Real life crazy desperation military actions that worked

jtg452 wrote:And there was the German Uboat raid by Gunther Prien into Scapa Flow early in WWII. The guy took the Uboat in on the surface so he could get over the chain blocking one of the entrances. He did it at night, of course, but still.... He sank a couple ships and got away, too.

I think we might see that kind of thing again here in a book...

biochem wrote:My memory of history is deserting me today. We've been spending a lot of time discussing every crazy desperation thing the SL military can do that might if a miracle occurs result in success. I know such actions, while rare have actually successfully occurred in real life military history. Is anyone's memory better than mine?

July 2, 1863 the 20th Maine's bayonet charge at Little Round Top that captured two Alabama Regiments.

I'd go for the Battle of Assaye, India. British troops under the command of Wellsey, the later Duke of Wellington.

It was his "favourite" battle, and for good reason.

jtg452 wrote:Either of the Chindit Raids into Burma should qualify. Walking into Burma in battalion strength and relying only on air drops for resupply was beyond crazy. Setting up strong points far behind Japanese lines and relying on aircraft for resupply was unheard of at the time, too. At least in the second raid, they didn't have to walk in. They took gliders instead.

Then there was the British officer that attacked shipping in Singapore Harbor- using kayaks and limpet mines. I just can't remember his name right off the top of my head. He had a tattoo of a tiger's head on this chest.

And there was the German Uboat raid by Gunther Prien into Scapa Flow early in WWII. The guy took the Uboat in on the surface so he could get over the chain blocking one of the entrances. He did it at night, of course, but still.... He sank a couple ships and got away, too.

Your facts are a little mixed up.

The attack on Singapore was IIRC an X-craft raid and damaged IJNS Takao. The raid you are referring to was Operation Frankton and was a Commando raid in sea going canoes on merchant ships in the French port of Bordeaux. It was later portrayed in the movie Cockelshell Heroes in 1955

Gunther Prien only sank one ship the old R class battleship HMS Royal Oak.

Charge of the light brigade. While ultimately a failure it was spectacular and while the initial assault succeed it was the following retreat that ended the rest of the brigade.

Lord Skimper wrote:Charge of the light brigade. While ultimately a failure it was spectacular and while the initial assault succeed it was the following retreat that ended the rest of the brigade.

It was a mistake, not an act of desperation; they charged the wrong position. Nor did it work, as you stated yourself. While spectacular, it was a spectacular failure. I'm fairly sure it does not qualify.

saber964 wrote:[
Your facts are a little mixed up.

The attack on Singapore was IIRC an X-craft raid and damaged IJNS Takao. The raid you are referring to was Operation Frankton and was a Commando raid in sea going canoes on merchant ships in the French port of Bordeaux. It was later portrayed in the movie Cockelshell Heroes in 1955

Nope.

I may have Singapore wrong but there was a British officer in the Far East that tried to pull off kayak raids. He succeeded on the first one (blew up/damaged a couple freighters? not a lot of damage but it got the Japanese's attention), tried the second one, failed and I think he was killed during escape and evasion. I had a book about him when I was a kid. My grandmother loved haunting old second hand book stores and always picked up oddball books like this one for me (I also got a 1st edition of Robert Service poetry the same way). The dust cover had a painting of him on it and I remember the chest tattoo. It sounded like a work of fiction to me, too, but there were pictures of him and some of his men inside the book taken during their prep and training for the missions. I remember the formal picture of him in his uniform looked like the quintessential British officer of the era right down to the little garrison mustache and on the next page it showed him wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and shoes with the big tattoo of a tiger head on his chest beside a canvas kayak.

Like I said in the first post, I can't remember his name for the life of me. If I could, I'd do a web search and provide a link. It sounds crazy enough that it has to be either be pure fiction or something one of those crazy British officers of the era would try.

My favorite is the battle off Samar where the Taffy Groups, were covering the Philippines landings. The Japanese fleet came out from between islands and should have been able to create havoc in the invasion fleet including inflicting massive looses of ships and troops.

The aircraft from the US Escort Carriers were pressing home attacks with what can only be described as insane courage (amoung other things, they kept attacking after expending all weapons and only went back to carriers when they were out of fuel- one of these guys, out of ammo for the plane's guns, invereted his craft and flew over a battleship at below masthead hight to empty his pistol at the battleship's bridge.)

The Escort Carrier groups own escorts of DDs and DEs made smoke and CHARGED the oncoming Japanese fleet which included CAs and BBs. In doing so they attached with all their torpedoes, shot them up with their 5" guns and at least one - having lost all it's 5" to enemy hits- passed too close to a CA to for the Japanese to be able to depress ANY of it's weapons to continue to shoot at the DD- which was raking anything it could shoot at by fireing UP at the CA with it's anti-aircraft guns and .50cal machine guns. Most of the US DD and DE escorts were sunk.

The Japanese Admiral in charge was even having his ships hit by 5" gunfire from the Escort Carriers which were manuvering wildly to keep from getting hit by the Japanese capital ship fire ( it turned out that when armor piercing shells from the main guns on the Japanese CAs and BBs were hitting the little carriers, they were mostly "just" passing through flight deck and hull to go right out the other side without exploding in the ships).

The Admiral came to the conclusion that 1) he was taking an inordinate amount of damage from things that he should have been able to just brush aside and 2) the only possible reason these Americans were essentialy committing suicide to inflict this amount of damage to him instead of trying to run away was that the American Battleships - and worse, the big, fast, Fleet Carriers-, were not far over the horizon and would be joining the defence of the invasion fleet momentarily. He was wrong but it was the only logical reason- to him- that would explain the escorts, the aircrafts and the little carrier's actions. So he turned around and went back through the island chain.

From the point of view of the Taffy Groups commanders, the little carriers were not able to run fast enough to get out of engagement and their planes and the escorting DDs and DEs were the only thing that were between the Japanese fleet and the US invasion fleet. They were caught between the oncoming rock and the hard place that rock was heading for. They, the Taffy's and their escorts, were going to get hammered no matter what happened and their job was protecting the fleet along with providing air cover for the landings. Essentialy they decided that if they were going to die, they were going to make it dam expensive for the enemy and when they died, it would be with their teeth at the enemy's throat.
They did that and drove off a vastly superior force.

Brigade XO wrote:My favorite is the battle off Samar where the Taffy Groups, were covering the Philippines landings. The Japanese fleet came out from between islands and should have been able to create havoc in the invasion fleet including inflicting massive looses of ships and troops.
[snip]
The Admiral came to the conclusion that 1) he was taking an inordinate amount of damage from things that he should have been able to just brush aside and 2) the only possible reason these Americans were essentialy committing suicide to inflict this amount of damage to him instead of trying to run away was that the American Battleships - and worse, the big, fast, Fleet Carriers-, were not far over the horizon and would be joining the defence of the invasion fleet momentarily. He was wrong but it was the only logical reason- to him- that would explain the escorts, the aircrafts and the little carrier's actions. So he turned around and went back through the island chain.

He was also unclear at times about what exactly he was attacking; thinking that Taffy-3 was US fleet carriers.

Although to be fair, there were still Olendorff's BBs off to the south. They were a bit closer to the US beachheads than Kurita's Center Force ever managed to reach.

Taking nothing away from the heroism of Taffy-3, or the aircrews involved in the fight; they pulled off an amazing achievement. But if Kurita had managed to bull past them he'd likely have had to tangle with the virtually undamaged victors of Surigao Strait before he'd have a chance to assault the beachheads. But again, that reflect the failures of the Japanese plan, but it doesn't change the amazing upset and success the tin cans and escort carriers achieved in The Battle off Samar.

My grandfather was at the WW1 battle of Beersheba where his unit 4th Light Horse charged a dug in numerically superior enemy and triumphed. He claimed that the Germans and Turks had their sights set too high as they didn't believe anyone would be so stupid as to charge.

Wikipedia says "These sword-less mounted infantrymen galloped over the plain, riding towards the town and a redoubt supported by entrenchments, on a mound of Tel es Saba south-east of Beersheba. While the 4th Light Horse Regiment on the right, jumped trenches before turning to make a dismounted attack on the Ottoman infantry, (in the trenches, gun pits and redoubts on rising ground), most of the 12th Light Horse Regiment on the left rode on across the face of the main redoubt, to find a gap in the Ottoman defences. These squadrons rode on across the railway line and into Beersheba, to complete the first step of an offensive which would see the EEF capture Jerusalem, six weeks later."