Convoy escorts - SPOILER for SNIPPET 8 of HFQ

runsforcelery wrote:Actually, no. The Russo-Japanese War exactly demonstrates the validity of what I'm saying about entire navies and infrastructures.

Hi RFC,
Didn't you develop a naval board game on the Russo-Japanese war in your board gaming days ?. I remember reading something you wrote about it. Or it might be just your playing it instead.
jmbm

runsforcelery wrote:
Actually, no. The Russo-Japanese War exactly demonstrates the validity of what I'm saying about entire navies and infrastructures. What doomed the Russians (and I realize you have a dog in the fight, which I don't )

Er... I didn't understand the last statement

runsforcelery wrote:was the huge distance the Baltic Fleet had to sail just to engage the IJN in the first place, coupled to the difference in quality of personnel,

Well, but could the japanese knew that in advance? When they started the war, they were forced to deal initially with the First Pacific Squadron in Port-Artur. And despite the two great japan sucsesses (the damage of "Retvisan" in initial nigh torpedo boat attack, and the sinking of "Petropavlovsk") they were unable to destroy it in Yellow sea.

The main problem in Tsusima was that the new battleships of Second Pacific Squadron was new. Their crews were not even nearly sufficiently trained by any standart (and the russian gunnery practice in that time was superior - with all respect - even to the Royal Navy. The latter clearly admitted that in WW1) and the ships themselves was completed in great rush, with a large number of technical defects.

runsforcelery wrote:The Japanese fleet was excellent and generally superior in quality to the Russians

Well, the battle in Yellow Sea didn't demonstrate it at all. The japan fleet exausted their ammunition, their accuracy was lesser than for russian, and their shisp was damajed more The only thing that allowed for Japan to claim the victory was the lucky chance by hitting the brige of "Tsesarevitch", that killed the Witgeft and all high commad crew, and desorganised the fleet.

(and don't forget their introduction of better bursting charges),

Let's don't forget, that the japanese shells was a completely HE and didn't penetrate any armor effectively. The IJN was most dissatisfied by the preformance of their artillery during the war.

Had it simply been a matter of drawing the two navies up in line-of-battle and going at it, the Russians might legitimately have expected to win.

The problem is, that before the Tsusima, there was a Second Pacific Squadron, based on Port-Arthur. And the IJN have enough problems with them. The IJN simply cannot be sure that the russian Baltic crews were poorly prepared.

In short, the whole war was sucsessfull for Japan only because of sheer luck, not because of some particular planning. In 1905, japan was completely exausted and on the edge of collapse; their economy was exausted. Their army after Mukden was clearly unable to deal even with the russian Far East troops - and they were NOT the best of russian army (actually, the russian forces on the Far East was the reserve, territorial and irregular forces). Before Tsusima, Togo wasn't at all shure that he would be able to deal with mighty (in theory) russian Baltic Navy; after all, Togo wasn't been able to deal effectively with lesser (in theory) russian Pacific Navy! He clearly wasn't able to predict that the russian crews would be unexperienced.

runsforcelery wrote:
Given visibility-only sensors, the time of day, the weather conditions, and the German determination to avoid action as soon as the HSF realized what was happening to it, the chance of a decisive tactical engagement was off the table almost from the beginning of the actual fleet engagement.

Hm... I must agrre with you, the situation of decisive engagement in the real Jutland conditions was unrealistic. However, in better conditions - especially with aerial support and reconnaisance from the Strasser - Sheer may possibly be able to deal with Beatty and run away before the Jellicoe appeared.

Dilandu wrote: Well, in 1862 the french were in position to simply go and blast the Royal Navy into the oblivion. The "Warrior" and c.o. was clearly not in the position to stop them; their rifled guns were pathetic, their maneuvrability was poor, and their unarmoured ends maked them actually vunerable. The british industry build really great ships but by poor conception.
And this situation repeat itself until the 1890th.

Hi Dilandu,

I know nothing about warship armour, guns or speed in 1870-1890 period, but I find your argument about the superiority of the French Navy over the Royal Navy in the 1870s-1890s period hard to believe for political and strategic reasons.

When things came to a head in the 1898 Fachoda incident, France decided, logically, that recovering Metz and Strasbourg was more important than going to war with Britain for some distant colony. This was confirmed in the 1904 Entente Cordiale.

With Alsace and Lorraine in German hands, I would doubt France was ready to invest in the 1872-1904 period the money needed to reach parity with a Royal Navy that, moreover, was supported by a stronger economy.

The development of the 1870s Séré de Rivières fortification belt, the 1884 invention of "Poudre B", the 1886 Lebel smokeless rifle and the 1897 75mm cannon would support this idea on what was the real priority.

Look in Google images for "Édouard Detaille le Rêve", sometimes images are clearer that words.

Please note I am talking about the 1872-1904 period, not earlier historical periods.

Hi, jmbm!

jmbm wrote:

I know nothing about warship armour, guns or speed in 1870-1890 period, but I find your argument about the superiority of the French Navy over the Royal Navy in the 1870s-1890s period hard to believe for political and strategic reasons.

jmbm wrote:When things came to a head in the 1898 Fachoda incident, France decided, logically, that recovering Metz and Strasbourg was more important than going to war with Britain for some distant colony. This was confirmed in the 1904 Entente Cordiale.

The problem was, that this decision wasn't certain. There was a significant fraction in french goverment, that voted for the alliance with Germany against Britain. The Britain was the historical enemy and opponent of the France for more than two centuries; the Germany was the opponent only for less than thirty years. So, the anti-britain alliance was possible; maybe less possible then anti-german, but still possible.

The real savior of Britain was their diplomaty, that was able to deter the Russia and France from the logical alliance against Germany and Britain (the common enemies!) Instead - i clearly didn't understand, what Alexander the II was thinking about! - the Russia signed the utterly useless pact with Germany and Austro-Hungary. Clearly, after 1871 the France wasn't in position to endanger the russia anymore. And the Germany during Bismark reing clearly wouldn't do ANYTHING against the Britain, that was the real russian opponent on the Middle East and central Asia.

With Alsace and Lorraine in German hands, I would doubt France was ready to invest in the 1872-1904 period the money needed to reach parity with a Royal Navy that, moreover, was supported by a stronger economy.

Actually, they do just that.

The development of the 1870s Séré de Rivières fortification belt, the 1884 invention of "Poudre B", the 1886 Lebel smokeless rifle and the 1897 75mm cannon would support this idea on what was the real priority.

The development of first steel-hulled battleship, the first smokeless naval guns the long-barreled quick-firing heavy 305-mm guns, the first modern HE shells and the first usable submarines would support the other idea. As the building a large fleet of battleships in 1880th and 1890th, and the huge armada of torpedo boats during "Jeune Ecole" control.
Look in Google images for "Édouard Detaille le Rêve", sometimes images are clearer that words.

Dilandu wrote:Hi, jmbm!

jmbm wrote:

I know nothing about warship armour, guns or speed in 1870-1890 period, but I find your argument about the superiority of the French Navy over the Royal Navy in the 1870s-1890s period hard to believe for political and strategic reasons.

jmbm wrote:When things came to a head in the 1898 Fachoda incident, France decided, logically, that recovering Metz and Strasbourg was more important than going to war with Britain for some distant colony. This was confirmed in the 1904 Entente Cordiale.

The problem was, that this decision wasn't certain. There was a significant fraction in french goverment, that voted for the alliance with Germany against Britain. The Britain was the historical enemy and opponent of the France for more than two centuries; the Germany was the opponent only for less than thirty years. So, the anti-britain alliance was possible; maybe less possible then anti-german, but still possible.

The real savior of Britain was their diplomaty, that was able to deter the Russia and France from the logical alliance against Germany and Britain (the common enemies!) Instead - i clearly didn't understand, what Alexander the II was thinking about! - the Russia signed the utterly useless pact with Germany and Austro-Hungary. Clearly, after 1871 the France wasn't in position to endanger the russia anymore. And the Germany during Bismark reing clearly wouldn't do ANYTHING against the Britain, that was the real russian opponent on the Middle East and central Asia.

With Alsace and Lorraine in German hands, I would doubt France was ready to invest in the 1872-1904 period the money needed to reach parity with a Royal Navy that, moreover, was supported by a stronger economy.

Actually, they do just that.

The development of the 1870s Séré de Rivières fortification belt, the 1884 invention of "Poudre B", the 1886 Lebel smokeless rifle and the 1897 75mm cannon would support this idea on what was the real priority.

The development of first steel-hulled battleship, the first smokeless naval guns the long-barreled quick-firing heavy 305-mm guns, the first modern HE shells and the first usable submarines would support the other idea. As the building a large fleet of battleships in 1880th and 1890th, and the huge armada of torpedo boats during "Jeune Ecole" control.
Look in Google images for "Édouard Detaille le Rêve", sometimes images are clearer that words.

Three things you are overlooking Dilandu.

1. Military technology was changing so fast in the period ~1850 till ~1960, that any military that wanted to be state of the art had to replace much of it's equipment every 5 to ten years. In 1850 the standard infantry weapon would have been nearly identical to those used by "Butcher" Cumberland in 1745, the latest twist was the percussion cap introduced about this time.

2. The RN had a policy of having more ships than all of the worlds other navies put together. This policy was followed untill the period of 1880-1890 when the USN was being built as a modern blue water navy. Anyone who seriously studied the relevant production potentials realized that no-one was going to outproduce the US in war material.

3. It is easier to build a superior ship for one purpose if you do not expect it to do anything else. The Kreigsmarine of 1914 would likely had trouble reaching the RN base at Halifax, Nova Scotia, even if the RN would not interfere. The German ships of that period were designed to operate close to base in the North and Baltic seas, with the crews typically housed in barracks ashore. RN, USN and IJN ships were expected to sail for weeks on end, and house their crews for the entire time they were assigned to the ship.

Dilandu wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:
Actually, no. The Russo-Japanese War exactly demonstrates the validity of what I'm saying about entire navies and infrastructures. What doomed the Russians (and I realize you have a dog in the fight, which I don't )

Er... I didn't understand the last statement

runsforcelery wrote:was the huge distance the Baltic Fleet had to sail just to engage the IJN in the first place, coupled to the difference in quality of personnel,

Well, but could the japanese knew that in advance? When they started the war, they were forced to deal initially with the First Pacific Squadron in Port-Artur. And despite the two great japan sucsesses (the damage of "Retvisan" in initial nigh torpedo boat attack, and the sinking of "Petropavlovsk") they were unable to destroy it in Yellow sea.

The main problem in Tsusima was that the new battleships of Second Pacific Squadron was new. Their crews were not even nearly sufficiently trained by any standart (and the russian gunnery practice in that time was superior - with all respect - even to the Royal Navy. The latter clearly admitted that in WW1) and the ships themselves was completed in great rush, with a large number of technical defects.

runsforcelery wrote:The Japanese fleet was excellent and generally superior in quality to the Russians

Well, the battle in Yellow Sea didn't demonstrate it at all. The japan fleet exausted their ammunition, their accuracy was lesser than for russian, and their shisp was damajed more The only thing that allowed for Japan to claim the victory was the lucky chance by hitting the brige of "Tsesarevitch", that killed the Witgeft and all high commad crew, and desorganised the fleet.

(and don't forget their introduction of better bursting charges),

Let's don't forget, that the japanese shells was a completely HE and didn't penetrate any armor effectively. The IJN was most dissatisfied by the preformance of their artillery during the war.

Had it simply been a matter of drawing the two navies up in line-of-battle and going at it, the Russians might legitimately have expected to win.

The problem is, that before the Tsusima, there was a Second Pacific Squadron, based on Port-Arthur. And the IJN have enough problems with them. The IJN simply cannot be sure that the russian Baltic crews were poorly prepared.

In short, the whole war was sucsessfull for Japan only because of sheer luck, not because of some particular planning. In 1905, japan was completely exausted and on the edge of collapse; their economy was exausted. Their army after Mukden was clearly unable to deal even with the russian Far East troops - and they were NOT the best of russian army (actually, the russian forces on the Far East was the reserve, territorial and irregular forces). Before Tsusima, Togo wasn't at all shure that he would be able to deal with mighty (in theory) russian Baltic Navy; after all, Togo wasn't been able to deal effectively with lesser (in theory) russian Pacific Navy! He clearly wasn't able to predict that the russian crews would be unexperienced. [/quote]

Dilandu wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:
Actually, no. The Russo-Japanese War exactly demonstrates the validity of what I'm saying about entire navies and infrastructures. What doomed the Russians (and I realize you have a dog in the fight, which I don't )

Er... I didn't understand the last statement

It's an American idiom. "I don't have a dog in the fight" means that I'm, neutral in whatever's under discussion. In this case, it means that since I'm neither Russian nor Japanese, I'm not invested in demonstrating that "my" side (whichever it might be) was right/better/smarter/etc. Now, if the USN had been a belligerent, things would be different, of course!:lol:

runsforcelery wrote:was the huge distance the Baltic Fleet had to sail just to engage the IJN in the first place, coupled to the difference in quality of personnel,

Dilandu wrote:Well, but could the japanese knew that in advance? When they started the war, they were forced to deal initially with the First Pacific Squadron in Port-Artur. And despite the two great japan sucsesses (the damage of "Retvisan" in initial nigh torpedo boat attack, and the sinking of "Petropavlovsk") they were unable to destroy it in Yellow sea.

Not only did know it but planned on it from the very beginning. Their entire war plan was based on taking out the Port Arthur fleet in detail (which they did, if not quite the way they'd planned) and then having time to refit and repair before taking on anything the Russians might send from the Baltic. They had a hard count on the number of reasonably modern battleships in the Baltic and figured they'd have parity or a little better. The loss of two of their own battleships to mines screwed up their calculations, which is why they were so busy looking for additional armored cruisers to make up the deficit, but from the very beginning they calculated that --- especially without Port Arthur --- the Russians would have to fight their way through the IJN (which would have torpedo boats while the Russians didn't) in ships with badly fouled bottoms and machinery that was likely to need servicing badly . . . and that didn't even count the fact that they knew the Russians would have to sail with heavy deckloads of coal. They had a very, very good notion of what that was going to mean in material terms. Their intelligence on the human material of the Russian Navy was less good and they couldn't have counted on how bad it was actually going to be at Tsushima, but they calculated that they would have a significant advantage there, as well, especially with the experience they'd accrued earlier. The Russian decision to include the "auto-sinkers" only augmented the advantages which were already central to the Japanese calculations. And by the time the Baltic Fleet actually reached Asian waters, they'd had plenty of reports --- from the press and from the British --- which told them just how poorly officered and manned that squadron was. They may not have had that sort of intelligence at the beginning of the wart, but they certainly had it long before the first shot was fired at Tsushima.

Dilandu wrote:The main problem in Tsusima was that the new battleships of Second Pacific Squadron was new. Their crews were not even nearly sufficiently trained by any standart (and the russian gunnery practice in that time was superior - with all respect - even to the Royal Navy. The latter clearly admitted that in WW1) and the ships themselves was completed in great rush, with a large number of technical defects.

I'll give you that Russian gunnery was very good --- indeed, much better than most non-Russian sources allow --- but it wasn't that much better than other navies. And black powder shell fillings went a long way towards offsetting any superior accuracy they might have obtained. My sources (admittedly, none of which are Russian) would seriously dispute the fact that Russian gunnery was better than the RN and the French. And by the time of Tsushima, not only was the Baltic Fleet's gunnery below average by Russian standards but the Japanese standards of gunnery had improved considerably from the opening stages of the war.

The sources I have in which British observers comment on Russian gunnery say that the long base Russian range finders gave more accurate readings at long range and agree that the predreadnoughts in the Baltic shot very well during World War One; I'm not at all sure that that would have been true in 1905 when no one (including the Russians)expected true long-range gunnery engagements. In addition, the Russian 12" in the Borodinos and the 10" in the earlier classes were inferior to the Japanese 12" in shell weight, rate of fire, and penetration. (The Russian 12" AP weighed 730 lbs and the 10" AP weighed 496 lbs; the Japanese 12" weighed 850 lbs. At 5,000 yards, the Russian 12" penetrated 9.8" of Krupp Cemented armor (vertical); the 10" penetrated 8.6"; and the Japanese 12" penetrated 12". All of the above assuming, of course, that the shell didn't premature when it hit armor, which happened a lot to both sides. Russian rates of fire for both guns were on the order of 1 round every 90 seconds; the Japanese 12" fired once per minute. ) The Japanese had a lot of trouble with prematures and (IIRC) lost several gun tubes to them in the Yellow Sea and (I think) Mikasa lost one to the same cause even at Tsushima. By the same token, however, that represented a considerable improvement over the Yellow Sea; they'd redesigned thneir fuzes by Tsushima and got much better performance out of their gunnery there. (It wasn't so much that the new fuzes improved penetration which --- admittedly --- wasn't as good as the Japanese wished (and had hoped) it would be, but more of their shells reached the target rather than detonating prematurely.

runsforcelery wrote:The Japanese fleet was excellent and generally superior in quality to the Russians

Dilandu wrote:Well, the battle in Yellow Sea didn't demonstrate it at all. The japan fleet exausted their ammunition, their accuracy was lesser than for russian, and their shisp was damajed more The only thing that allowed for Japan to claim the victory was the lucky chance by hitting the brige of "Tsesarevitch", that killed the Witgeft and all high commad crew, and desorganised the fleet.[/quoyte]

The Russians were in trouble even before Witgeft was killed, although I will certainly agree that thw hit on his flagship's bridge was the decisive moment of the engagement. Russian formation discipline was poor, compared to that of the IJN. And if the IJN "exhausted their ammunition," what were they using to shot at the Russians after the Russian formation came apart and ships started running for home? Beer bottles?

As for problems with the Japanese artillery, see my paragraph above

runsforcelery wrote: (and don't forget their introduction of better bursting charges),

Dilandu wrote:Let's don't forget, that the japanese shells was a completely HE and didn't penetrate any armor effectively. The IJN was most dissatisfied by the preformance of their artillery during the war.

Again, with all respect, that statement is inaccurate according to all of my sources. Yes, the Japanese were dissatisfied with the performance of their artillery; that doesn't mean it was any worse than --- or as bad as --- their opponents managed,. American accuracy in the Spanish-American War was terrible . . . it was just three or four times as good as anything the Spanish produced. And it was the poor accuracy of USN gunnery at Manila Bay that led Admiral Sims, the American equivalent of Percy Scott, to first specialize in gunnery and then begin the radical, even revolutionary overhaul of American gunnery standards. As for the IJN's use of HE, they had plenty of AP --- and used it --- at Tsushima, but they also used HE (deliberately) because their earlier experience had suggested to them that it would shatter their targets' upperworks and effectively "mission kill" the Russian ships . . . which is pretty much what happened. Between WW I and WW II, the British reached very similar conclusions after analyzing their experience 1914-1918. The Americans, on the other hand, drew the opposite conclusion and took the lead in developing "super heavy" shells which probably made their AP rounds --- size for size --- superior to those anyone else deployed. My sources suggest that both Russia and Japan were unhappy with their respective gunnery results during the Russo-Japanese War and both took steps to address the shortcoming post-1905.

runsforcelery wrote: Had it simply been a matter of drawing the two navies up in line-of-battle and going at it, the Russians might legitimately have expected to win.

Dilandu wrote:The problem is, that before the Tsusima, there was a Second Pacific Squadron, based on Port-Arthur. And the IJN have enough problems with them. The IJN simply cannot be sure that the russian Baltic crews were poorly prepared.

In short, the whole war was sucsessfull for Japan only because of sheer luck, not because of some particular planning. In 1905, japan was completely exausted and on the edge of collapse; their economy was exausted. Their army after Mukden was clearly unable to deal even with the russian Far East troops - and they were NOT the best of russian army (actually, the russian forces on the Far East was the reserve, territorial and irregular forces). Before Tsusima, Togo wasn't at all shure that he would be able to deal with mighty (in theory) russian Baltic Navy; after all, Togo wasn't been able to deal effectively with lesser (in theory) russian Pacific Navy! He clearly wasn't able to predict that the russian crews would be unexperienced.

As I've explained above, the Japanese knew that the fight between their entire navy and the Port Arthur squadron would be long over (Ione way or the other) before the Baltic Fleet ever put in an appearance. In addition, they could be --- and were --- certain that any fleet sent from the Baltic would be in lousy condition for action which it arrived and that, especially with Port Arthur already reduced, any Russian reinforcement would have to fight its way through what would then be a battle-hardened and experienced Japanese fleet with the advantage of freshly services ships, lots of scouts, and torpedo boats to help equalize the odds. They couldn't count on the execrable state of the personnel aboard the Russian battleships when they arrived, but even if the crews had been adequately drilled and trained --- which there was time to do during the lengthy passage --- their ships would still have been in sufficiently poor condition to give the IJN a decisive edge. It was part of their war plan from the beginning, and they were right.

Now, as to the military potential of the two sides post-Tsushima and post-Mukden, neither one of them was in good shape to continue the war. Russia was on the verge of Revolution; Japan was on the verge of collapse. Russia had no Navy left; the Japanese Army was at full stretch and the Russians were shipping in supplies. Both sides later resented Teddy Roosevelt's role in brokering the peace treaty at Portsmouth, but --- at the time --- both sides were glad to accept it before something even worse happened to them!

Dilandu wrote:

Thrandir wrote:
Really - so your saying a navy that was spread over the entire globe projecting and protecting British interests around the globe did not know what they were suppose to do. What should they have been doing?

Really - they did just that. For example, the great expenses pumped into the great fleet of protected cruisers. Then, the "Dupuy de Lome" and "Rurik" appeared, and RN suddenly understand that their cruiser armada was the greates waste of resources in history.

And the fleet of RN coastal defense rams... Do you really think that any of them was usefull? The ultimate point was the "Victoria"-class large rams and they was the ultimate useless ships.

Dilandu with respect you have not answered the question I asked. Your comment that the RN was incompetent and did not know how to act as a navy is I feel incorrect.
The RN knew exactly how to do its job - protect commercial interests; keep the trade routes open and project force to the far flung reaches of the Empire.
What else was it suppose to do?
Yes the RN had some inept commanders but it also had some excellent ones who knew what to do with the Fleet at their disposal.

To the best of my knowledge none of the ship classes you mentioned actually saw combat.
The French navy went from being a major threat to the British to becoming an ally, a rival in the form of design but French industry did not have the capacity to match the British at the time.
You mention the ineptness of RN ship design (with a select few vessels) but when HMS Dreadnaught was launched all French shipyards were tied up building the 6 vessel Danton class of pre-Dreadnaughts - which had just become obsolete. Where was the innovation in the Danton's?
It took the French some years to catch - not because they couldn't design their own Dreadnaughts but because they could not match the building power of Britain, Germany and the US.

The question is still there - how should the RN have behaved as a navy. It did not sit in port like many, it had a strategic mission which to the best of my knowledge never surrendered until the end of WW2, which saw the USN take over the reins as Naval Super Power.

The RN today is a markedly pale reflection of what it once was - currently it has 19 in service and ready ships. For me this is totally and utterly pathetic and your appraisal of the RN is more in line with the RN of 1990 - 2014... maybe this is a bit harsh but still..
Nations of NATO etc.. rely on the USN a bit too much, considering it is facing its own budget cuts and supposedly down-sizing. But this is a whole different conversation

btw - how the heck did the propaganda posters get into this one? Must say they are very good

Thanks to RFC & Dilandu for the perspectives on the Russian/Japanese conflict of 1904-05; it has been an interesting read