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SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!

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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by tlb   » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:13 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote: But in the open field your guns, while deadly at several times longer range than smoothbore muskets were, did not yet have sufficient firepower to make massed formations less effective that dispersed ones. So you ended up with a lot of "Napoleonic tactics" fights, but now starting at even longer ranges thanks to Minie balls and rifled muskets, as those seemed to be the best of a bad lot of options.

One interesting point is that the rifled musket with Minie ball had a better effective range in the Civil War than the field cannon, which were still smoothbore. So unless the cannon were in prepared positions, they could be driven off by the other side's musket fire. Therefore the most effective use of cannons came when a charge was made at, or near, the gun positions: such as Pickett's charge at Gettysburg.
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by kzt   » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:17 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:The early Gatling guns simply were too large and had too significant a limit on their sustained rate of fire, to stand in for the later machine guns. Those didn't become really effective until after the inversion of smokeless powder allowed far longer operation before you'd start getting malfunctions and had to stop and seriously clean your weapon. And WWI's deadliness wasn't just machine guns but also quick firing artillery, which also wasn't a thing yet in the ACW.

Gatling guns have lots of problems. Many of those are not a big deal when firing from inside pillboxes out slits toward advancing infantry. A couple hundred yards of continuous grazing fire on an assault makes up for a lot of annoying fiddly issues.
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by kzt   » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:30 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
kzt wrote:What they saw was entrenchments, belt-fed machineguns, barbed wire, massive artillery, all producing massive casualties.

What their organization learned from this can be clearly seen by how the BA, IGA and FA were shocked and horrified by the the lethality of belt-fed machineguns, and how rapidly entrenchments and barbed wire locked the front, and everyone ran out of artillery ammunition a few months into the war.


I'm not as well-versed in military history as some others here, so can I ask to take this argument to the next logical step and spell out the conclusion? IIRC from History classes, WW1 was an entrenched and locked war, with no side gaining advantage once they dug in, but that changed in WW2 with tanks, the Blitzkrieg.


Even the best and brightest of your military, having seen in person what is coming, are unable to accept that 'this means YOU!' and institute the kind of changes that are obviously going to be needed when the next war starts.

Instead they miss the forest for trees or the organization groupthink overcomes the obvious lessons.

Things like, 'Wow, we'll shoot a lot of artillery and small arms ammo, what's our industrial base to keep everyone supplied?'

Things like, 'Those machineguns and barbed wire are going to be a huge issue. What kind of small unit tactics could we use instead of advancing with a battalion on line?'

Things like, 'With all this artillery being fired, isn't this going to tear up the ground? How are we going to supply advancing units? How can we keep control of them?'

Things like, 'Those machineguns sure are lethal. How do we get more of those to our infantry? How can we make them light enough that they can be used by our infantry when they are attacking?'
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by cthia   » Wed Feb 02, 2022 6:31 am

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This is an interesting discussion. It reminds me of several documentaries which spells out the fact that no navy wanted to accept what the battle of Jutland detailed. The age of the battleship had come to an end in less than two hours of fighting. But more and more were built, and they were built bigger. The Bismarck sits on the bottom of the sea.

The writing on the wall was ignored again with the long range bomber. Britain lost a horrendous number of bombers against Germany. They kept sending them to be shot down like geese. Even the American B-17, and B-29 was target practice against the German radar net with a lack of escorts.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by tlb   » Wed Feb 02, 2022 9:40 am

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cthia wrote:This is an interesting discussion. It reminds me of several documentaries which spells out the fact that no navy wanted to accept what the battle of Jutland detailed. The age of the battleship had come to an end in less than two hours of fighting. But more and more were built, and they were built bigger. The Bismarck sits on the bottom of the sea.

I am quite certain that the Battle of Jutland did not signify the end of the battleship. The battleship's dominance was ended by air power, which was not in evidence at Jutland; it was not until after the war that Gen. Billy Mitchell demonstrated that a bomber could sink a battleship. What the Battle of Jutland mainly demonstrated was that the battle cruiser was never intended to fight a battleship, a situation made worse by the British commander's sloppiness about ammunition safety (driven by a push to increase rate of fire).

However there were some ominous signs elsewhere in WW1 about the value of aircraft versus ships. The first effective use of a torpedo dropped from an airplane occurred on Aug. 12, 1915, when a British Short Type 184 seaplane sank a Turkish vessel in the Dardanelles. Other navies’ torpedo planes also had some success during World War I.

The biggest problem with the battleship in WW2 was that it tied up enormous resources (in one sinkable package) that a resource poor country could have better used for planes or submarines. The poster child for this waste is not the Bismarck, but the Yamato. In those countries these ships were intended as much for prestige and ego, as for any purely military result.
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by cthia   » Wed Feb 02, 2022 12:17 pm

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:This is an interesting discussion. It reminds me of several documentaries which spells out the fact that no navy wanted to accept what the battle of Jutland detailed. The age of the battleship had come to an end in less than two hours of fighting. But more and more were built, and they were built bigger. The Bismarck sits on the bottom of the sea.

I am quite certain that the Battle of Jutland did not signify the end of the battleship. The battleship's dominance was ended by air power, which was not in evidence at Jutland; it was not until after the war that Gen. Billy Mitchell demonstrated that a bomber could sink a battleship. What the Battle of Jutland mainly demonstrated was that the battle cruiser was never intended to fight a battleship, a situation made worse by the British commander's sloppiness about ammunition safety (driven by a push to increase rate of fire).

However there were some ominous signs elsewhere in WW1 about the value of aircraft versus ships. The first effective use of a torpedo dropped from an airplane occurred on Aug. 12, 1915, when a British Short Type 184 seaplane sank a Turkish vessel in the Dardanelles. Other navies’ torpedo planes also had some success during World War I.

The biggest problem with the battleship in WW2 was that it tied up enormous resources (in one sinkable package) that a resource poor country could have better used for planes or submarines. The poster child for this waste is not the Bismarck, but the Yamato. In those countries these ships were intended as much for prestige and ego, as for any purely military result.

You are going to have to argue that point with the producers of the documentary. Well, it is actually a docuseries. That line came from the documentary word for word. I should have included it in quotation marks. The docuseries is Aircraft Carrier: Guardian of the Seas.

It is available for free on Tubi. Along with so many more very good documentaries about war. A very short list:

- Aircraft Carrier: Guardian of the Seas (It also includes a very detailed explanation of the internal steam powered launch system that catapults the planes off the deck. Along with very detailed cutouts. Very nice.)

- The American Dreadnought
- Technology of War: Sea Power
- The Cold War: Submarines in Enemy Depth
- Legends of Air Combat: Jets of War 1950-2013
- U455: The Mystery of the Lost Submarine
- Lost Bombs: The True Story of America's Broken Arrows

12 of them? I am a good friend of a family whose father had to eject out of the bomber responsible for the Broken Arrow over Goldsboro, NC.

- Greyhounds of the Sea
- History Retold: Fire at Sea
- The Life and Death of the USS Hornet CV-8
- Battle 360: The USS Enterprise
- Jet Bombers: Blackburn Buccaneer (First Episode)
- Grey Wolves: The Terrifying Advent of the U-boat (Intense footage and narration)

And many many more. I found them by accident. A friend asked me to install Tubi because Battlestar Gallactica is featured on it. I had never watched Battlestar Galactica. So many of you on the forum recommended it too.

There are so many more titles about tanks, guns, etc. Too many to list.

And movies as well like Final Countdown.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by tlb   » Wed Feb 02, 2022 1:42 pm

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cthia wrote:You are going to have to argue that point with the producers of the documentary. Well, it is actually a docuseries. That line came from the documentary word for word. I should have included it in quotation marks. The docuseries is Aircraft Carrier: Guardian of the Seas.

It is available for free on Tubi. Along with so many more very good documentaries about war. A very short list:

- Aircraft Carrier: Guardian of the Seas (It also includes a very detailed explanation of the internal steam powered launch system that catapults the planes off the deck. Along with very detailed cutouts. Very nice.)

- The American Dreadnought
- Technology of War: Sea Power
- The Cold War: Submarines in Enemy Depth
- Legends of Air Combat: Jets of War 1950-2013
- U455: The Mystery of the Lost Submarine
- Lost Bombs: The True Story of America's Broken Arrows

12 of them? I am a good friend of a family whose father had to eject out of the bomber responsible for the Broken Arrow over Goldsboro, NC.

- Greyhounds of the Sea
- History Retold: Fire at Sea
- The Life and Death of the USS Hornet CV-8
- Battle 360: The USS Enterprise
- Jet Bombers: Blackburn Buccaneer (First Episode)
- Grey Wolves: The Terrifying Advent of the U-boat (Intense footage and narration)

And many many more. I found them by accident. A friend asked me to install Tubi because Battlestar Gallactica is featured on it. I had never watched Battlestar Galactica. So many of you on the forum recommended it too.

There are so many more titles about tanks, guns, etc. Too many to list.

And movies as well like Final Countdown.

Most of what you state here is irrelevant to the battle of Jutland. There were several aircraft at the battle, but only in a scouting role; hardly the sort of thing to make any battleship obsolete.

"Aircraft Carrier: Guardian of the Seas" is a film crew on the USS Ronald Reagan, hardly a documentary about World War 1. An off hand remark in a puff piece about US nuclear aircraft carriers is hardly historical proof of anything. It is possible that the remark was trying to convey the following; from Wikipedia:
Jutland was the last major battle in world history fought primarily by battleships. In terms of total ships displaced, it was the largest surface naval battle in history.


"Final Countdown" is about jet plane carrier thrown back to fight at Pearl Harbor, again not relevant.

"History Retold: Fire at Sea" is about fires at sea.

Do you somehow think that word count is as important as facts?
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by cthia   » Wed Feb 02, 2022 2:09 pm

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:You are going to have to argue that point with the producers of the documentary. Well, it is actually a docuseries. That line came from the documentary word for word. I should have included it in quotation marks. The docuseries is Aircraft Carrier: Guardian of the Seas.

It is available for free on Tubi. Along with so many more very good documentaries about war. A very short list:

- Aircraft Carrier: Guardian of the Seas (It also includes a very detailed explanation of the internal steam powered launch system that catapults the planes off the deck. Along with very detailed cutouts. Very nice.)

- The American Dreadnought
- Technology of War: Sea Power
- The Cold War: Submarines in Enemy Depth
- Legends of Air Combat: Jets of War 1950-2013
- U455: The Mystery of the Lost Submarine
- Lost Bombs: The True Story of America's Broken Arrows

12 of them? I am a good friend of a family whose father had to eject out of the bomber responsible for the Broken Arrow over Goldsboro, NC.

- Greyhounds of the Sea
- History Retold: Fire at Sea
- The Life and Death of the USS Hornet CV-8
- Battle 360: The USS Enterprise
- Jet Bombers: Blackburn Buccaneer (First Episode)
- Grey Wolves: The Terrifying Advent of the U-boat (Intense footage and narration)

And many many more. I found them by accident. A friend asked me to install Tubi because Battlestar Gallactica is featured on it. I had never watched Battlestar Galactica. So many of you on the forum recommended it too.

There are so many more titles about tanks, guns, etc. Too many to list.

And movies as well like Final Countdown.

Most of what you state here is irrelevant to the battle of Jutland. There were several aircraft at the battle, but only in a scouting role; hardly the sort of thing to make any battleship obsolete.

"Aircraft Carrier: Guardian of the Seas" is a film crew on the USS Ronald Reagan, hardly a documentary about World War 1. An off hand remark in a puff piece about US nuclear aircraft carriers is hardly historical proof of anything. It is possible that the remark was trying to convey the following; from Wikipedia:
Jutland was the last major battle in world history fought primarily by battleships. In terms of total ships displaced, it was the largest surface naval battle in history.


"Final Countdown" is about jet plane carrier thrown back to fight at Pearl Harbor, again not relevant.

"History Retold: Fire at Sea" is about fires at sea.

Do you somehow think that word count is as important as facts?

You are in the mood to waste more of my time, I see. You admitted to not reading my posts. It seems you are continuing the trend.

It also appears that you haven't even seen the documentary. It is billed as a documentary. It is listed as a documentary. And it plays as a documentary, with a narrator throughout the entire piece. So, I am very certain that you are commenting on something that you have NOT even digested. The fact that the documentary uses a modern aircraft carrier to make its points IS irrelevant.

But now you are arguing against the producers of the documentary, and the website for including said piece in their documentary section. Regardless of the fact that the piece itself says... documentary!

Gees! How often does your wild hair grow?

Word count? Please dude. Get a grip. You ever heard of FYI?

Final Countdown is a movie. Yes. One of my favorites. If you bother to read my post you will see where I indicated that the site also has, movies.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by tlb   » Wed Feb 02, 2022 2:41 pm

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cthia wrote:It also appears that you haven't even seen the documentary. It is billed as a documentary. It is listed as a documentary. And it plays as a documentary, with a narrator throughout the entire piece. So, I am very certain that you are commenting on something that you have NOT even digested. The fact that the documentary uses a modern aircraft carrier to make its points IS irrelevant.

But now you are arguing against the producers of the documentary, and the website for including said piece in their documentary section. Regardless of the fact that the piece itself says... documentary!

I have read about and watched documentaries specifically about the Battle of Jutland. Here is a nice documentary on Youtube, that is entertaining and not too long, about the Battle of Jutland (it is part of a series from the 100th anniverary of the Great War, that followed events week by week):
The Battle of Jutland - The Great War week 97

Yes, the one you mention is a documentary: but about a US nuclear carrier's responsibilities and capabilities, not about World War 1. I expect what you heard is a variation of the following statement of fact from Wikipedia:
Jutland was the last major battle in world history fought primarily by battleships. In terms of total ships displaced, it was the largest surface naval battle in history.


I am not arguing against the documentary, I am saying that what you drew from it is wrong. Just read the Wikipedia article on the Battle of Jutland and you will see that although there was a seaplane carrier in the fleet, that airplanes played almost no part in the fight. The planes were there for scouting and nothing more. So it is not possible to use the Battle of Jutland to prove that the age of the battleships had ended.

It is instead possible to look back and view the Battle of Jutland as a turning point, the last major battle fought where the power of the battleship was unchallenged. It is not surprising that a documentary on the modern aircraft carrier would point this out.
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Re: SPOILER SEASON IS OVER FOR TEiF!!!
Post by Jonathan_S   » Wed Feb 02, 2022 8:48 pm

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tlb wrote:I am quite certain that the Battle of Jutland did not signify the end of the battleship. The battleship's dominance was ended by air power, which was not in evidence at Jutland; it was not until after the war that Gen. Billy Mitchell demonstrated that a bomber could sink a battleship.

And even then only in very artificial circumstances. An airplane, especially a carrier launched airplane, didn't become a mortal threat to a battleship until about 1934 -- nearly 2 decades after the Battle of Jutland. That's when the modern torpedo bombers starting coming into service.

Level bombers were only a real threat to battleships when stationary (such as while in port) or after the advent of guided armor piercing bombs like Germany's 1943 Fritz X. Dive bombers simply lacked bombs with the velocity to penetrate the deck or turret armor of a battleship. They could knock out its AA guns, wreck its bridge and upperworks, and potentially knock out its fire control directors (all useful in preparation for follow up strikes or surface combat; but were extremely unlikely to sink it, or even impair its speed or maneuverability)


If anything Jutland reinforced that to stop a a fleet of battleships you needed at least as large and capable fleet of your own battleships.

(And even in the mid-30's torpedo bombers were mostly fair weather assets -- they weren't much use at night or in bad weather. And having torpedo bombers aboard didn't save poor HMS Glorious when she was surprised by the German Scharnhorst-class battleships during the Norway campaign of WWII. So in the long nights, bad weather, and poor visibility of the North Atlantic winter its not even clear that torpedo bombers would be able to counter battleships even by the midwar period. There's a reason that convoys were normally escorted by an old battleship -- as even in the '40s the only thing you could count on to stand up to a battleship in any conditions, and even if caught by surprise, is another battleship)


And even after WWII the battleship didn't go away because it was vulnerable to aircraft. It was far less vulnerable than a carrier, cruiser, or any other warship. It went away because a carrier could strike at over 10 times the range of a battleship.
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