Greg Boeser
2nd Lieutenant
Avast, nay! Ya lubber. Lost that tradin' broadsides with a French frigate off Bermuda. Round shot took it clean off at the knee.I suppose your peg-leg is a result of taking an arrow to the knee?
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Avast, nay! Ya lubber. Lost that tradin' broadsides with a French frigate off Bermuda. Round shot took it clean off at the knee.I suppose your peg-leg is a result of taking an arrow to the knee?
Avast, nay! Ya lubber. Lost that tradin' broadsides with a French frigate off Bermuda. Round shot took it clean off at the knee.
Me thinks he has been getting into the grog supplyMmhmm ...
Actual engagement data is not cherry picking. For a navy with a doctrine to bring an enemy fleet into a medium to longI think you are doing a little bit a cherry picking here.
Which does a couple of things for me:Even the Japanese admiral in charge says that things could have gone much differently.
"The element of surprise worked to our advantage and enabled us to destroy every target taken under fire. I was greatly impressed, however, by the courageous action of the northern group of U. S. cruisers. They fought back heroically despite heavy damage sustained before they were ready for battle. Had they had even a few minutes' warning of our approach, the results of the action would have been quite different.
Thank you.
Please note all the dials/knobs/cranks that required several operators.
In less than 30 years they were on the 6th MK of fire control table?
Very few (any?) nations 8in guns shot well at long range. Long range is relative and long range for an 8in gun is actually medium range for battleship guns.
Unfortunately this was NOT recognized in the late 20s/early 30s when most of the 8in guns and ships were designed/built.
For a British 8in gun (The Japanese tables don't give times of flight) the times of flight are 6.2 sec for 5,000yds, 24.7 sec for 15,000 yds and 78.6 sec for 29,000yds.
What if Crutchley <sp?> and Australia hadn't been called away, with an experienced RN Adm. in command, would that have made a difference? Would the northern force been alerted then and ready. Admittedly command of the northern force seems lacking but if they were appraised of the situation what then?
Well, you don't throw flammables overboard on 5-10 minutes. You can get guns pointed in the general direction you think trouble is coming from. It takes about 25 seconds to swing the 8in turrets 90 degrees and those 8in guns (or the Japanese) can fire 3-4 rounds per second. Get star shells for the 5in guns? Change speed/direction? make things difficult for the enemies torpedo/fire control?OK, historically, with Australia out of the picture if Capt Bode of Chicago had informed Riefkol <sp?> perhaps again, the northern force is ready, however, with the lackluster command of the USN at that point maybe it wouldn't have mattered.
I just have one account of the Hobart tracking the Japanese but they probably didn't know they were the Japanese until it was too late.Admiral Scott was aboard I think San Juan or Atlanta in the eastern force and even he thought the northern and southern forces were shooting at each other.
What would be the smallest gun then that, from a long range accuracy perspective, would not be disadvantaged compared to a 'proper' battleship gun?
The German 28 cm might be a contender, given the 24+km hit on Glorious. Though one cannot discount the effect of pure luck in that either..
Annoyingly, navweaps doesn't list flight times for the German 28cm guns. But for comparison, the UK 15" has a flight time of 57.3s to 30kyds. So more difficult for the 8", the 15" shaves a 1/3 of the flight time. But not totally impossible either.
That may be true but it also seems to show a lack of understanding about radar in the USN.One thing about Savo Island, the Chicago had radar, but the captain was only turning it on intermittently every half an hour. The timing turned out to be bad vis a vis the arrival of the Japanese ships. The decision may have been a grave mistake given where they were, but it was USN policy at that time and there was a good reason for it. One which still exists today: a major Achilles heel of radar.
When you use the radar, you are yourself giving your position (and existence) away. It's a lot easier to detect radar emissions than it is to run your own radar set.
Radar in the RN:
As of 28 Sept 1941 (Howse, p.99-101) :
84 RN ships had at least one FC radar (284/285)
48 cruisers and larger ships has at least one type 79/279/280/281 AW radar
303 RN ships had AW/SW radar (Type 286/286P/290) and 40 had centimetric 27X series radars.
These numbers would have increased somewhat by 6 Dec 1941.
I have always been thinking of the 2nd Battle of the Java Sea when it was one against four and it was in that battle that the Japanese took an hour to hit her.You seem to be confused. There were 5 cruisers (2 heavy and 3 light) on the Allied side, plus 9 destroyers, vs 4 cruisers (2 heavy, 2 light) 14 destroyers and 10 transports on the IJN side.
The results were 2 CL sunk, 3 DD sunk, and 1 CA (Exeter) badly damaged and just about crippled. You may be thinking of the second battle in which she was finished off.
I'd say they did pretty well in this battle, compared to the Allied forces.
I have always been thinking of the 2nd Battle of the Java Sea when it was one against four and it was in that battle that the Japanese took an hour to hit her.