When good navies go bad.....

[Stalins Organ]

An obituary for Vice Admiral Sir Louis Le Bailly has shown an unfortunate side of the RN before and during WW2 - it seems basic engineering was neglected by the RN between the wars, to the extent that when the RN tried to operate with the USN in the Pacific in WW2, the RN was only keeping ships at sea for 8 days at a time vs the USN's 90 days.

There are other examples of the RN paying more attention to spit and polish than grease, metallurgy and design fundamentals in the article - well worth a read.

[Affentitten]

I hadn't realised things were that bad. But the idea of lower deckers fighting a vain battle against the established order of things is certainly not unbelievable. The Pacific would certainly have been a hard AO for the RN given their historical tendency to steam back to port after a couple of days work off the European coast somewhere.

[Michael Emrys]

...given their historical tendency to steam back to port after a couple of days work off the European coast somewhere.

True enough. I think all European navies were designed and built with the smaller sea areas in mind, the North Sea and Mediterranean Sea for instance. The RN's cruisers may have had more endurance, though I don't have specific information about that. But really, only the IJN and USN were designed with the vast distances of the Pacific in mind.

Michael

[Affentitten]

Well of course the RN was more concerned with the Indian Ocean and the protection of the trade routes around the Asian littoral. Plus their WW1 experience was largely more of a defensive / blocking / checkmating role, again fairly close to home. Apart from the odd chase of a commerce raider in the Indian Ocean or round South America. It's no surprise that things like battle readiness played second fiddle to pink gin tea parties in the wardroom.

[Michael Emrys]

It's no surprise that things like battle readiness played second fiddle to pink gin tea parties in the wardroom.

That was clearly a problem in pretty much all the Allied (and to-be Allied) services prior to the outbreak of hostilities and even well into the war. The USAAF was caught napping at both Hawaii and the Philippines, a fact that still makes one bang one's head. It took a while to shift into a true combat mentality and not everybody made the transition.

Michael

[Noltyboy]

An obituary for Vice Admiral Sir Louis Le Bailly has shown an unfortunate side of the RN before and during WW2 - it seems basic engineering was neglected by the RN between the wars, to the extent that when the RN tried to operate with the USN in the Pacific in WW2, the RN was only keeping ships at sea for 8 days at a time vs the USN's 90 days.

There are other examples of the RN paying more attention to spit and polish than grease, metallurgy and design fundamentals in the article - well worth a read.

I think this is very unfair on the RN. GB and the RN were the leader's in engineering from the 1850's till near 1920. After this there was a major problem with "resting on ones laurels" coupled with a major problem of shipyards that were against change. Throughout the depression and recovery little money was put into UK ship building practices and yards, there wasnt any. When war loomed in the late 1930's there was no time, money, space or spare capacity to upgrade these facilities that had gone unchanged for 40 to 50 years. Fighting for national survival makes it difficult to modernise. The USA on the other hand when war came was able to set brand new open shipyards with all the latest tools.

The the UK had been able to rely on a network of bases around the world and had no reason to operate in the open Pacific untill 1945. Most of the problems involved the lack of a proper fleet train. After being forced back from Singapore to the Indian Ocean there was no spare ships to do more than hold the line. This being the time of the battle of the Atlantic and so on. When the fight was to be taken to the Pacific in 1945 a large number of fleet support vessels were commision but mostly didnt complete untill after the surrender of Japan. But i do believe that the "8 to 90" figure is wrong.

Otherwise its a pity that he has passed on i am wanting to read his published works.

[Erik Springelkamp]

That was clearly a problem in pretty much all the Allied (and to-be Allied) services prior to the outbreak of hostilities and even well into the war. The USAAF was caught napping at both Hawaii and the Philippines, a fact that still makes one bang one's head. It took a while to shift into a true combat mentality and not everybody made the transition.

Michael

Sorry to bring up an old controversy:

Wasn't the Pearl Harbour surprise attack exactly what the US needed politically to enter WWII in full gear?

Would the US population have been so determined to fight without this event?

Without being a conspiracy theorist myself, I can still believe that some people may have willingly allowed this to happen. It would have been very rational, though inhumane at the same time.

[Michael Emrys]

Sorry to bring up an old controversy:

And for my part, I rather wish you hadn't. But since you did...

Wasn't the Pearl Harbour surprise attack exactly what the US needed politically to enter WWII in full gear?

Not really. Certainly not the full scale disasters that occurred. Merely a Japanese attack on our territories which were repelled successfully albeit at some cost would have sufficed to get an immediate declaration of war. It's more than plausible that even without a Japanese attack, the US would have been at war against Germany in another six months anyway.

Would the US population have been so determined to fight without this event?

Perhaps not, but willing enough. Public opinion had shifted from strongly isolationist to fairly strongly interventionist during the year just ending anyway. Roosevelt would have had his declaration as soon as the Army was ready to go to war.

Without being a conspiracy theorist myself, I can still believe that some people may have willingly allowed this to happen. It would have been very rational, though inhumane at the same time.

Some people might. From individual to individual in commanding positions within the Federal Government there were varying degrees of ruthlessness. But my reading of the mindset of the time is that even among some of the more ruthless individuals there were lines they were not willing to cross. That may not be so true any more; the world has become a more cynical place in the last 40 years. But the men and women who had dragged the country out of the Depression were of a more idealistic mold in general and the afterglow of that idealism was still apparent until the end of the 1960s.

And BTW, IMO it would have been even more rational to have not had the battleships of the Pacific Fleet sitting in the mud and to have put up a better fight for the Philippines. The loss of the latter was probably inevitable, but the fight could have dragged on for longer and thus slowed the march of Japanese conquests. The same might be said for Malaya and Singapore.

Michael

[Stalins Organ]

Noltyboy wrote:

I think this is very unfair on the RN. GB and the RN were the leader's in engineering from the 1850's till near 1920. After this there was a major problem with "resting on ones laurels" coupled with a major problem of shipyards that were against change. Throughout the depression and recovery little money was put into UK ship building practices and yards, there wasnt any.

If US WW1 vintage destroyers were so much better than RN ones then the problem predates any spending crisis, and the account of Hood's turret being unable to turn due to rust on the bearings is simlarly independant of the overall situation, while making the Dido's top heavy with low water & fuel is bad design - possibly due to cost constraints, but still bad design.

So no, I can't see how you can say it wasn't the RN's fault - these are things that shuold have been gotten right by one of the most experienced navies in the world at any time.

[Noltyboy]

Noltyboy wrote:

If US WW1 vintage destroyers were so much better than RN ones then the problem predates any spending crisis, and the account of Hood's turret being unable to turn due to rust on the bearings is simlarly independant of the overall situation, while making the Dido's top heavy with low water & fuel is bad design - possibly due to cost constraints, but still bad design.

So no, I can't see how you can say it wasn't the RN's fault - these are things that shuold have been gotten right by one of the most experienced navies in the world at any time.

I went and asked some others this and they said yes it was all true, while what id read showed there where problems i never realised it was that bad.. Appologies lads, i was slightly defensive as im hoping to join the RN soon as a Marine Engineering Officer. Thanks god things have changed.

[Affentitten]

Appologies lads, i was slightly defensive as im hoping to join the RN soon as a Marine Engineering Officer. Thanks god things have changed.

And in that role you can hopefully continue to make things change and keep the fleet fighting/moving/floating.

[Stalins Organ]

Fair enuf - and good luck!

[dieseltaylor]

Thanks for the link - an interesting thread. It is so similar to the story on tanks etc. But perhaps foremost the RN is seen through rose-tinted glasses.

The USN had its own share of problem designs but basic engineering they seem to get very right.

[Stalins Organ]

Yes the wiki page on the "Flush deck destroyers" given to the UK in the "Bases for destroyers" deal makes them out to be poor sea boats and very unmanouvreable!

So they may have had great steam pipes.....but it seems neither side of the ditch could get everything right!

[Michael Emrys]

Yeah, the four stackers were generally considered junk. They all needed rehabilitation and weren't of much use as convoy escorts in the North Atlantic even when running. Their use in the trade was chiefly symbolic. What really was of value to GB was having the US take over and in most cases improve all those bases. That took a load off the Brits shoulders, especially when Roosevelt declared the extension of the neutrality zone (or whatever it was called). That made it harder for the U-boats to operate over a large expanse of the Atlantic, although not the part that was the most heavily fought over.

Michael

[Merkin Muffley]

As an aside on the complexities of assessing ships' overall performance I have an amusing excerpt on the (US-built) Royal Navy Captain class/US Navy Buckley class destroyer-escorts/frigates/corvettes (destroyer-escorts in US parlance, frigates in British, but given corvette pendant numbers in RN usage). (Note these are 1942 vintage vessels, not the WWI flush-deck jobs).

The CO of HMS Duckworth wrote a comprehensive report:

"They are agreeably dry in most weather and after riding out a sharp North Atlantic gale I can report that there is small risk of weather damage. In fact the ships behave like corks. Rolling - since this report is being written at sea it is difficult to describe with reticence the nauseating movement of these vessels in the open sea [...] The violent 'lurching' is the principal controlling factor in in efficiency. As gun platforms these ships are satsfactory only under the most favourable weather.

Depth charge reloading is possible in a moderately heavy sea pounding the ship [...] Under average conditions however it must be an even bet whether the throwers lob their charges vertically upwards and on to the quarterdeck or immediately alongside the propellers [...] Limitations on speed and course to windward impose a severe limitation on depth charge attacks while the Hedgehog is inaccurate in a short head swell on account of the unpredictable roll and the resultant tilt."

To quantify this - before modification, in rough weather HMS Cooke (a Captain class vessel) had a roll of 56 degrees (from side to side) and a period of 7.5 seconds. I can't determine if the period is from one side to the other and back, or just from one side to the other. Anyway, the little Flower class corvettes (deemed quite lively and 'would roll on wet grass') would roll across 17 degrees in sea-state 5 in a period of 5 to 8.5 seconds.

[Michael Emrys]

The corvettes—I'm speaking of the British design here—had the reputation of being a very serviceable item. The largest complaints I think that could be lodged against them is that they were not fast (not so important if your job is to escort 6-10 knot convoys) and somewhat lightly armed (but again adequately so for the job envisioned for them).

As stated, the US DDEs were not terribly good, but again, adequate. Probably the worst thing about them is that they came too late to be really important in the Battle of the Atlantic. If they had been building in 1940 they might have done some good. As it is, I think most of them ended up in the Pacific in amphibious groups and escorting CVEs.

Michael

[Affentitten]

And probably like the Sherman tanks, they were not individually great, but the sheer weight of numbers and the "plenty more where that came from" status was a winner.

[Merkin Muffley]

By spring 1943 1,005 DEs had been ordered but only 563 were completed (the rest being cancelled)!

The RN received 78 Captain class frigates - all bar 10 arriving in 1943. Once the shipyards got up to speed, they were progressing from laid down to commissioned in 3-4 months.

Because they were Lend-Lease, most of these were returned by the RN to the USN after the war. Just in case they didn't have enough already.