(September 27, 2015 at 4:29 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: Abaris- That's so cool... I didn't know that about von Trapp.

Yes, he commanded several subs. Among them U14, which was a french submarine, we captured when it dared to enter our main naval base at Pola.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_Trapp

It helps to have a well stocked library. Comes in two volumes.



That's Trapp on the tower.

(September 27, 2015 at 4:34 pm)abaris Wrote:

(September 27, 2015 at 4:29 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: It's like saying a main battle tank is an "anachronistic freak" because of the invention of antitank missiles. They still dominate the battlefield, if properly supported and protected. But, like the expensive and huge battleships, they are being increasingly augmented by relatively unarmored, more-mobile light vehicles such as the LAV-25.

No, it's more like an Abrams tank compared to a Sherman. The submarines and other torpedo carriers had all the advantages over basttleships. The Battle of the Skagerrak was the only real battleship battle in history. And it ended with a stalemate.

Actually, come to think of it, the battleships were on the same lines of outdated tactics as the land battles with blind charges were. Technology had moved on, but the thinking of the strategists hadn't.

The USS Washington and IJN Kirishima fought head-to-head off Guadalcanal in 1942, with the latter being scuttled after taking at least 9 16" hits and an estimated 40 5" hits in the space of 10 minutes. It helped that Capt (later Adm) Willis Lee was a radar expert in that night battle.

(September 27, 2015 at 4:34 pm)abaris Wrote:

(September 27, 2015 at 4:29 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: It's like saying a main battle tank is an "anachronistic freak" because of the invention of antitank missiles. They still dominate the battlefield, if properly supported and protected. But, like the expensive and huge battleships, they are being increasingly augmented by relatively unarmored, more-mobile light vehicles such as the LAV-25.

No, it's more like an Abrams tank compared to a Sherman. The submarines and other torpedo carriers had all the advantages over basttleships. The Battle of the Skagerrak was the only real battleship battle in history. And it ended with a stalemate.

Actually, come to think of it, the battleships were on the same lines of outdated tactics as the land battles with blind charges were. Technology had moved on, but the thinking of the strategists hadn't.

It's true about the thinking of the strategists and the rapid rush of technology, but it's not true during WW1, when the planes were not a serious threat to the battleships, and submarines were not yet highly effective. (Of course, subs scored victories against the battleship and other warships, which led to the development of anti-torpedo bulges and other design- and tactics-changes.) It is ironic that, given their lack of domination of the ocean battlefield, the people who owned them were so reluctant to use them because of the moral value of their loss on the people of the nation who lost them, and so the battleships rarely came to blows simply out of fear of employing them as they were meant to be employed.

And yes, Jutland was the only "true" action of that sort, but there's also the whole Bismarck v. Hood fight, and the second battle of Guadalcanal, where Kirishima was sunk by two American battleships. All that said, I wonder what the second world war would have looked like if we had put our effort spent building the Iowa class battleships into fleet carriers, or if we had done more along the lines of the Saratoga and Lexington, and built carriers from the half-completed hulls of battlecruisers and battleships. Imagine a US fleet with the South Dakota-class and North Carolina-class ships built into six fast, super-heavy carriers!

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I see Parkers Tan beat me to it! Hehe.

(September 27, 2015 at 5:32 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: It's true about the thinking of the strategists and the rapid rush of technology, but it's not true during WW1, when the planes were not a serious threat to the battleships, and submarines were not yet highly effective.

The subs were highly effective in WWI.

The battleships were designed as ships of the line, so the only real battleship bettle was the battle of Skagerak. It doesn't exclude iondividual successes, but the weapon system wasnt as effective as strategists thought it would be.

Btw, one of the most cringeworthy moments I got from the history channel is the sinking of Szent Istvan. They use it again and again like the bullshitters they are, reagrdless if it fits the bill. They never used it in their original context though, which tells a lot about the channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt8rJPsDOAc

The History Channel?

I thought they had changed their name to the Hysteria Channel ...

Btw, that's what sunk the Szent Istvan.



Looks like a bargain to me.

Only 80 sailors perished though. So that's a bargain too, going by WWI standards.

(September 27, 2015 at 5:42 pm)abaris Wrote:

(September 27, 2015 at 5:32 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: It's true about the thinking of the strategists and the rapid rush of technology, but it's not true during WW1, when the planes were not a serious threat to the battleships, and submarines were not yet highly effective.

The subs were highly effective in WWI.

The battleships were designed as ships of the line, so the only real battleship bettle was the battle of Skagerak. It doesn't exclude iondividual successes, but the weapon system wasnt as effective as strategists thought it would be.

Btw, one of the most cringeworthy moments I got from the history channel is the sinking of Szent Istvan. They use it again and again like the bullshitters they are, reagrdless if it fits the bill. They never used it in their original context though, which tells a lot about the channel.

What's the BS about the Szent Istvan?  I don't really watch the Hysteria Channel, as PT rightly called it. 

And yeah, I read about the motor torpoedoboats when you first linked me to the history of the ship. Totally badass.

As for "the weapon system", I'd say it was an utter failure except in the strategic sense (like nukes, which change your behavior based on fear, rather than the amount of damage they actually do), since the old battleships had a range of something like 18 miles, tops, whereas the new classes of ships were designed to fight battles at ranges more like 25-30 miles... which never happened. Even in the few instances where the battleships engaged one another as ships-of-the-line, it was at much closer range. For instance, in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, Hood  opened fire first, at a range of 15 miles (though the Prince of Wales' 14" guns could reach out to 20), and the Bismarck could theoretically hit out to 23 miles with its 15". Part of that is because the British commander knew Hood was vulnerable to plunging fire, and wanted to close rapidly so the trajectories would be flatter.

Side note: In looking up the ranges of the guns, I stumbled across a battle we forgot to mention, the Battle of the North cape, Scharnhorst versus Duke of York. The former was only armed with 11" guns, making her barely a battleship, but she was built as one and simply never got refitted with her 15" intended armament.

(September 27, 2015 at 6:07 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: What's the BS about the Szent Istvan?  I don't really watch the Hysteria Channel, as PT rightly called it. 

The BS is, they use it for any possible battleship sinking. They never used it in it's original context, since Austria Hungary isn't even on their radar. There's such a rich story attached to that clip. It was filmed from the decks of the Prinz Eugen, which was another ship of the same class. And they tried to save the Szént Istvan for hours and nearly succeeded. It was already hooked to another ship to be towed to port.

Yet, the bullshit channel just uses the clip, probably without being aware of it's history.

Well, I just learned a whole bunch about ships.

(September 27, 2015 at 7:39 pm)MTL Wrote: Well, I just learned a whole bunch about ships.

Me too.  Ships never came up much while I was in the Army...

Not a bad thing though, I found it interesting.