Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "The Front" channel.

  1.  @eduarddoornbos2409  Not really. Littorio's salvo shown a single turret 1.7% distance longitudinal spread in real battles fought in 1940-1941. Any navy of the time would have considered 2% acceptable to good in action. US Navy obtained 1.1% single turret spread, but that was in tests, with the ship standing still and not steaming at 28 knots, after years of peacetime tuning, with delay coils already installed (Littorios had them installed in winter '42-'43) and with slower shells (for a simple geometrical reason, flatter trajectory shells, all things equal, will show wider horizontal spread. That has little IRL effect since ships are not just horizontal targets and the flatter trajectory reduces the vertical spread - that's why flatter trajectory is preferred in rifle shooting - and the error in distance and bearing, by reducing the flight time). Richelieu shown a 2.1% single turret spread in tests (four guns in it's case) still in 1948, after delay coils had been installed, and that was considered acceptable.
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  2.  @CZ350tuner  The Finns Fiat G.50 had a best kills to losses ratio. Also the kills to losses ratio of the Macchi C.200 the Italians used on the Russian front is similar. To have mostly newbies as opponents helps.
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  3.  @javiermedina9080  It's an explication for a thing that didnt' happen in reality. The Littorios simply didn't have any abismal dispersion. At Cape Matapan pictures taken by the Brits show the abovementioned 1.7% single turret longitudinal spread. The Vittorio Veneto didn't hit the Gloucester and Perth because no WWII battleship would have hit them. From 23.000m to 26.000m distance, steaming at 28 knots, with the two ships getting in and out of smokescreens and manuvering to not being hit. It had already been amply demonstrated (See, IE, the Battle of the Espero convoy) that even at far shorter distance, and with far faster firing guns, there was no way to hit a ship that was simply manuvering to not be hit, if not firing thousands of rounds. In the Battle of Denmark Strait, at 14.000m distance, the Bismarck ceased to hit the KGV the same moment the battelship (noty a light cruiser) started to manuver to disengage.
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  4.  @javiermedina9080  The only reference to the "poor quality of the shells" came from Adm. Iachino. a suspicious source, since he had to justify his fiasco at Cape Matapan. Mind that the Italian heavy cruisers had been the only one in WWII to score several +20kms hits. And the suppliers were the same.
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  5. The usual way to sack ineffective commanders is to "promote" them to a not-operative position.
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  6.  @meinfraulein6902  The Littorios had good quality shells. Not worse than those of any navy of the conflict. Tested post-war by the Allies, Italian shells proved to be more reliable than German ones.
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  7.  @ljubastojanovic608  Have you ever heard of WWI? Or of 1500 years of history?
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  8.  @meinfraulein6902  For a simple geometrical reason, faster, and so flatter trajectory, shells, all things equal, will show wider horizontal spread, because the same tolerance in elevation and transverse will have wider effects on the orizontal plane. That has little IRL effect since ships are not just horizontal targets and the flatter trajectory reduces the vertical spread and the error in distance and bearing, by reducing the flight time. Despite this fact, as said, the Littorios didn't have a wide dispersion.
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  9. Before the war the relationship between Mussolini and hitler was that between a ruthless politician and his psycho student. IE Mussolini advised Hitler "the men with whom you take power are not the same men with whom you govern" (he promoted to prestigious but harmless positions his own). The result was the "Night of the Long Knives".
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  10.  @stevenread1676  The MIGs were not bad, they had been simply designed for the wrong war. There was no place for a high-altitude long-range interceptor on the Russian front.
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  11. Germans were retreating to already prepared positions (the "Gothic line"). Him pushing them wouldn't have made any difference.
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  12. In their defense, Mussolini was an example of political interference in military affairs made ignoring any strategic or logistic consideration. 1) Attacking France from the Alps in 1940. Carl von Clausewitz compared it to "lifting a rifle by grabbing it by the tip of the bayonet". A similar attack would have needed months of preparation, since the French forts had to be destroyed using artillery or mines to make any advance, instead Mussolini informed his generals of his decision just 12 days before the attack (and only for a delay, otherwise it would have been 7 days). 2) Attacking Egypt. Graziani argued in any way that the Italian African army wasn't prepared. The numerical superiority was shallow. Lacking tanks, AT artillery and trucks, they could just advance in a straight line along the coast, and would have been open to any counter-attack from a more mobile force coming from the desert. But he was forced to attack anyway. (what he had foreseen puntually happened, but, it has to be said, he didn't anything to prevent it). 3) Greece. An attack in late-autumn/winter on the mountains between Albania and Greece, without a clear numerical and technical superiority was doomed to fail. The ineptitude of Visconti Prasca in anything regarding logistic turned what could only be a stalemate until spring into a disaster.
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  13. One of the two that saw action was not a tank (the L3 was a tankette) so the competition is further reduced.
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  14. The 410 was way better.
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  15. It's main problem was the excessive structural integrity requirement the Regia Aeronautica estabilished. The Breda 88 was designed to turn ad an higher G rate than any US single engined fighter of the war, that, for a twin engined attack aircraft / light bomber, was pretty mental. There was no way to fulfill that requirement without overweighting the structure.
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  16. Even if estimates varies wildly, the Me262 kills are counted in the hundreds.
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  17. Cadorna's faults had been amply exagerated. He was not worse than Conrad or Haig.
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  18. Patton losing three months in the useless siege of Metz did little to change their opinion.
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  19. The Maus couldn't really reach any battlefield, so it would have lost by absence.
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  20.  @grafzauberer6867  When the Maus had been requested, the Germans were not even considering the defence. The goal was to have something able to break through enemy fortifications, so to deliver its 188 tons to the battlefield was pretty essential. If the objective was something that could not move, then a turret would have been less expensive.
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  21.  @grafzauberer6867  Only that a tank, or mobile fortress, or whatever (and no, attacking enemy fortresses is not defense), first has to arrive to enemy fortifications, and, at 188 tons, the Maus was incapable to travel over any infrastructure. That's why it lose by absence. His mobility was limited to the backyard of the factory that assembled it.
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  22. The Breda 88 hd been designed as a military aircraf. The records were a side show. It's main problem was the excessive structural integrity requirement the Regia Aeronautica estabilished. The Breda 88 was designed to turn ad an higher G rate than any US single engined fighter of the war, that, for a twin engined attack aircraft / light bomber, was pretty mental. There was no way to fulfill that requirement without overweighting the structure.
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