Comments by "Nicholas Conder" (@nicholasconder4703) on "Italy's forgotten WW2 Victories? (featuring @Drachinifel)" video.

Their greatest success was probably the sinking of the Queen Elizabeth and Valiant at dock in Alexandria. This raid succeeded in temporarily reducing the Royal Navy's dominance in the Mediterranean for the first 6 months of 1942. Fortunately for the ROyal Navy both ships settled onto the harbor bottom upright and with their decks above water. Had the Italian Navy been aware how successful their special forces had been, they could have been more aggressive and potentially completely severed British supply routes through the Mediterranean by starving out Malta.
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It's a strategy the surface units of the Kriegsmarine would have been well advised to follow after the Norway debacle.
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@Infectious Legume Actually, the USN Atlanta Class was designed as an AA cruiser equipped with the American dual-purpose 5" guns, and was not really suited for fleet actions. The fact that Juneau and Alaska were present at the Battle of Guadalcanal either shows how desperate the Americans were for ships at the time of the battle, or the commander who assembled the fleet didn't think the vessel's specialization would affect its combat ability.
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@IrishCarney The problem for the Axis is that, unlike the Americans, they did not have a weapon that was the equivalent to the dual-purpose 5" gun. Their only option was a standard light cruiser with 6" primary armament and 3" AA guns (basically Konigsberg and Leipzig class cruisers). Lacking a dual purpose surface/AA gun hurt the Kriegsmarine (it is probably one reason the Bismark was sunk), and they were incapable of producing an AA cruiser like the Atlanta Class. And, it should be remembered that although Atlanta herself was "expended", she survived at least one Long Lance hit (800 lbs of TNT will ruin your day) and over a dozen shell hits (quite a few of these being American-made 8" rounds from the USS San Francisco). In spite of this, Atlanta was almost saved, but the damage control parties were unable to prevent the progressive flooding of the ship and she finally sank about 18 hours after the battle. USS Juneau survived one torpedo hit during the same battle, but was unfortunate enough to be hit by a torpedo fired by a Japanese sub the next day, which hit a magazine and destroyed the ship.
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@francescoboselli6033 I think that would only have ticked off the Americans even more. They are very sensitive about having an inviolate homeland (conveniently forgetting, of course, that British and Canadian troops entered Washington, DC, in 1814 and burned the White House).
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@Infectious Legume Yes, and I am probably going to keep getting flak over that typo. My excuse is that I wrote that late at night. Yeah, that's the ticket.
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