| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| terri |
Posted - August 07 2005 : 6:05:19 PM
Hello, I'm brand spanking new to the GAC and LBH discussion and am sure glad I found you guys. Hope that we engage in many energentic discussions.
In the book Little Big Horn Rembered, by Herman Viola (1999 Rivilo Books), a chapter is devoted to Edward S. Curtis and the Crow scouts: Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin, Curly and White Man Runs Him.
For this particular discussion I have a couple of questions as to what the scout White Man Runs Him supposedly informed Curtis regarding Reno's initial attack on the village, his fall back to the timber, and Custer's response.
According to Curtis, White Man Runs Him was disgusted with Custer after seeing Reno in trouble. Custer sat and did nothing. According to Curtis, the scout stated to Custer, "Why don't you cross the river and fight too?" Custer is reported to reply, "It is early yet and plenty of time. Let them fight. Out turn will come."
My questions:
1. If White Man Runs Him was truthful, and I believe he was, in that case was Custer utilizing battle techniques learned from the Civil War? Was Custer expecting Reno to recover and charge the village thus hanging back till further evidence warranted intervention?
2. Logistical speaking, was it feasible for Custer and his scouts to see if Reno was in fact in dire straights? If so, what would be the correct military procedure?
This question I'm sure has probably been disected and examined by members of the board already; however, I'm hoping to renew and invigorate opinions and let the facts fall where they may.
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| 25 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| alfuso |
Posted - August 29 2005 : 11:43:38 AM
[quote]Originally posted by wILD I[/i
"Custer never participated in as big a fiasco as the Moscow expedition.[/b]
He never participated in anything of note except stealing furniture from that house at Appomattox.Look come on you're an intelligent man Custer ranks alongside the Titanic,the Hindenburg and Scott.A fascinating disaster."
You mean Custer stole that table Sheridan bought and paid for?
Did Sheridan know that?
alfuso |
| dave |
Posted - August 25 2005 : 7:42:26 PM
quote:
Originally posted by wILD I
I'm moving my reply to the Other topics forum.
Where Dave where,what other topics forum?I thought this forum was for massacres Custer,Rozhestvensky,Villeneuve,DC ?
Sorry for the delay Wild. The other topics forum is
http://www.mohicanpress.com/messageboard2/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=10
or if you want to go straight to my latest reply to DC, its
http://www.mohicanpress.com/messageboard2/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=589 |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 25 2005 : 6:59:32 PM
1. That's right. All they had was radio telegraph on ships and it was unreliable and they didn't use it. It's there in those urls I posted. Nowhere do they say they "pinpointed" German ships.
2. Reference Wild. I've provided several stating Togo successfully used this manuever, easy since nearly every description of the battle mentions it. Now, you provide one saying he did not. See?
3. Exact opposite, Wild. Again, I've provided urls and proof from certifiable naval experts, well known as such. You have nothing. You stated crossing the T was the standard operating procedure, not the battle line, in Nelson's time. Proof? Proof, by the way, would be quotes from somebody who knows what they're talking about, not you rewriting your losing proposition.
4. The smoke is all yours. Inflated credit for the Irish for doing not much. Again. Selling us gas and landing rights is "wetnursing." The relatively few Irish in Africa somehow become the backbone of Academia. Balderdash. Just one African country, Wild, where the Irish are the "backbone." Should be easy, if it were remotely true. |
| wILD I |
Posted - August 25 2005 : 5:17:01 PM
At Jutland, at high latitude dusk with coal smoke from hundreds of ships, no radar or radio, or anything but bad flag or light communication
First off you stated that there was no radio you now say All radio provided was intercepted indications the High Seas Fleet had left port.And you have the gall to say I'm misleading?
If you thought there was no radio at Jutland then you are in no position to say that it was incapable of providing location,direction and speed of the German fleet which is just what it did during the night when Jellicoe had lost contact with the high seas fleet.
For Togo, find me any evidence he isn't credited with crossing the T and being the first in fleet warfare to do so.
Having completed his U turn and while on a parallel course Togo's ships badly damaged the Russian Flagship Suvorov,the Oslyabya and the Alexander.Rozhestvensky was badly wounded. His flagship a burning wreak with a jammed helm turned a complete circle followed by the Alexander.With the Russian fleet in this state Togo then proceeded to demonstrate his full repertoire of naval gymnastics including sumersaults, flying gussets and of course the T crossing.
Crossing the T was a fantasy till powered ships.
But powered ships with turrets made it pointless.
You said the Irish were the backbone of education in Africa. Where? One country, just one, where Ireland was the academic backbone. Be bothered.
In naval jargon this is known as making smoke.
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| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 25 2005 : 3:19:50 PM
1. All radio provided was intercepted indications the High Seas Fleet had left port. They were hardly "pinpointed" and Beatty was surprised by the Fleet. Your statement is misleading at best.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jutland
For Togo, find me any evidence he isn't credited with crossing the T and being the first in fleet warfare to do so. I've posted several items saying he did. Just one denying it, Wild. One. You can be crossing the T while describing an octagon. Your new contention is silly.
2. No, Wild. Naval experts, by name and quoted, say the opposite of your contention. Crossing the T was a fantasy till powered ships. You have no basis for your claim, and have posted none because such does not exist.
3. Wow. That's it? In what manner is this wet nursing? You get paid for it. Business deal.
4. You said the Irish were the backbone of education in Africa. Where? One country, just one, where Ireland was the academic backbone. Be bothered. |
| wILD I |
Posted - August 25 2005 : 12:44:51 PM
I'm moving my reply to the Other topics forum.
Where Dave where,what other topics forum?I thought this forum was for massacres Custer,Rozhestvensky,Villeneuve,DC ? |
| dave |
Posted - August 25 2005 : 07:10:17 AM
I'm glad to see you doing your homework DC, but I think we've massacred Terri's thread more than adequately. Seeing as ironclads are way off topic for both this thread and this forum altogether, I'm moving my reply to the Other topics forum.
I'm sure Wild and any other interested parties will follow us there. |
| wILD I |
Posted - August 25 2005 : 04:43:58 AM
At Jutland, at high latitude dusk with coal smoke from hundreds of ships, no radar or radio, or anything but bad flag or light communication
Boys oh boys.Wrong yet again DC.At Jutland The Brits used radio direction finders to pinpoint the German fleet.
And as for your piece de restiance Togo and his T crossing at Tsushima this turns out to be in fact a U turn to bring his ships onto a parallel course with the Russian fleet where his superior gunnery destroyed all order and coordinated resistance and allows him to dance rings around the confused Russians.
You're the one screaming that crossing the T was the standard tactic from before Nelson, Wild. Remember?
Yes under the conditions of the time it was the one manoeuvre that could ensure victory.However the battle line countered it by presenting a wall of fire and it required the kind of balls Nelson had to press home the attack.
Where and for what reason are the Irish wet nursing American troops?
Shannon allows US aircraft to carry a low fuel load and high troop load on the journey to Iraq.It means far fewer flights required and less of a logistics problem .The Irish army act as sand bags to this operation[to our eternal shame].
I really can't be bothered going into the history of the Irish missions to Africa. |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 24 2005 : 10:03:25 PM
Um. David......
From http://www.steelnavy.com/CombrigCerberus.htm
"Many credit John Ericsson with the introduction of the turret with his design for the USS Monitor of 1862 and the monitor was indeed the first ship actually built with this feature but others had the same idea, long before the Monitor was ever started. Captain Cowper Coles of the Royal Navy had designed an armored battery which had a turret for use in the Crimean War in 1855 and in 1859 prepared a design which featured eight twin gun turrets on centerline with two twin gun turrets abreast at the bow. Neither of these designs were built but in 1861 the Royal Navy did place a revolving turret on the floating battery, Trusty, in order to test the idea of the turret."
I can only find reference to one HMS Trusty, variously described as a floating battery or raft. This is a painting of something called HMS Trusty that looks to be neither, but still doesn't resemble what we're talking about. http://www.artmarine.co.uk/catalogueimg/436676544150102104049.jpg
Unless the actual Trusty is in the shadow on the port side of the wooden ship. Or something.
In any case, both conflict with your sources, don't they? Monitor had 360 degree field of fire from a single turret. Whatever this is does not. |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 24 2005 : 7:52:05 PM
HR,
You're conflating a century. Tushima and Jutland were different from each other due to gun range, and both were very different than Leyte Gulf, fought at night with radar. At Jutland, at high latitude dusk with coal smoke from hundreds of ships, no radar or radio, or anything but bad flag or light communication (lights were physically unreliable), who knows what that smoke on the horizon indicates till the salvoes arrived.
And Nelson's contention was that his "modern" ships were too strong not be able to withstand initial broadsides till his lines could split up the Allies'. He was right, it turns out. You and Wild vector in with one-on-one confrontations. If you can clearly see the enemy fleet you don't - or nobody did - fall for getting your T crossed (although the Russians.....), and in those days and even up to Jutland you can't send a flag signal to 100 ships and suddenly change your mind, so you wait to be sure, which may be too late. Once you order the fleet to do something, it is an irrevocable process for a while. That's why, I suppose, Nelson anticipated all that and just said, essentially, don't do what they expect and engage in a knife fight. You can do no wrong next to an enemy ship.
Earlier in the thread I hyperlinked some sources that explain all this. The Atlantic piece and the letter from the naval historian are very informative. In short - and in quotes - crossing the T couldn't and didn't happen in the age of sail except for the odd circumstance where one ship crossed another's bows in close combat. It required longer range and self propelling vessels and was a fleet manuever. |
| Heavyrunner |
Posted - August 24 2005 : 6:17:49 PM
The very idea of Crossing the T with modern capital ships seems a little absurd, although the tactic may have lingered in naval warfare instructions.
The very idea of it was to bring all your guns to bear (from one side) to the bow or stern of an opposing Man o' War, knowing that the opponent was lightly, if at all, armed at those points. If I'm trying to cross your bow in, say, the U.S.S. Missouri and you're in the Yamato, you're simply going to turn to port or starbord, matching your own guns with mine. At the very worst, if I am crossing the t on you, you're still going to have two turrets and six of your nine 18-inch guns to point at me.
It's one thing with a sailing ship at eight knots. It's very much another with a battleship steaming at 30 knots. |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 24 2005 : 4:03:48 PM
Wild,
1.You're the one screaming that crossing the T was the standard tactic from before Nelson, Wild. Remember? I contend that it was a theoretical ideal, achieved four times, and only Togo - the first - really can be said to have pulled it off. At Jutland, the battlecruisers operated separately from the battleships, the Germans were better shots, and the Brits lost more ships. Conversely, the German fleet never left port again.
2. Okay. That would explain why so many Irish idolized him.
3. I said the torpedo didn't doom the battleship, but air attack did.
4. It went into drydock, rather.
Again:
1. Where were the Irish the backbone of education in Africa?
2. Where and for what reason are the Irish wet nursing American troops?
Your contentions. |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 24 2005 : 3:41:49 PM
Dave,
1. Yes. That's what I said. A bad reading.
2. I don't claim them as superior. I don't know. I'm asking you. Different than a contention I haven't made, you see.
3. If you enlarge Trusty to five hundred feet in proportion what does it look like? Do the same to the Monitor and you get an approximation of what followed. Ugly, but its there. What powered the Trusty's turrets and how fast? How high its freeboard?
4. The Warrior didn't do much, but I don't know if the Warrior's primary power was steam because it could carry so little coal. "Warrior only carried 850 tons of coal, this was only enough for 1,500 miles at six to seven knots. These limited coal stores encouraged the use of sail and discouraged the unnecessary use of steam during a voyage confining her engine to maneuver against headwinds. Refueling involved the whole ships company and required two days to complete. This was a laborious, dirty and at times hazardous activity, plus an enormous time to clean the ship afterwards." http://home.freeuk.com/gazkhan/warrior.htm
5. Don't buy that. The Monitor was built in a hurry as an immediate answer to the Virginia, Warrior be damned. The contract in October, it was launched in four months. If the Crimean War had never happened, the South would have had to do something similar to the Virginia to break blockade. They had nothing else to take on the likes of the Cumberland and friends.
6. If you look at the Monitor and I'll assume the Trusty you can see the future of the Navy. Look at the Warrior and you see its past. It's a frigate made of iron. It's grandma was Guerriere, like the turret ships, but it's line was as dead as the trilobite. |
| wILD I |
Posted - August 24 2005 : 3:35:32 PM
Invincible was lost in an earlier action with another battlecruiser and wasn't, in any case, part of the Brit battle line that crossed the T.
My big book with pictures and maps shows the action at 1830 hrs with Jellicoe/Beatty crossing Sheers path and the Invincible as part of the action sunk at 1900 hrs.This is confirmed by a description of the action listing Invincible as a casualty going down with more than 1000 hands.Add to that the 2 cruisers and crossing Ts becomes most painful.
Custer never participated in as big a fiasco as the Moscow expedition.
He never participated in anything of note except stealing furniture from that house at Appomattox.Look come on you're an intelligent man Custer ranks alongside the Titanic,the Hindenburg and Scott.A fascinating disaster.
3. Dave hypothesized it could be said the torpedo doomed the battleship. I said I didn't agree, that it was the plane,
You can't compare the two. One is a delivery system the other is a weapon.
The Virginia never appeared again.
It did not have to.It controlled the James river and ensured McClellan's defeat. |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 24 2005 : 2:46:50 PM
Wild:
1. The T was crossed at Jutland twice, first by coincidence and the second time by German error. Invincible was lost in an earlier action with another battlecruiser and wasn't, in any case, part of the Brit battle line that crossed the T. It wasn't designed to fight other battleships. In any case, crossing the T - since Togo showed the way - was indeed the dream of all admirals. It only happened once more after Jutland.
2. To keep to your example, Custer never participated in as big a fiasco as the Moscow expedition. They got to Moscow because the Russians encouraged them forward, knowing their winter. Getting there wasn't that big a deal in that case. Getting out was. Again: it's not my contention. Custer was compared to Murat by contemporaries. He was no superficial dolt.
3. Dave hypothesized it could be said the torpedo doomed the battleship. I said I didn't agree, that it was the plane, because the attacks could be incessant. Subs couldn't hunt warships like they could tankers. Subs had to surface and weren't that fast once there. Carrier planes could hunt in rotation till they nailed their prey without cease, pretty much. Leyte Gulf proved that. And the Yamato later, but it was so one sided by then. More and newer battleships were sunk by aircraft than any other means in WWII. All but two of the Japanese'(depending how you rate Shinano, designed to be a Yamato class) plus Pearl Harbor plus the German's sinking the Italian ship by the first sorta smart bomb. Taranto. Even the Bismark was doomed by the result of an air attack.
4. Why?
The Virginia never appeared again. It was a strategic victory for the Monitor. |
| wILD I |
Posted - August 24 2005 : 2:28:35 PM
Of course the Monitors reputation didn't suffer from being the victor in the worlds first ironclad vs ironclad battle,
Just for hysterical accuracy Dave the action was a tactical draw but a strategic victory for the Merrimack and then of course the Monitor did founder and sink.The old Yankee rust bucket was never really sea worthy.But somehow or other it did reappear on the Mekong River in Vietnam. |
| dave |
Posted - August 24 2005 : 10:42:02 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Cloud
3. Well, no. But her branch died out. And here's where I probably got the impression it was a lone example http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/Heritage/Warrior/ where it's called first and last. Bad reading.
First and last, because the Warrior was Britain's first ironclad and is the only, and therefore last, afloat today.
quote:
4. True, it says ten, but mostly cannon by broadside. And weren't the guns of the Kearsage and Alabama already more advanced than these?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the CSS Alabama mount the exact same 110 pounder Armstrong as the HMS Warrior? I'm sure it must have been an identical gun seeing as the Alabama was built and commissioned in Britain.
As to whether the Dahlgren was superior, I don't have a clue, but I'm happy to hear your explanation.
quote:
7. I still view this as an evolutionary tree. It's not just the turret. It's the turret, propulsion, armor. As far as I can see
So no, I don't draw a line from Trusty, which I also had not heard of, to Iowa.
So?
The Trusty was steam powered, with twin screws. It was armoured - 4 inches of iron backed by 6 inches of teak. It also had a traversible turret. So technically what really ground breaking innovations did the Monitor offer over the Trusty?
quote:
From the wooden ships of the line and frigates several branches emerged. Some followed the line of same hull but steam power, then steam with plating. From that type of ship the Warrior continued as I suppose so did the Virginia in a separate makeshift branch but the evolutionary jump was the Monitor, which killed the sails and had that field of fire.
I'm not sure thats right at all. The Warrior was built as a steam powered vessel which retained sails as an auxillary power source. From what I've read, during its service life the Warrior was principally steam powered, the sails only being deployed on rare occasions.
quote:
From the Monitor, the other types from the Oregon to the Arizona to the Iowa is a straight line. Once England built its versions, the straight line to Dreadnought and Romney is clear, I'd think. The Warrior was a dead end. And its sisters.
Not at all. The Warrior and its sisters were the end of sail assisted vessels, true enough. They were also in the vanguard of the ironclad age. Without the Warrior, the Monitor would have probably have never been built. There wouldn't have been the need, the Monitor was built at least partially with the idea of combatting the Warrior should the British have ever attempted to interfere during the Civil War.
Equally without the French and British floating batteries of the Crimean war, there probably would have been no Virginia. In case you weren't aware, the Virginia was based on casemate ironclads developed for bombarding Russian shore positions.
What I'm saying rather clumsily is that the Monitor was built on proven concepts. People knew that they could use steam in a warship, they knew that iron armour would work. They knew that screws were more efficient than paddles. These concepts were not minor. You may not be aware, but iron armour was trialled a number of times, with quite a number of failures. It wasn't until they realised that the iron had to backed with timber to damp the shock (to the bolts) that they developed an iron armour that was actually superior to an equal thickness of wood.
I'm not trying to run the Monitor down, and despite my comments about the Trusty above, the Monitor was truely a remarkable ship, leaps and bounds above anything else in world. But I think its equally true to say that Monitor inherited much from the ships which had preceded it in the previous decade. The way I see it, the Gloire, and the Warrior were as revolutionary in their day as the Monitor, its just that the arrival of the Monitor so shortly afterwards tends to overshadow their claims to fame.
Of course the Monitors reputation didn't suffer from being the victor in the worlds first ironclad vs ironclad battle, in contrast to the Warrior and its ilk which peacefully and uneventfully served out their entire service life. |
| wILD I |
Posted - August 23 2005 : 6:03:24 PM
No Wilde. Draw a T of two equal lines.etc etc
At Jutland Jellicoe by design or accident crossed the path [T]of Sheer it cost him the Invincible,and two heavy cruisers.Some wet dream?
Explain why that's stupid, Wild. Custer won more battles than Murat, didn't he? And against better opponent
Custer was a divisional/brigadier general of an arm which at best was no more than auxillary.I cannot think of a single major action in the civil war which turned on [Custer's]cavalry action.
Murat was a Marshal of France in a time when cavalry was a strategic force on the Battle field as he proved at Eylau and Marengo.Getting to Moscow somehow overshadows that stain Custer left on the banks of the LBH river.
So, how many battleships were sunk by torpedo boats? How many torpedo boats ever came close to hitting a battleship? How many battleships (please exclude the three 19th century armored cruisers in WWI)were sunk by submarines?
Torpedos of the time had a range of 14000 yards and a speed of 45 knots.It had as I pointed out the potential to take out a major warship regardless of the delivery system.HMS Royal Oak,HMS Ark Royal,HMS Valiant,HMS Queen Elizabeth major units of the British navy were sunk or put out of action by sea launched torpedos.
No one factor doomed the battleship.It was just a weapons platform that became very vulnerable to advances in weapon technology.
waiting for others to fight so you can kick the loser in the dark when he's down.
Be grateful you were only kicked in the dark.
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| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 23 2005 : 4:08:21 PM
Come Wild. Clearly you've spent too much time outside bars, waiting for others to fight so you can kick the loser in the dark when he's down. So Irish.
1. There were other options, like the Prince of Wales route, but point taken.
2. No Wilde. Draw a T of two equal lines. For simplicity, assume each line is a mile long of an equal number of battleships all the same. Move them fifteen miles apart, well within the range of 16" guns. The stem is heading to the top of the page, the cross right to left. Every primary battery of the crossing line can hit the stem's ships. Only the forward turrets of the stem's front ships can fire. The missing ninety degree field of fire from the rear batteries can't train on the crossing T, which probably moves in a narrow oval anyway, making a shorter line. By the time the stem knows what has happened and changes course, its ships first in line, often a flagship among them, have been gored by numerous salvoes. It's very hard to pull off and only happened four times.
To claim it as the standard tactic is silly, it's in the nature of a wet dream, but more so in the age of wind and sail. That couldn't really happen with sailing ships and cannon because the stem fleet would have to willingly and visibly over hours sail into range, and the wind would have to be perfect, and unless really close it gives a smaller target for the highly inaccurate cannons on rolling ships at distance. Apparently, this is why Nelson wasn't bothered by it, deliberately allowed his T to be crossed, as it were, and sailed in to have a knife fight at close range.
I've provided urls and quotes from naval historians and experts with direct quotes that say it never happened as you claimed and did as I have. You're wrong. Now, go celebrate your goat king.
3. No Wild. You claimed the Constitution shelled the Guerriere with long range fire the Guerriere couldn't match and thus won. That didn't happen. They didn't board her till she struck her colors. I've been the one claiming the standard practice was to close, but crossing the T wasn't easy to do when your speed and turning ability weren't totally up to you.
4. Calm Wild. You've learned the meaning of aborigine, now just provide proof of those Irish academic backbones in Africa and how you're wetnursing US troops today as you've claimed. Many people here didn't know US troopers needed wetnursing by the Irish. That would be nice to explain. Meanwhile, Custer was compared with Murat a lot by contemporaries, and was sometimes called the American Murat. Explain why that's stupid, Wild. Custer won more battles than Murat, didn't he? And against better opponents.
5. So, how many battleships were sunk by torpedo boats? How many torpedo boats ever came close to hitting a battleship? How many battleships (please exclude the three 19th century armored cruisers in WWI)were sunk by submarines? How many by aerial torpedo and bombs? The torpedo didn't doom the battleship. The aerial delivery system did. Unlike the subs, the carriers could keep up with the battleline and pursue it endlessly. With the sub, it was the luck of the draw and angle on the bow. |
| wILD I |
Posted - August 23 2005 : 2:40:35 PM
Give em hell Davey me boy.Nice broadside.
Er, you're kidding, right? They put three turrets before the con.
Cut me a break DC.Would I kid ya?
They did because it ment only one magazine had to have heavy armour protection thus making the ship faster and less expemsive.It might also have been cut short to comply with some treaty or other.
I know you stand corrected. Shamed. Even suicidal. (that Celtic blood....)
In any case, Wild, crossing the T ONLY OCCURED IN THE AGE OF THE POWERED BATTLESHIP WITH TURRETED GUNS,
Why?Turreted guns ment that unlike Nelson's ships of the line you could bring all your guns to bear without crossing the T.Also unlike Nelson's time your adversary could bring a substantial number of his guns to bear on your nice straight line.
And it's a lucky shot from 500 yards that did any damage with mere cannon; the velocity dropped like a paralyzed falcon. Even the Guerriere's shot bounced off the Constitution when they managed to hit her hull at all at close range.
Which all goes to prove my point that artillery duels were indecisive.You got close by crossing the T.Pouring in as many salvos as possible then boarding with your marines for the coup de grace.
like Custer and Murat and others.
Custer and Murat in the same breath oh God.You know DC the further you get from the LBH----Oh leave it wILD.
Someone could argue that the torpedo doomed the battleship, but I would not. It was the aerial delivery system that doomed it, and even then not till WWII.
Wrong again DC.The torpedo could be delivered 24 hours a day by anything that could float.Aerial systems were dependent on light and weather.A motor torpedo boat could take out a battleship.I think the Italians even used frogmen.
From all accounts it was an extremely pleasant ship to sail on, at least as pleasant as a military sailing/steam ship of the mid 19th century could be.
Dave
I had the pleasure of visiting the USS Olympia Admiral Dewey's flag ship.It was like a Victorian ballroom with cannon around the sides. |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 23 2005 : 2:35:50 PM
1. Of course. No humor. Got it. Who called you a redneck? Not I.
2. It may have been pleasant to be aboard, but less than a joy to captain.
http://home.freeuk.com/gazkhan/warrior.htm from which: "While advanced in some ways and although well known for her great strength and speed she was in fact very unresponsive to steering commands. Despite all the new advances her steering owed more to the technology of the Napoleonic era, being a simple manual system of ropes and pulleys, making her difficult to handle and very unresponsive to commands. This contributed to several accidents during her life." Just the ship to have in combat in rough seas.
3. Well, no. But her branch died out. And here's where I probably got the impression it was a lone example http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/Heritage/Warrior/ where it's called first and last. Bad reading.
4. True, it says ten, but mostly cannon by broadside. And weren't the guns of the Kearsage and Alabama already more advanced than these?
5. It was the affordable technology and common, but it wasn't current in the sense that nothing better existed. The atomic bomb was current technology after 1945 even if there had been a period when none actually existed.
6. Submarines had two world wars to doom the surface fleets and did not, once defensive measures went into play. WWII warships were generally too fast for wolf packs, and planes were cheap and attacked from multiple directions.
7. I still view this as an evolutionary tree. It's not just the turret. It's the turret, propulsion, armor. So no, I don't draw a line from Trusty, which I also had not heard of, to Iowa. From the wooden ships of the line and frigates several branches emerged. Some followed the line of same hull but steam power, then steam with plating. From that type of ship the Warrior continued as I suppose so did the Virginia in a separate makeshift branch but the evolutionary jump was the Monitor, which killed the sails and had that field of fire. From the Monitor, the other types from the Oregon to the Arizona to the Iowa is a straight line. Once England built its versions, the straight line to Dreadnought and Romney is clear, I'd think. The Warrior was a dead end. And its sisters. |
| dave |
Posted - August 23 2005 : 1:06:04 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Cloud
I did not know the Warrior had a sister ship or that they replicated such an expensive and crappy type, a penalty of the quick reply. I stand corrected. Shamed. Even suicidal. (that Celtic blood....)
Your sarcasm is wasted. I'm just an illiterate redneck of the illustrious gun trivia nuts club remember? Try it on Wild, at least he has a sense of humour, I can't say I'm personally afflicted with such a thing.
quote:
I thought its sole function was to defend against that one French ship. The Warrior had limited powered range, sailed like a brick, and didn't last long at all on active duty.
From all accounts it was an extremely pleasant ship to sail on, at least as pleasant as a military sailing/steam ship of the mid 19th century could be. Powered range was limited, and thats why they retained the sails. Steam engines were generally inefficient at that point, so it was more effective to tack around under sail power and then use steam to manouver when necessary - like when they were in battle.
quote:
I'd still claim it and its ilk dead ends.
Yes, just like every other large battleship built.
quote:
The Warrior had one or two breech loaders, but it mostly had muzzle loading cannon like the Victory.
Try 10. Although these may have been removed after the debacle in Japan.
quote:
The Monitor was way beyond that, and although it was a joke outside of a flat calm, any broadside ship built after it was a Collector's Item. Even the Kearsage and Alabama were more advanced with flexible weapons absent their wooden hulls, although smaller. Enlarge the Guerriere, build it of iron, give it a screw and boilers, and you have the Warrior. Retro, large, clumsy, and Then.
Nothing of the sort. It was current technology until such time as the Monitor was launched. And even after the Monitor was launched, the broadside ironclads were still current, which they remained until the first generation of truely ocean going turret ships arrived in the 1870's and 80's. It may have been traditional and old, but it was still the most effective solution.
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Someone could argue that the torpedo doomed the battleship, but I would not. It was the aerial delivery system that doomed it, and even then not till WWII.
And you don't think submarines make an effective torpedo delivery mechanism? How many dreadnoughts did the Royal Navy lose in first submarine/warship encounter of WWI?
That said, fair point, I agree that it was the plane that more than anything else which sealed the doom of the battleship.
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I don't see Warrior on Dreadnought's evolutionary tree, but they shared common ancestors like the Guerriere. But it's a straight line from Monitor to Iowa.
Out of curiousity, do you realise that the Monitor was the worlds second turret warship after HMS Trusty? And would you regard the Iowa as being a direct descendent of the Trusty?
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| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 23 2005 : 12:21:15 PM
I did not know the Warrior had a sister ship or that they replicated such an expensive and crappy type, a penalty of the quick reply. I stand corrected. Shamed. Even suicidal. (that Celtic blood....) I thought its sole function was to defend against that one French ship. The Warrior had limited powered range, sailed like a brick, and didn't last long at all on active duty.
I'd still claim it and its ilk dead ends.
The Warrior had one or two breech loaders, but it mostly had muzzle loading cannon like the Victory. The Monitor was way beyond that, and although it was a joke outside of a flat calm, any broadside ship built after it was a Collector's Item. Even the Kearsage and Alabama were more advanced with flexible weapons absent their wooden hulls, although smaller. Enlarge the Guerriere, build it of iron, give it a screw and boilers, and you have the Warrior. Retro, large, clumsy, and Then.
Someone could argue that the torpedo doomed the battleship, but I would not. It was the aerial delivery system that doomed it, and even then not till WWII. That a ship anchored and not defending itself could be sunk over a period of days by air bombing was only testimony to the stupidity of admirals who said such could not eventually be done, not the brilliance of Billy Mitchell.
I don't see Warrior on Dreadnought's evolutionary tree, but they shared common ancestors like the Guerriere. But it's a straight line from Monitor to Iowa.
Still, I suppose if I have to, viewed from certain angles in declining light, while drunk, my previous position might be construed by the unwary as less than it ought to have been, which inferior people might refer to as "wrong." Mumble......... |
| dave |
Posted - August 23 2005 : 10:59:35 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Cloud
by paragraph...
3. My error. Should have said 'armoured vessel exclusively powered by steam with turreted guns.'
The Warrior was such a dead end they built no others,
Wrong.
HMS Black Prince (the Warriors sister ship)
HMS Achilles
HMS Bellerophon
HMS Nelson
HMS Hercules
There were numerous others, but I think the point is made.
Broadside ironclads were by no means evolutionary deadends, anymore than their sucessors were. After all you could argue that any battleship built after the introduction of the torpedo launch was a deadend, or if you don't buy that argument, then any built after 1921? when the first aerial bombing trials were carried out on surplus WWI battleships. Broadside ironclads were simply just another phase in the onward march of technology which became outmoded just as the Yamato and the Missouri were in WWII.
Its worth pointing out that broadside ironclads had greatly longer ranges (courtesy of their sails) than the first generation of Monitor like ironclads, and had vastly superior sea handling qualities as well. And seeing as the British empire was a global concern back in those days, it made an a lot more sense to build that type of ship, rather than a monitor.
When the British did begin building monitors, they quickly developed variants which were far more sea worthy than their American predecessors. If my memory is working, the earliest of these improved monitors (referred to as a breastwork monitor) was HMS (HMVS) Cerberus, launched 1871.
quote:
but the Monitor became the Dreadnought and Yamato and Missouri.
Yes, and the Monitor became the Monitor by way of the Gloire and the Warrior. Just as the Dreadnought came as much from the lineage of the Cerberus and Devastation, as from the Monitor. Arguably the first modern warship, which was steam powered, effectively sea-going and had rotating turrets was HMS Devastation (launched 1873).
I'm not dismissing the Monitors place in history, it truely was a revolutionary vessel when it was launched, and is deservedly remembered as one of those ships which created a paradigm shift in ship design. But ultimately, Monitor style ships were as transitionary as broadside ironclads. The last major use of Monitors being made in WWI where the British used them in a specialist coastal bombardment role. By then they had been obsolete as a general purpose warship for some decades. |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - August 22 2005 : 9:20:07 PM
by paragraph...
1. Yes.
2. Custer was no flash. He won consistently throughout the CW and only lost once in his life. Rather compelling loss, yes, but let's not get carried away. There were more Custers than Nelsons, but Farragut was just as audacious, and so were Confederate captains, like the guy in the Alabama. It's hard not to like Nelson, though, which is why so few dis him. But you'd think along the line that someone would correctly predict Nelson's moves and trap him along the way. I do, anyway. He was a type, like Custer and Murat and others. Also, Lady Hamilton was a bodacious babe. Extra credit with one eye, one arm.
3. My error. Should have said 'armoured vessel exclusively powered by steam with turreted guns.' The Warrior was such a dead end they built no others, but the Monitor became the Dreadnought and Yamato and Missouri.
4. Battleships themselves were outmoded by WWII, but when confronted with surface artillery, you crossed their T if you could when they could only reply with the bow turrets. In any case, Wild, crossing the T ONLY OCCURED IN THE AGE OF THE POWERED BATTLESHIP WITH TURRETED GUNS, not during Nelson's day as you claim, Further, the only times crossing the T was attempted and worked was in the midst of all those cruiser screens, torpedos, and torpedo boat destroyers. Go figure.
5. Er, you're kidding, right? They put three turrets before the con.
6. Wrong, given all those devastating naval battles that never used it to Togo's day like, you know, Trafalgar, which was decisively won by the team that allowed its T to be crossed. Even if the cannon would work it, think of the range and wind conditions that would have to exist for a sailing fleet to pull that off against another? And it's a lucky shot from 500 yards that did any damage with mere cannon; the velocity dropped like a paralyzed falcon. Even the Guerriere's shot bounced off the Constitution when they managed to hit her hull at all at close range. Just admit you were wrong, Wild. Christmas. I have quotes from Naval War College instructors that completely contradict you. |
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