Naval History Forums

ede144 wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:56 pm

The Tanker and support ships would have last longer.

Not necessarily. You don't need radio intercepts to find out where they are likely to be, just a knowledge of the sea and the places most conducive to refuelling and resupply operations. Many supply ships were lost without radio intercepts.

Alberto,

Thank you for the analysis in your last post, it is most illuminating about the Italian naval position from 1941 onwards.

Alberto, My comment about Matapan not being as much of a shock in comparison to Hood was based on cruisers being destroyed by battleship guns at almost point blank range, a calamity that could befall any navy - even the RN had inadvertently invited it on 27 May 1941 when Norfolk went perilously clos...

Matapan might well have come as a shock to the Italian Navy with the loss of cruisers, however surely not quite the same level of shock as the loss of HMS Hood was to the Royal Navy. There is a stark contrast here between the attitudes of Mussolini and Churchill. Declaring war and then forbidding at...

You get the politicians you elect, the voters put her there.

2015 and 2017 - all Leave voters should have voted UKIP. Then you would have had Farage as PM, Brexit achieved and UKIP left as the dominant political party in Britain.

If the German Navy is to be a significant force then that requires Germany itself to be a significant power in its own right - it is not simply a matter of money and provision of resources on an existing budget. To answer the question directly it would need Germany to have an AFD government that tak...

Had Bismarck made it to France Churchill would have made it the number one target for Bomber Command. As Alberto has commented the chain of Atlantic supply ships would be destroyed and the fuel priorities for the Russian Front would make another sortie unlikely. What I would imagine is that the US e...

If it is the case that the Italians were aware of Rheinubung as it was developing (bearing in mind that they had a naval attache in Berlin) I would find it surprising that the Italians would not seek to take some advantage of it in respect of their own military operations, especially as the battle f...

The German Twins were the most successful German battleships. They were the only capital ships to ever sink a fleet aircraft carrier. They were the only German capital ships to successfully attack British Atlantic shipping. Sinking merchant ships isn't really relevant here as they are not worth the...

Duplicated post.

During Scharnhorst's last mission, the battle of North Cape, she hit the Norfolk twice, but failed to hit the Duke of York even once. 38 cm guns would have decreased her chances of hitting the Duke of York. Not getting hits with bigger guns doesn't help. Better radar and radar use was needed instea...

Or rather simply a better design than the Scharnhorst......

Neil, I am a little puzzled at the last sentence of your post. Whilst you do mention the 28 cm as the least accurate of the Gernam heavy guns I don't find the AGS gunnery at the RP battle that impressive. It was a much longer action than DS and AGS was able to knock out the Exeter (but not sink her)...

Paul,

Would your arguments alter if the Scharnhorst's operated as a pair as they did before the North Cape foray, with the 38 cm installed for Operation Berlin?

This basically is how the scam works. There is very little that is made public on these models, possibly deliberately so that the methodology can't be looked at and challenged. The recent missive from the IGPCC is full of exhortation and bluster, with no real science to back it up. Another case of t...