The Great War
Published on 13 Aug 2018Find out more about War2Glory: https://war2glory.com/
Submarines played a vital part in Germany’s WW1 strategy. They would disrupt allied shipping despite the British Naval Blockade and ensue fear across the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea.
August 14, 2018
German Submarine Warfare in World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
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August 3, 2018
Australian women and the military
Like many other western nations, the Australian government has mandated higher quotas for women in the Australian Defence Forces (ADF), and it’s the military’s job to make it work:
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is comprised of the three military services: the Royal Australian Navy, the Australian Army, and the Royal Australian Air Force, all of which have been subject to increasing criticism in recent years for being dominated by straight white men. This, it is alleged, makes them, ipso facto, a petri dish for ‘toxic masculinity.’ That allegation has been lent apparent weight by the reporting of multiple gender-related scandals including the ADFA sex scandal, Jedi Council, various hazing rituals, death symbols, and HMAS Success, to name a few.
Some of this criticism has been so strident that past and present military leaders have had no choice but to commission reports and inquiries into standards and practices within the ADF, and to implement various culture change initiatives including Pathway to Change, New Generation Navy, Adaptive Army, and New Horizon. All of these initiatives place significant emphasis on greater integration of women into the respective services but offer limited reasoning other than catch-phrases like ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ and ‘modernising.’
All three services are now working toward a target of female representation by 2023. The Navy and Air Force are working toward 25 percent, and the Army is working toward 15 percent. The progress toward these targets, among other commentary on gender issues in the ADF, is detailed in the annual “Women in the ADF” report.
[…]
Concerns with preferential treatment do not end at the recruitment process. Fitness standards for service personnel also differ according to gender, as well as service and age. This means equally-aged men and women in each service are expected to attain different standards of fitness. This, in itself, represents a challenge since both genders complete fitness tests together and are therefore directly exposed to this double-standard from their first day of service. In spite of this policy, many servicewomen elect to continue their fitness assessment to the same level as their male colleagues which is one small contribution to reducing the cultural divide.
The rejection of preferential treatment in the ADF is not just isolated to annual fitness tests. In fact, the 2012 “Review into the Treatment of Women in the Australian Defence Force” led by then-Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick includes the following passage:
ADF women strongly believe that when they are singled out, it makes it harder for them to fit in. Highly resistant to any initiative being directed solely at them, ADF women view identical—not differential—treatment as the path to delivering equality. This is most likely in part to avoid the backlash that inevitably trails any treatment perceived as ‘preferential’…
Despite acknowledging this, many of Broderick’s recommendations included gender-specific initiatives that risk being perceived as further preferential treatment, driving a greater wedge between male and female ADF personnel. Perhaps the most troubling recommendation is the targeted recruitment and transfer of women to male-dominated professions that have less female uptake. In practise, this risks techniques akin to coaxing in the recruitment process if these roles are not the preferred choice of female candidates.
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July 31, 2018
The Utah Navy: Clearfield Navy Supply Depot, updated
The History Guy: Five Minutes of History
Published on 5 Aug 2017The History Guy examines the unique role of Utah and the Clearfield Navy Supply Depot in the war in the Pacific. Episode one of History Guy: Five Minutes of History is now available in HD.
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July 30, 2018
Forgotten History: World’s Biggest Black Powder Cannon – a 100-Ton Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 10 Jul 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
The largest muzzleloading black powder cannons ever built were the Armstrong 100-ton guns which saw service with the Italian Navy and with British coastal fortifications on Malta and Gibraltar. They were purchased by the Italians first, to outfit a pair of new super battleships, each vessel having two turrets with two of these guns in each. To avoid being outclassed, the British ordered two guns for installation to protect the Grand Harbor of Malta and two more to protect Gibraltar. Today one survives at each location, and we are visiting the Rinella Battery in Malta, which was built to house one of the Maltese guns.
These guns had a maximum range of 8 miles, and was capable of piercing 15 inches of iron armor at 3 miles. It had a 17.7 inch (45cm) bore fired a 2000 pound (900 kg) shell with a 450 pound (200kg) charge of black powder. The gun itself weighed approximately 102 tons, and with its cradle and a shell the whole assembly came in at 150 tons.
Aside from the massive scale of the piece, the most interesting part of its design is actually the loading machinery. Because of the titanic size of the gun and ammunition, Armstrong designed a fascinating hydraulic reloading facility which makes up the body of the fortress in which the gun is set. A pair of steam engines drove a pair of hydraulic accumulators, which provided hydraulic pressure to move the gun on its carriage, to douse the barrel after firing, to hoist ammunition into position for loading and power a 60-foot (18m) ramrod to mechanically ram the charge and shell into place. Two mirror-image reloading galleries under the fortification operated in turn, giving the gun a sustained rate of fire of 1 round every 6 minutes – at least until its 120-round barrel life was exhausted.
I am grateful for the Malta Tourism Authority’s assistance in helping to make this visit and video possible, and would also like to give special thanks to Simon, our awesome reenactor guide!
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
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July 12, 2018
Great Blunders of WWII: Japan’s Mistakes at Midway
Anthony Coleman
Published on 3 Nov 2016From the History Channel DVD series “Great Blunders of WWII”
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July 8, 2018
Western Approaches – the bunker from which they won the war
Lindybeige
Published on 17 Jun 2018The command bunker ‘Western Approaches’ is now a museum in Liverpool. I was invited to take a look before it re-opened.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LindybeigeThe Museum’s website: http://www.liverpoolwarmuseum.co.uk
Many thanks to Richard MacDonald for inviting me and showing me around (you saw him plugging the big fuse in).
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
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July 5, 2018
World of Warships – HMCS Haida
The Mighty Jingles
Published on 3 Jul 2018Oh Canada! Your ship finally made it into World of Warships even if your flag didn’t. I could just tell you what I think of her right now but that would spoil the video, so go on, watch it!
Little White Mouse Haida Review: https://forum.worldofwarships.com/top…
All music licensed from www.epidemicsound.com and www.machinimasound.com Really, I’m not kidding. Stop trying to claim license-free music you record company scumbags!
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July 1, 2018
Naval Legends: HMCS Haida | World of Warships
World of Warships Official Channel
Published on 28 Jun 2018“The most fightingest ship of the Royal Canadian Navy”, and the last survivor of the Tribal-class! Find out more in the new Naval Legends episode!
Naval Legends is a series about the construction, service, and daring deeds of legendary 20th-century ships. Very few vessels survived World War I and II — most were decommissioned and scrapped. The Naval Legends production crew travels all across the globe to visit almost every active museum ship and chronicle her story.
Each episode has our own footage, military chronicles, and data from archives. The story of each ship is narrated by military historians, museum staff, and navy veterans for maximum historical accuracy. Computer graphics based on archival blueprints illustrate critical engineering elements and components, along with the ship’s armament, so you can observe these colossal war machines from your armchair!
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June 25, 2018
The oddly variable careers of Royal Navy ships named HMS Lion
Every now and again, a random question leads me to odd results … in this case I wondered about the Royal Navy ships named HMS Lion, which I remembered as being used for a First World War battlecruiser (Vice-Admiral Beatty’s flagship through the actions at Heligoland Bight and Jutland) and a Cold War light cruiser (whose sister ships were converted into hybrid light cruiser/amphibious assault ships). Earlier ships of that name had even more interesting careers (from the Wikipedia disambiguation page):
HMS Lion, lead ship of the Lion-class of Royal Navy battlecruisers.
Photo from the Imperial War Museum, via Wikimedia Commons.
- English ship Lion (1511) was a 36-gun ship of the Royal Scottish Navy captured in 1511 and sold in 1513.
- English ship Lion (1536) was a 50-gun ship built in 1536 and on the navy list until 1559.
- English ship Lion (1547) was a Scottish ship captured in 1547 and later lost off Harwich.
- English ship Lion (1557) was a 40-gun ship, also known as Golden Lion. She was rebuilt four times, in 1582, 1609, 1640 and 1658. After her 1609 rebuild she was renamed Red Lion, but this was reverted to Lion after the 1640 rebuild. She was sold in 1698.
Modern naval ships are considered long-in-the-tooth after 25-30 years of service. HMS Lion (the HMS was not consistently applied to royal ships until the eighteenth century, but let’s just let that slide here) of 1557 was only undergoing her first rebuild/life extension at the point a modern ship would already be under consideration for dismantling. She was still in royal service for three more rebuildings, and was sold (not scrapped) after 141 years of active service. But the Royal Navy was far from done with using this name:
- HMS Lion (1665) was a 6-gun ketch, also known as Young Lion. She was captured from the Dutch in 1665, sold in 1667, repurchased in 1668 and sunk as a foundation at Sheerness in 1673.
- HMS Lion (1683) was a fifth rate captured from the Algerians in 1683 and sold the same year.
- HMS Lion (1702) was a 4-gun stores hoy of 99 tons burthen purchased in 1702. A French privateer captured her off Beachy Head in 1708, but she was recaptured in 1709.[1]
- HMS Lion (1709 hoy) was a 4-gun hoy launched in 1709. She was wrecked in 1752.[2]
- HMS Lion (1709) was a 60-gun third rate launched in 1709, rebuilt in 1738 and sold in 1765.
Another longer-service veteran than the vast majority of modern naval ships.
- HMS Lion (1753) was a transport launched in 1753, hulked in 1775, and sold in 1786.
- HMS Lion (1763) was a cutter purchased in 1763 and sold in 1771.
- HMS Lion (1774) was a discovery vessel in service from 1774 to 1785.
- HMS Lion (1777) was a 64-gun third rate launched in 1777. She was used as a sheer hulk from 1816 and was sold for breaking up in 1837.
One assumes the name was changed before 1781, even though the hull was still in use for long after other ships named HMS Lion were respectively in commission and then out of service with the Royal Navy:
- HMS Lion (1781) was a schooner purchased around 1781 and sold in 1785.
- HMS Lion (1794) was a 4-gun vessel, originally a Dutch hoy. She was purchased in 1794 and sold in 1795.
- HMS Lion (1823) was a schooner in service from 1823 and sold in 1826.
- HMS Lion (1847) was an 80-gun second rate launched in 1847. She was converted to screw propulsion in 1859 and became a training ship after 1871. She was sold for breaking up in 1905.
- HMS Lion (1910) was a Lion-class battlecruiser launched in 1910 and sold in 1924.
- HMS Lion (1939) was to have been a Lion-class battleship. She was laid down in 1939, but work was suspended later that year, and again in 1942. The order was finally cancelled in 1945 and she was broken up on the slipway.
- HMS Lion (C34) was a Tiger-class cruiser launched in 1944 as the Minotaur-class HMS Defence. She was finally completed to a revised design in 1960. She was placed in reserve in 1964 and was scrapped in 1975.
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June 20, 2018
Korea adds a second helicopter carrier, may adapt them to carry F-35 aircraft
At Strategy Page, a look at the Korean and Japanese helicopter carrier ships, including the recently launched ROKS Marado, the second ship of the Dodko class:
The Republic of Korea Navy amphibious landing ship ROKS Dokdo (LPH 6111) and the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) transit the Sea of Japan (July 27, 2010).
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Charles Oki via Wikimedia Commons.
During May South Korea launched its second Dokdo class large amphibious ship, the 14,500 ton Marado. The first of these ships, the 14,000 ton LPH (Landing Platform Helicopter) Dokdo entered service in 2007 and the Marado is expected to follow in 2020. In addition to being a bit larger than the first Dokdo, the Marado has a number of new features that enhance its ability to operate as an aircraft carrier. This includes more capable electronics, many of them made in South Korea as well modifications to the flight deck and the hanger deck below.
Both 199 meter long Dokdos are similar in appearance and operation to the larger American amphibious ships. The LPH flight deck can handle helicopters, as well as vertical takeoff jets like the F-35B. The Koreans deny that the ship will be used with these jets, but the capability is there. The LPH normally carries 720 combat troops, a crew of 300, ten tanks, seven amphibious assault vehicle, three towed 155mm howitzers and ten trucks. Dokdos carry fifteen aircraft (two V-22 vertical takeoff transports and 13 helicopters) and two LCAC hovercraft in the well deck for landing troops.
The Marado has a redesigned flight deck that can handle two V-22s at once instead of just one. In addition to a more powerful 3-D surveillance radar for tracking aircraft, Marado has two Phalanx anti-missile systems compared to one Goalkeeper system on Dokdo. South Korea is also going to add a locally developed and manufactured K-SAAM anti-aircraft and anti-missile system. This is similar to the existing U.S. made ESSM but with longer range and an improved guidance system.
JS Izumo DDH-183, sister-ship of the JS Kaga DDH-184, both helicopter-equipped destroyers, officially.
Meanwhile, neighbor Japan has taken the Dokdo concept a bit farther. In early 2017 Japan put into service a second 27,000 ton “destroyer” (the Kaga, DDH 184) that looks exactly like an aircraft carrier. Actually, it looks like an LPH, an amphibious ship type that first appeared in the 1950s. This was noted when Izumo, the first Japanese LPH, was launched in 2012 (and entered service in 2015). The Izumos can carry up to 28 aircraft and are armed only with two Phalanx anti-missile systems and a launcher with sixteen ESSM missiles for anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense.
[…]
The Izumo is part of a trend. In 2009, Japan launched its second Hyuga class “LPH”. Earlier in 2009, it commissioned the first of these “helicopter-carrying destroyers”. This was the first Japanese aircraft to enter service since 1945. The Hyuga class are 197 meter (610 foot) long, 18,000 ton warships that operates up to eleven (mostly SH-60) helicopters from a full-length flight deck. Although called a destroyer, it very much looks like an aircraft carrier. While its primary function is anti-submarine warfare, the Hyuga will also give Japan its first real power projection capability since 1945. The Hyuga was also the largest warship built in Japan since World War II.
South Korea could adapt their Dokdos to handle a few F-35Bs by making the flight deck more heat resistant and rearranging the hanger deck. South Korea is getting land based F-35As which would enable them to determine if it would be worth the time and money to adapt their LPHs to carry some vertical takeoff F-35Bs. Sometimes peacekeeping missions involve some peacemaking and F-35Bs would help with that.
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June 12, 2018
The Goeben & The Breslau – Two German Ships Under Ottoman Flag I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
The Great War
Published on 11 Jun 2018How SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau, two German warships in 1914 sailed under Ottoman flag and helped Enver Pasha to get the Ottoman Empire into World War 1.
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June 2, 2018
A Safer Berth – HMS Victory
NMRNPortsmouth
Published on Aug 21, 2017An 18-month programme to re-support the world’s most famous warship HMS Victory sagging under her own weight is now underway.
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May 31, 2018
Admiral David Beatty: “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today”
One of the outcomes of the Battle of Jutland was that naval opinion finally crystalized over the notion of battle cruisers: the loss of three British battle cruisers during the battle (and near-loss of a fourth) proved to most that the design was flawed and that this class of ships should never have sailed into battle against real battleships. A recent post at Naval Gazing begs to differ on this judgement:
Explosion that sank HMS Queen Mary at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
David Beatty’s famous remark about the destruction of two of his ships by catastrophic magazine explosions during the Battle of Jutland sums up the traditional attitude towards one of the battle’s most famous aspects. Of the 3,326 men aboard the battlecruisers Indefatigable, Queen Mary, and Invincible, only 17 survived. It’s long been believed that the ships themselves were to blame, as they were built with only relatively light armor. Shells supposedly penetrated to the magazines and set them off. Recent research has revealed that this was not the case, and the ships were lost primarily due to defects in operation, not design.
The basic problem with the conventional theory is that no German shell penetrated deep enough into the surviving ships to have been able to set off a magazine if it had hit one. The magazines take up a minority of a battlecruiser’s deck, so if such hits were common, then at least a few of the surviving ships should have seen shells reach their machinery. Instead, German shells were found to detonate with 16-24′ of their first impact with the structure. At the 20° angle the shells were falling at at the time, this puts them no more than 8 feet below the upper deck upon detonation. The only case where shell fragments reached magazine was a hit on Barham at 1758 when fragments from a 12″ shell penetrated the deck over the 6″ magazine. Despite leaving a 12″x15″ hole in the 1″ deck, the fragments had no effect on the powder stored under it.
So is there a different potential cause, one that happened to a surviving ship? A survey of the damage to Beatty’s battlecrusiers reveals a promising candidate. A hit on a turret, such as the one suffered by HMS Lion, could cause a flash to propagate down into the magazine, which would then deflagrate in precisely the manner seen during the battle. A careful examination of Lion‘s damage shows that she came very close to suffering the same fate.
Turret explosions are hardly unknown aboard warships, either as a result of accident or enemy action, and a great deal of care goes into making sure that they don’t set off the magazines. Powder is stored in metal cans or tanks, and flashproof doors and other interlocks are used to make sure that fire does not reach the magazines. Unfortunately, the British had systematically undermined these protections in the search for rate of fire and ammunition capacity, and their magazine practices during the battle can only be described as suicidal.
After the Battle of Dogger Bank, Beatty decided that the reason he was unable to destroy the German battlecruisers was insufficient rate of fire. Not only would opening fire early and firing quickly lead to early hits, but it would also distract the German gunners. However, the British were not particularly confident in their long-range fire control, and began to stuff extra cordite into the handling rooms and other spaces that had been designed to provide flash protection. This was made much worse by a other changes intended to increase rate of fire. Normally, the cordite cases were kept sealed until just before the charges are sent to the gun, but the crews chose to open many of the cases early, take some cordite out of the cases before battle to make it easy to access, and even stored extra charges completely unprotected. In a final effort to make the turrets as dangerous as possible, the majority of the anti-flash safety doors were removed.
The only ship which strongly resisted this trend was Lion, and the efforts of her Gunner, Alexander Grant, deserve most of the credit. When Grant came aboard, he found the situation described above, and quickly reintroduced the traditional magazine safety regulations with the support of Lion‘s captain, Ernle Chatfield. He managed to train the magazine crews to the point where they could provide cordite to the guns faster than the guns could fire it, while observing full safety procedures.
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The Battle of Jutland Explained
Ministry of Defence
Published on 25 May 201610,000 men. 250 ships. 12 hours. Two sides. The Battle of Jutland – 100 years ago.
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May 30, 2018
Decisive Weapons S02E04 – U-Boat Killer: The Anti-Submarine Warship
erana19
Published on 25 Jan 20161996-1997 BBC documentary series. Series 2, Episode 4.
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