Klow's Kollection

Britannia Rules the Waves

  HMS Cambridge setting sail

 

In 1754, Great Britain and France were again fighting each other in the French-Indian War. Few were surprised after the results of an earlier conflict, the War of Austrian Succession. The colonial ambitions of Britain and France were never truly resolved. Both superpowers scrambled to send reinforcements to their colonies in America, India, and the West Indies. In the first battles, Britain fumbled as the Royal Navy was unable to stop French ships that slipped past Britain's naval blockade. The battles in North America went little better as the French and Native American allies humbled their British adversaries.

In a few short years, what began as a contest between colonial powers expanded into the Seven Years War. Armies would fight not just on the European continent but within their colonies and at sea. Even before war was officially declared, ships from both sides postured to gain an advantage against one another. Navies of this period were used to ferry troops and supplies and prevented enemies from delivering them through blockades and skirmishes.

By 1759, the Royal Navy finally gained the upper hand when they achieved naval supremacy against France at the Battle of Quiberon Bay. This not only prevented the French from landing troops in Scotland, but the French Navy was no longer able to effectively supply their colonial troops. The British Army also celebrated their "Year of Miracles" with a decisive victory at Quebec. Britain would eventually defeat the French in America and India as well as in continental Europe with the aid of their Prussian allies. France's economic and military power was diminished, at least for the moment.

 Battle of Quiberon from National Maritime Museum

Their victories further established the reputation of the Royal Navy as the most powerful navy in the world. With their extensive trade routes throughout the world, Great Britain would also emerge as arguably the wealthiest nation of the time. This is what the Thriteen Colonies would have to face as well when making their bid for independence: fleets of oak and sail delivering British Redcoats to secure their colonies and maintain the King's rule.

 

Heart of Oak inspired by the victory at Quiberon Bay.

   

A History of the US Navy: Introduction

 U.S.S. Independence

The American Colonies had a dilemma when they attempted to gain independence from the British. In addition to having only a group of ill-trained militia to call an army, they had practically no navy that could deal with Great Britain’s Royal Navy. The Continental Navy would rise from a mix of converted merchantmen and determined sailors to morph into the United States Navy and Marine Corps.

After reading the Osprey Publishing book: The Wars of the Barbary Pirates, I wanted to learn more about the U.S. Navy's beginnings. What began as a blog or two about events during the War of the Barbary Pirates is turning into a major blog project that will consist of a series of posts on the U.S. Navy's history from its beginnings to 1815. In particular, I will highlight some events that seem to have been glossed over when I was taught history in school. We all know about John Paul Jones and Stephen Decatur, but what of Edward Premble and William Bainbridge? Why did Congress, who was fearful of standing armies, approve a standing navy? And what were America's relations with the major European powers at this time? These had just as much influence on the U.S. Navy's beginnings though they are not as well documented. This project will endeavor to shed light on these and other people and events.

Midway Part 2 of 2

 The documentary gets really interesting at this point. It shows how all military plans never survive contact with the enemy. And how the two commanders react to the changing battle landscape. Admiral Nagumo did not have the necessary scouting assets that Fletcher had. Most of the Japanese scout planes were attached to the distant reserve fleet of battleships and support vessels, well out of range to assist Nagumo's carriers. The few scouts he had did a very poor job of spotting the American carriers until Nagumo had already committed his planes for a bombing run of Midway. He assumed the Americans' torpedo run was all his enemy had to counter. When a report came of an American carrier within striking distance, things went downhill fast for the Japanese.

Though the torpedo attack missed its mark, it did delay Nagumo's attack. Forced to deal with the American carriers, the Japanese plan is thrown into disarray. The Japanese commanders had suffered from an all too common ailment: Victory Disease. After nearly destroying the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, Japanese commanders were overconfident. It was assumed the American carriers would respond within a day or two of the attack, not be there now. The Japanese fleet was too widely scattered to support the carriers, ignoring Captain Mahan's rule of concentration of force mentioned in his influential book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. Three out of Japan's four carriers, including Nagumo's flagship Akagi, were lost. Half of the core of Japan's navy had been wiped out, losses the Japanese would never recover.

 Akagi sinking, From Model Building Log site

 

  Yorktown sinking from Battle of Midway site

The Japanese plan flounders into a series of desperate strikes to no avail. Even the sinking of Yorktown did not allow the Japanese to recover from their litany of tactical and strategic mistakes. The Aleutian Island diversion fails. Unable to adapt to unexpected situations and underestimating America's ability to pull victory from near defeat, Midway ended Japan's invincibility. Fletcher's flagship had been sunk. But Japan lost its sea supremacy. The carriers were the ultimate power projectors of the war. From this point on, Japan would be thrown into the defensive. Unwilling to commit his expensive battleship, Admiral Yamamoto can only wait for Americans to chip off Japan's empire one island at a time. Three more years of hard fighting and two terrible weapons ended the War in the Pacific.

  Japan surrenders; from Navy Historical site

Midway Part 1 of 2

The Military Channel recently showed this documentary series: Generals at War. This episode about the battle of Midway intrigued me, though it had some shortcomings. Instead of spouting off details after details of the whole battle, I'd like to address some key points of this documentary, especially the few parts I felt should have been addressed.

 Akagi from Wikipedia search

It focused on the main attack by Japanese Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, commanding four carriers: his flagship Akagi (pictured), Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu. Commander of the Japanese Navy, Admiral Yamamoto, devised a rather complex plan involving a diversionary attack against the Aleutian Islands at Alaska. The main force of carriers would neutralize Midway's defenses. Then the remaining US carriers, which avoided the attack on Pearl Harbor, would steam out and be destroyed by the fleet's battleships located some distance away.

 from Nauticos site. The bold red line shows Nagumo's force. The other two are the diversionary attack against Alaska and the amphibious assault force (the red arrow south of the bold arrow) that was to take Midway after the carrier's planes had softened the island's defenses.

Yamamoto dispersed his forces to elude detection. The plan's success hinged on Nagumo's attack succeeding. The details of the plan were glossed over in the documentary.

 

Nagumo's opponent, Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, was given the unenviable task of stopping the Japanese attack. With Task Force 17 centered around three carriers along with supporting ships (which was never mentioned in the documentary), these are the only ships available to stop any attack. The question was where would they attack. It was up to Commander Joseph J. Rochefort  (pictured below) whose team was attempting to break Japanese radio codes.

 from WW2 history site

 

He comes up with a plan to trick the Japanese into revealing their target. Here is where this showing of the documentary fails by cutting out the plan's details. Thankfully it was shown in the Military Channel presentation. Rochefort had all Pacific stations transmit in the clear a different maintenance request. In the case of Midway, which the Japanese designated "AF", they "reported" their water desalination plants were malfunctioning. Rochefort then intercepted and decoded a Japanese transmission stating AF's water desalination plants were broken. The trap was sprung. This brilliant move by an unassuming mathematician helped to win the battle and quite possibly the war. If it wasn't for Rochfort's efforts, Midway might had fallen. The part of the different damage control procedures was cut in favor of showing Rochefort's trap in the Military Channel version.

We'll be back with Part Two after these messages from our sponsors...

Civil War Ironclads

Two warships dueled in Hampton Roads off the coast of Virginia on March 9, 1862.

One was the Confederate frigate CSS Virginia (formerly Merrimack), an older steam-powered ship with its hull fortified with iron plates. This made the ship invulnerable to most naval weapons of the time. The previous day, she soundly defeated Union warships Congress and Cumberland, older vessels which still used sails.

Virginia returned in the morning to finish her work when the second player in this drama arrived, USS Monitor. Monitor was an iron armored ship as well, but she was newly built with one major innovation Virginia did not have. Monitor's two guns were mounted on a revolving turret, while most of Virginia's ten guns were mounted along the sides.

 CSS Virginia (left) exchanges fire with Monitor.

The two pounded each other but despite some damage, the battle was a draw. Neither ship could penetrate their opponent's iron-plated armor. Yet, the tactical advantages of Monitor's turret was noticed by naval officers and designers from around the world. The ship merely needed to rotate all of her guns and not reposition the entire ship to attack. Virginia could deliver broadsides with at most half her guns but she had to maneuver the ship to get a clean shot.

This battle not only marked the first engagement between iron-armored warships but the beginning of modern warships with turreted weapons, steam-powered, and armor plating.

 HMS Dreadnought

Photos from Naval History and Heritage site

 

U.S.S. Maine

A terrible explosion rocked Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898. The American pre-dreadnought battleship, U.S.S. Maine, which arrived on January 25 to protect Americans during Cuba's revolt against their Spanish leaders, was destoyed killing 260 crewmen. After a four-week investigation, a naval panel concluded a mine was the most probable cause but did not directly point the blame at Spain. Most Americans however thought Spain was indeed responsible.

 U.S.S. Maine from U.S. Navy site

Even before U.S.S. Maine was destroyed, American "yellow" journalists as well as Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt (who was anxious to test the modernized American Navy in a war) instantly assumed Spain was responsible as did the general public. President McKinley reluctantly prepared for war as did Spain when diplomatic efforts failed. The result was The Spanish-American War, an unnecessary conflict that propelled America to the ranks of a world power.

Spain's power was already in decline. Many American war hawks wanted to further expand America's influence and saw this as an opportunity beyond the West Coast. The U.S. Navy would be the instrument for America's new colonial enterprise. By the war's end, Cuba and the Philippines were in American hands, paving the way to occupy other islands in the Pacific. This began a chain of events that would lead to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The 1898 investigation panel lacked the proper technology to assess the exact reason for the Maine's destruction. Some questioned the findings that a mine detonated the ship's magazine. In 1976, a new investigation was conducted. New evidence found the damage was inconsistent with a mine explosion; the most probable cause was that the ship's boiler combusted. A 1998 investigation disputed this finding but also did not fully prove a mine was involved.

Tapping My Inner Fisher

While on EvE Online today, I refitted my Myrmidon-class battlecruiser with advanced weapons: tech 2 artillery cannons.

 

Obviously, my brain thought of Admiral Fisher and his ideas of battlecruisers. During the dreadnought race, they were designed with battleship armaments but traded armor protection for speed. They were meant to combat cruisers and engage in fast raids but not meant to engage battleships. British battlecruisers in particular suffered from a lack of armor particularly on the top deck where the ship's magazines could be detonated with one shot from plunging fire.

 HMS Repulse from U-boat website. This ship was refitted with better top deck armor following the Battle of Jutland.

 In EvE, battlecruisers are in the class of medium ships like cruisers, not large ships like battleships. So these ships are in fact heavy cruisers. They are effective against other cruisers but would be hard-pressed against battleships unless in a large group.

I always preferred flying battlecruisers in EvE. Good combat power at a reasonable cost. And because of my intrest in WW 1 naval history, I tend to name my ships after those of the period. That Myrmidon above I named Repulse.

 And this is Von Der Tann, named after a German WW1 battlecruiser.

 

The Battle of Jutland

Though I tend to focus on land battles, I have a fascination with naval history particularly World War One. Today marks the anniversary of the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval engagement of the war if not in history. I don't know what draws me to it. Maybe it's because I play starship combat rules that allows you to construct ships of many sci-fi genres, or even make-up your own. But anyway...

This is a brief description of the battle from a World War One history site: http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/jutland.htm

I have a series of boardgames that deal with the Great War at Sea from Avalanche Press, and sometimes would dust them off just to look through them. http://www.avalanchepress.com/line_GWAS.php

One thing I found interesting was that these great dreadnoughts, the most advanced weapons of the day, were quickly demoted to supporting roles (heavy escort and shore bombardment) for fleets based around carriers in the next great war. Ah, the march of wartime technology.

Recommended reading:

Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought (1991) and Castles of Steel (2003) as well as Paul G. Halpern's A Naval History of World War I (1994).

Computer gaming and my history interests...

Whenever I play EvE, I look at the various ships and my mind sometimes wonders to naval history. In particular, my battlecruiser I posted a short time back. Battlecruisers in EvE are more like heavy cruisers than mini battleships in that they use medium instead of large weapons and modules.

So I was thinking of WW 1 naval warfare and the battlecruisers of the day: large fast ships with the hitting power of dreadnoughts. Yet their firepower and speed came at the cost of armor protection. Their function was to take out screening cruisers to leave the dreadnoughts free to battle the enemies own dreadnoughts. Admirals nevertheless placed battlecruisers at the line-of-battle with catastrophic results.

Sometimes, I just think of this while playing. Keeps the mind active. :)