Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "The Drydock - Episode 096" video.

  1. 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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  2. ​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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