|
Obdicut posted:On ship names, there's the HMS Mimi and HMS Toutout, which means 'meow', and 'woof' in French slang. Their original names were "Cat" and "Dog". I've got a copy of Warship 2013 handy, so let's talk about some oddly-named French battleships ! We've seen some strange ship names, but only the French would name their new battleship class after philosophers; Danton, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Diderot, and Voltaire. These would be the response to the Dreadnought. They screwed it up. Here's a picture, notice the six overlarge secondary battery turrets.  Faced with the Dreadnought, the Marine Navale decided to lay down a half a dozen of what can most charitably be described as semi-Dreadnoughts. The Dantons would, eventually, have turbine propulsion but would compromise on a mixed armament. 4 12" and 12 9.7" (4x 305mm and 12x240mm). Despite the turbines, they were a little slow. Two of the ships broke 20 knots on trials, but the other four only made 19 and a fraction even on trials. Fire control would be adequate and planned on the director system. The armor scheme was overly complex and designed for short range combat, it would be ineffective in a long-range engagement with an all-big gun ship. The turrets were poorly protected and any opponent with 12" guns would disarm a Danton with ease; possibly causing magazine explosions and certainly severe fires. The mixed armament wasn't the worst feature of these ships. The 4 305mm and 6 240mm broadside had a slightly heavier throw weight than the Dreadnought (5280kg to 4632kg), and both guns had similar ranges (over 14,000m). You would still suffer from shell spotting issues and that would inevitable reduce accuracy overall. Worse, the 240mm guns might not penetrate at long range.  The biggest problem was poor mechanical design and commonality between sister ships. One dockyard counted 5 separate types of ventilator in use, this creates logistical and training issues. Reliability was poor, they were expensive to operate and spent very little time at sea. There's another training issue. The first of these monstrosities was laid down in June of 1907, 5 were completed by August 1911 and the last in December of that same year. They were built too late. Against the last of the pre-Dreadnoughts from England and Germany they would have fared very well (unless the predread had director controlled gunnery). Faced with a modern dreadnought they would have been destroyed at long range, and would have been too slow to run away. And there you have one of my contenders for worst warships of the 20th century. Let's close with the gem of my GIS for this class. 
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2014 21:46
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 04:57 |
|
|
Saint Celestine posted:Where is that last image from ? The French ships one. Can you get prints of that? You can have the original for forty bucks http://www.old-print.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=LIL1911103T I'm on a roll, I'm writing up a French AC that was even worse. Have a teaser. 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2014 21:59
|
|
|
Now the Danton class was bad because it left the French with a really terrible battle line. Here’s a ship that was just bad. Really bad. And guess what ? It’s another French ship ! The Dupuy de Lome was an armored cruiser. Ironically, she was named after the French naval architect who designed the Gloire (and the world’s first electric submarine). Intended to honor the man, it would turn into a professional insult. As the first armored cruiser rather than a follow on series to a foreign competitor like the Dantons, the Dupuy de Lome has more of an excuse to be a poor design. But not this much. French warships of the late 19th century often had unusual hull forms. They would be much beamier at the waterline than at the deck level. To quote wikipedia, "In ship designing, the tumblehome is the narrowing of a ship's hull with greater distance above the water-line. Expressed more technically, it is present when the beam at the uppermost deck is less than the maximum beam of the vessel." It looks like this  or this  What the French wanted was a powerful ship with a long range for attacking trade, English trade of course. What they got was a white elephant that had to be rebuilt once in its short service life of only 15 years, short even by the standards of the time. Worse, and I say that a lot, she was unstable, slow, and poorly armored. Her armament would be exceeded by later armored cruisers, but for the time she had an adequate and well-protected battery. There, I said something nice about her. She was designed under the same guiding philosophy as Fisher's battlecruisers: fast enough to run away from anything she can't sink, strong enough to kill anything she can catch. Naturally there were huge problems with her engines. Problems with the boilers delayed her completion by two years. She was intended for a top speed of 20 knots, but couldn't hit that even in trials. Those completion delays got expensive, she was laid down in 1888 and only launched in 1905. The English were building battleships in 3 years, even without the delay that would have been slow. So what did they get when she entered service ? This beast.  2 194mm (7.6") guns in single turrets fore and aft, and six 164mm (6.4") guns in single turrets, 3 on each broadside. As far as things go, having all your guns under armor was a significant step up from the usual trade protection cruiser of the day, who would probably have 4 or 6" guns in open mounts. Unfortunately for the Marine Nationale those light ships could run away, and heavier and faster ships were soon under construction by every significant foreign navy, even the Russians. They were well protected. 100mm of curved steel plate can keep out a lot of smaller shells, and there were protective decks, cleverly placed coal bunkers, and other protective measures. Unfortunately her armor plate was somewhat defective. A later armored cruiser would have handled her easily, and a 6" gun light cruiser could inflict real damage when they came in service. They would have a fairly short window of utility in terms of hitting power and armor. Not unexpected in that era, but unusually short and since the ship was too slow, of no use at all. Kinda handsome though.  The engines were a problem her whole career. The first set had one tube burst on her first trials, injuring 16 crewmen. She never made her designed speed. The Dupuy de Lome did manage to make some foreign port visits, escorting but not carrying French dignitaries (she had a nasty roll until she was reconstructed). There is no indication she ever got further from France than Portugal or Russia, a transatlantic voyage would have been a good test for a commerce raider, but so far as I can tell she never spent much time out at sea. Here she is post-refit. You can see from the six funnels that she still had a lot of boilers placed in two separate boiler rooms. Cranes for boat handling were added and a few incidental improvements were made.  And another "before" picture.  The refit took four years, completely replaced her machinery, and left her a knot slower before. What was slow in 1895 was suicidally poor performance in 1906 when the refit finished. She went into reserve after the refit, was activated for troubles in Morocco and decommissioned again as the rustbucket she had become. Peru ended up buying her in 1912, but never made all the payments and she went for scrap in 1918. What a waste of good steel; not counting the foreign-made armor plating. This concludes our tour of the lowlights of French naval construction.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2014 22:49
|
|
|
Ferrosol posted:Great Article They put the Bearn into service, and they had another under construction. I have an article on those efforts handy. The Gloire deserves some study as well.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2014 23:20
|
|
Can you show us some of the highlights of the french navy, I'm particually curious about two ships Gloire and frances interwar aircraft carrier whose name escapes me.
|
Tekopo posted:I'm currently fascinated by Battle Cruisers: I understand at the moment why they were originally created (they were intended to prevent commerce raiding by armored cruisers) and they did well in that particular job (see the battle of the Falklands), but why were they used in Jutland in a role they were never intended to take? Were any battle-cruisers built post WWI and if so, why and what were their intended roles post-Jutland, since they proved to be a liability when placed in fleet battles? There are two answers to that question. The first one is because David Beatty is an idiot and spent no effort on relaying the information about German deployments back to Jellicoe that he was supposed to under the Grand Fleet's battle plan. The other answer assumes you were wondering why battlecruisers were ever in a position to be shot at by enemy capital ships that can kill them due to their lack of armor. Both answers depend on the important part of the Royal Navy's intentions at Jutland, sink a lot of German battleships without incurring worse losses in return. One hundred and fifty British ships took part in the Battle of Jutland (not counting one seaplane carrier), but only 28 of them were dreadnought battleships. Putting them in position to sink the 16 German dreadnoughts was the whole point of the exercise. Of those 28 dreadnoughts 4 of them were the brand new Queen Elizabeth fast battleships. Those fought with the 9 battlecruisers, leaving 24 battleships in the main line. Exactly how do you sail 24 ships, in formation, and keep them ready to engage the enemy at what would in practice be about 25 minutes' notice. You fight them in line of battle, with the fleet admiral in about the middle. It turns out the most practical way to sail them around before the fight is in a formation called divisional columns abreast. The 24 ships are divided into 6 divisions of 4 ships each. Each divisions plays follow the leader with their lead ship. Each of the six lead ships is in line abreast with the other leaders, giving you a rectangle of battleships six across and four deep. It also turns out that wider formations are easier to maneuver than deeper ones. Convoys would routinely go 10 abreast and 3 or 4 deep. You work out in advance, and practice thoroughly, exactly how each divisional leader maneuvers to turn this formation to get it where it needs to be at the right time. The difference is maneuverability of line abreast columns and line ahead is that of a compact mass versus a long straggly snake. So there you have your Grand Fleet in cruising formation. You can't fight like this, an enemy in line ahead would beat you silly. You'd get collisions as you tried to form up in too much of a hurry while avoiding gunfire. So you have to deploy before contact. If your scouting forces did their job the enemy isn't expecting you to appear out of the fog and mist in exactly the worst place. Jellicoe didn't get the information he needed to make the perfect deployment, but he managed well enough for having to basically guess when and which way. "Which way" is the fun part. The cruising formation had two planned ways to deploy into a fighting line ahead. Left or right. The columns of divisions were spaced widely enough that if a lead ship turned 90 degrees left or right and the rest of its division turned in the same spot, when the last ships had assumed their new course, all 24 ships would be in line ahead on a bearing 90 degrees left or right of the base course of the cruising formation. Left or right was the question. When was also the question. Deploying in the right direction at the right time would let the Grand Fleet unleash all its firepower on the weaker High Seas Fleet. Jellicoe managed it, and crowned his achievement by crossing the German's T and forcing them to flee. Luckily for the HSF, they had a maneuver planned for just such a predicament. The need to put the fleet in the right place at the right time and then to deploy in the correct direction demanded superiority in fleet scouting. The Grand Fleet had to have better information than the enemy had on the dispositions and course of the battle. Beatty had the job of getting that done and he failed. He had two squadrons of battlecruisers (9 ships) with which to back up 26 light cruisers in the scouting role. As further sign of the importance of fleet scouting, Beatty was reinforced, after repeated requests, with 4 Queen Elizabeth class super dreadnoughts. These were the fastest, most heavily armed, and newest ships in the Royal Navy. Beatty neglected, to be kind, to bring the commander of this squadron in on his plans and train with them. Nelson's genius was in leadership, building his Band of Brothers. Beatty was handed a mighty weapon and left it to rust in the rain. In action, 5th Battle Squadron would miss an order to turn away from the enemy and be subjected to concentrated fire that just missed costing the Royal Navy one or two of their most powerful ships. "Missed an order" is too kind to Beatty, 5 BS had no idea what the order meant, was too far away to see it given as a flag signal, and didn't have it repeated to them by wireless per doctrine. That left 4 ships speeding headlong into the entire German battle line. It is a credit to Admiral High-Evans that he didn't end up recreating the Charge of the Light Brigade at sea. He got the hell out of there when he realized he was all alone. His ships had to make their turn away within range of the HSF battle line and heavy fire was concentrated on the turning point. HMS Warspite (of the notable WW2 career) was hit 16 times while turning and had her steering gear damaged forcing an extra 360 degree turn. Other ships were hit as well, all escaped. That was how Beatty found the German main force. "Oh poo poo, run !". He didn't send the signals that Jellicoe needed to plan his deployment. The Battlecruiser Fleet and 5th BS ran north to meet up with their main force, and didn't call home to say they were bringing company. He didn't do his job, and things could have gone badly for the Grand Fleet if he hadn't. Have a diagram of the actual deployment of the Grand Fleet  In the upper left you see the Grand Fleet in cruising formation, and the 5th BS moving in to take their place in the line. The Queen Elizabeths were that fast, although the main fleet wasn't quite at full speed while moving in, and especially, changing formation. To the south you see the High Seas Fleet, with their battlecruisers falling into formation at the head of the line. At this point, the HSF was faced with a line of fire on the horizon as the Grand Fleet cut across their T and opened fire. That takes us well past where I'm interested in going today, this post is about scouting forces. Both sides operated light cruisers as both scouting elements and as destroyer flotilla leaders, one light cruiser with a senior officer on board with room to work makes a destroyer squadron much more useful than it otherwise would have been. These light cruisers were mostly 22 to 24-knot ships armed mostly with 4 inch guns in open mounts, or with only splinter shields. The Royal Navy was introducing cruisers with more or fewer 6 inch guns for added firepower. Since cruisers are the natural and intended prey of the battlecruisers both sides used them to back up the light crusiers in the scouting role. And that's how it played out. A couple of CLs spotted each other and called for help. A skirmish started, the BCs from both sides headed for the sound of the guns, and then engaged each other. The RN had more BCs at the point of contact, so the German BCs ran for help. They got it and the British in turn ran for help. So there you have it Tekopo, the battlecruisers at Jutland a) were being used in their intended role and b) didn't actually perform it for the British. The Germans got full value for money and blood out of their battlecruisers. After Jutland, the concept of the fast, heavily armed, but lightly armored capital ship was re-evaluated and thrown out by all the world's navies. The British had the Hood and her three sisters just under construction and delayed them to redesign their protection. Naturally the first ship laid down, the Hood, had the fewest and most conservative changes made to her design. Also naturally, the ship furthest along in construction was the one that was finished, not the one with the best changes made with the lessons of Jutland (for those following along at home, 3 British BCs just plain blew up and sank). The Repulse and the Renown were too far along to modify much, they served well in WW2 but never had their defenses tested. After 1918 I believe the BC category lay fallow until about 1941 when the US ordered the Alaska class. There is a school of thought that the Iowas were battlecruisers since they weren't armored against their own main battery, they were certainly fast enough to qualify as battlecruisers. Post Jutland they had two roles. The first was the one the Hood was in when she was destroyed, run down enemy ships and sink them. Barring that chink in her armor, a King George V and the Hood should have mopped the floor with a battleship and a heavy cruiser. The other role only emerged during WW2 and was mostly filled by fast battleships: carrier escort. You can fit an amazing antiaircraft battery to a battleship, and carriers proved to need the protection.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2014 10:12
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:That's actually one of the thoughts that occurred to me: BCs in an era of aerial supremacy would make their job highly redundant and also make their deployment much more dangerous than in an era like WWI in which bombers had only started to become developed. I glossed over a lot of post-Jutland BCs. The Americans were building 8 when the Washington treaty was signed, two of them were converted into aircraft carriers. The French built a pair to run down German pocket battleships. I'm busy today but I should do something on those ships, and the French carrier projects.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2014 19:03
|
|
|
Baloogan posted:Your battlecruisers are crap compared to this battlecruiser. The Kirovs were sweet ships. Absolutely design to sail into the Atlantic and gently caress things up. In Harpoon I always just ran subs in their direction if one was in action, that usually did the trick. Here's another pretty battlecruiser.  That's the Strasbourg, a French battlecruiser built to handle the German surface raider threat of heavy cruisers and pocket battleships. 30,000 tons, 31 knots, armored against German 11" guns, 8 13" (330mm) guns. That's 8 heavy guns in four quad turrets, all forward. This arrangement saved several hundred tons of protection since you need to protect fewer magazines. Taking heavy shells in the engine rooms is Really Bad, so you don't skimp on the main belt, but you can thicken or extend it with the savings from not having to build a really heavy armored box around an extra magazine or two. The Hood had that many (bigger) guns, but in 4 turrets. You also have to protect the whole turret assembly, adding more weight per turret. It looks weird, and you can't shoot back while running away, but you save a lot of weight. The British did that with a couple of ships, they were successful.  Along with her sister, the Dunkerque, the French BCs accomplished almost nothing in WW2. Dunkerque was beached after the engagement with the British at Mers-el-kabir and then scuttled when the Germans occupied the naval base at Toulon. Strasbourg escaped Mers-el-kabir and was also scuttled at Toulon. Either or both ship would have been invaluable to either side in the Mediterranean. The ships they were intended to counter were the German Deutchland class pocket battleships and later the true BCs of the Scharnhorst class. The Deutschlands were a bit bigger than a pre-war heavy cruiser at 14,000 tons. They were well protected against cruiser guns, carried 6 11" guns in triple turrets fore and aft, and had a maximum speed of 28 knots. To save weight and labor they had a fully welded hull, being the first major warships built in this fashion. Welding saved a great deal of weight but at the risk of structural weakness. Intended as commerce raiders they had diesel engines for fuel efficiency, a range of 10,000 nautical miles at 20 knots would be one of the best in the world until nuclear propulsion, uh, a mere 26 years after the first Deutschland was laid down.  Unlike the French ships, these saw a lot of action. Luckily for them, none of it was against capital ships. Unluckily for them, it turns out that 3 cruisers can take one of them on and walk away from the fight. That actually happened in 1939. The Admiral Graf Spee, a ship you may have heard of, had a very nice cruise bagging several merchnats ships, and following the Prize Rules, which the U-boats were very much not doing. Here's the Graf Spee after tangling with the cruiser squadron who caught her.  Yep. Not badly damaged at all. Of the three cruisers, the Exeter with 8" guns and the Achilles and Ajax with 6" guns really didn't hurt her that badly. In exchange none were sunk, but they were all hit and at least two had turrets knocked out. Stuck in a neutral port he had to leave soon, and presented with fake messages indicating the imminent arrival of heavy units the captain took the other option. He scuttled the ship and committed suicide. I suppose he thought he was saving the lives of his crew, so I'll give him that.  The Admiral Scheer had a bigger score of merchants sunk. She was also notable for being bombed by mistake during the Spanish Civil War while she was serving on the Neutrality Patrol. Against the Arctic convoys she contributed little, ending her days in harbor, sunk by the RAF. The Deutschland was very active in the Norway campaign. Later in the war German heavy units were order to operate with extreme caution, this lead to her being chased away from a Russia-bound convoy by a destroyer force. She was scuttled in May 1945, raised by the Russians, and used as a target for weapons tests. More battlecruisers later !
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2014 03:50
|
|
|
Zorak of Michigan posted:There's a reason than when they finally had a chance to build fast battleships and started designing the KGVs, nobody said "How about we pick up with the Nelson design?" The KG Vs were a different approach to meeting the requirements of a different treaty. That's why they ended up with 14" guns instead of 16" like everyone else, tonnage limits are a bitch. At least they managed to put 3 turrets on it. The big problem with quad turrets isn't the complexity of the design, the French just welded a pair of twins together and strengthened the support structure. The problem with quads is that one penetrating hit means you lose 4 guns all at once, possibly two turrets' worth if the magazines connect. On a KG V, even a lucky hit leaves her the quad turret aft. I hope they learned from WW 1, connecting magazines are a bad idea. The Seydlitz was almost lost at Dogger Bank after a hit set off a magazine inferno that took out two turrets. If the ±RN didn't learn from that, then the nelson and Rodney could have been both oddly handsome and also deathtraps.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2014 04:55
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:I don't suppose you are going to cover any of the Royal Navy White Elephants in future posts mllaneza? I had forgotten about the hit on the Graf Spee's fuel processing plant. That was a lucky hit. The desalination plant was hit too, that'd make a trip home rough. I should definitely do Fisher's Follies, probably as a lead-in to the French carriers.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2014 18:27
|
|
|
I"m at risk of losing steam on battlecruiser posting, so let's get caught up on some more post-Jutland BC designs. As a bonus, we'll look at a good armored cruiser having seen the nadir of the type with the Dupuy de Lome. We're getting closer to French carriers too. I was originally planning to do the WW2 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, but I just have to make it a double feature (edit: not gonna happen). Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were Prussian generals, military theorists, and reformers who played an active part in the Napoleonic Wars. They had major warships named after them twice, so they weren't nobodies. Both pairs of ships were solid, disciplined, trained combat units. The WW1 Scharnhorst had just won the fleet gunnery competition. They were solid, mature designs. The pair that fought in WW1 were armored cruisers, the WW2 pair were well-thought out battlecruisers. Let's talk about cruising. You go out to where the merchants hips are and either look for them, or for warships looking for them. You try and sink what you find. it's a simple system. Back in the age of sail days they used frigates and smaller vessels for commerce raiding. The Bonhomme Richard was after a British convoy when she fought the Serapis ("I ahve not yet begun to fight !" That's right, the RN was running convoys in the 1770s, the debates about it in 1915 were stupid. Convoys work, put all the targets in one place and protect them. It dramatically increases the chance that raiders will find no ships, and if they do they have to deal with the escorts first. If you run a lot of trade, or imports, or military shipping, you need a lot of escorts. Between the wars, the RN estimated they needed 70 cruisers, most of them for trade protection and the balance for fleet work. The fleet cruisers were intended for scouting, acting as destroyer leaders (the Japanese were big on this as well), and adding punch to torpedo attacks. They were typically small and fast, with room for an admiral and his staff along with as many guns and torpedoes as could be squeezed in. In the RN cruisers would also take on the fleet air defense role. Trade protection cruisers were bigger to allow for extended range and carrying aircraft. Before WW1 trade protection cruisers were generally protected cruisers. These were pretty fast 20-23 knots), pretty well armed (around 6-8 4") pretty lightly armored (1.5-2" curved belt), and pretty cheap. To supplement or attack them you want heavier ships. Protected cruisers grew into light cruisers, they got faster, started to acquire 6" guns, and maybe torpedoes. To properly put a light or protected cruiser in its place, you want an armored cruiser. They had proper armored belts and decks; their armament was arranged like a contemporary predreadnought battleship. The Japanese even used them in the battle line line at Tsushima, to considerably greater effect than by either side at Jutland. If you take that concept and give it a lot of coal, you have a long range vessel suitable for power projection and trade warfare. That brings us to the the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Capable of over 23 knots, and 5000 nautical miles at 10 knots they were well suited for wide ranging operations. They carried 8 8.2" guns, and 6 5.9" with a maximum belt armor of 6 inches. They could match or overpower anything short of a battlecruiser, and they would do exactly that.   The outbreak of WW1 found the two ACs, along with the rest of von Spee's East Asia Squadron, at Tsingtao in China. Overmatched locally by the HMS Australia and the Japanese BCs that would surely come in on the side of the Entente, von Spee decided to run for home. The long way across the Pacific and around South America and north to home - if they broke through the blockade. At the start of the war Britain started raising troops in the colonies, India and Australia most notably. This meant troop convoys that just had to be protected. Along with that the RN had to worry about protecting wireless transmitting stations, general commerce, and occupying German possessions in the Pacific. All of these tasks took warships; troop convoys and occupying Tsingtao had priority. To keep the RN hopping the commander of the SMS Emden, Korvettenkapitän von Müller, volunteered to stay behind as a commerce raider. He captured 22 merchant ships and sank a Russian light cruiser before being run down by HMAS Sydney.  SMS Emden  SMS Gneisenau So von Spee steamed across the Pacific with the two ACs and the CLs Dresden, Nurenburg, and Leipzig, refueling from British stations that hadn't heard there was a war on yet. In South America they had access to neutral ports and pre-arranged coal purchases. To meet them the RN had a small squadron with the two ACs and a CL. In addition to that they had apair of white elephants; the HMS Otranto, an armed merchant cruiser (aka a freighter with half a dozen 4" guns and an 18 knot maxiumum speed), and the HMS Canopus. The Canopus was an obsolete predreadnought battleship with 2 twin 12" turrets, more than capable of battering the German ACs into pieces - if it could have landed a hit. Admiral Craddock also had two things he didn't want, and didn't get one thing he thought he'd have. What he did have was orders from the admiralty back in London and what would prove a bad example. The orders from the admiralty were to engage von Spee, keep his force concentrated around the Cerberus, attack the German squadron, expect a better ship that never came, preserve his own force... The orders were a mess. Here's how you tell if a history book is being fair on the topic of, say, Churchill's leadership: they reprint all the messages to Craddock, in full. To show how stupid they were. Churchill gets crap for the crazy Baltic plan (which was worth studying) and the Dardanelles (his initial concept might have worked, the bloated command mess that was actually tried never could have for reasons both personal and institutional). He gets not one tenth of what he's due for screwing up the South Atlantic campaign this badly. Craddock, as the man on the scene, thought he had been ordered to engage a superior force, that he had been denied reinforcements, and was still liable to face a tribunal or court martial if he refused to face the enemy. Admiral Craddock had two really poor armored cruisers, the Monmouth and the Cape of Good Hope. he thought he'd have the Defiance, but she was redirected and his orders were changed to imply he should attack anyway. He did, and on November 1st, 1914 he and the crews of both ACs died in stormy weather off of the coast of Chile. They were brave. It was in the finest traditions of the service. He was following his orders as he (or anyone else with a practical command of the English language would have) understood them. But it wasn't the right move, and they weren't the right orders. It gets washed over a lot, ignoring this lesson may be why the Admiralty, sitting in comfortable offices, warm and dry, would order PQ 17 scattered (Adm. Pound probably had a brain tumor for that one, but someone could have said something, even if off the record). King, Nimitz, and Halsey never second guessed the officer in charge on the scene. The Battle of Coronel was a one-sided massacre. Weather is technically neutral, but on this occasion, for technical reasons, it robbed the Royal Navy of most of its firepower. Go back up and look at the illustrations of the German ACs. All the guns are well off the water, right ? Now look at HMS Monmouth...  That's half her 6 inch battery down where and serious waves will make them useless. The Cape of Good Hope was arranged as badly. here's the Defiance.  Not quite as big as the German ships, but as well armed and armored. She was sent elsewhere when she was needed in South American waters. Craddock just had the Canopus as an ace in the hole. But she was far too slow to keep up, so he left her behind to pursue his misbegotten orders. It turns out that the chief engineer of the Canopus was a useless drunk who was under reporting the ship's condition to the captain to keep out of combat. He ended up posted ashore in quiet disgrace. Craddock left his most powerful ship behind, because he thought he was required to attack immediately. And, as said, died uselessly. Running the enemy squadron half out of ammunition is not an accomplishment any admiral worth his salt should be proud of. Coronel, as much as any battle on the West Front, was a classic example of WW1 suicidal bravery and wasted blood. In the aftermath, the British survivors, AMC Otranto, CL GLasgow, and BB Canopus ran for the nearest British territory, the Falkland islands on the opposite coast of South America. There they could refuel, make minor repairs, and replace the drunk in charge of the Canopus' engineering plant. The German squadron was low on ammunition and fuel, and still needed to make its way back to Germany. They could refuel at the Falklands, so off they went.  As poorly as they handled the setup for Coronel, the Admiralty did the right thing in the aftermath. They detached BCs Invincible and Inflexible from the Grand Fleet, a major sacrifice in home fleet strength, and sent them after von Spee.   These were first generation British battlecruisers of the classic form. These were 25.5 knot ships, giving them a 2 knot speed advantage over the German cruisers on paper, and probably by an extra knot given how long the Germans had been in tropical waters. 8 12" and a 4-6" belt made them proof against German gunnery at long range, and capable of killing their opponents. And that's what happened. Coronel and the Falklands form a set in naval history. First one side suffered a catastrophic, one-sided defeat, and then the other suffered the same. von Spee approached the Falklands on the morning of December 8, 1914. He did everything right, sending part of his force in to scout out what was in harbor. He was prepared to just steam in and land armed parties to seize and load coal, but he did it by the book. So he scouted. The report he got back was fatal news, the tripod masts of British capital ships had been spotted. He did the only thing he could do and ran for it. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau stuck together, dueling with the battlecruisers. The light cruisers scattered. Both heavier ships acquitted themselves well, scoring some hits and making bold turns to engage their heavier pursuers. All in vain of course, 4 8.2" can't out shoot 4 12" at long range.   (very simplified)  And that's where the story of the first Scharnhorst and Gneisenau ends. Their successors had busy careers, paying back the British in full for sinking the originals.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2014 10:53
|
|
|
Battlecruiser time again ! We've already seen the pocket battleships and the battlecruisers the French built in response. The Germans didn't stop there, their next capital units were the very effective Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Now I say battlecruiser, but they can be considered fast battleships. 38,000 tons, 31 knots, 14 inch belt, 2" deck adds up to a powerful ship, but they only had 8 11" guns in 4 twin turrets. That's a very light armament for the period. Those guns would cost them range and hitting power against battleships.  Both ships of this class would be in commission by the start of WW2. Their first action was a sortie into the North Atlantic to help ease the pressure on the Graf Spee. On this raid they met and quickly sank the armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi. In response, the Allies deployed 3 British and one French capital battlecruisers. The Germans wisely returned to port. In the Norway campaign they were the most successful element of the Kriegsmarine. They fought an inconclusive duel with the Renown in which the Gneisenau lost a turret. They managed to escape, probably due to being better sea boats than the Renown, which had a higher speed on paper. Being a WW1 design, the Renown was very lightly armored, only a 4" belt, but well armed with 6 15" guns. I don't blame the German commander for running. The Scharnhorst's fire control radar was out and the Renown was already hitting at long range with bigger guns. 16 guns on one side against 6 on the other makes this a good matchup on paper, but it was 6 to 6 early on in the engagement. After repairs they returned to the Norway campaign. Teamed up with a heavy cruiser (Admiral Hipper) and some destroyers to operate against British supply lines. They caught a tanker and a passenger ship before hitting the jackpot: the HMS Glorious an aircraft carrier. One of Fisher's Follies, she had started life as a Large Light Cruiser with 4 15" guns. Converted to an aircraft carrier she had no chance to survive within range of actual capital ships. The two destroyers escorting her put up a hell of a fight, working with smokescreens and torpedoes to do what they could. Both the Acasta and the Ardent were sunk of course. The Scharnhost was hit by a torpedo from the Acasta and forced to put in to a Norwegian port for repairs. While there she was subjected to several bombing raids to little effect, establishing a pattern that the RAF and Kriegsmarine would follow for the rest of the war.  HMS Glorious c.1917 The Glorious' third escort was the immortal Glowworm. Detached from the carrier she was intercepted by the Admiral Hipper. Caught in gun range by a heavier ship the captain, Commander Roope, did the only thing he could. He attacked with torpedoes and then rammed the cruiser. His Victoria Cross was awarded based on testimony from the captain of the Hipper, passed on through the Red Cross. Here's a copy of his award: http://dalyhistory.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/victoria-cross-heroes-gerard-roope-vc/  After the Norway campaign both ships prepared for a raid into the Atlantic convoy routes. Storm damage delayed Operation Berlin until January 22, 1941. During the raid, the battlecruisers sank about 10 ships from three convoys, twice refusing action against battleships escorting convoys. That's fair, a 15 inch gunned battleship can do terrible things to any ship that comes in range of it, and the German BCs had a comparatively limited range due to their 11" guns. They were well protected for battlecruisers, but they couldn't stand up to heavy shells. A 12" belt is good, but not that good, and a 2 inch deck dooms them against long range fire, 3 inch or more is necessary against 14 and 15 inch shells. Look at all the armor (colored in in black) that isn't on the belt or turrets. That's a protection scheme that is more concerned about 8" guns on cruisers than on the 14-16" guns carried by capital ships. For that, either you only armor belt, guns, magazines, and deck (the all-or-nothing scheme pioneered by the Americans); or you go thicker when you do spread it out. After the raid both ships ended up in France, harried by air raids whenever the RAF felt like trying their luck. Some damage was done, but there's not much profit in bombing a ship home ported in a major repair facility. Eventually though, the RAF would get lucky, and the Kriegsmarine knew it. Repair work kept Scharnhorst from being available during Bismark's sortie. Enough was enough. They fixed up the ships, gathered a large force of torpedo craft (seagoing and motor varieties), and executed Operation Cerberus. What Operation Cerberus (11 February, 1942) was, was the poster child for "never make assumptions in warfare". The English Channel is at points as narrow as 22 miles. On the other side of it is an active enemy. You have an air force, a Coastal Command with ships, torpedo boats, and airplanes. The Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau raised steam, raised anchor, steamed out, and made a daylight transit of the English Channel. The British threw what little was actually available to strike targets daring to sail within a few miles of their coast in broad daylight. This turned to to be exactly gently caress all. A handful of obsolete biplanes with torpedoes, motor torpedo boats designed to hunt at night, all did nothing against a strong escort screen on the surface and heavy fighter cover in the skies. Both battlecruisers hit mines and had real trouble, but they both made it back to Germany If you're assuming that it would be stupid for the enemy to do something, make sure you have the forces in place to punish their mistake. The Gneisenau was damaged in an air raid while at Kiel, badly enough that she was put in dockyard hands for repairs and a refit including conversion to 15" guns. This would have turned her into a threat almost as severe as the Tirpitz. Her 11" turrets were mounted as coast defence guns. Work was cancelled in 1943, after the Battle of the Barents Sea (and another VC for a British destroyer captain facing overwhelming force, Sherbrooke won his battle). While the Gneisenau languished in the dock, the Scharnhorst joined the Tirpitz in Norway. Even with 11" guns she'd be more than a match for the close escort and covering force of any convoy, with the Tirpitz the convoy escort would have to have at least two battleships to hope to survive. Luckily for the British, Hitler would lay down orders requiring extreme caution from the heavy ships. This would keep the German heavy ships from running any risk of facing an even force. One operation that the Scharnhorst did carry out was a raid on the island of Spitzbergen on 6 September 1943. This was intended to destroy the weather station that provided important information to the allies. That would be the last success by the German surface fleet. Just days after the raid the Tirptz was immobilized by British X-craft mini submarines, leaving the Scharnhost as the heaviest unit remaining. That would last until Christmas. Late in December convoy JW55B was detected heading for Russia. Witht he army in dire straits on the Eastern Front, the decision was made to risk their last battlecruiser in an attempt to disrupt the convoy. The Battle of North Cape was on. In a classic display of the use of signals intelligence, the admirals set a trap. Adm. Burnett with three heavy cruisers set up between the convoy and the Scharnhorst. Adm. Fraser in the Duke of York would cut off the Scharnhorst's escape route. The cruisers did their job and more. Not only did they turn Scharnhorst away from the convoy, the Belfast knocked out her primary fire control with a lucky 8" hit. Adm. Bey turned the Scharnhorst to work around the cruisers and get at the convoy. He skirmished with the cruisers and ultimately turned for home, unable to make contact with his primary target. Duke of York intercepted her on the way home and shot out most of her main and secondary armament. Still able to make full speed, the Scharnhorst was actually pulling away from the Duke of York. But not the destroyers accompanying her. Hit by four torpedoes, she sank at 19:45 on December 26th. Only 36 of her crew of almost 2000 survived.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2014 21:18
|
|
|
ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Also I'm quite shocked people are repeating the old and inaccurate canard that the battlecruiser's main weakness was inadequate armoring. The British ships at Jutland were lost through completely inadequate magazine safety arrangements which were completely separate issues to the thickness (or lack thereof) of the armor they carried. That's not to mention Beatty's absolutely atrocious handling of his squadrons during Jutland (although thankfully that was actually mentioned). I'd be interested to see you expand on this. Shell handling practices and the nature of cordite suggests that a British ship was more at risk from a catastrophic explosion on a penetrating hit than a German one. More armor means a better chance of keeping the shells out. So I'd love to see an analysis or some sources.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2014 07:55
|
|
|
WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:Who's got good sources on the history of mercenaries in the 20th century and the contemporary world, esp. the US? I just contracted myself out to write an encyclopedia entry. Don't forget to cover outsourcing your logistics. http://www.amazon.com/Outlaws-Inc-Matt-Potter-ebook/dp/B005ERL4G8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396377785&sr=1-1&keywords=outlaws+inc Ex-Soviet Air Force personnel and planes will go anywhere carrying anything.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2014 19:44
|
|
Already ordered Corporate Warriors:The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry
|
xthetenth posted:Amidships turrets were similar. If triples in a big enough caliber aren't available or workable, then to get the 8-12 guns that seems the sweet spot for battleship armament, then you need either amidships turrets, wing turrets or to run 8 guns in fore and aft superfiring pairs. Or you could do what the French did. I would imaging the amidships turret could fire aft of the beam to a certain extent, and at high elevation, but not by much. Looking at that, the all turrets forward concept looks a lot better, doesn't it ?  This has been a preview of my French carriers post, which is forthcoming.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 4, 2014 06:17
|
|
|
Ghost of Mussolini posted:
That's a combination of technical detail on shipbuilding and a pretty good narrative of developments during the period. David Brown was a Constructor for the Royal Navy, so he knows what he's talking about. There are two more volumes, covering the Dreadnought days and the post-WW1 period through Vanguard. And they're available in very nice softcover editions for about $25 each. They are very focused on the Royal Navy, but the technical issues of warships don't change between navies, just the solutions.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2014 08:42
|
|
|
Ofaloaf posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxK-qR14pVg Let's not forget the books Lyn Macdonald got out of the same research. I can particularly recommend her 1915: the End of Innocence. She's got great material on Gallipoli e;fb mllaneza fucked around with this message at 22:26 on May 29, 2014 |
|
#
¿
May 29, 2014 22:19
|
|
|
Abu Dave posted:Cool thanks for the reccomendations. I ordered everyone. And when you want to start digging in, anything by Lyn Macdonald is gold. I recommend her "1915", which has tons of good stuff including Gallipoli.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2014 23:18
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:No it was Wilhelm who went on holiday in the middle of the crisis and let things go to poo poo without him. The French leadership was visting Russia and Germany timed an ultimatum to catch them at sea on the voyage home. I've seen that described as a vacation, but in my view high-level consultation with an ally during a continental crisis is a working trip no matter how lavish the parties are.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2014 23:10
|
|
|
StashAugustine posted:I wanted to get a Fischer was Right tshirt but I was sure no one would get that. Who wouldn't want this mug on a t-shirt ?  And a good excuse to wargame an amphibious landing in the Baltic in late 1915. Oddly enough, Fischer and Rickover look remarkably similar. 
|
|
#
¿
Sep 6, 2014 07:59
|
|
|
Trin Tragula posted:Fixed that for you I should put together a proper effort post on the theme of "Robertson was the real donkey".
|
|
#
¿
Sep 7, 2014 09:16
|
|
|
uPen posted:The Guns of August thread in TBB has a ton of recommendations. I'm going to chime in with a recommendation for Sleepwalkers. That book does an amazing job of providing context for the situation in July 1914. I'm just digging in to it, but the early chapters on Serbia, Austria, and Germany are very informative. We've all heard of the Black Hand by now, but the fact that the organization grew out of the conspiracy to kill the king and queen in 1903. And they succeeded, there was an actual regicide in Serbia in 1903. The head of military intelligence who supplied the weapons to Princip's group was severely wounded by a palace guard during the attack on the royal family. A decade later and he's planning another royal assassination. The situation makes a lot more sense when you have a decade or two of context for all the major players.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2014 18:04
|
|
|
Speaking of Catton, I love his stuff on the Civil War but he's rarely mentioned in the thread when recommendations come up. Has he been superseded by modern research or is he just old hat nowadays ? Or, is Foote that much better of a writer ?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2014 18:52
|
|
|
So who's enough of a WW2 or aviation geek to know about the 588th Night Bombing Regiment aka the Night Witches aka Die Nachthexen ? Are you also enough of a geek to play tabletop RPGs ? Then I've got a kickstarter for you: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bullypulpitgames/night-witches/ It's an RPG from a respected designer, using a solid system, covering the all-woman 588th from training in 1941 to Berlin. I've read through the backer draft, and this is a solid game.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2014 04:47
|
|
|
Don Gato posted:Wehraboos make me laugh, please tell me more about how the country that lost WWII was actually better in every way than their opponents Or Dungeon World, the rules for that are available under Creative Commons at http://book.dwgazetteer.com. Pay special attention to the GM section, it's a Best Practices guide to running RPGs. For something resembling MilHist content, I still have my notes on French battlecruisers and carrier ops. I *will* finish those and post them before Thanksgiving.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2014 05:50
|
|
.
|
PittTheElder posted:While we're on the topic of terrifying submarine stuff, everyone should check out the story of the USS S-5. There's also a very good book about it called Under Pressure. No deaths. Goddamn, that is some resourceful thinking in that crew. "Sure we'll have to close off half the boat to avoid chlorine gas, but if we time it right we'll end up with enough of the stern above water to cut an escape route with cold chisels and other hand tools." Badass factor 100.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2014 08:45
|
|
|
Libluini posted:Wow, for a moment I thought my memories were wrong, since the rest of your post was so good, but, well: It's Fieseler Storch, sorry. The Storch is on my short list of planes I wish the flight sim IL-2 had as flyables. It sits just below the Po-2 on that list, but at least the Night Witches are starring in a roleplaying game now.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2014 17:18
|
|
|
tonberrytoby posted:I think you mean deflation. That puts me in mind of the old story that the RN called their Harrier carriers "through-deck cruisers" to make it easier to get the funding from Parliament. And that's not actually true. The Invincible class carriers came out of a design study into the next 'command cruiser in 1967. As early as 1960 the RN had been producing sketch designs labelled "cruiser" that had a full flight deck for helicopters. By the end of the decade they were looking into putting full fleet command capabilities on a platform that could defend itself (1 Sea Slug SAM launcher) as well as carrier a large contingent of ASW helicopters. Adding fixed-wing capability to carry the Harrier was an obvious extension, and so a "cruiser" ended up with a flight deck and carrying fixed wing aircraft. And you have to admit, there's nothing better for area air defense than a fighter, even a Harrier. Freedman's book on British Cruisers is amazing.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2014 22:51
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:(maybe even a joint ad by Adidas and Puma to reflect the sibling companies ending their 60 years of rivalry while working in the same little German village by playing a game of soccer in 2009) Adidas' ad agency actually did do some work on a Christmas Truce-themed footie ad back in… 2005 or so. Things were shaping up nicely top actually pitch the idea, until someone dug up a reel where another agency had already pitched the same ad. Being immense creative narcissists (and paid handsomely to come up with original ideas) they immediately chitchatted the idea and moved on to other concepts. I can't find the video that got produced and have no recollection of who worked on it, but it was actually damned good.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2014 04:48
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:Protected cruisers are a better example. Who needs steel when you have coal? The protected cruiser added a curved protective deck. The red lines are armor, the wavy blue lines are the waterline, and the dark grey compartments are filled with coal.  Water flooding into coal compartments through holes at or below the waterline has a reduced effect on stability, because the coal doesn't go out the hole where water is rushing in. Coal still takes up volume, so a flooded compartment that was already full of coal has a reduced impact on the ship's stability. Since all that's on the outside and providing protection, that coal would be used last if at all. Protected cruisers went out of style when the Quick Firing 4", 4.7", and 6" guns were introduced, since those would put a lot of larger holes in the ship. There would only be limited dust in the compartments above the waterline, and the ones below would of course promptly flood. As light warships with long range, these ships were cheap and reasonably effective. Remember that these were some of the first classes to give up auxiliary sails, and the first few classes still had them. Gunnery was much less effective back then, and 6' of coal aka 3" of steel was effective against the light armament of the ships these cruisers were expected to fight. Anything that got through the coal would be coming in on a fairly flat trajectory and glancing off the 2-3" curved deck.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 25, 2014 03:45
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:Was there much of a threat of coal fires being started? Or was the main concern just penetration into the crew/machinery? I do not recall reading of any serious fires started, during combat, in coal bunkers. As it happens, the protected cruisers saw very little actual combat, so the concept didn't get a lot of testing.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2014 04:14
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:I'd really love one of the Naval History goons to do a breakdown on the fleets of the Spanish-American war. I really love the look of the pre-dreadnaught stuff but I can barely find much stuff about them I'll see if I can find time for that. Pre-dreads are really loving neat, it should be fun to write.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2014 16:51
|
|
.
|
Phanatic posted:This bad boy's tied up in Philadelphia. It's a shame, there's not enough money to maintain it properly and the museum is trying to unload it on someone who can afford to do so but there are no takers so far. At this point she's been in the water since 1945 and she might wind up just being turned into a reef. Fix your links mate. There's also a campaign to save HMVS Cerberus http://users.netconnect.com.au/~ianmac/cerberus.html That's admittedly a bit late, since the ship has spent most of the last century as an artificial reef, but the article has good links and photos (if you can stand the 1990s web aesthetic). This site has a list of surviving predeads http://www.oz.net/~markhow/pre-dred/index.htm I particularly recommend looking into the Huascar, originally Peruvian she was taken by Chile as a prize of war. She also spent some time in the hands of rebels doing a bit of piracy. She was the target of the first self-propelled torpedo ever fired in anger. Or curiosity.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2014 17:14
|
|
|
Saint Celestine posted:Uhm. Correct. That's a target large enough that CAS and dive bombers can reliably hit it. Because it's moving 5 kph over good ground, stuck in any remotely soft terrain. Give me a tank sim as good as IL-2 Sturmovik and I'll pray for a 1946 expansion.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2014 07:32
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:Looking for a book recommendation. Got Shattered Sword for myself, and am now looking for any similar books, preferably covering some aspect of the Pacific War or other naval conflict that I might be able to find at my local B&N or library. Already have and enjoyed Castles of Steel. I'm partial to Neptune's Inferno. It's a great account of the night fighting in the Solomons, with an emphasis on 1st Guadalcanal (US cruisers versus IJN battleships). That's an incredibly confusing action, so the author put together every first hand account he could get his hands on and goes through it ship by ship. It's still confusing, but much better explained than any other account of the battle.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2015 06:51
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:Welp, back to the drawing board *crumples up draft to Military Sci-Fi story* If it's Mil-SF, Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers did lots of drops. So you're golden.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2015 04:09
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:Ace Rimmer. More usefully, a .gif from Red Dwarf. If you like British humor in your sic-fi you'll love it. e: what a guy !
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2015 00:05
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Also, it should come as no surprise to anyone who has read Shattered Sword that during the planning for the Pearl Harbor attack, a wargame resulted in the Kido Butai getting by PBY Catalinas before getting into striking range of Hawaii and getting half its planes destroyed and two carriers sunk. Yamamoto threatened resignation in order to let the plan go forward regardless. That wasn't why Yamamoto threatened resignation. When you take the time to gather a few dozen senior officers to wargame an ops plan, when something bad happens you take notes, reset, and continue testing the rest of the plan. The idea is to work through the whole plan, test every component, and let everyone get some practice on it. You can't do that if one bad result in the middle derails the whole thing. Zimm's Attack on Pearl Harbor covers that in more detail. It's to Pearl Harbor what Shattered Sword is to Midway and you should read it anyway.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 10, 2015 15:51
|
|
|
So the wreck of the IJN Musashi has been found. Here's a shot of the bow: https://twitter.com/paulgallen/status/572431062522982400
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2015 03:14
|
|
|
TheFluff posted:http://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/mer-krut-i-vasas-kanoner Thanks ! Have in return a clip showing a test firing against a sample section from the reconstructed USS Lawrence (Oliver Hazard Perry's flagship at the Battle of Lake Erie). This one features some spectacular clouds of splinters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfsuIaTU92Y
|
|
#
¿
Apr 19, 2015 09:05
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 04:57 |
|
|
Cythereal posted:Looking for another book recommendation. Finished Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, and that and the other Pacific War naval books has gotten me curious about Imperial Japan's military leadership in general, how they got into a position to do what they did in WW2 considering how misguided their military leadership seems to have been. Any good books on the subject? I don't have anything that can answer that question directly, but Hara's Destroyer Captain is a good account from a competent officer looking upwards along the chain of command and wondering what the gently caress ? http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Destroyer-Captain-Guadalcanal-Battles/dp/1591143845
|
|
#
¿
May 16, 2015 06:33
|
|