William S. Lind :collection (merged thread)

[wm]

I am not. That was exactly my point. Grant was Grant because he had what it took. Excel had nothing to do with it. Written and verbal messages did the trick. He also didn't have a TOC with lots of individual monitors and some really big TV screens in the front. He had a horse, a camp stool, a tent, a table, paper, pens and that new fangled telegraph, which produced written messages.

:O geesh Carl--that's like saying the Captain of the Hunley was just as good a submariner s the captain of an Ohio class boomer (to paraphrase you) .

Had such technology been available to him, I suspect Grant would have had a much larger TOC. BTW, Grant also did not have UAVs, close air sport aircraft like A-10s and F-15Es, any kind of motorized or mechanized transport or armored fighting vehicles, machine guns, grenade launchers. wireless communications (unless you count carrier pigeons as such) or any technical surveillance means. When all you have to manage are men armed with muskets and early forms of carbines, His largest field artillery was smaller than the standard artillery used today with the 20 pound Parrot rifle being about Grant's largest field piece (I discount his siege train artillery.)

Never say never when it comes to ship fighting because you never know. At any rate ASW will probably involve ship to ship fighting.

But if you don't like the Slot, how about the picket destroyers north of Okinawa? In either case, men drowned, were rent limb from limb or were burned up or all three, over and over and over. The point was we haven't seen any serious naval fighting since WWII.

I didn't use "never" in my post--I wrote of likelihoods.

Modern ASW is not much about ship to ship fighting either, except in movies like the Hunt for Red October And, I submit we haven't seen serious naval fleet surface fighting since the WWI Battle of Jutland and with good reason. Those fleets cost way to much to put in harm's way any more than just a few ships in a raiding party (like Bismarck and Prinz Eugen and remember that Bismarck was basically turned into a sitting duck by a torpedo dropped by a between-the-wars-vintage biplane: a Fairey Swordfish, AKA Stringbag.) Go ahead and throw Coral Sea or Leyte Gulf at me as counter examples--then tell me just how many ships were sunk by surface gunfire. During the Leyte battles, Surigao Strait represented the closest thing to a stand up fight between surface ships as far as I know. The rest of the action was largely aircraft and submarines or destroyers using torpedoes. Sure Yamato sank a retreating escort carrier too, IIRC.
BTW, I'm not sure what the point about the horrors of dying at sea during WWII are meant to portray in the contact of this thread. Folks in a land forces Rear HQ that gets hit with napalm or VX will die just as terribly.

[Fuchs]

And, I submit we haven't seen serious naval fleet surface fighting since the WWI Battle of Jutland and with good reason.

You either have a strange idea of what's "serious" or there's a lot of naval history for you to catch up with.

The so far final engagement with more than one ship on either side was in 1973, and it was a very interesting one.

[wm]

You either have a strange idea of what's "serious" or there's a lot of naval history for you to catch up with.

The so far final engagement with more than one ship on either side was in 1973, and it was a very interesting one.

I find the Battle of Latakia to be small potatoes in terms of naval conflict. The Israeli corvettes run about 1000 tons in displacement and are less than 300 feet long. By comparison, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer has ten times the displacement and is about twice as long. The USS Missouri displaced 45,000 tons at almost 900 ft of length, and a WWI Koenig class battleship was about 26,000 tons and 575 ft. So, I guess my use of serious irelates to a combination of the number of vessels involved and their size.

[Fuchs]

I guess my use of serious irelates to a combination of the number of vessels involved and their size.

Even then you should pay attention to the Battle of Surigao Strait.

[wm]

Even then you should pay attention to the Battle of Surigao Strait.

I did; you might recheck my post to Carl. Most of the surface fighting was destroyer torpedo runs by the US IIRC. Fuso was sunk that way. Yamashiro was sunk by battleship gunnery but that was combat of unequals as Yamashiro was a pre-WWI battleship fighting against 3 of the most modern battleships the US had.Of the 6 US BBs in action, one fired no rounds and another fired just one full salvo.

[Fuchs]

(...) but that was combat of unequals as (...)

Skagerrakschlacht/Battle of Jutland was a battle of unequal forces as well.
The German High Seas Fleet blew up some vulnerable battlecruisers, but it had no chance against the squadrons of new 15" armed QEs and Rs which came into action only at very long ranges.
The vastly weaker side slipped away after blunting the vulnerable vangaurd of the enemy.


In short; by not accepting Surigao as a serious naval ship/ship battle you discount almost every battle but Jutland, and possibly even Jutland as not serious. The same goes for the "size of ships" criterion. By today's standards the ships of the line at Trafalgar were corvettes or small frigates!


@carl
"they go and take the chance of getting killed or they don't go and definitely get hung or shot at dawn."

You understand this is bollocks, right?

[carl]

@carl
"they go and take the chance of getting killed or they don't go and definitely get hung or shot at dawn."

You understand this is bollocks, right?

Not at all. That is the ultimate step. Depending on the severity of the fight, armies will graduate the penalties they mete out but they can always take that ultimate step. Every army I've read about did that, kill their deserters, depending upon how hard the fight was.

That won't always keep things in line though since it really is prophylactic step. There are always more men than people in authority and if the men decide to act en-masse there is little those in authority can really do. The trick is to keep things from getting that bad and, to be cold blooded about, executions are one of the tools used if need be there.

[carl]

I did; you might recheck my post to Carl. Most of the surface fighting was destroyer torpedo runs by the US IIRC. Fuso was sunk that way. Yamashiro was sunk by battleship gunnery but that was combat of unequals as Yamashiro was a pre-WWI battleship fighting against 3 of the most modern battleships the US had.Of the 6 US BBs in action, one fired no rounds and another fired just one full salvo.

I think you have mixed up your battleships. The newest of ours in that fight was I think the West Virginia, launched in 1921. All had been considerably modified of course and the West Virginia was sunk on Dec 7 and brought back to life.

[wm]

I think you have mixed up your battleships. The newest of ours in that fight was I think the West Virginia, launched in 1921. All had been considerably modified of course and the West Virginia was sunk on Dec 7 and brought back to life.

You answered your own point--Except for the Arizona, the battleships sunk/damaged at Pearl in 1941 were all substantially recapitalized, which was also my point about new--particularly with regard to fire control radar. The reason that the three other battleships were only minimally engaged at Surigao Strait was that, being without the new radar, they were unable to derive timely firing solutions to engage the Japanese.

Skagerrakschlacht/Battle of Jutland was a battle of unequal forces as well.
The German High Seas Fleet blew up some vulnerable battlecruisers, but it had no chance against the squadrons of new 15" armed QEs and Rs which came into action only at very long ranges.
The vastly weaker side slipped away after blunting the vulnerable vanguard of the enemy.

Most of the British fleet never got into action. The first engagement between Beatty's and Hipper's battlecruisers was pretty much of an even match. The 4 QE battleships supporting Beatty did not get in range. In the main event, only 2 of Jellicoe's battle squadrons were really engaged. Capital ships (heavy cruiser and above) in the two fleets numbered 45 Brit to 27 German while capital ship loss was 6 Brit to 2 German.

The same goes for the "size of ships" criterion. By today's standards the ships of the line at Trafalgar were corvettes or small frigates!

Trying to compare an 18th century sail-powered ship of the line to a 20th century diesel powered armored battleship or even a guided missile frigate is comparing tree frogs to kangaroos.

[carl]

:O geesh Carl--that's like saying the Captain of the Hunley was just as good a submariner s the captain of an Ohio class boomer (to paraphrase you).

Good riposte! It made me laugh out loud.

Had such technology been available to him, I suspect Grant would have had a much larger TOC. BTW, Grant also did not have UAVs, close air sport aircraft like A-10s and F-15Es, any kind of motorized or mechanized transport or armored fighting vehicles, machine guns, grenade launchers. wireless communications (unless you count carrier pigeons as such) or any technical surveillance means. When all you have to manage are men armed with muskets and early forms of carbines, His largest field artillery was smaller than the standard artillery used today with the 20 pound Parrot rifle being about Grant's largest field piece (I discount his siege train artillery.)

Maybe he would have. I suspect not, at least not all of it, maybe even not most of it. He was a very plain just the basics kind of guy I've read. From what I've read an awful lot of what we use is there only because it is shiny and new, not so much because it is useful.

I think you very much underestimate the complexity of running those old armies. The Union Army was very large so you had all the complexities that go with feeding, clothing, paying, providing medical care hundreds of thousands of men in any era. Plus you had horses back then, tens of thousands of them. If you ever stopp and think what it takes to fully train and fight a cavalry unit, it is quite complicated. So I think it quite unwise to think that because the didn't have to sling trons, those guys had it simple.

Those armies did have motorized transport, steamers, both river and ocean going, and railroads.

Modern ASW is not much about ship to ship fighting either, except in movies like the Hunt for Red October And, I submit we haven't seen serious naval fleet surface fighting since the WWI Battle of Jutland and with good reason. Those fleets cost way to much to put in harm's way any more than just a few ships in a raiding party (like Bismarck and Prinz Eugen and remember that Bismarck was basically turned into a sitting duck by a torpedo dropped by a between-the-wars-vintage biplane: a Fairey Swordfish, AKA Stringbag.) Go ahead and throw Coral Sea or Leyte Gulf at me as counter examples--then tell me just how many ships were sunk by surface gunfire. During the Leyte battles, Surigao Strait represented the closest thing to a stand up fight between surface ships as far as I know. The rest of the action was largely aircraft and submarines or destroyers using torpedoes. Sure Yamato sank a retreating escort carrier too, IIRC.
BTW, I'm not sure what the point about the horrors of dying at sea during WWII are meant to portray in the contact of this thread. Folks in a land forces Rear HQ that gets hit with napalm or VX will die just as terribly.

First off, you're wrong about that last serious surface actions being Jutland. They didn't call it Iron Bottom Sound for nothing, and many of those ships were sunk in a long series of night surface actions.

But that isn't really important. The point was we haven't seen serious naval fighting since WWII.

As far as ship to ship action goes, I doubt we've seen that last of that by a long shot. I understand sinking subs will mainly be the job of other sube, a ship to ship action. And if a surface combatant shoots an Asroc type weapon at a sub or a sub shoots anything at a surface ship that is a ship to ship action. (Fuchs says airplanes aren't that good at ASW anymore. If he is right then ASW will be mostly ship to ship. I think he said that.)

Big time naval fighting doesn't come around very often as you say. It has been 70 years since WWII and it was about 100 years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and WWI or 90 if you count the Russo-Japanese War. But it does come around. And often it doesn't matter if you want to keep the ships out harm's way. Harm's way tends to seek them out.

I always bring up what actual sea fighting entails for the sailors because people often just see the machines. There it is. Oops it sunk. People are on those things and they have experiences. That matters.

Now it is time for my smart aleck remark of the afternoon. The historical casualty rate in land forces rear HQs hasn't been so high as to make people in the infantry count their lucky stars that they didn't have the misfortune to be posted back at D-Main.