Re: USN War Games - Fleet Exercises

On Sun, 04 Jun 2006 12:43:17 -0400, Rich Rostrom
<rrostrom.21stcentury@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Brad Meyer <bradm110@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

AC >>Germany was a nation with a long maritime tradition . . .

??!!??!!!??

The High Seas Fleet...The German liners of the 1930s?
The U-boat fleet of WW2? The largest civilian merchant
port in Europe? Renowned maritime engineering technology?
Did all these miss your consciousness?

No. Do you think that going all the way back a full 50 years
constitutes a _long_ maritime tradition compared with 400+ years of
British maritme tradition or 150 years of American or at leat a
thousand years of Japanese? At the best, German maritime tradition
could not have extended back more the 70 years in 1940 because Germany
was only 70 years old in 1940. Heck, the Americans and Brits both have
warships that are older then Germany.

This is wilful misconstruction.

In the first place, "maritime" != "naval".

In the context of this thread it most certainly does. We are
discussing the ability of the KM surface forces to do various tasks.
You appear to be supporting the position that because they have a
history of sailing merchantmen that they will have the expertise
required to conduct naval ops. I sya nonesense. You seem to claim that
they would get the incredibly difficult art of combined arms and
opposed amphibious assult close enough to right the first time out to
be able to succeed. Again, I say nonesense. You claim Germany has a
long maritme tradition and I say they don't have a long _anything_ if
they are only 130 odd years old today.

German ships and sailors have been putting
to sea since the Middle Ages.

No, German ships and sailors have been putting out to sea since 1870.
Before that Prussian, and Hanoverian, and Hanseatic and who knows what
else was putting to sea. If I understand you right, you are claiming
this hodge-podge of traditions from this hodge-podge of States, Free
Cities, Pricipalities and such constitute a unified German tradition.
If so, I think the notion nonesense.

It should be noted that the difficulties of
building and operating amphibious craft are
mainly issues of seamanship, not combat.

It ashold be noted that you have no idea of which you speak to post
such nonesense. A good _trained_ assult boat coxswain is a must of
course, but that at best just gets the boat to the beach.

Nazi Germany did in fact build _and_ operate
thousands of shallow draft barges and ferries
for operations in the Baltic littoral.

That is interesting, but really immaterial unless they used them to
make opposed amphibious assults against heavily defended shores. At
one point the Germans built a hot fighter that they designated as a
carrier a/c. That designation, however, does not mean it could in fact
operate from a carrier and more then the building ond operating of
"thousands of shallow draft barges and ferries" make them suitable for
an opposed amphibious assult. One wonders, for instance, how many of
the "thousands" were self retracting? How much training had gone into
retracting from the beach? What was their beachmaster organization
like? What provisions had they for clearing a beach of wrecked/damaged
l/c so that others could land? Etc., etc., etc. All that expertise and
specalized equipment doesn't just fall like manna from heaven.

Second, while "Germany" as a political entity
may only date back to 1870, Germany as a
geographical region dates back to the Middle
Ages, and includes a large swath of coastal
territory.

Indeed, but "geographical regions" don't send ships and sailors to
sea, political entities do, and there was no _german_ political entity
before 1870, just a mismash of lesser entities, principalities, cites,
small states, kingdoms, leagues, and such that were more often in
conflict with one and other then engaged in common effort or culture.
Not everyone who speaks english is an englishman, either, and all
english speakers don't share a common tradition about anything save
perhaps language.

"Italy" as a political entity only dates back
to 1860 - but Italian maritime traditions go
far before that. One can hardly say that the
histories of Venice and Genoa don't apply.

I would disagree, and point out Italy's history as an example of what
happens when a nation state is formed out of such a divergent spread
of traditions and backgrounds.

Third, the memory of Lord Nelson and a history
of doing battle with muzzle-loading guns might
be inspiring, but it wouldn't provide much
expertise applicable to the design and handling
of landing craft.

Again I must disagree. If nothing else, those traditions show the
amount of "sweat equity" must go into such a thing before something
good comes out the other end. The RN of Nelson's time probably led the
world in terms of understanding organizational issues and the
developmental problems that plague any project. There was probably no
larger regularly maintained organization in the world at that point in
time. All problems re amphib assult except for the narrowly technical
ones were the same sorts of problems that the RN had already been
dealing with for a century _before_ Nelson. How does one organize such
an assult? Who is in command and when. How are the forces ashore to be
supplied? What maintenance establishment is going to be required for
the assult craft and how is it to be organized? What about a GFS
organization? How does it communicate with the GFS platforms?

These are all issues that the RN has been wrestling with since before
Nelson lost his eye. The USMC's primary task for 20 years was to
develop an amphibious doctrine along with the equipment and training
to impliment it. The Germans do not seem to have given the problem
more then a passing glance before 1940.

In view of Germany's long-established ability
to build high-quality vessels of all sizes and
types . . .

How many supertankers did they build back then? You say there were no
such things back then. Agreed. I say that to the Germans, there were
no such things as l/c suitable for an opposed invasion because they
simply had no idea what the requirements were.

.

Relevant Pages

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