Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Dreadnought: The Battleship that Changed Everything" video.

  1. Are you suggesting that fitting the guns onto a new design of battleship rather than onto an older design was bad form, perhaps?
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  2.  @GermanShepherd1983  Indeed. But Lord Nelson & Agamemnon were both obsolete when they were completed, and only employed in lesser operations in WW1. The British priority, rightly, was to get Dreadnought and her sisters to sea.
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  3. Dreadnought 'I entered service in October 1906, & could manage 21 knots. I could fire 8 guns on a broadside, six forward, and six aft.' South Carolina 'I entered service in March, 1910, & could manage 18.5 knots. I could fire 8 guns on a broadside, four forward, and four aft.'
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  4. No. It was simply to differentiate him from the First Lord of the Admiralty, who was a politician. The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy. Other Sea Lords were heads of various departments within the RN, reporting to the First Sea Lord.
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  5. There were no battleships in Spee's Squadron. The two comments do not contradict each other.
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  6. I had heard that USS Texas' future was uncertain, so I'm really pleased to read your comment.
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  7.  @ComradeOgilvy1984  Siegfried Breyer argued that the High Seas Fleet lost it's raison d'etre when the British decided that, in the event of a war with Germany, they would institute a distant, rather than close, blockade. German assumptions had been that they would be required to meet the British navy either in, or close to, German home waters. Once the British changed their strategy, then the Germans, with a smaller fleet, would be obliged to fight in the northern North Sea. Apologists for WW1 German naval strategy would claim that the High Seas Fleet was never intended to challenge the blockade. This does, however, rather beg the question, if the High Seas Fleet wasn't intended to challenge the blockade, then what exact purpose was it intended to serve?
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  8.  @ComradeOgilvy1984  Scheer said something like this to Kaiser Bill. Frankly, on the day the Germans accepted that they could not challenge the blockade, they more or less accepted that they could not win the Great War.
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  9. Probably not, as design work on both began at more or less the same time. The Italian naval architect Cuniberti had put forward the idea of the all big gun battleship in 1903, and had written an article on the subject in Jane's Fighting Ships. The Japanese Satsuma had been laid down as an all big gun ship four months before Dreadnought, but was eventually armed with 4 x 12 inch, and 6 x 10 inch, guns due to the non-availability of sufficient 12 inch guns at the time. The last British pre-dreadnoughts, Lord Nelson & Agamemnon, had been re-designed with 4 x 12 inch and 10 x 9.2 inch guns to enable them to engage at longer ranges. Both ships did not commission until after Dreadnought, because their 12 inch turrets had been commandeered for use on Dreadnought, by the way.
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  10. The blockade was ended when the peace treaty was signed. In June, 1919.
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  11.  @karylhogan5758  I really can't be bothered arguing with you. Read any book on the subject. You are confusing the Peace Treaty of June 1919 with the Armistice of November, 1918.
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  12.  @karylhogan5758  It seems that you now admit that the war didn't end until June 1919. Good.
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  13.  @karylhogan5758  Who is celebrating anything? I am simply stating facts, because I know them, and you don't.
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  14.  @karylhogan5758  Payback time? How many of them died as a result of fighting WW2, as Germany was ripped apart for the second time in 30 years. Not, of course, that memories of the blockade were significantly relevant to Germany embarking on their second catastrophic war of conquest.
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  15.  @karylhogan5758  No, you claimed that:- 'England kept up the blockade long after ww1 over and peace deal signed.' The fact is, this is not true. The Blockade continued as long as there was a possibility, however remote, that the war might recommence. Once the Treaty was signed, the Blockade was discontinued.
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  16. I think you will find that the ships of the Great White Fleet used coal.
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  17. But British domination of the North Sea remained intact, as did the blockade which starved the German civilian population into collapse. Read up on the Turnip Winter for further information.
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  18.  @ComradeOgilvy1984  The ranges of the two ships were more or less the same, around 6950 nm. South Carolina had a better gun lay out with her superimposed turrets, but she was over 2 knots slower, and had thinner horizontal armour, which might have put her at a disadvantage in a longer range action. Swings & roundabouts, I suggest.
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  19. South Carolina, by the way, didn't have Director Firing when built. An American system, based on , although not copied from, information from the Royal Navy, was not installed until 1915.
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  20.  @ComradeOgilvy1984  I agree with you. There was, incidentally, an alternative course of action which the German navy could, just possibly, have followed, put forward by an Admiral called Wolfgang Wegener, which ended in him feuding with Erich Raeder and being prematurely retired from the German navy in 1926. If you search for RAEDER VERSUS WEGENER, there is an excellent description written by Kenneth Hansen for the US Naval War College in 2005. There are arguments on both sides, but, from the German point of view, surely the fleet simply sitting in port until the Blockade destroyed German morale and the German war effort was unacceptable. Yet, effectively, that was what they did.
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  21. They had 19 boats positioned to ambush the Grand Fleet. Only two actually sighted it, and only one made an unsuccessful attack. The U-boat ambush was the main reason for the German sortie, and it failed.
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