Re: Which country has the largest navy in the world as of 2012

[a425couple]

"jonathan" <wr...@gmail.com> wrote in message...
> "10DannyRush" <10dan...@gmail.com> wrote in message...
>> Re: Which country has the largest navy in the world as of 2012
>
> The US Navy combat tonnage is greater than that
> of the next 13 largest navies ....combined.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy

I'm caused to remember Admiral Oldendorf's statement,
"Never give a sucker an even break"
(Yeah, yeah, I know he copied it from a W.C.Fields movie.)

But, on a somewhat serious vein, since the UK is very
dependant on open sea trade, do you, UK posters,
think you are pulling/funding your "fair share" ?
(Just asking, not judging!)

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Il 27/01/2013 19:24, a425couple ha scritto:

> I'm caused to remember Admiral Oldendorf's statement, "Never give a
> sucker an even break" (Yeah, yeah, I know he copied it from a W.C.Fields
> movie.)
> But, on a somewhat serious vein, since the UK is very dependant on open
> sea trade, do you, UK posters, think you are pulling/funding your "fair
> share" ? (Just asking, not judging!)

in what context Oldendorf give this statement ?

If wasn't for Taffy 3 (and Darter & Dace) *he* will have ended being the
unfortunate "sucker" (engaging The Behemoth plus Nagato, Kongo,
Kirishima, the surviving CAs &c. with near-empty magazines and empty TT...)

if a sucker was around ol'Jesse, definitively wasn't neither Nishimura &
Shima (having *accomplished* their mission) but Kurita (whose squandered
the sacrifice not only of Nishimura & Shima, but also of the last
shades of the KB...)

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[a425couple]

"dott.Piergiorgio" <chied...@ask.me> wrote in message...

> Il 27/01/2013 19:24, a425couple ha scritto:
>> I'm caused to remember Admiral Oldendorf's statement, "Never give a
>> sucker an even break" (Yeah, yeah, I know he copied it from a W.C.Fields
>> movie.)
>

> in what context Oldendorf give this statement ?

In the context of being a rather ruthless executioner
and doing what he was expected to do.

Either try:
http://books.google.com/books?id=CJjkIWfuGCkC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=Oldendorf+%22Never+give+a+sucker+an+even+break%22&source=bl&ots=CYaU9uEN32&sig=bIREt6kuRUDfbAUdZlC8fGkengI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nG4FUbn8CpCWjALZt4DQBg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Oldendorf%20%22Never%20give%20a%20sucker%20an%20even%20break%22&f=false
Or just go to Google, (or Google - books?) and plonk in below line:
Oldendorf "never give a sucker an even break"

Page 147 from "Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45"
By Max Hastings
IMHO very worthwhile reads, pages before & after.

> If wasn't for Taffy 3 (and Darter & Dace) *he* will have ended being the
> unfortunate "sucker" (engaging The Behemoth plus Nagato, Kongo, Kirishima,
> the surviving CAs &c. with near-empty magazines and empty TT...)

Ehhh, perhaps a difference of opinion there.
IMHO Oldendorf would not have been a "sucker".
He stuck to where he was supposed to be,
had a great plan, and great (but old) task force,
and executed it well.
IMHO any IJN fleet going against him & his
would have taken a real pasting.

(Reminds me of the old law enforcement & testimony
joke, that ends in the punchline,
"Kablam, Kablam, April Fool Mother Forkers!!" )

> if a sucker was around ol'Jesse, definitively wasn't neither Nishimura &
> Shima (having *accomplished* their mission) but Kurita (whose squandered
> the sacrifice not only of Nishimura & Shima, but also of the last shades
> of the KB...)

Well, I've a different view regards Admiral Shima
(what "mission did he "accomplish" !! ??).
From that cite, (page 146) demonstrating how behind the
current standards the IJN radar was, Adm. Shima had his
ships launch torpedoes, that failed to sink the islands
they were aimed at!! (imagine that!)
And Shima's message to his naval HQ of
"This force has concluded it's attack and is retiring
from the battle area to plan subsequent action"
is just so indicative of the Japanese delusional
WWII thinking, deception to save face, and
wait until the very small and battered remenants
of the fleet sail into port to allow seniors to do the math,
and realize how few options are really left.

As for Adm. Nishimura also, what mission did he
and his accomplish?
Do you figure he died by shell blast, or fire, or
did he live long enough to drown as his ship sank?

[jonathan]

"Dave" <da...@knowhere.com> wrote in message
news:s36bg85fm2o9nrrv6...@4ax.com...
>
> Britain did its share at the start of the last Century. USA doing it
> now. China (or India) doing it next.

What's next for China is to go the route of the Soviet Union.
China will become a half dozen or so new democracies, and
...our allies next.

But what if you combine US and Nato forces
against....China, or anyone else for that matter?

Democracy rules the Seas!


Jonathan


s

[Andrew Swallow]

On 29/01/2013 03:32, Fred J. McCall wrote:

> Whatever you're smoking, I think you may have had too much...
>

China has a long history of being a stay at home country, having a
powerful navy is unusual. The money is coming from export industries
which for obvious reasons are based near the coast.

Andrew Swallow

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Il 28/01/2013 19:08, a425couple ha scritto:

> Well, I've a different view regards Admiral Shima
> (what "mission did he "accomplish" !! ??).
> From that cite, (page 146) demonstrating how behind the
> current standards the IJN radar was, Adm. Shima had his
> ships launch torpedoes, that failed to sink the islands
> they were aimed at!! (imagine that!)
> And Shima's message to his naval HQ of
> "This force has concluded it's attack and is retiring
> from the battle area to plan subsequent action"
> is just so indicative of the Japanese delusional
> WWII thinking, deception to save face, and
> wait until the very small and battered remenants
> of the fleet sail into port to allow seniors to do the math,
> and realize how few options are really left.
>
> As for Adm. Nishimura also, what mission did he
> and his accomplish?
> Do you figure he died by shell blast, or fire, or
> did he live long enough to drown as his ship sank?

Both tied Oldendorf into Surigao & Landing aerea instead of galloping
north to protect the three Taffies and intercepting the main body, and
on top of it, largely emptied BB's magazines and DD's torpedo tubes.
Japanese lack of coordination led to the piecemeal commitment into the
Surigao strait, whose for once work in favour of IJN, because of the
consumption of shells and torpedoes and increased crew's tiring, and I
don't question the valour of Oldendorf's Last of Battlelines, but I'm
firmly of the opinion that if wasn't for the unique valour of Taffy 3's
DD & DE and the nervous collapse of Kurita caused by the weight of
stress, (he swimmed once, lose his best CruDiv by Darter & Dace
torpedoes, and on top of it, lose one of the Behemoths from air attack,
no wonders in this case) what can do Oldendorf realistically, if the IJN
main body has pressed on ? notice that his battlewagon was with
near-empty magazines and worn barrels, tired crews, and his DD has empty
TTs and also tired crews; and also he was tied with the protection of an
huge sitting duck (the gators and AKA/APA) and the reinforcement, albeit
fast, was too far away.. and I don't know if he was aware that only two
of his battlewagons can hope to damage the Behemoth, and only with AP
shells (now in reduced quantity)

Granted (with the 18" hindsight...) that the resilience to gunfire was
actually *increased* (aboard AZ the magazines was full, and I'm
confident that the opposite turrets can even still fire, in the worst
case, there will be enough time to abandon ship (cfr. RN Roma, albeit
was a full magazine explosion, italian cordite's was of *deflagrating*,
not *detonating* type (because of the unusual lenght of the barrel) (no,
I don't allow "what-ifs" about Iowa)) but Oldendorf's predicament if IJN
mainbody continues his charge toward her designated main target (the
Landing force's logistic train, all those sitting AKAs and APAs and
gators with the beans, bullets and black oil^W fuel, tanks don't have
boilers..) seems to me definitively into the "disperate" category...

[Keith W]

dott.Piergiorgio wrote:
> Il 28/01/2013 19:08, a425couple ha scritto:
>
>> Well, I've a different view regards Admiral Shima
>> (what "mission did he "accomplish" !! ??).
>> From that cite, (page 146) demonstrating how behind the
>> current standards the IJN radar was, Adm. Shima had his
>> ships launch torpedoes, that failed to sink the islands
>> they were aimed at!! (imagine that!)
>> And Shima's message to his naval HQ of
>> "This force has concluded it's attack and is retiring
>> from the battle area to plan subsequent action"
>> is just so indicative of the Japanese delusional
>> WWII thinking, deception to save face, and
>> wait until the very small and battered remenants
>> of the fleet sail into port to allow seniors to do the math,
>> and realize how few options are really left.
>>
>> As for Adm. Nishimura also, what mission did he
>> and his accomplish?
>> Do you figure he died by shell blast, or fire, or
>> did he live long enough to drown as his ship sank?
>
> Both tied Oldendorf into Surigao & Landing aerea instead of galloping
> north to protect the three Taffies and intercepting the main body, and
> on top of it, largely emptied BB's magazines and DD's torpedo tubes.

Actually only West Virginia had fired off a significant fraction
of her AP shells. California and Tennessee fired 63 and 59
shells respectively , Maryland fired 48, Mississippi fired 12
and Pennsylvania didnt fire at all.

> Japanese lack of coordination led to the piecemeal commitment into the
> Surigao strait, whose for once work in favour of IJN, because of the
> consumption of shells and torpedoes and increased crew's tiring, and I
> don't question the valour of Oldendorf's Last of Battlelines, but I'm
> firmly of the opinion that if wasn't for the unique valour of Taffy
> 3's DD & DE and the nervous collapse of Kurita caused by the weight of
> stress, (he swimmed once, lose his best CruDiv by Darter & Dace
> torpedoes, and on top of it, lose one of the Behemoths from air
> attack, no wonders in this case) what can do Oldendorf realistically,
> if the IJN main body has pressed on ? notice that his battlewagon was
> with near-empty magazines and worn barrels, tired crews, and his DD
> has empty TTs and also tired crews; and also he was tied with the
> protection of an huge sitting duck (the gators and AKA/APA) and the
> reinforcement, albeit fast, was too far away.. and I don't know if he
> was aware that only two of his battlewagons can hope to damage the
> Behemoth, and only with AP shells (now in reduced quantity)
>

The reality is he has 3 battleships with somewhat depleted
magazines and 3 with virtually full stocks. If Kurita gets to
the landing grounds he will be doing so with ships that are
already damaged and that have fired off far more of their
ammunition to little effect. The only Japanese BB that hit
anything other than an already crippled vessel seems to
have been the Kongo. The Yamato might as well have stayed
at home for what it achieved.

At the point Kuritas fleet was seen Oldendorf's battleship
force is only a couple of hours steaming from the invasion
fleet and had been ordered back there by 7.30 AM.
The pursuit of the remnants of the IJN southern force was
being carried out by a detached cruiser force not by the
slower BBs

Faced with 6 US Battleships spoiling for a fight that have
AP loads varying from 150 to 400 rounds per ship the
prospect for Kurita would not have been good given that
it had taken his force 2 hours to sink one CVE, one DE and
two DD's at a range of only 10,000 yards

Keith

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Il 29/01/2013 21:45, Keith W ha scritto:

>
> Actually only West Virginia had fired off a significant fraction
> of her AP shells. California and Tennessee fired 63 and 59
> shells respectively , Maryland fired 48, Mississippi fired 12
> and Pennsylvania didnt fire at all.

Against Yamato, the shells whose counts are the APs of WV and MD; the
14" AP are more useful againste the other three IJN BB...

> The reality is he has 3 battleships with somewhat depleted
> magazines and 3 with virtually full stocks. If Kurita gets to
> the landing grounds he will be doing so with ships that are
> already damaged and that have fired off far more of their
> ammunition to little effect. The only Japanese BB that hit
> anything other than an already crippled vessel seems to
> have been the Kongo. The Yamato might as well have stayed
> at home for what it achieved.
>
> At the point Kuritas fleet was seen Oldendorf's battleship
> force is only a couple of hours steaming from the invasion
> fleet and had been ordered back there by 7.30 AM.
> The pursuit of the remnants of the IJN southern force was
> being carried out by a detached cruiser force not by the
> slower BBs
>
> Faced with 6 US Battleships spoiling for a fight that have
> AP loads varying from 150 to 400 rounds per ship the
> prospect for Kurita would not have been good given that
> it had taken his force 2 hours to sink one CVE, one DE and
> two DD's at a range of only 10,000 yards

Generally a BB's magazine is around 100 rounds per gun, and the reason
for the abysmal FC of the Kurita's mainbody seems that was never fully
explained, I remain convinced that against Yamato the only rounds
capable of doing actual work are the 16" AP (and the few torpedoes still
in the DD' tubes) This should allow Oldendorf to do a delay work, but
either Halsey manages to grasp the picture (and lucidity) or IJN ends
his wastage of shells and Long Lances (but the latter has the bad
tendency of actually finding their mark, often unnoticed...) or
otherwise finding a reason for calling the day