Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "The Drydock - Episode 105" video.

I'd say the commander of the Spanish armada takes the cake - losing an entire fleet to a few fireships and some bad but not catastrophic weather. He was a thoroughly inexperienced guy who did have a competent advisor but it didn't work in the end. Also you had Jacob von Wassenaer Obdam, an army colonel given command of the Dutch fleet in a crisis of unity who oddly enough actually came up with a sound tactical doctrine later successfully implemented by admiral Michiel de Ruyter, but had ill suited ships and no experience to implement it, consequently getting himself killed in one of the worst defeats in Dutch naval history. Compared to those two any of the admirals Drach listed were experts since they could... sail at least. Of those he listed the worst one was the Korean guy, then Villeneuve (with Mandalzade Hüsameddin Pasha of the Chesma debacle, giving him a run for his money), then Persano. Instead of Beatty who while very flawed was still in quite a few respects competent, Drach should have listed Yevgeny Alekseev, viceroy of Russia's Far East, who had bouts of command over the First Pacific Squadron of the Russian Navy in the Russo-Japanese War, an outright incompetent. WW2... Tough call all were at least competent, I disagree inclucing Gensoul, his biggest mistake being allowing himself to be surprised through insufficient scouting... Perhaps Angelo Iachino would be my candidate (first Matapan and then failing to press his huge advantages in the Battles of the Sirte). Or Karel Doorman who lost one destroyer wrecked (non-combat loss) and another one lost in one of his own minefields... On the Japanese side Admirals Sentaro Omori (of Empress Augusta Bay debacle), Sadamichi Kajioka (1st attempt to invade the Wake Island debacle), Hiraoki Abe (who messed up the 1st Naval Battle of Guadalcanal although he had superior force) perhaps even Boshiro Hosogoya (for retreating at Komandorski Island) and three certainly competent admirals who made costly mistakes: Chuichi Nagumo Gunichi Mikawa and Takeo Kurita. Probably the Soviets have some good contenders too. Germans: Oskar Kummetz of the Barents Sea debacle, Brits? Dudley Pound (QF-17), Victor Crutchley of the Savo Island debacle. US: Carleton Wright (Tassafaronga debacle), Daniel Callaghan (messed up US plan for the First Naval battle of Guadalcanal, won by sheer luck, but got himself and Adm Norman Scott killed in the process), William Halsey (almost lost the entire invasion of the Philippines in an afternoon). French pretty much have only Gensoul out there to be considered, but many of the listed admirals from other countries were way worse.
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1:16:36 Zmaj = "Zmaay" (aa is short) in English pronunciation. J is always Y (as pronouunced in "yacht") in Serbo-Croatian. There is no "Yugoslavian" language). And for propaganda purposes even the Serbo-Croatian is being referred to as Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin language in each of those countries respectively, even though it is essentially one and the same language akin Arabic, German or English being spoken in different countries, with each country's version having some of its own idiosyncrasies.
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00:00:30 I disagree on Gensoul. RN had him cornered, his pants down, with a surprise mining of the port entrance (an act of war already) and a harsh ultimatum, being bent on his wholesale destruction if he refused, and yet he got many of his ships out and sailed them to safety. He refused to surrender his ships to an agressor (either overtly or be tricked into it by sailing it to, say Martinique... Under a RN escort at point blank range, see how a similar situation played out at Alexandria). He competently tricked the British into giving him time to raise steam in anchored ships that made the escape possible. If he miscommunicated the British demands to Vichy (omitting an option to sail to France's western colonies) that alone might have been a bout of incompetence, or - a political decision not to give any Axis intercepting and decoding his radio communique reasons to suspect the western French colonies might be under Free French influence. And at any rate I am absolutely sure Vichy would have told him to do as he did, as evidenced by the fact that he was not dismissed after the incident but retired peacefully in Oct. 1942. just days before the Germans occupied the Vichy France (as a response to French largely non-resistance to the US-British invasion of French North Africa in Operation Torch) - action that Gensoul likely postponed for two years with his actions at Mers El Kebir.
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@myparceltape1169 No. He postponed the German invasion of the Vichy France (Zone Libre). Note that the Italian fleet in 1943. as the armistice between Badoglo's Italy and the Allies was signed, by sailing to Malta to be intrned, essentially did what UK demanded of Gensoul in 1940. The Germans immediately occupied Italy (helped by the local fascists), installed the puppet Italian Social Republic under Musollini, but kept their own troops in it, and countless Italians lost their lives during the subsequent occupation.
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