Affentitten

I think Kill Bill was probably a more entertaining Uma Thurman take on marriage, motherhood, work and self.

The scale of WW2 and the USN is brought home to me by the fact that there were four ships built just for distilling water. Wiki article is interesting for the fact that the fate of the Passig is 'unknown'.

So what happened Kettles? How did you come to lose your library? Or is that just a temporary thing?

I think I might have clicked on it too. But nothing happened. I had clicked on it after the site here was unavailable, thinking that something had changed in the URL. So I can run a scan, is the dodgy filename as per the title of this thread ?

It is actually a Bren tripod.

Ships (or boats!) are mostly hollow though. An Arleigh Bourke is about 8,500 tons at full load and I dare say Cole was stripped back even more. Not a big load considering even a modest container ship will pull about 40,000 DWT and a large one 100,000+ tons.

Well it's probably the same thing, since anything with three or more masts is unlikely to be portable by any other contemporary vessel! I have since found other definitions as well. It seems few can agree because there is also mention of number of weather decks etc. I guess to a Jack Tar of suitable experience in 1805 there was no need to define the difference. A quick glance would be enough to ascertain whether something would be a ship or a boat!

Why subs are called boats!

We were talking about the late 18th, early 19th century, so that;s the relevant definition.

The RN definition is that a 'boat' is any vessel capable of being carried aboard another vessel. If it's too big for someone else to carry aboard, it's a ship. Hence the modern day reckoning of submarines as boats (which is something of an anachronism given the size of subs today.) The 'rating' system was for ships of the line (ie. those capable of being deployed in a line of battle) and had more to do with number of guns and gunnery decks.

Yachts were naval vessels before they were pleasure craft. Yacht history

Boats, son. Most of them would have been boats, not ships. Emrys: A RN first rate would have over 800 sould aboard. But the relative rarity of the first rate can't be overstated. Most squadrons would have been mainly comprised of third rates and below.

But plenty of those would have been mere yachts / sloops / schooners /barges etc.

Well 13 knots is a bit of a risk. OTOH the big troop ships like the RMS Queen Mary always sailed independently with impunity because they were capable of 25+ knots.

Ditto for me. But I think that was the thesis of the paper: that harking back to WW1 and the convoy system was a less effective reaction in WW2.

Yes, and again much better achieved with proper AA assets than with a light support weapon on some back shed tripod! I recall seeing a paper (or a book?) some years ago saying that the convoy system was no great success in WW2. This was based on the rate of sinkings before and after it was utilised and there was no great difference. Because obviously U-boats trying to find a single boat moving at its maximum speed was far less efficient than finding a gaggle of boats moving at the speed of the slowest member. Wish I knew where I had seen it.

And it had dawned on them the sheer futility of trying to pick off an Me109 with a static Bren gun!

Well if we weren't, there are a couple of long term members who wouldn't be so accepted here.

Well there are two families at my daughter's school where they have "two mummies".

I had a friend years ago who suffered from the "looks gay" thing. He would always be approached and was decidedly straight. He ended up with this terrible paranoia about going itno public toilets! Then there was the guy at school who everybody thought was gay from the time he was about 11. And he was.

And of course the opposite side of the coin is.....?

I have seen a Bren AA tripod here in a museum that allows the use of Lee Enfields to replace one or more of the legs, locked in via the bayonet fittings. I guess that would save weight if your team mates are carrying the rifles anyway.

I wonder if anyone asked the kids at the school? They were probably totally cool with it. It's all the panty-waist parents that would have been up in arms and blubbing about WWJD.