo-Japanese war. Besides, the battleships soon reverted to having secondary guns to counter the torpedo boats and destroyers so the Dreadnought revolution was more about having the steam turbine propulsion (soon also to be oil fired), being larger and having more of the big guns than trully being an "all big gun" design. As for WW2 - battleships were not obsolete - as evidenced by countles ships they sank, shore targets they destroyed and planes they shot down.
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They did sink two Japanese battleships with mines during the war.
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@harrisengr CSS Alabama for instance. Google it.
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Q&A What does Drachinifel mean?
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