Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen - Guide 155" video.

@sarjim4381 As to Coastal Defense Ships ... I don't believe the purpose of such ships was to stand up to major navies - so much as to simply have ... something ... so that such as pirates or other small powers didn't take advantage of a nation that was defenseless against any sort of naval power. Some form of Costal Artillery is fine as far as it will shoot but you need ... something ... that can go out to sea and protect your sea lanes against minor powers or criminal threats. A purely hypothetical example would be - suppose a small nation like Latvia and Finland got into it - and Finland had NO navy but Latvia had a small one. Latvia would have been able to blockade the Finish ports and that would have had an impact on negotiations to end the spat. Again - that's just a hypothetical example of what I mean - not something that was ever going to happen (as far as I know). And - pirates have always been a threat to any naval power vacuum. Often consisting of nothing more than opportunistic fishermen, out there on the open sea ... if there's no one around to stop them from doing it ... people with any sort of power over other people ... have a history of using it. Thus, pretty much all nations with a coast - have a navy - and some that only have rivers as well. Any where there is a power vacuum of any type - if some government doesn't step up to fill it - someone else will ... .
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@WojciechP915 Ah yes. One of the joys of being a history nerd is the appreciation of the realizations of other history nerds. .
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Jonny B Uh ... no. China and Russia becoming a political block ... I don't see that. The Chinese - yes - depending. When Europeans complain about the Americans I tend to tell them to just wait until the Chinese are running things and see how they like that - but not in cooperation with the Russians. The thing is - Russia and China really don't have that good a history working together. The Russians tended to look down on the Chinese and the Chinese - look down on EVERYBODY ... We'll have to see how things shake out. Putin is running things now ... but ... he's not going to be running things forever - and given the somewhat iffy state of Russian Democracy ... I sure as hell don't know what's going to happen there in the future. The Chinese Communists have adopted a policy of having a Capitalistic Economy under Communist Political Rule but as seen repeatedly since the revolution - any time they started thinking they had a chance - the Democratic ideas of the population have come out. What happened in the Soviet Union was that a number of generations after the revolution - no one believed in it. The Party didn't believe in it. People joined The Party to advance their own lives - not to serve the "People". So - in contrast to the lives of people in the West - which they were aware of - the population was ready for the Soviet System to collapse. That was in fact the policy of Containment advocated by the NATO powers. After WWII as the Cold War became seen for what it was - rather than fight yet another major war - NATO adopted the strategy of making sure the Soviets never thought they could win - while waiting for the obvious flaws in their system to cause it to fail. And they were right. The thing that is different about China - is the acceptance of Capitalism in the economy. As long as they are able to meet the rising economic aspirations of the population ... they might last longer than the Soviet System did. We'll just have to see. If the Communists screw up big enough ... they could demonstrate that they have lost the Mandate of Heaven ... and find themselves undone. We'll see ... . .
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@WandererRTF Hmmm ... I don't have a source for my opinion. Do you have one for yours? .
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@WandererRTF OK. That's interesting. Here's what I found on that: Here's the Wikipedia page on the author in Finnish: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauno_Niklander Here's the Google Search I did that produced the above page WITH the option of translating it: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Tauno+Niklander I tried to link directly to the translation but ... it just gave the previous link - so - if someone wants to read this in English - they'll have to use THIS link and select the option on their own to translate it. I did note however that as with a lot of Google Translations - there is something to be said for someone (such as yourself) who actually speaks the language doing the translating rather than a bot. Here - they translate Armor as "tank" - and thus they translate the title as "Our Tankers" - which would be in error since there are ships which are tankers and which are not what the book is referring too. This search turns up some other references to the book - but - at least one of them gave me a Warning that the page was being used to trick people ... so ... pursue things like that with care ... I was not able to find much on the book itself - Amazon wouldn't link to it. Here's the rather sparse list under Google Books - perhaps you'd like to be the first to write a review? https://books.google.com/books/about/Meid%C3%A4n_panssarilaivamme.html?id=XuihAAAACAAJ I was able to find two pictures of the Cover though - here's one of those: https://asiakas.kotisivukone.com/files/kampinkirjakauppa.kotisivukone.com/kuvat/tuotekuvat/historia/sotahistoria/merisota/3619.jpg And thus - I have failed anyone wishing to purchase a copy of the book for themselves. Sometimes I can find Amazon links or others but not this time. Sorry about that. As to the Finnish Coast Guard - Apparently that has been combined with the Finnish Border Guard https://web.archive.org/web/20070927192652/http://www.raja.fi/rvl/home.nsf/pages/index_eng In defense of my statement though - I would submit - that while what you have set forward as the Theory behind these ships - that was not the way they were actually used. They seem to have actually been used more as general Naval Vessels - and that was more in line with what I was saying - though on reflection I could have done a better job of saying it. As to Piracy - my remarks were not specific to Finland - as you will note the reference to land locked nations that still had piracy on their rivers. In most cases there aren't actually any ships specifically designed to fight piracy - so much as if there are incidents of it - whatever ships are available might be employed. If it were to seem that there was no piracy - it would be because it was on such a small scale as to not be noticed. Though - yes - the Patrols of the Finnish Border/Coast Guard would be more involved in suppressing criminal activity off the Finnish Coast - such as smuggling. During Prohibition in the United States and today with Drug Interdiction - it is our Coast Guard that does most of the maritime anti-smuggling and Drug Enforcement work - though they would call on a Naval vessel if one were available and they NEEDED one. The Anti-Piracy work the US Navy does - is more in places such as off Somalia than off our own coast - though we DO have Pirates off the Coasts of Southern California & Mexico - for one. I know people who have been robbed by them and were happy to have not been killed. It is however the kind of thing I mentioned - opportunistic fishermen - who see a situation where they can rob some one on such as a family outing - so they do. The ships that would normally be patrolling the area would be Coast Guard Vessels but - USN vessels could be called on. Piracy NEVER goes entirely away ... it is just suppressed to the point where such as the opportunistic fisherman ... don't see a lot of opportunities and aren't in the habit of it. Oh - and not to forget - thank you for your comments and knowledge here as I for one am now more knowledgeable on the subject than I was. .
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Very interesting - and that's a great thumbnail pic with all the guns elevated to the same degree. .
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