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Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

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Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#11

Post by crikli »

_djo_ wrote: post #7

This is not exactly convincing. Battleships, far from being a ridiculous idea, were a logical and necessary step for any navy wishing to project power at sea. They were so heavily armoured and gunned that for a long time, from the late 19th Century to just before WWII, the only realistic defence against a battleship was another battleship. While the Battle of Jutland may seem silly, the alternative would have been a…

"Manoeuvre warfare is fantastically effective when the circumstances allow for it, but the available conditions, technology and personnel can sometimes make it ineffective. For instance, the German Blitzkrieg was extraordinarily effective against the static French defences in 1940, but the same forces and tactics came unstuck in 1941 when faced with a vicious winter and the Russian scorched earth style of defence."

Nah, the reason it came unstuck is because the Germans ran out of fuel and because overrunning Stalingrad became a point of pride with Hitler and the Wermacht...there were not tactical/strategic reasons to occupy the city when they could have encircled and passed.

Encirclement and passage was one of the lessons the American military learned (sort of) from Stalingard that they later executed in the island hopping campaigns of the Pacific. Rather than invading every island, they just bypassed those without strategic value, cut the shipping lanes, and let the occupying forces starve.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#13

Post by _djo_ »

crikli wrote: post #11
_djo_ wrote: post #7

This is not exactly convincing. Battleships, far from being a ridiculous idea, were a logical and necessary step for any navy wishing to project power at sea. They were so heavily armoured and gunned that for a long time, from the late 19th Century to just before WWII, the only realistic defence against a battleship was another battleship. While the Battle of Jutland may seem silly, the alternative would have been a…

"Manoeuvre warfare is fantastically effective when the circumstances allow for it, but the available conditions, technology and personnel can sometimes make it ineffective. For instance, the German Blitzkrieg was extraordinarily effective against the static French defences in 1940, but the same forces and tactics came unstuck in 1941 when faced with a vicious winter and the Russian scorched earth style of defence." N…

That's a fair point, the pointless focus on Stalingrad was folly and a big contributor to the defeat. But the lack of preparedness for the Russian winter (and the impact it would have on the speed of movement) and the inability to capture supplies as they captured terrain both played big roles as well.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#14

Post by zeteo »

"in their heyday of displacement speed vessels, [battleships] were the fastest things on the high seas"

Cruisers and destroyers were always faster than battleships (they had to be), displacement hull and all. It gives no confidence when you start the article with a glaring factual error.

"The idea of battleships duking it out in the high seas is pretty ridiculous when you stop to think about it. It never really happened unless you count the Battle of Jutland."

If you write such an article, you should do a bit of research and be at least dimly aware of the battles of Tsushima, Heligoland Bight, Moon Sound etc. etc. etc. Battleships were indeed a bit slower, but when they showed up they instantly dominated the field with their range and firepower. Even in WW2, when the carrier greatly reduced their importance, battleships fought a few very important engagements, e.g. Denmark Strait and second battle of Guadalcanal.

It's easy to deride things you don't understand as "tumescent penii". But the historical fact is, for about half a century after 1890, battleships were indeed the most effective (and also expensive) naval weapons system in existence.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#15

Post by Symmetry »

crikli wrote: post #10

I've observed a principle that militaries build to win the last total war they fought. This is why guys like Billy Mitchell ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell ) were ignored about the importance of air power leading up to WWII. The status quo was to gear up for another WWI, complete with entrenched and barely mobile front lines. But of course the German Blitzkreig, a brilliant archetype of maneuver warfare…

But it was the Siegfried Line[1] in WWII that let the Germans concentrate their whole army against the Poles and defeat them before turning west, and that let them attack where the French weren't rather than have to defend the current border. So German tactics in WWII were dependant on the same static defenses that the French used, but they took that and added a maneuver component instead of replacing it entirely.

Manuever warfare often relies on a static force to pin the enemy in place while the mobile elements do their thing. Saying "Maneuver good, static bad" is just as silly as the reverse, whats needed for success is to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the various tools available and intelligently choose the right tool or combination of tools for the task at hand.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Line

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#16

Post by jhamburger »

werpon wrote: post #8

Big warships could accomodate bigger cannons. Bigger cannons could deliver bigger shells further, enabling your warships to hit the enemy while keeping out of their range. These capital ships aren't being built today because missiles and fighter planes suddenly negated their advantage, not because they weren't a good idea to begin with. IMHO it's an overwhelming act of condescension pretending to be smarter than thou…

I don't think it's necessarily condescension to second guess decisions made 100 years ago. I can think of plenty of examples of clearly horrible decisions agreed upon by the consensus of elite thinkers 100, 50, 20, 10, or 5 years ago...

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#17

Post by masklinn »

_djo_ wrote: post #7

This is not exactly convincing. Battleships, far from being a ridiculous idea, were a logical and necessary step for any navy wishing to project power at sea. They were so heavily armoured and gunned that for a long time, from the late 19th Century to just before WWII, the only realistic defence against a battleship was another battleship. While the Battle of Jutland may seem silly, the alternative would have been a…

> They were so heavily armoured and gunned that for a long time, from the late 19th Century to just before WWII, the only realistic defence against a battleship was another battleship.

German U-Boats demonstrated battleship's obsolescence during very early WWI (U-9 sank 3 battleships in under an hour in September 1914...), and this was confirmed in the early 20s with aerial torpedoing (which Admiral Percy Scott had predicted would end battleships in 1914).

The only thing which let battleships "survive" into the 40s were navy brass conservatism and inertia, and the lack of military conflicts.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#18

Post by Luc »

arethuza wrote: post #5

Having a large battleship collection does allow you to line them up nicely for review: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Fleet

I don't think that postcard picture is giving a wholly realistic view of the Grand Fleet at the time. It seems like there's twice as many capital ships in the picture as there should be according to the text.

EDIT: Actually, if you click on the picture, the description does mention it's "likely an artist's vision".

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#19

Post by zeteo »

pragmatic wrote: post #3

The relevant part (to us hackers) is the use of maneuver warfare vs "phalanx" fighting. Think of Msft, Oracle, IBM, Apple as the phalanx fighters. They lock shields and charge, spending millions (billions) of dollars (instead of soldiers). The problem is their tactics are clumsy. Imagine all the Microsoft VP's circling the wagons around really bad _implementations_ (the ideas aren't bad) - I'm sure you can thing of s…

The phalanx was a really bright idea for its day. The Greeks were able to defeat much larger Persian armies (Marathon, Plataea) with their phalanxes. And the phalanx was a crucial part of Philip II and Alexander's combined arms system and their maneuver warfare. "Phalanx" vs. "maneuver warfare" is, at best, a false dichotomy.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#20

Post by Symmetry »

_djo_ wrote: post #7

This is not exactly convincing. Battleships, far from being a ridiculous idea, were a logical and necessary step for any navy wishing to project power at sea. They were so heavily armoured and gunned that for a long time, from the late 19th Century to just before WWII, the only realistic defence against a battleship was another battleship. While the Battle of Jutland may seem silly, the alternative would have been a…

And the author overlooks the long, long history of bigger ships with bigger guns bringing victory to European forces.

In the Battle of Lepanto the Christian alliance was able to use big ships with cannons mounted on them to crush the Ottoman force before the Ottoman's flanking force was able to get in position.

In the European expansion into the Indian Ocean large boats with big guns were able to easily defeat hordes of smaller, lighter ships that they faced letting the Portuguese, then the Dutch and English take control of some of the most valuable trade lanes in the world.

In the Opium War the British were able to easily win because of big guns that could out-range anything the Chinese had and fast steam engines that let them set the pace of engagement.

And if things at Jutland had gone just a little bit differently it might have been the Germans who had won the war.

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