Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "USS Montana - Guide 118" video.

@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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@Maty83. All other things being equal it would have lasted exactly as long as it did since it was game over for Japan when the USSR invaded Manchuria in August 1945.
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@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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