Subject:
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Re: John E. Doolittle
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.pirates
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Date:
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Tue, 1 Feb 2000 05:50:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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4039 times
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Dave Schuler wrote:
> In lugnet.pirates, Lance Scott writes:
> > The Ideal Tactic in the Wooden Ships Age was to 'Cross the T' with the enemy.
> > That means to sail your broadside across the bow or stern of the opponent. He
> > could not bring his broadside to bear whilst you let him have a full volley.
>
> I think I read or saw somewhere that this same tactic was used in WWII
> (Battle of Midway, maybe?).
Ack, no. The only side with battleships at Midway was Japanese, and they never
took any part of the battle (they were part of the "invasion force"). It was a
purely carrier-driven action (with bits of submarineness about).
You may be thinking of the 1944 Battle of the Suraigo Strait, which was the last
battleship action ever fought--six US battleships and attendant destroyers crossed
the "T" of two Japanese vessels at night, with predictable results. However,
crossing the "T" was the favoured goal of all naval commanders until that war; the
Grand Fleet managed this feat not once but twice at Jutland, and the Germans merely
turned away (another tactic that would have been pure chaos in the age of sail, but
one that proved highly effective here).
> It's cool (insofar as war is cool) that such
> venerable methods still see use in more modern times.
You might want to pick up a book that I first read in 1994 (and actually just
bought my own copy of this week), Robert O'Connell's _Sacred Vessels: The Cult of
the Battleship and the Rise of the US Navy_. He talks about "naval tradition"
inertia and why the battleship and its associated tactics were maintained long
after the actual weapon was really outmoded by three-dimensional warfare, starting
with torpedo boats around 1900 and carrying through to submarines and guided
missiles. The most striking point he makes--and a valid one--is that modern
battleships have almost never actually managed to sink one another by gunfire
alone. If you remove the "accelerated" cases like the British battlecruisers, then
I don't think there's a single case. It's always been torpedoes or aerial bombs
(or in the case of _Roma_, an early guided missile) to deliver the coup de grace.
best,
Lindsay
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: John E. Doolittle
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| (...) Thanks for the clarification! Elsewhere Bruce was able to de-fog my mind on the subject, as well. I've so much to learn! (...) Hmm. I wish I could remember where I first heard about this, because my recollection seems to resemble the battle (...) (25 years ago, 1-Feb-00, to lugnet.pirates)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: John E. Doolittle
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| (...) I think I read or saw somewhere that this same tactic was used in WWII (Battle of Midway, maybe?). It's cool (insofar as war is cool) that such venerable methods still see use in more modern times. Dave! (25 years ago, 28-Jan-00, to lugnet.pirates)
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