Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Battle of Cape Matapan: Just Four Minutes to Cripple a Fleet" video.

  1. I'm glad he isn't well known. At least there won't be demands from massed gangs of crazies to have his statues destroyed because he fought for 'imperialism.'
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  2. Odd that what you presumably consider to be 'superior' Italian forces never managed to get similarly 'lucky.'
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  3. Perhaps you might tell us the names and dates of these Italian triumphs, instead of being (deliberately?) vague?
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  4.  DOUG HEINS  I know that the 5"/38 gun was an excellent weapon, but as far as I know the only British use was in the cruiser Delhi after her reconstruction in the States.
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  5. Indeed. Ignorant people could learn a lot about the British & Commonwealth fight with Japan by reading about William Slim, 14th Army, and the campaign in Burma, in particular the Battle of Kohima. On the European front, the British successfully evacuated 338,000 troops, including around 100,000 French, from Dunkirk. Many of these men returned to help in the liberation of Europe four years later. Others helped to rescue the Italian people from the leaders the Italian people themselves had elected. I invite you to do a little reading, although you would need rather more than an hour.
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  6. ​ @ParabellumStoria  Sorry, but my information about the raid on Alexandria is rather different :- 'Fortunately for the Allies the enemy was not fully aware of the precarious position of the Mediterranean Fleet. To fool Axis reconnaissance aircraft into thinking that the raid had failed, apparently normal operations were conducted on a day to day basis. Smoke came out of funnels, guns were trained, and all the routine ceremonial rituals performed as if nothing had happened. In fact below the waterline frantic repair efforts were being made which lasted several weeks. Had the Axis realised the truth then Admiral Cunningham, with only a few operational ships at his disposal, could have been driven out of the Mediterranean, with potentially disastrous consequences for the Allies.' Certainly, the morning after the attack, Cunningham conducted the Colours ceremony, with the Royal Marine Band, on Queen Elizabeth's quarterdeck, and foreign correspondents were even invited to attend. If, as you say, the success of the attack was known, why was there no attempt by the axis to exploit their naval superiority?
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  7.  @historigraph  To be fair though, Valiant & Warspite had been extensively modernised.
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  8. Barham was sunk by a (German) U-boat, and Warspite wasn't damaged by Italian action. I assume the reference is aimed at Queen Elizabeth & Valiant. I wonder what advantage the Italian battle fleet subsequently took of their superiority in the Mediterranean?
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  9. It was a night attack, and at the time most air forces did or could not operate fighter aircraft at night. The Luftwaffe wasn't in the Med. in November, 1940.
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  10. Andrew & Alan were brothers. Coningham was not related.
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  11. Are you suggesting that Vittorio Veneto wasn't damaged at Matapan? You will struggle to maintain that argument.
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  12.  @sandrodunatov485  I don't think anyone was suggesting that Vittorio Veneto was sunk at Matapan. You appear to be suggesting that remaining in harbour and leaving the fight against the allies in the Mediterranean to the Italian and German air forces, with some submarine support, represents some sort of success for the Italian navy. An interesting view! I love your fascinating use of the phrase 'bottled up' in connection with Cunningham's Mediterranean Fleet. Presumably, much, in a similar manner, the United States' Navy was 'bottled up' in the Pacific after Midway?
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  13. No RN ones, to my knowledge, unless you stretch a point and count Courageous & Glorious, in their earlier incarnations as light battlecruisers, at 2nd Heligoland in November, 1917. No, I wouldn't, either!
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  14.  @OrsoBart7734  The original reference was to 'the Battle of Mid-June and Mid-August the Italian fleet won .' Vigorous was an Axis tactical victory, agreed. Won largely by the German air force with the support of the Italian air force. Pedestal was a British success, in which the Italian navy played almost no part. Certainly, one of us doesn't seem to know what he is talking about. Did it really need nine months to come up with an answer, by the way.
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  15.  @elliskaranikolaou2550  Oh? So in the 1924 Election, on 6 April, Mussolini's 'National List' did not receive 64.9% of the popular vote, and win 374 of 437 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, then? Oh, and four and a half million of the seven and a half million votes cast? Fancy that!
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  16.  @ParabellumStoria  The problem is that the Italians failed to grasp the opportunity this should have given them, probably because they never knew that the mission had been successful.
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  17.  DOUG HEINS  Theoretical maximum ranges are meaningless. It doesn't really matter how far you can fire a shell if it doesn't hit the intended target. Normal action ranges in WW2 for capital ships were 15000 to 20000 yards. Scharnhorst and Warspite both hit a target at 26000 yards, but that was exceptional.
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  18. What leads you to this interesting opinion?
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  19. Cunningham made effective use of his resources to achieve an important naval victory. The Fleet Air Arm had trained for years in the necessary techniques required to slow an enemy capital ship down in order to enable the British fleet to engage it. At Matapan, Cunningham thought he had Vittorio Veneto in his grasp. Obviously, he hadn't, but what should he have done, when an Italian heavy cruiser squadron came within range of his 'manly' guns, told his captains not to bother firing on mere cruisers?
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  20.  @Zerox_Prime  What braggadocio would that be?
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  21. Which battles would have been lost 'for sure' without radar?
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  22.  carmine paola  I doubt Rommel would have agreed that his forces had been adequately supplied, especially in the period between the Italian victory (?) that was Pedestal, and the start of Second Alamein
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