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Post by yanmacca on Feb 12, 2017 20:14:55 GMT
I came across a story about how the Italian navy claimed their battleships were faster than the British vessels, apparently they exaggerated the speed purely for propaganda purposes. When they ran speed trials they used to push the battleships to their absolute maximum speed, which strained the engines so bad that they had to repair them, but their speed was recorded during these damaging bursts and after these trials they submitted this speed as being their top speed, which would be no good in battle because the engines would pack up.
In 1939 the British Mediterranean fleet contained three battleships, HMS Warspite, Barham and Malaya. The Italians had six in Giulio Cesare, Conte di Cavour, Andrea Doria, Caio Duilio, Littorio Italia and Vittorio Veneto.
The Italians never managed to do what they said they would and sweep the Royal Navy out of the Med, but they rarely put them out to sea and kept them in harbour.
Admiral Cunningham did manage to get them to come and fight and there was a major engagement at the battle of Cape Matapan which was a British Victory.
The Italian Navy were not as good as the British at night fighting, the Royal Navy practiced night fighting during the pre-war period and had better fire control systems and radar which gave them better accuracy.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Feb 13, 2017 0:47:22 GMT
Ian It is a shame the British did not share with the American's their night fighting skills and firec control systems. Did y'all have as good night optics as did the Japanese Navy? Regards Dave
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 13, 2017 11:11:07 GMT
Dave, I think that there was little between the British and Japanese in gunnery terms, we did train them to our standards after the 1905 was with Russia. Both the British and the Japanese trained in night fighting, apparently the Japanese had really good flashless gun powder which I expect would be very useful in night engagements.
We had better fire control radar, the US Navy too had excellent radar, but the Japanese had the Long Lance torpedo, which was the best torpedo used in WW2.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 13, 2017 16:32:59 GMT
Ian: We did the same thing regarding top speed of ships, and most everyone else did as well.
The U S Navy had a speed course set up off of Rockland, Maine, where the speed of new ships was checked and recorded. The Atlanta Class had a reported speed of 40 knots for instance, and you found that, and still find it in the literature. Reality was that the actual combat speed was in the 34-35 knot range. Same with the Fletchers and practically all of the combatants post 1940 ships, 33-35 knots were the speeds that could be counted on during fleet service. How long it had been since any given ship was in dry dock (to have their bottom cleaned) was the determining factor for speed regardless of rated speed. If a ship had not been high and dry for a year, its speed would be expected to depreciate quite a bit.
Captain Hara mentions in his book that Shigure (where he flew his flag as a destroyer division commander) could barely make 28 knots and she was rated at 34. Her bottom had not been cleaned since before Pearl Harbor and he reported this mid 1943.
With battleships in the U S Navy it became apparent even before the war that those in existence were completely obsolete as all around war fighting platforms. Although there was all the traditional rhetoric of battle line vs battle line, most naval strategists here looked at the new battleships being built as nothing more than anti-air and support platforms for the carriers, and the speed we built into them was "keep up with the carriers speed". The deliberations around the design of North Carolina Class show this very clearly.
The problem with the U S Navy in 1942, particularly with commanders of surface combatants (particularly cruisers) is the these officers themselves were not battle ready. We understood how to fight at night. Our officers did not understand how to command in war. None of them. They were brought up in a atmosphere where ---- you dare not risk, you dare not make a mistake, flub and your career was over, it is better to do nothing than risk doing the wrong thing. Hammel goes into this in depth in "Guadalcanal - Decision at Sea". So despite what you have heard about the IJN being so go at this or that, and they were real good at some things, It was the command atmosphere of the U S Navy between 1920 and 1942 that caused those tactical defeats in the first year of the war, more than anything the Japanese did.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 13, 2017 16:49:16 GMT
Chuck, I watched an old movie yesterday called "the gift horse", it was about the 50 four pipers the USN gave the RN in the dark days of WW2, it had a great cast with young up coming actors like Trevor Howard and John Mills and ended with a battle scene disciplining the St Nazaire raid. It was not bad at all.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 13, 2017 17:00:21 GMT
There is nothing better looking in my estimation than a four piper in her between the wars standard Navy Gray paint job, unless it is a Fletcher, Sumner, or Gearing in the 1950's before FRAM.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 13, 2017 17:07:08 GMT
Did we give the US some of our bases as payment?
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 13, 2017 17:26:37 GMT
Chuck, I wouldn't like to paint this in any scale;
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Post by quincannon on Feb 13, 2017 17:29:15 GMT
No, not give. They were leased to us, somewhat along the lines of renting a house.
Some of those fifty went to Canada. Many like Buchanan which became Cambelltown came to the RN direct from being transferred active Navy units. The rest were hauled out of mothballs given a brief refit and turned over to the RN. Most came from the reserve fleet in the back basin of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The ones that were in active service at the time of transfer I understand were a little more reliable because of their maintenance upkeep than the ones hauled out of reserve.
By 1940 all of them were clunkers, and really not fit for any fleet work. About the best they could do was escort work for convoys, and in more minor roles as minesweepers, mine layers, fast transports (they when converted to do that could carry light cargo or a company of Marines) and seaplane tenders. There were a few used as one of's in U S service, one being a water barge. Very late in the war a few were used at the sonar school in Key West, Florida for training.
We got our monies worth out of them, and evidently you did to.
Alden's book "Flush Decks and Four Pipes" is the definitive work on the subject
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Post by quincannon on Feb 13, 2017 17:30:34 GMT
I know of a guy in Israel who did just that ship, that way in 1/1250 scale and it looked great.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 13, 2017 17:38:40 GMT
I guess you are familiar with this site; link
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 13, 2017 17:47:25 GMT
Pretty basic colours for HMS Repulse, though I read that the British liked using white on their ships in the far east, they used to paint the funnels a buff colour.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 13, 2017 20:04:05 GMT
I am familiar with it and have corresponded with the with both Snyder and Short. It is very good for reference, but it does have several gaping holes in their camouflage tables. Also, particularly for destroyers and cruisers, one of the measures that is light over dark could either be done late in the war with Navy Gray or Navy Blue for the dark color, with Haze Gray for the light. It seems that the U S Navy was running short of blue pigment in 1945 so the two darker colors were interchangeable. Problem is you can't tell one from the other in photos.
We had a lab during the war located in the Anacostia Annex across the Anacostia River from the Washington Navy Yard/Naval Gun Factory that developed all these camouflage schemes for USN ships.
Repulse is actually in a very pale gray, not in white as it looks to be.
The white an buff schemes for the RN on the Far East Station went away just before WWII. Same scheme was used for ships operating in Jamaica and Bermuda pre war. Those were the days before air conditioning where white would reflect the heat, while the normal dark colors, grays etc. would absorb it. White and Buff makes a very handsome presentation on both the real ship and any model.
The Prince of Wales and Repulse both had camouflage schemes meant to disrupt as anti-submarine measures at the time of their loss which was a few days after that depicted in the painting you posted.. The best we had for anti-air confusion was an overall Navy Blue, or Navy Gray and most of our fleet transitioned into that as we came closer to Japan.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 14, 2017 13:53:20 GMT
I used you be confused when Dark Cloud you to say that Royal Navy ships were ugly, when HMS Repulse was an old ship having been launched in 1916 and I must say she looks great in the painting.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Feb 14, 2017 16:12:28 GMT
Ian Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say and HMS Hood was the most beautiful man of war ever to sail the seas. Regards Dave
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