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Great report on the Battle of Shiloh bewbies. It really is underrated. Speaking of China, what did they actually do during WWII? How organized was their resistance? Any epic battles no one has heard of in the West? How were they supplied/financed? Was it mostly guerrillas or what?
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Aug 12, 2010 05:12
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:So, does anyone know more about it that could shed some more light on the deal? Was it possible that the offer was genuine and one million Hungarian Jews could be saved or was it merely all a bluff? Apparently there is intelligence that shows that this deal was brokered without Hitler's knowledge, and the SS officer Adolf Eichmann who made the deal was already starting the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz for extermination. I also can't imagine that any of the German high command would agree to exchange the Jewish people for war materials when their extermination was already placed as a higher priority than anything else, even when it was clear Germany was losing the war. I watched a show about Himmler a few months ago, and I remember that he was making all sorts of small scale deals with mainly the British. 1,000 Jews for large amounts of gold, things like that. They mentioned most of what you said about the trucks too. Himmler was apparently trying to save his own rear end for after the war. There was one relatively "nice" concentration camp that the Nazi's used for propanganda to say "I know your wondering what happened to all the Jews. Here they are at the SS happy fun summer camp!". The Jews there were in decent shape at first, so a few years later Himmler turned it over to the either the Brits or US troops to try endear himself to the Western Allies... except he didn't realize that since the war had gotten so lovely for the Reich all the Jews were starving to death there. When they saw what Himmler's idea of a present was, he definately blew his chance to cheat the hangman. The documentary also had an interesting story: In all of the war, Churchill only ordered a couple documents destroyed [not redacted or sealed, but utterly destroyed]. He received a telegram from Himmler towards the end of the war, the last of Himmlers secret attempts at dealcutting. He read the note and the promptly lit it on fire. I have always wondered if in a desperate move Himmler said something along the lines of "You know we have taken the Jews and work them to death and mistreat them, but what you don't realize is that we actually have been systematically slaughtering them. We will cease if you and the US stop your advance in Germany." Or something along those lines. Churchill could say yes, but he couldn't say no either with out everything falling apart. 
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Aug 12, 2010 05:19
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KurdtLives posted:I have always wondered if in a desperate move Himmler said something along the lines of "You know we have taken the Jews and work them to death and mistreat them, but what you don't realize is that we actually have been systematically slaughtering them. We will cease if you and the US stop your advance in Germany." Or something along those lines. Churchill could say yes, but he couldn't say no either with out everything falling apart. Well, towards the end of the war the camps were actually mostly shut down (with the prisoners being marched cross-country towards areas still occupied by Germany) due to the Soviet advance, so this is not very likely.
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Aug 12, 2010 06:24
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Hob_Gadling posted:The class distinctions and perceived unfairness that started the war have pretty much disappeared, and the young generations speak of the civil war as something that has no relevance in life anymore. The class distinctions did not disappear, but successful land reforms after the war (and less successful land reforms after WW2) made most of the agrarian supporters of the Red faction into landowners.
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Aug 12, 2010 06:27
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KurdtLives posted:The documentary also had an interesting story: In all of the war, Churchill only ordered a couple documents destroyed [not redacted or sealed, but utterly destroyed]. He received a telegram from Himmler towards the end of the war, the last of Himmlers secret attempts at dealcutting. He read the note and the promptly lit it on fire. Unanswered questions like this drive me absolutely crazy. It's really too bad we'll never know. 
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Aug 12, 2010 06:49
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Kemper Boyd posted:Well, towards the end of the war the camps were actually mostly shut down (with the prisoners being marched cross-country towards areas still occupied by Germany) due to the Soviet advance, so this is not very likely. It may not of been THAT close to the end of the war, its been awhile since I saw it. Fun Sherman fact: Joseph E. Johnston, who opposed Sherman for so much of the Atlanta and March to the Sea campaigns, served as a pallbearer at his funeral. During the procession in New York City on February 19, 1891, he kept his hat off as a sign of respect in the cold, rainy weather. Someone had some concern for the old general's health and asked him to put on his hat, to which Johnston replied "If I were in his place and he standing here in mine, he would not put on his hat." He caught pneumonia and died several weeks later.
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Aug 12, 2010 08:37
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Spartan421 posted:Speaking of China, what did they actually do during WWII? How organized was their resistance? Any epic battles no one has heard of in the West? How were they supplied/financed? Was it mostly guerrillas or what? While China was full of internal turmoil beforehand, by the Japanese invasion in 1937 they more or less had a functioning national government and army under Chiang Kai-shek, though not all of China was under its control. When the Japanese invaded the Chinese were pushed back in a series of massive pitched battles worthy of any other front (like this and this), but the Chinese moved their capital inland and pretty much kept a massive chunk of the Japanese army stalemated for the entire war. The guerrilla warfare everyone hears about took place after that big retreat, in the occupied areas, but China definitely did have conventional forces that nobody really hears about.
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Aug 12, 2010 10:23
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Spartan421 posted:Speaking of China, what did they actually do during WWII? How organized was their resistance? Any epic battles no one has heard of in the West? How were they supplied/financed? Was it mostly guerrillas or what? China actually began its war with German support, their military mission to China which had been going on since the Weimar period. To Chiang's surprise, Hitler actually stepped up support in exchange for raw materials. This meant that there were significant portions of the Chinese army with German training, and some even with German equipment. A few Panzer Is even found their way over. It's why you can often see pictures of Chinese soldiers with the German helmet. With Hitler's rise to power, just about every faction eventually found German advisors from the diaspora of communists and others. A few months after the war in 1937 began, Hitler cut his support, but the KMT also had Soviet support, as the Soviets believed that Chiang was going to win the civil war and they wanted to support him over a rather less tolerable(to them) Mao. The Soviets proved to be their most reliable supporters, though mostly in a technical sense, providing aircraft, volunteer pilots, tanks, and other equipment. Unfortunately, this aid was cut off in 1942 when Sheng Shicai decided to court the KMT by throwing out Soviet advisors and communists in his controlled region. After this, aid was intermittent and mostly US, due to the occupation of Burma. This part of the war is generally the nadir of the KMT armies, and Chiang eventually ceased most operations during WWII proper(in the pacific) to let the Allies win the war and preserve his strength for the upcoming civil war. Very late in the war, the KMT received more US aid and they were able to succeed in late war offensives. One of the problems of the Japanese is that they had a largely World War I army, and their interwar learning mostly focused on using infiltration by infantry and 'fighting spirit' to overcome a defense, which made their motorization very lacking. Despite their technological superiority in many areas, most of their battles, even victories against the Chinese armies were grinds against very similar opponents.
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Aug 12, 2010 14:12
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:(Blood for Trucks) Also, to Kurdtlives: We (the UK and US) knew about what was really going on in the camps fairly early on. I don't have my notes in front of me, but IIRC, the governments of the UK and US knew about the death camps and assembly-line killings by mid-1942 or so. Any sort of deal between Himmler and Churchill wouldn't have worked: the Nazis had proven themselves completely untrustworthy by that point, and the welfare of the Jews was not considered much of a priority by the Allies. Your show was probably just a list of counterfactual hypotheses.
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Aug 12, 2010 15:41
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The China front is actually pretty cool to read about. I mean in what other front can you read about running cavalry battles between mongols and manchurians?
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Aug 12, 2010 16:56
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Gumby posted:Any sort of deal between Himmler and Churchill wouldn't have worked: the Nazis had proven themselves completely untrustworthy by that point, and the welfare of the Jews was not considered much of a priority by the Allies. Your show was probably just a list of counterfactual hypotheses. Not to mention that anything like that would have severely pissed off the Soviets. Stalin had suspicions throughout the war that the western Allies were going to backstab him and he did several times threaten to pull out of the war.
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Aug 12, 2010 17:15
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Will2Powa posted:The China front is actually pretty cool to read about. I mean in what other front can you read about running cavalry battles between mongols and manchurians? And opening dams drowning entire populations just to worsen your enemy's logistical problems. The second sino-japanese war was really rough, and things like the Great March are just difficult to even fathom.
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Aug 12, 2010 23:18
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I posted this in another thread, but it got buried. Does anyone know of any good websites with historical/military flags to purchase?
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Aug 13, 2010 03:59
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Smirking_Serpent posted:I posted this in another thread, but it got buried. Does anyone know of any good websites with historical/military flags to purchase? http://www.mrflag.com/ I have gotten several historical flags from there.
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Aug 13, 2010 04:09
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Chade Johnson posted:http://www.mrflag.com/ Sweet, thanks.
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Aug 13, 2010 06:42
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One of the most interesting military figures I have been reading about recently has got to be Lafayette. It is amazing how famous he was in early America vs now. How bad rear end was he? So bad rear end that even the Nazi's didn't gently caress him, and he had had been dead for over a century at the time. Also, he had the balls to tell George Washington off over the issue of slavery. "On July 4, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entered World War I, Colonel Charles E. Stanton visited the grave of Lafayette and uttered the famous phrase "Lafayette, we are here." After the war, a U.S. flag was permanently placed at the grave site. Every year, on the 4th of July, the flag is replaced in a joint French-American ceremony. The flag remained even during the German occupation of Paris during World War II." Who are some other historical figures who were hugely famous back in their day, but now generally relegated to the dust bin of history (at least by non-history nerds)?
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Aug 13, 2010 20:03
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There's a particularly good new post on Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog on Robert E. Lee's attitude towards slavery. Basically, Lee gets a pass from a lot of people because he once wrote a letter in which he said that slavery was a bad thing. This supports the whole "Lost Cause" bullshit that was popular in the 20th century. Except that when Lee wrote that, he was actually saying that owning slaves was a pain in the rear end for white slaveowners, and that being a slave was a lot better than living in Africa, because here Negroes had the advantage of being taught the ways of civilization by white people. Interesting discussion in the comments section, too. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/08/arlington-bobby-lee-and-the-peculiar-institution/61428/
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Aug 13, 2010 22:03
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Lafayette was an amazing human being all-around, not just in military genius. He disobeyed the king of France to sneak into the 13 Colonies and gain a commission in the Continental Army. When Louis did an about face and declared war on Britain, Lafayette helped coordinate the American and French ground forces. Later in France, he was caught up in the French Revolution. He did his best to balance the need for democracy with the insanity of mob rule. He supported dethroning Louis and instituting an elected assembly, but he opposed abolishing the monarchy and murdering the royal family. For his support for the Revolution, he was appointed head of the French National Guard, a sort of internal army that kept Paris from completely breaking down. For his opposition to the Reign of Terror, he was forced to rn for his life and spent a decade in an Austrian jail cell. When Napoleon took power and conquered Austria, he freed Lafayette. Far from being grateful, he publically chided Bonaparte for abandoning the democractic ideals of the Revolution. Really, in all seriousness, the Marquis de Lafayette is my model for a good human being.
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Aug 14, 2010 00:49
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Gumby posted:There's a particularly good new post on Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog on Robert E. Lee's attitude towards slavery. Basically, Lee gets a pass from a lot of people because he once wrote a letter in which he said that slavery was a bad thing. This supports the whole "Lost Cause" bullshit that was popular in the 20th century. An interesting sidenote is that there is a world of difference between opposing slavery and supporting racial equality. Many northerners opposed slavery on economic grounds, not human rights. As northers migrated into the federal territories, they had to pay their farmhands every day, while southerners just had to provide a little food for their slaves. The free-staters just couldn't compete. Money, not liberty or equality, is what drove the abolitionist movement. People like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison were extreme radicals in their day. IMO, most people in the north and the south would be considered terrible bigots by today's standards. Democrats in the north labeled Republicans "Black Republicans" and led marches with young white girls holding banners reading, "Save us from negro husbands!" These were often the same people who opposed slavery. Lincoln himself, while debating Douglass, stated unequivocally that he believed blacks were inferior to whites and, if freed, he would never allow ex-slaves to live in white communities. You could say that "Bull" Connor and Orval Faubus were less racist than Abraham Lincoln. In fact, in Lincoln's (and my) home state of Indiana, the assembly actually passed laws banning the immigration of blacks (free or slave) into the state. The authorities never really stopped immigration, but the law was on the books until the end of the Civil War. When we debate whether such-and-such Civil War hero supported or opposed slavery, it's important to understand that ideas of race were completely different then than they are now.
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Aug 14, 2010 01:03
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A few war history overview articles that are quite interesting. The First Modern War And the Last Ancient War On the American Civil War, written by an amateur historian/Geology professor. http://leesandlin.com/articles/LosingTheWar.htm An article on the little-explored impact of WWII on Middle America. (Must read!!) Also, a Military Technology essay. Phyzzle fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Aug 15, 2010 |
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Aug 15, 2010 19:28
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Phyzzle posted:
You see, you never hear about stuff like this: 'The War at Sea At sea, the Civil War was a global, if low-level war. Confederate raiders attacked Union shipping all over the globe. Under the rules of naval warfare, a captured merchant vessel could be sold to finance the war effort, converted to a fighting ship, or sunk if no other alternative were available. The crew would be taken prisoner and put ashore at the next port. Generally speaking, the rules were scrupulously followed. The most famous Confederate raider was the C.S.S. Alabama, built in England and finally sunk off Cherbourg, France. The Alabama is commemorated by a monument in about the least maritime setting imaginable. At the base of the Sierra Nevada just below Mount Whitney are the Alabama Hills. The few settlers in the area in the 1860's were pro-Confederacy but unable to join the war effort, so they named the hills to show their sympathies. But the most interesting Confederate raider was the C.S.S. Shenandoah. She sailed across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and by early 1865 she was raiding Union whaling vessels in the Gulf of Alaska. (In this remote area, the Confederates would put crews from several captured vessels on one and allow them to sail to safety, then sink the others.) On one of the captured ships, the Confederates found a newspaper from which they learned that San Francisco was completely undefended (who expected a Confederate naval assault on San Francisco?) So they conceived the plan of holding San Francisco for ransom; they would threaten to bombard the city unless a ransom was paid, to go into the Confederate war chest. What saved San Francisco was an encounter with a British vessel, where the Confederates learned that the war was over. Fearing reprisal if they surrendered, the Confederates decided to sail to England. They sailed south around Cape Horn, up the far side of the Atlantic to avoid Union warships, and finally docked in England in November, 1865, where the last official Confederate flag was pulled down. The C.S.S. Shenandoah was the only Confederate raider to sail around the world.' Which is a pretty incredible story really. Edit: Though in general I feel that account of warfare has a very American bias, and seems to over-value the Civil War (which to most other countries is relatively obscure and insignificant). Royality fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Aug 15, 2010 |
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Aug 15, 2010 19:51
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Dudes I was watching Deadliest Warrior on SPIKE earlier and I gotta ask, who would win in a fight between a Spartan and a Samurai? And is a claymore more powerful than a katana? Just kidding, gently caress that poo poo, my real question is about the Battle of Manzikert. If the Byzantine's won that battle would it have prevented the Turks from claiming Anatolia completely or just delayed them? Their long decline began after the battle so if they won could the empire have lasted longer? Or was it inevitable in the end that the Byzantine Empire would fall without Western help?
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Aug 16, 2010 00:24
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The fall of Byzantium was pretty much inevitable because of Constantinople. Constantinople was pretty much the only reason that the kingdom was still alive, with it's heavy walls and surrounded by three sides of oceans protected by ships wielding greek fire, it was nearly impregnable to sieges, and they would have to sit back and wait for reinforcements from various Italian city states or the pope. It didn't really matter what battle they lost outside of Constantinople, as long as the city stood the kingdom would survive. Constantinople at the beginning of the 1400s was in serious decline and very poor financially, and could not effectively equip or train an army, but still had a somewhat superior navy with larger ships which were also equipped with Greek fire. Mehmed rolls in with his 80,000 men strong army and sieges the city and was only about to take it by the use of heavy bombardment the largest and greatest gunpowder weapons at the time. The siege was successful because eventually word got back that the Venetians (and other Eastern European countries) would not be sending in reinforcements, too busy trying to make money. That and the fact that the Navy had been effectively neutralized (meaning no reinforcements or escape by sea) boosted the attackers morale and destroyed the city's
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Aug 16, 2010 00:40
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Chopstix posted:The fall of Byzantium was pretty much inevitable because of Constantinople. Constantinople was pretty much the only reason that the kingdom was still alive, with it's heavy walls and surrounded by three sides of oceans protected by ships wielding greek fire, it was nearly impregnable to sieges, and they would have to sit back and wait for reinforcements from various Italian city states or the pope. It didn't really matter what battle they lost outside of Constantinople, as long as the city stood the kingdom would survive. You are talking about how the Byzantines continued to survive after their decay but isn't it possible though that if the Battle of Manziker was won by the Byzantines that their decline would have been prevented? They would not have lost the riches and manpower of Anatolia for one.
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Aug 16, 2010 01:27
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:You are talking about how the Byzantines continued to survive after their decay but isn't it possible though that if the Battle of Manziker was won by the Byzantines that their decline would have been prevented? They would not have lost the riches and manpower of Anatolia for one. I think its pretty easy to lay the blame on the Byzantine rulers themselves. Just look at Komnenian dynasty. Even after Manzikart, the Kommenians were able to reform the army and once again expand the empire. Under bad rulers, the empire suffered accordingly. As to the fall of Constantinople itself, Mehmed actually had ships dragged across the Golden Horn to bypass the chain blocking the harbor, allowing him to completely cut off the city.
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Aug 16, 2010 01:37
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Bagheera posted:Money, not liberty or equality, is what drove the abolitionist movement. Do you have a source for this? This has been an area of emphasis of mine for a long time and I've never seen any work that really effectively argued that economic forces were the main driver of anything relating to abolitionism. A factor? Possibly, but not the main driver. My understanding is the movement started with British Quakers (who essentially took it to the house in the UK more or less by themselves) and was taken up by the same in America; from there it became an upper class christian crusade in northern cities. Since upper class christians ran everything (including government and the press) it gained a lot of political steam very quickly, along with the temperance movement, the Second Great Awakening, etc, all of which were religious movements form the mid 18th century. Abolitionism of course was not a movement carried by a large part of the population, but you must remember that most of the population at this time was not politically active nor politically powerful. A good case in point is that the most popular novel of the period (Uncle Tom's Cabin) was, of course, an anti-slavery work. I don't really get how you can argue that the population (or at least the literate, politically powerful population) was disinterested in abolition on moral grounds when this was most popular literature of the time. You are right of course that racial equality is a different issue entirely, but I think your assertion that abolitionism was an economically driven isn't really correct. bewbies fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Aug 16, 2010 |
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Aug 16, 2010 01:40
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I just had a chance to catch up and I want to thank you all for the civil war stories and opinions. It just makes me want to learn more. Bewbies, thank you especially for the Shiloh rundown. Very interesting.
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Aug 16, 2010 05:09
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Very interesting thread, I do have a question though: does anyone know how the one full -scale encounter between the surface fleets of the Royal Navy and the German Navy was fought in the First World War? Since the key to British world power was supposed to be the Royal Navy, why did they then have such a struggle to even draw with the Germans at Jutland in the North Sea?
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Aug 16, 2010 18:10
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Britons really don't have any reason to be smug about their stance on slavery, because it wasn't because the average 19th Century Briton was any more enlightened than his American counterpart, but because the circumstances were very different. There wasn't a massive population of African slaves in Britain, slavery for Britain meant slavery on the plantations of their Caribbean colonies. Whether these slaves were free or not meant nothing to the average Briton living in Britain, they had no particular reason to defend it. The plantation colonies were composed of a large majority of slaves with a very small plantation owner class. These would have been for the abolition of slavery in any case once they realized it was easier to pay people to work rather than whip them. After the slaves were freed and became small farmers and whatnot, the plantation owner class still owned everything and ruled, or in the worst case, they just went back to their estates in Britain. In the American south, freeing the slaves would have meant (and did mean) major social upheaval, to say the least. Millions of former slaves had to somehow live in peace with their former owners. This is a process that in some respects is still not complete in the US even today. For example, Brazil, another country with a somewhat similar circumstances, was also very late in abolishing slavery.
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Aug 16, 2010 18:25
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Averrences posted:Very interesting thread, I do have a question though: does anyone know how the one full -scale encounter between the surface fleets of the Royal Navy and the German Navy was fought in the First World War? The High Seas Fleet is an interesting story. Its history is about like me using a huge portion of my salary to buy a nice new house over a 20 year period, and then refusing to move into it because I'm afraid to get it dirty. I just finished a book on this period (George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I) which really explored why Wilhelm and Tirpitz went on their building spree and how the Brits reacted to it. Essentially, Tirpitz realized early on that he had no hope of every truly "catching" the Royal Navy in terms of outright sea power. However, Germany (along with everyone else on the planet) was entranced by Mahan's theories about the importance of sea lanes, and so they assumed that in order to be legitimate (if somewhat late) players in the colonial game they had to do something about British sea power. The plan Tirpitz came up with was to create a fleet that, even if it couldn't beat the Brits outright, it could be large/powerful enough to hurt them badly in the open seas and perhaps defeat them in German home waters. Thus, the Germans could protect their colonial sea lanes with this sort of inferior deterrent effect and never actually have to catch up to the Brits in terms of outright power. They started on this process in 1897 roughly, then had a decade of building completely undone by Dreadnought when it launched. They literally started over again, and by spending fairly massive amounts of money (a quarter of the national budget) they were able to acheive what they thought was a "close enough" status to the RN to meet Tirpitz's strategic requirements. This is sort of the background for Jutland...the Germans knew (or thought they knew at least) that they could not defeat the RN in a straight up fight, and so they were hesitant to engage completely even though this fleet represented a huge national investment. Tactically though, the Germans probably could have won Jutland if they would have had experienced and competent commanders. Their capital ships were superior in just about every respect (particularly targeting and armor) and several British capital ships were essentially useless (very vulnerable) due to an awful armor scheme and poor gunpowder/gunpowder handling (they lost three of these: Indefatigable, Queen Mary, Invincible). Germany did very well in ship-to-ship combat as a result, and had their fleet attacked aggressively I think they probably could have beaten back the RN. However, this was in direct opposition to the "goal" of the High Seas Fleet, which is why they disengaged and sat in port for two more years after beating the hell out of the British when they had the chance. bewbies fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Aug 16, 2010 |
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Aug 16, 2010 19:00
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Bewbies, I'm not sure I agree with you about German fire control. What I've read suggests that the German stereoscopic rangefinder could get onto target much faster than the coincidence rangefinders used by other navies, but it was more sensitive and more fatiguing. After a few hours of harsh ship to ship pounding, the advantage starts to go the other way. I'm currently re-reading Massie's Dreadnought which also covers the same period, and based on that reading, I can't contradict anything else you said. Gordon's The Rules of the Game argues that with better doctrine, the Brits could also have been far more effective, but it's all pretty speculative. Tirpitz's riskflotte theory sounds great as a geopolitical exercise, but it ignores the human dimension. What kind of fleet is going to gleefully sail headlong into a lost battle, purely in the hope that they'll inflict so much damage that the other side will give up after? You need to offer people some hope of victory in order to create a really outstanding force. The inability of the German Navy to actually force a final battle in 1917 or 1918 proved that, but of course it was too late to do anything about it by then. "What if Kaiser Wilhelm had not been an absolute tool" is an insufficiently explored what-if. Someone should write the novel.
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Aug 16, 2010 21:35
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Apologies in advance, this is going to be one of the nerdiest posts made so far in this thread.Zorak of Michigan posted:Bewbies, I'm not sure I agree with you about German fire control. What I've read suggests that the German stereoscopic rangefinder could get onto target much faster than the coincidence rangefinders used by other navies, but it was more sensitive and more fatiguing. After a few hours of harsh ship to ship pounding, the advantage starts to go the other way. This is a good point and you're mostly correct about the differences between the systems. This is my assessment of the entire targeting issue: German rangefinders were, on the whole, superior. You're right that the stereoscopic system was fatiguing and sensitive, but it was also much more accurate and more importantly, could find ranges in conditions where single lens systems could not (in fog, smoke, or into the sun for example). The Brits did, however, have some brand new 15ft rangefinders on their newest ships which were probably superior in turn to the Germans. Almost all British ships had centralized firing systems, meaning that the ship's entire battery could be fired in concert. This was a major advance at the time that the British really didn't take full advantage of, because of ---> At Jutland, the Germans used the superior "ladder" system of firing (single salvo at different distances) versus the British "bracket" system (multiple salvos at different distances). Ironically, the ladder system coupled with centralized firing would have been ideal, and eventually the British adopted the German system. The Germans also had a much more refined data distribution system. The calculations for naval gunnery even at this time were very complex, with data being taken from several different parts of the ship. The Germans had better procedures for collecting and inputting this data. In the end, in a best ship vs. best ship (say, Koening vs. Valiant) shooting contest in a controlled environment, the Brits probably would have won. However, the Germans had three important factors working in their favor: 1) they were able to get shots on target more quickly. At this time, having salvos falling around your ship greatly decreased gunnery accuracy, so as a result, British accuracy fell significantly after the Germans had found the range. 2) The poor visual environment in the area at the time made the stereoscopic systems worth the extra hassle. 3) Not all RN ships had the best equipment. BCs in particular lacked most of the top of the line stuff (direction finders, good rangefinders, centralized gunnery), and so their gunnery was absolutely abysmal, especially compared to the ships like the QE class. That is just my assessment though. I know there has been plenty of debate on the issue, I'll cite both "A History of Seapower" and the much worse "To Rule the Waves" as a contradictory source. quote:Tirpitz's riskflotte theory sounds great as a geopolitical exercise, but it ignores the human dimension. What kind of fleet is going to gleefully sail headlong into a lost battle, purely in the hope that they'll inflict so much damage that the other side will give up after? Well, it wasn't exactly a good plan. I think it was based primarily on the threat that they would go through with some sort of suicidal bloodbath more than any actual intent to do so. Whether the British ever realized this or not I don't know.
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Aug 16, 2010 22:23
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Perhaps a bit peripheral, but I also read somewhere that the British had inferior armor-piercing shells. They exploded on the outside of the armor belt, while their German counterparts actually pierced British armour.
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Aug 16, 2010 22:53
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Zorak of Michigan posted:"What if Kaiser Wilhelm had not been an absolute tool" is an insufficiently explored what-if. Someone should write the novel. It would be a pretty boring novel, since WW1 probably wouldn't have happened! Not that Wilhelm single-handedly started the war, but he's definitely more individually culpable than most of the people in charge at the time. bewbies posted:I think it was based primarily on the threat that they would go through with some sort of suicidal bloodbath more than any actual intent to do so. Whether the British ever realized this or not I don't know. When the German naval commanders finally decided to go through with the whole suicidal bloodbath thing (although apparently more to preserve their precious honor than anything else), it was way too late in the war and the fleet just mutinied instead. Alekanderu fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Aug 16, 2010 |
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Aug 16, 2010 23:27
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When comparing the British to German ships during the Jutland era my (admittedly rather limited reading) seems to suggest that ship-for-ship the British generally had better hulls and engines while the Germans tended to have better guns and armour. It is worth keeping in mind, however, that most of the major casualties at Jutland were not battleships but battlecruisers. In particular the famous British casualties were all battlecruisers. On both sides these were armed like battleships but much more lightly armoured but the lack of armour was particularly extreme in the British case (largely due to Fisher's obsession with speed). This class of ship was really designed to deal with commerce raiders and, despite some of the claims to the contrary, were in no way able to deal with the sluggathon of fleet combat. That they died horribly when subjected to fleet combat is really no surprise, it just so happened that better long-range gunnery and fire control on the part of the Germans and lighter armour and poor ammunition handling practices on the part of the British allowed the Germans to achieve more hard kills first. Also, the famous sinkings that lead to Beatty's comment "what's wrong with our bloody ships today?" mainly occurred in the first battlecruiser-on-battlecruiser action where this discrepancy was most pronounced (and, arguably, the British command was the most incompetent). Once the main dreadnought battleships came into play the battlecruisers kept out of the way and (if I recall properly) none of the major British battleships were sunk. Ultimately it was probably a British strategic victory since all the British had to do was maintain their fleet and thus the blockade (which they did) whereas the Germans had to cripple the British fleet to the extent that the blockade could be lifted (which they failed to do). It may not have done the British much good to bring the German fleet to battle since the casualties would have been enormous and strategically keeping the German fleet bottled up was not much inferior to destroying it. Tactically the situation is less clear cut. The Germans destroyed more modern ships so on that level they can be said to have had a tactical success. On the other hand the British fleet was ready for combat operations within a day of returning to base whereas the German fleet would not have been able to sail again as a unit for two months or more. In the end the general conclusion is that the battle was tactically inconclusive.
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Aug 16, 2010 23:51
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Although German BC gunnery was apparently better than British BC gunnery, the same does not appear to be true relative to Jellicoe's and Hood's ships, which dealt out a respectable number of hits in the short time available to them. Nor did this advantage remain when the light advantage switched to the other side later in the day; once the Germans were themselves firing into the gloom. This makes me wonder whether the difference in gunnery was all that significant overall. Looking at the effect of what shells did hit, poor shell quality severely compromised the Royal Navy at Jutland. Their shells would break up premanturely unless they struck at close to the normal. The Germans were also lucky that Seydlitz was not sunk at Dogger bank- it very nearly suffered a magazine explosion of the type that destryoed the three British battlecruisers at Jutland. As a result the Germans put in place much more stringent shell handling procedures. If the British had had similar methods in place I think it is unlikely that Indefatigable, Queen Mary and Invincible would have been lost, at least in the catastrophic manner that they were.
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Aug 17, 2010 00:36
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Phyzzle posted:A few war history overview articles that are quite interesting. I'mma quote something from this guy: this guy posted:... the C.S.S. Hunley. About 12 meters long with a crew of two officers and six sailors, it was powered by steam.
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Aug 17, 2010 01:07
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Bagheera posted:An interesting sidenote is that there is a world of difference between opposing slavery and supporting racial equality. When we debate whether such-and-such Civil War hero supported or opposed slavery, it's important to understand that ideas of race were completely different then than they are now. An apologist for slavery and racism. The most interesting thing about the civil war in america for me is the hope the south had of enlisting the UK into their war by the lack of cotton heading towards liverpool. Lancashire, where all the cotton mills were was a stronghold of methodism. All people were seen as equal under God and the mill workers and owners were quite happy without cotton picked by slaves. Not to mention the fact that egypt and the rest of the empire could send us cotton.
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Aug 17, 2010 01:58
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Throatwarbler posted:Britons really don't have any reason to be smug about their stance on slavery, because it wasn't because the average 19th Century Briton was any more enlightened than his American counterpart, but because the circumstances were very different. There wasn't a massive population of African slaves in Britain, slavery for Britain meant slavery on the plantations of their Caribbean colonies. Whether these slaves were free or not meant nothing to the average Briton living in Britain, they had no particular reason to defend it. The plantation colonies were composed of a large majority of slaves with a very small plantation owner class. These would have been for the abolition of slavery in any case once they realized it was easier to pay people to work rather than whip them. After the slaves were freed and became small farmers and whatnot, the plantation owner class still owned everything and ruled, or in the worst case, they just went back to their estates in Britain. People in Britain have every reason to smug about slavery, much like the rest of the civilised world. The abolition of slavery was popular social, moral and religeous movement in Britain since the early 18th century. Freedom, if you will. Possibly the greatest thing the british empire ever did was to ban the slave trade and have the navy to enforce the ban. But, back in britain the working class and its children were worked to death. Not much has changed, but british wage slaves still enjoy more rights than american wage slaves. asbo subject fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Aug 17, 2010 |
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Aug 17, 2010 03:27
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Hiridion posted:Although German BC gunnery was apparently better than British BC gunnery, the same does not appear to be true relative to Jellicoe's and Hood's ships, which dealt out a respectable number of hits in the short time available to them. Beatty's ships, anchored at the Firth of Forth to be able to respond quickly to German movements, had no place to practice gunnery. Jellicoe's fleet, at Scapa Flow, had nothing to do but practice. Hood's ships had gotten in some good drill while they were there, and it showed. Beatty could probably have arranged more drill time if he'd really put his effort into it, but he had a lot of important Being Beatty to do instead. I'm not a fan.
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Aug 17, 2010 03:39
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