Ever hear this one before???
BobMac
tv discovering that they're 50 years old, and they're
rebroadcasting all kinds of stuff...
One thing that cropped up was a 60 year old (to the
day!) radio play, produced as a propaganda effort in
partnership with the RCN. It was two guys arguing over
the validity of the convoy system.
IN 1942! NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY GAWD-HELP-US TWO,
and they're still arguing about whether it's safer or
cheaper to try to protect merchant ships against the
U-boats, or just try to sneak them across
higgledy-piggledy!
Have the rest of you heard any echoes of this? It was,
as implied by the source docs, taken as a serious
question at the time.
rm
Fred J. McCall
:IN 1942! NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY GAWD-HELP-US TWO,
:and they're still arguing about whether it's safer or
:cheaper to try to protect merchant ships against the
:U-boats, or just try to sneak them across
:higgledy-piggledy!
It seems to me that back in that day and age it would sort of depend
on the speed of the merchant. I thought there were cases, even that
late in the game, where fast liners would travel outside of convoys
and rely on their speed of advance to keep U-boats from getting into
an attack position against them.
If you were fast enough, it might make more sense to 'go it alone',
since you were harder to attack running fast, than it would to have to
slow way down and stay in a 'target rich environment' that made it
more likely that you, personally, would get shot at.
--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden
Andrew McCruden
"Fred J. McCall" <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:0r1houc6g4gpo8dl5...@4ax.com...
> BobMac <rom...@home.com> wrote:
> It seems to me that back in that day and age it would sort of depend
> on the speed of the merchant. I thought there were cases, even that
> late in the game, where fast liners would travel outside of convoys
> and rely on their speed of advance to keep U-boats from getting into
> an attack position against them.
>
> If you were fast enough, it might make more sense to 'go it alone',
> since you were harder to attack running fast, than it would to have to
> slow way down and stay in a 'target rich environment' that made it
> more likely that you, personally, would get shot at.
Indeed, however the percentage of ships which could maintain such speeds for
long enough were very low, had the Fast battery Subs arrived sooner it would
have reduced this percentage considerably. And the prospects for rescue for
the crew any ship caught solo were much lower
Rich Johnson
I read in some history or another (sorry no source) that after the US
entered the war it took a long time to convince the American authorities
that the convoy system was the way to go. I also vaguly recall that the
winter of 1941 was a bad time for merchant men with many sinkings due to
u-boats, and that some owners were pushing for independant sailings.
Rich
Enfield NS
Canada
M.J.Powell
It certainly was a serious question. Ask Admiral King who thought that
the convoy system was an evil British invention, or similar.
Operational Research later showed that doubling the number of ships in a
convoy did not require twice the number of escort vessels and didn't
result in twice the losses.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
Peter Skelton
1790 was later? (ISTR they used experience from an earlier war
but am too lazy too look it up.)
The British didn't believe history in 1916. The Americans didn't
believe history in 1942. That the area of a figure grows as the
square of the perimeter was established by the classical Greeks
who might have stolen it from Babylon.
____
Peter Skelton
Replacement Tommel <
The Brits forgot/ignored all of the convoying lessons they learned in WWI...
Hell, one of my hoser buddies told me that some bigwig Canadian MOD official can
barely remember Canada's war history... "Vichy" Ridge, indeed!
-Tom
"Lightfighters marching on to victory,
We go where others dare not go,
Though the heat or cold or snow..."
- 10th MTN (LI) "Climb to Glory"
David Thornley
Rich Johnson <rwh.j...@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>BobMac wrote:
>
>> We're having an interesting time up here, what with CBC tv discovering
>> that they're 50 years old, and they're rebroadcasting all kinds of stuff...
>>
>> One thing that cropped up was a 60 year old (to the day!) radio play,
>> produced as a propaganda effort in partnership with the RCN. It was two
>> guys arguing over the validity of the convoy system.
>>
information on the convoy system in a more interesting way than just
reading it over the air? In other words, does the pro-convoy side
have all the good lines and the anti-convoy side is just there
to get thim to bring out all the good arguments?
>I read in some history or another (sorry no source) that after the US
>entered the war it took a long time to convince the American authorities
>that the convoy system was the way to go.
This is at best distorted. The US realized that convoying was the way
to go, but did not have escorts for all the coastal convoys that would
be needed. The question was whether unescorted convoys would be better
than no convoys at all - better enough to make up for the 30% or so
loss of efficiency with convoys.
(Convoys have the effect of keeping ships from sailing at their
preferred speeds if those are faster than those of the convoy, and
since they bunch up all the traffic they typically alternate
the ports between overworked and mostly idle.)
I also vaguly recall that the
>winter of 1941 was a bad time for merchant men with many sinkings due to
>u-boats, and that some owners were pushing for independant sailings.
>
Not then; 1941 was a good year for the convoys. In 1942, the Germans
changed their naval ciphers in ways the Allies could not break for
a long time, and broke some British ciphers. Moreover, the bulk
of the losses were in the Americas, where the USN was slow to
institute convoys.
1940 and 1942 were good years for the U-boats, although there was
a spike of sinkings in Spring 1943 that frightened many people
for a short time (after which the Germans withdrew from the
North Atlantic).
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
William Hamblen
>
> It seems to me that back in that day and age it would sort of depend
> on the speed of the merchant. I thought there were cases, even that
> late in the game, where fast liners would travel outside of convoys
> and rely on their speed of advance to keep U-boats from getting into
> an attack position against them.
>
The Queen Mary traveled unescorted over most of her route, as she was
too fast for U-boats to catch and also too fast for escorts to keep
up. She did pick up antiaircraft escorts when she got within range
of the Luftwaffe. The ill-fated Curacoa was her AA escort when the
liner collided with the cruiser.
John Gilmer
>
> >I read in some history or another (sorry no source) that after the US
> >entered the war it took a long time to convince the American authorities
> >that the convoy system was the way to go.
The convoy systems works if the folks operating the subs insist upon being
stupid. BUT the effective counter to the convoy system was the Wolf Pack.
The submarine threat was reduced and eliminated by the production of more
escort ships (including "jeep" carriers), air cover (including lighter than
air ships), and air and ship radar. The Germans did not deploy sufficient
snorkel (sp?) subs to make a difference to the allied countermajors. The
allies might has won the "Battle of the Atlantic" a little sooner had many
of the bombers wasted blasting German cities had been used in long range
anti-submarine patrols.
Keith Willshaw
"John Gilmer" <gil...@crosslink.net> wrote in message
news:3d892edd$0$67...@dingus.crosslink.net...
>
>
> >
> > >I read in some history or another (sorry no source) that after the US
> > >entered the war it took a long time to convince the American
authorities
> > >that the convoy system was the way to go.
>
> The convoy systems works if the folks operating the subs insist upon being
> stupid. BUT the effective counter to the convoy system was the Wolf
Pack.
>
The wof pack will do more damage if it encounters the
convoy but concentrating all your submarines reduces the
chances of a submarine coming across a target. It also
means that if you give away your position, as the Germans
were wont to do through injudicious signal trafiic, the
hunter killer groups have a target rich environment.
> The submarine threat was reduced and eliminated by the production of more
> escort ships (including "jeep" carriers), air cover (including lighter
than
> air ships), and air and ship radar. The Germans did not deploy
sufficient
> snorkel (sp?) subs to make a difference to the allied countermajors. The
> allies might has won the "Battle of the Atlantic" a little sooner had many
> of the bombers wasted blasting German cities had been used in long range
> anti-submarine patrols.
>
Perhaps but you should note that most of the bombers available
in 1942 had neither the range nor the sensors to make
effective ASW aircraft. Hand in hand with other developments
the availablity of airborne radar, sonobuoys , improved depthcharges
MAD and homing torpedoes all served to increase the effectiveness
of aircraft.
The RAF werent totally stupid, they did indeed use
bombers such as the Wellington in the ASW role quite
early in the campaign. It wasnt until the introduction of
the ASV Mk II and the Leigh light in June 1942 that they
became effective.
Keith
Fiji
"M.J.Powell" wrote:
>
>
> It certainly was a serious question. Ask Admiral King who thought that
> the convoy system was an evil British invention, or similar.
The way I heard, King had enough escorts to protect either the convoys (had
they been used), or the troop ships, not both. He picked the troop ships.
Considering that in a time of war, the cargo of your troop ships is the end
product of your countries industry ... he made the correct choise.
Fiji
Keith Willshaw
"Replacement Tommel" <<tommel6@_feck_spam_hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:amare...@drn.newsguy.com...
> On Wed, 18 Sep 2002 09:35:11 -0400, in article
<3D88810F...@home.com>,
> BobMac wrote:
> >
> >We're having an interesting time up here, what with CBC
> >tv discovering that they're 50 years old, and they're
> >rebroadcasting all kinds of stuff...
> >
> >One thing that cropped up was a 60 year old (to the
> >day!) radio play, produced as a propaganda effort in
> >partnership with the RCN. It was two guys arguing over
> >the validity of the convoy system.
> >
> >IN 1942! NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY GAWD-HELP-US TWO,
> >and they're still arguing about whether it's safer or
> >cheaper to try to protect merchant ships against the
> >U-boats, or just try to sneak them across
> >higgledy-piggledy!
> >
> >Have the rest of you heard any echoes of this? It was,
> >as implied by the source docs, taken as a serious
> >question at the time.
> >
>
> The Brits forgot/ignored all of the convoying lessons they learned in
WWI...
>
Hardly they implemented the convoy system from day 1
unlike the USN who let ships sail independently creating what
the U-Boat crews called the second happy time.
Keith
David Henderson
Willshaw wrote:
>The RAF werent totally stupid, they did indeed use
>bombers such as the Wellington in the ASW role quite
>early in the campaign. It wasnt until the introduction of
>the ASV Mk II and the Leigh light in June 1942 that they
>became effective.
They were, however, /quite/ stupid. Wasn't it something
like 18 months after the first Leigh light was demonstrated
that it finally went into service? One of the RAF top brass
had his own invention that he peddled ahead of it, IIRC.
Also wasn't ASV Mk III delayed as it was virtually identical
to the RAF's ground radar?
Didn't they too refuse point blank to transfer VLR Liberators
to coastal command, instead providing shorter ranged bombers
for (almost useless) Bay of Biscay work, whilst the mid-Atlantic
gaped widely?
Seems like the Battle of the Atlantic was almost lost, as the
RAF continually won battles for the air.
--
David Henderson.
Thoroughly bloody nice bloke, but a bit dim between you and me.
Rich Johnson
> In article <3D8895BE...@ns.sympatico.ca>,
> Rich Johnson <rwh.j...@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>>BobMac wrote:
>>
>>
>>>We're having an interesting time up here, what with CBC tv discovering
>>>that they're 50 years old, and they're rebroadcasting all kinds of stuff...
>>>
>>>
> Fun!
>
>
>>>One thing that cropped up was a 60 year old (to the day!) radio play,
>>>produced as a propaganda effort in partnership with the RCN. It was two
>>>guys arguing over the validity of the convoy system.
>>>
>>>
> Was this a serious argument, or was it intended to feed the public
> information on the convoy system in a more interesting way than just
> reading it over the air? In other words, does the pro-convoy side
> have all the good lines and the anti-convoy side is just there
> to get thim to bring out all the good arguments?
>
>
>>I read in some history or another (sorry no source) that after the US
>>entered the war it took a long time to convince the American authorities
>>that the convoy system was the way to go.
>>
>
> This is at best distorted. The US realized that convoying was the way
> to go, but did not have escorts for all the coastal convoys that would
> be needed. The question was whether unescorted convoys would be better
> than no convoys at all - better enough to make up for the 30% or so
> loss of efficiency with convoys.
That part certainly rings a bell, I went looking for the book which I
was attempting to remember details from but unfortunately it is missing,
so I can't refresh my obviously feeble memory:)
> I also vaguly recall that the
>
>>winter of 1941 was a bad time for merchant men with many sinkings due to
>>u-boats, and that some owners were pushing for independant sailings.
>>
>>
> Not then; 1941 was a good year for the convoys. In 1942, the Germans
> changed their naval ciphers in ways the Allies could not break for
> a long time, and broke some British ciphers. Moreover, the bulk
> of the losses were in the Americas, where the USN was slow to
> institute convoys.
>
> 1940 and 1942 were good years for the U-boats, although there was
> a spike of sinkings in Spring 1943 that frightened many people
> for a short time (after which the Germans withdrew from the
> North Atlantic).
>
Wasn't the Caribbean a good hunting ground for the U-boats in 1942 or 1943 ?
Rich
Enfield NS
Canada
BobMac
> BobMac <rom...@home.com> wrote:
>
> :IN 1942! NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY GAWD-HELP-US TWO,
> :and they're still arguing about whether it's safer or
> :cheaper to try to protect merchant ships against the
> :U-boats, or just try to sneak them across
> :higgledy-piggledy!
>
> It seems to me that back in that day and age it would sort of depend
> on the speed of the merchant. I thought there were cases, even that
> late in the game, where fast liners would travel outside of convoys
> and rely on their speed of advance to keep U-boats from getting into
> an attack position against them.
>
> If you were fast enough, it might make more sense to 'go it alone',
> since you were harder to attack running fast, than it would to have to
> slow way down and stay in a 'target rich environment' that made it
> more likely that you, personally, would get shot at.
>
>
I did hear stories about the Queen Mary and the Queen
Elizabeth running zigzags, while their escorts ran flat
out in a straight line, trying to keep up.
Just kicked off this memory: one of the Queens went
straight into troop-hauling, direct from the shipyard.
At the end of te war, before it ever hauled a
(civilian)passenger, Cunard had to replace every
railing on the boat, because they were completely
covered with the carved initials of bored/nervous
soldiers. What is surprising from today's perspective,
is that Cunard did no whining at all about this
uncalled-for0 destruction of their property...
I guess they made a better quality of money grubbing
capitalist in those days....
rm
BobMac
> In article <3D8895BE...@ns.sympatico.ca>,
> Rich Johnson <rwh.j...@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>>BobMac wrote:
>>
>>
>>>We're having an interesting time up here, what with CBC tv discovering
>>>that they're 50 years old, and they're rebroadcasting all kinds of stuff...
>>>
>>>
> Fun!
>
>
>>>One thing that cropped up was a 60 year old (to the day!) radio play,
>>>produced as a propaganda effort in partnership with the RCN. It was two
>>>guys arguing over the validity of the convoy system.
>>>
>>>
> Was this a serious argument, or was it intended to feed the public
> information on the convoy system in a more interesting way than just
> reading it over the air? In other words, does the pro-convoy side
> have all the good lines and the anti-convoy side is just there
> to get thim to bring out all the good arguments?
>
It was propaganda, pure, simple, and unapologetic.
That's what amazed me; I would have thought it was
self-evident. I guess it's really easy to be wise after
the fact.
>
>>I read in some history or another (sorry no source) that after the US
>>entered the war it took a long time to convince the American authorities
>>that the convoy system was the way to go.
>>
>
> This is at best distorted. The US realized that convoying was the way
> to go, but did not have escorts for all the coastal convoys that would
> be needed. The question was whether unescorted convoys would be better
> than no convoys at all - better enough to make up for the 30% or so
> loss of efficiency with convoys.
>
AHA! There were a lot of lines in the original play
about, "We've got to keep building Corvettes!"
rm
BobMac
>
> Perhaps but you should note that most of the bombers available
> in 1942 had neither the range nor the sensors to make
> effective ASW aircraft. Hand in hand with other developments
> the availablity of airborne radar, sonobuoys , improved depthcharges
> MAD and homing torpedoes all served to increase the effectiveness
> of aircraft.
>
Keith, shall we have a moment's silence out of respect
for the Liberator (well named!) which closed Torpedo
Alley. (aka u-boat alley?) I've heard an interview with
one of the old sweats that crewed an Liberator on ASW
patrols. He recalled that the U-boats absolutely would
_not_ come out to play if they saw aircraft. The
(airborne) ASW patrols were therefore ordered to keep
patrolling until they ran out of gas - even if they
expended all munitions in the first hour or so.
> The RAF werent totally stupid, they did indeed use
> bombers such as the Wellington in the ASW role quite
> early in the campaign. It wasnt until the introduction of
> the ASV Mk II and the Leigh light in June 1942 that they
> became effective.
>
Theat one of the key things to keep mumbling to oneself
in the study of history: Very few of these guys -on
either side- were totally stupid, or totally evil, or
totally crazy. They just didn't know what we think we
know now...
rm
BobMac
>
> The Brits forgot/ignored all of the convoying lessons they learned in WWI...
>
Tom, you know how they say that armies (or "generals")
are always preparing for the last war? There's a
certain kind of civilian commentator who's always
proving that they didn't have to fight the last war.
"Ah, but if only they were as smart as me..."
> Hell, one of my hoser buddies told me that some bigwig Canadian MOD official can
> barely remember Canada's war history... "Vichy" Ridge, indeed!
>
Tom, I could just cry. Granted, I'm a bit stressed and
sleepless, but...
When they took a tour over for the final Dieppe
reunion, somebody had to tell the minister why they
were going. Among other things he missed was the chance
to say hello to Smokey Smith. Of course, even if he had
known that Smokey was there, most of the vets were
seated so far back that they were barely visible.
I'm thinking... if I were Minister of Defence, the
first thing I would want to do is go out to B.C. and
have a cuppa with Smokey, and assure him that I was
going to take good care of the firm...
rm
Peter Skelton
<keith@kwillshaw_NoSpam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>The RAF werent totally stupid, they did indeed use
>bombers such as the Wellington in the ASW role quite
>early in the campaign. It wasnt until the introduction of
>the ASV Mk II and the Leigh light in June 1942 that they
>became effective.
If by effective you mean able to sink large numbers of
submarines, you are correct but there is more to efective than
that.
1) simply by patrolling the transit areas off France by day, they
could reduce the daylight speed of the submarines to 2-4 knots.
That reduces the sub's partol time notoceably.
2) Uboats could be trimmed down so that ASV-1 would not pick them
up but that did not make them easier to drive. It wore out the
crews, a good thing from the allied POV.
3) Local air patrols around a convoy forced submarines in the
area to submerge. That reduced their speed below that of the
convoy making attacks much more difficult, and attacks on
consecutive days impossible. Some of the worst convoy losses of
the war came after the attached destroyers had used too much fuel
to do their high speed sweeps.
____
Peter Skelton
Peter Skelton
<filip....@alcatel.huh.be> wrote:
>
>
>"M.J.Powell" wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> It certainly was a serious question. Ask Admiral King who thought that
>> the convoy system was an evil British invention, or similar.
>
>The way I heard, King had enough escorts to protect either the convoys (had
>they been used), or the troop ships, not both. He picked the troop ships.
>Considering that in a time of war, the cargo of your troop ships is the end
>product of your countries industry ... he made the correct choise.
That is the appologists line but the mistake King made was
believing that unescorted convoys were worse than no convoys.
Given the information available to him, this is simple idiocy.
In fairness to King, there was lots of other idiocy going around
- no blackout on the east coast etc. etc.
____
Peter Skelton
Vince Brannigan
BobMac wrote:
>
>
> Just kicked off this memory: one of the Queens went
> straight into troop-hauling, direct from the shipyard.
> At the end of te war, before it ever hauled a
> (civilian)passenger, Cunard had to replace every
> railing on the boat, because they were completely
> covered with the carved initials of bored/nervous
> soldiers. What is surprising from today's perspective,
> is that Cunard did no whining at all about this
> uncalled-for0 destruction of their property...
>
> I guess they made a better quality of money grubbing
> capitalist in those days....
>
I believe they were entitled to full payment, and the government had
subsidized the construction in the first place.
capitalists are always the same , lots of government subsidies, franchises
and intellectual property protection but none of that eveil government
control
vince
Keith Willshaw
"BobMac" <rom...@home.com> wrote in message
news:3D89DA11...@home.com...
Cunard received a handsome subsidy from the
Government on each ship they built on the basis
that it was available for use as a troopship in time
of war.
They really had nothing to moan about.
Keith
ANDREW ROBERT BREEN
Vince Brannigan <fir...@pressroom.com> wrote:
Cunarders as troopships...
>I believe they were entitled to full payment, and the government had
>subsidized the construction in the first place.
ISTR it was nearer to "paid for outright" than "subsidised" for
QM and QE - both were built largely as job creation schemes for
Clydeside (give 'em jobs, it might stave off the revolution..)
under the scheme that also saw railways being electrified at
government expense (and getting new stock built for them at
public expense). Cunarder-building had been government-subsidised
since slightly after they needed to replace the Ark, of course
- certainly since Campania and her ilk of the late 1880s, just
like pretty near every other fast liner from pretty near every
other nation had been[1] (probably explains why the USians didn't
have a blue riband holder from the start of the era of subsidised
greyhounds until they built the biggest, fastest, least economic
and most highly subsidised seagoing white heffalump of them all,
the United States...). White Star, IIRC, didn't go subsidy
-hunting, which was why their ships were bigger and slower.
[1] So as to provide good auxiluary cruisers in time of war.
Without exception the atlantic greyhounds were worthless for
this, so the job was done by slower ships from the India or
S. America trade. Shows how well spent that money was...
--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
Feng Shui: an ancient oriental art for extracting
money from the gullible (Martin Sinclair)
M.J.Powell
<filip....@alcatel.huh.be> writes
>
>
>"M.J.Powell" wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> It certainly was a serious question. Ask Admiral King who thought that
>> the convoy system was an evil British invention, or similar.
>
>The way I heard, King had enough escorts to protect either the convoys (had
>they been used), or the troop ships, not both. He picked the troop ships.
>Considering that in a time of war, the cargo of your troop ships is the end
>product of your countries industry ... he made the correct choise.
But didn't the troop ships sail in convoy? I seem to remember reading
accounts by soldiers of the sight of large numbers of ships in
formation.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
M.J.Powell
<?@_feck_spam_hotmail.com> writes
>On Wed, 18 Sep 2002 09:35:11 -0400, in article <3D88810F...@home.com>,
>BobMac wrote:
>>
>>We're having an interesting time up here, what with CBC
>>tv discovering that they're 50 years old, and they're
>>rebroadcasting all kinds of stuff...
>>
>>One thing that cropped up was a 60 year old (to the
>>day!) radio play, produced as a propaganda effort in
>>partnership with the RCN. It was two guys arguing over
>>the validity of the convoy system.
>>
>>IN 1942! NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY GAWD-HELP-US TWO,
>>and they're still arguing about whether it's safer or
>>cheaper to try to protect merchant ships against the
>>U-boats, or just try to sneak them across
>>higgledy-piggledy!
>>
>>Have the rest of you heard any echoes of this? It was,
>>as implied by the source docs, taken as a serious
>>question at the time.
>>
>
>The Brits forgot/ignored all of the convoying lessons they learned in WWI...
True.
>
>Hell, one of my hoser buddies told me that some bigwig Canadian MOD official can
>barely remember Canada's war history... "Vichy" Ridge, indeed!
Sadly believable also. I bought a record of Churchill's war-time
speeches once. The girl assistant said 'I believe he was a very great
man'? He was still PM at the time.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
M.J.Powell
>Fred J. McCall wrote:
>>
>
>I did hear stories about the Queen Mary and the Queen
>Elizabeth running zigzags, while their escorts ran flat
>out in a straight line, trying to keep up.
>
>Just kicked off this memory: one of the Queens went
>straight into troop-hauling, direct from the shipyard.
That would be the Queen Elizabeth. I saw the Queen Mary go on her maiden
voyage, in 1936 IIRC. I was on holiday at Southsea. I remember the wash
came up the beach and took all the deckchairs away.
>At the end of te war, before it ever hauled a
>(civilian)passenger, Cunard had to replace every
>railing on the boat, because they were completely
>covered with the carved initials of bored/nervous
>soldiers. What is surprising from today's perspective,
>is that Cunard did no whining at all about this
>uncalled-for0 destruction of their property...
>
>I guess they made a better quality of money grubbing
>capitalist in those days....
Not so blatant as today, they smiled politely when they screwed you.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
A
>
> I read in some history or another (sorry no source) that after the US
> entered the war it took a long time to convince the American authorities
> that the convoy system was the way to go.
Hi:
I believe this subject is covered in a book titled 'Military Errors
of World War Two'.
AG
--
Please remove my pants before sending me e-mail.
Jack Love
<mi...@pickmere.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <3D89DA11...@home.com>, BobMac <rom...@home.com> writes
>>Fred J. McCall wrote:
>>>
>>
>>I did hear stories about the Queen Mary and the Queen
>>Elizabeth running zigzags, while their escorts ran flat
>>out in a straight line, trying to keep up.
>>
>>Just kicked off this memory: one of the Queens went
>>straight into troop-hauling, direct from the shipyard.
>
>That would be the Queen Elizabeth. I saw the Queen Mary go on her maiden
>voyage, in 1936 IIRC. I was on holiday at Southsea. I remember the wash
>came up the beach and took all the deckchairs away.
Retribution for Constellation IIRC going through the Straits of Juan
de Fuca at some inordinately high speed was significant...lots of
damage to some shore installations.
Jack Love
Yeah, but they had to get there in a coordinated fashion so they could
achieve a surprise landing. Kind of dumb to have to wait for a couple
of weeks for all of your ships and equipment to rally at the landing
port...not to mention probabilities of getting torpedoed while hanging
around.
>Mike
DN
>Elizabeth running zigzags, while their escorts ran flat
>out in a straight line, trying to keep up.
I think the previously mentioned light cruiser CURACOA was an example of
this.
DN
--Remove "nojunk" to Email--
M.J.Powell
<jack...@earthlink.net> writes
Sorry, what 'landing'? I was talking of the supply convoys.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
kgb
Vince Brannigan wrote:
<snip>
> capitalists are always the same , lots of government subsidies, franchises
> and intellectual property protection but none of that eveil government
> control
>
> vince
Evidently right-wing bigots have no monopoly on sweeping and
unwarranted generalizations.
--
Kent G. Budge
Nibley's Gas Law of Learning:
Any amount of information, no matter how small, will
expand to fill any intellectual void, no matter how large.
Spamproof email: kgbudge at sandia dot gov
Vince Brannigan
kgb wrote:
> Vince Brannigan wrote:
> <snip>
> > capitalists are always the same , lots of government subsidies, franchises
> > and intellectual property protection but none of that eveil government
> > control
> >
> > vince
>
> Evidently right-wing bigots have no monopoly on sweeping and
> unwarranted generalizations.
>
or ;lcaking a humor mode?
>
> --
>
> Kent G. Budge
>
> Nibley's Gas Law of Learning:
>
> Any amount of information, no matter how small, will
> expand to fill any intellectual void, no matter how large.
we have it as
Gas Law of Lecturing
Any amount of information, no matter how small, will
expand to fill any class period , no matter how large.
Vince
ANDREW ROBERT BREEN
Vince Brannigan <fir...@pressroom.com> wrote:
>we have it as
>
> Gas Law of Lecturing
>
>Any amount of information, no matter how small, will
>expand to fill any class period , no matter how large.
Which also implies that a given quantity of information
can only be compressed or expanded to fit a specified
class period by carrying out work upon it. If compression
is required then the result is an equal compression of
time available for other activities, coupled with considerable
heating. In all cases the level of disorder in the lecturer's
office increases.
Still, I get to demonstrate the basics of positional astronomy
with the aid of my sextant.
--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
If God had intended people to program in C++
he wouldn't have invented FORTRAN (Keith Willshaw)
Vince Brannigan
ANDREW ROBERT BREEN wrote:
>
>
> Still, I get to demonstrate the basics of positional astronomy
> with the aid of my sextant.
>
Gee in the USA we call them "tents"
vince
Jack Love
<mi...@pickmere.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <ie2lougb0633pindj...@4ax.com>, Jack Love
><jack...@earthlink.net> writes
>>On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 16:18:35 +0100, "M.J.Powell"
>><mi...@pickmere.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>In article <3D897F47...@alcatel.huh.be>, Fiji
>>><filip....@alcatel.huh.be> writes
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>"M.J.Powell" wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It certainly was a serious question. Ask Admiral King who thought that
>>>>> the convoy system was an evil British invention, or similar.
>>>>
>>>>The way I heard, King had enough escorts to protect either the convoys (had
>>>>they been used), or the troop ships, not both. He picked the troop ships.
>>>>Considering that in a time of war, the cargo of your troop ships is the end
>>>>product of your countries industry ... he made the correct choise.
>>>
>>>But didn't the troop ships sail in convoy? I seem to remember reading
>>>accounts by soldiers of the sight of large numbers of ships in
>>>formation.
>>
>>Yeah, but they had to get there in a coordinated fashion so they could
>>achieve a surprise landing. Kind of dumb to have to wait for a couple
>>of weeks for all of your ships and equipment to rally at the landing
>>port...not to mention probabilities of getting torpedoed while hanging
>>around.
>
>Sorry, what 'landing'? I was talking of the supply convoys.
Oh, thought we had drifted to the Operation Torch landings, sorry.
>Mike
Bernhard Rohrer
> long enough were very low, had the Fast battery Subs arrived sooner it
would
> have reduced this percentage considerably. And the prospects for rescue
for
> the crew any ship caught solo were much lower
Well, let's face it. If the Type XXI Subs had been available en masse (same
building rate as type VIIs) in '42 or '43 the allies would have lost the
battle of the atlantic anyway.
Cheers
Bernhard
kgb
Vince Brannigan wrote:
>
> kgb wrote:
>
> > Vince Brannigan wrote:
> > <snip>
> > > capitalists are always the same , lots of government subsidies, franchises
> > > and intellectual property protection but none of that eveil government
> > > control
> > >
> > > vince
> >
> > Evidently right-wing bigots have no monopoly on sweeping and
> > unwarranted generalizations.
> >
>
> or ;lcaking a humor mode?
I'm relieved to hear that you don't really believe it.
M.J.Powell
It might have been my mistake, I came in halfway through. I was
referring to Adm. King's well known attitude to anything Brit when the
US came into the war.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
Vince Brannigan
kgb wrote:
I send my students out to find industires that don't benefit from government
protection support etc. there are a few but they are hard to find.
have any for my list?
vince
kgb
Vince Brannigan wrote:
<snip>
> I send my students out to find industires that don't benefit from government
> protection support etc. there are a few but they are hard to find.
> have any for my list?
>
> vince
"government protection support etc." is pretty vague.
All industries benefit from enforcement of contracts and
other aspects of the rule of law sustained by government.
So does the public.
All industries benefit from infrastructure such as roads.
So does the public.
All industries benefit from national defense. The failure
of same on 9/11 hurt many industries. Same with the
public.
Many industries enjoy tariff protection. I don't know
how universal this is or how extensive the protection
is. I know that my Hyundai was competitive with American
cars in spite of whatever tariffs are in place. In general,
the large volume of imports to the U.S. suggest that tariff
protection is not particularly strong for many industries.
This is just as well as tariffs do _not_ benefit the public.
Agriculture is of course widely subsidized at the federal
level. In my experience, new industrial plants are also
extensively subsidized, but at the local level (the city
wants the growth and associated tax base.) Neither benefits
the public. And you're absolutely right that industrialists who
seek such subsidies while extolling the free market are talking
out of both sides of their mouths.
Industry is not in fact the primary beneficiary of a true
free market; the public is. Most businessmen don't want a free
market. They want a market they control. Generally such
control is achieved through government interventions. The means
are devious and you can probably recite them as well as I.
It must not be forgotten that a free market is a profit-and-*loss*
system, and stockholders hate losses. But the losses are at
least as beneficial to the public as the profits, since they
bankrupt inefficient businesses and thereby prevent them from
continuing to squander scarce resources. I am sure that you are
familiar with the basic economics involved.
Perhaps you are confusing those who argue for capitalism on
economic and social grounds with businessmen. They are two
separate sets of people, and the sets are very nearly disjoint.
Then again, perhaps I misread you and we are actually noisily
agreeing.
It occurs to me that, fascinating as this topic is, it is
becoming wildly off-topic for either alt.folklore.military or
sci.military.naval. You can have the last word if you want,
but the lack of reply should not be interpreted as meaning
there is not more I could add.
--
Kent G. Budge
Nibley's Gas Law of Learning:
Any amount of information, no matter how small, will
expand to fill any intellectual void, no matter how large.
Spamproof email: kgbudge at sandia dot gov
Vince Brannigan
kgb wrote:
>
>
> "government protection support etc." is pretty vague. its not vague, but it is
> complex
>
> All industries benefit from enforcement of contracts and
> other aspects of the rule of law sustained by government.
> So does the public.
Sure , we'll skip infrastruture.both legal and technical
> All industries benefit from infrastructure such as roads.
> So does the public.
>
> All industries benefit from national defense. The failure
> of same on 9/11 hurt many industries. Same with the
> public.
same answer
> Many industries enjoy tariff protection. I don't know
> how universal this is or how extensive the protection
> is. I know that my Hyundai was competitive with American
> cars in spite of whatever tariffs are in place. In general,
> the large volume of imports to the U.S. suggest that tariff
> protection is not particularly strong for many industries.
> This is just as well as tariffs do _not_ benefit the public.
its big in a few industries, msall in others. quotas are also used
> Agriculture is of course widely subsidized at the federal
> level. In my experience, new industrial plants are also
> extensively subsidized, but at the local level (the city
> wants the growth and associated tax base.) Neither benefits
> the public. And you're absolutely right that industrialists who
> seek such subsidies while extolling the free market are talking
> out of both sides of their mouths.
lots of kinds of subsidies available
> Industry is not in fact the primary beneficiary of a true
> free market; the public is.
This is a given. monopolists hate free markets.
> Most businessmen don't want a free
> market. They want a market they control. Generally such
> control is achieved through government interventions. The means
> are devious and you can probably recite them as well as I.
fair enough
> It must not be forgotten that a free market is a profit-and-*loss*
> system, and stockholders hate losses. But the losses are at
> least as beneficial to the public as the profits, since they
> bankrupt inefficient businesses and thereby prevent them from
> continuing to squander scarce resources. I am sure that you are
> familiar with the basic economics involved.
fair enough
> Perhaps you are confusing those who argue for capitalism on
> economic and social grounds with businessmen. They are two
> separate sets of people, and the sets are very nearly disjoint.
> Then again, perhaps I misread you and we are actually noisily
> agreeing.
so far no problem.
> It occurs to me that, fascinating as this topic is, it is
> becoming wildly off-topic for either alt.folklore.military or
> sci.military.naval. You can have the last word if you want,
> but the lack of reply should not be interpreted as meaning
> there is not more I could add.
its off topic. so let it drop.
Vince
redc1c4
Vince Brannigan wrote:
>
> kgb wrote:
(snipage occurs)
> > It occurs to me that, fascinating as this topic is, it is
> > becoming wildly off-topic for either alt.folklore.military or
> > sci.military.naval. You can have the last word if you want,
> > but the lack of reply should not be interpreted as meaning
> > there is not more I could add.
>
> its off topic. so let it drop.
and here i was just getting interested.
redc1c4,
oh well........ %-)
--
"Enlisted men are stupid, but extremely cunning and sly, and bear
considerable watching."
Army Officer's Guide
Tom Schoene
"Jack Love" <jack...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:ie2lougb0633pindj...@4ax.com...
Troop transports weren't necessarily assault ships. The APs were used for
moving troops from CONUS to forward staging areas (e.g. England). There
were entirely different assault transports (APAs) for moving units from the
staging areas to assault objectives.
--
Tom Schoene (replace "invalid" with "net" to email)
"It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but
the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment."
Karl Friedrich Gauss
Alan Minyard
Not right off hand, but I can name thousands that are harmed by
government regulation or interference. Such as lawyer labels on a
step ladder costing more than the ladder itself.
Al Minyard
Alan Minyard
wrote:
That would assume that:
The type XXI worked, which it did not
The construction of the XXIs would have been exceptable (it was not)
Germany had the capacity to produce the fuel and batteries for the XXI
(they did not)
Al Minyard
Vince Brannigan
Alan Minyard wrote:
> O
> >I send my students out to find industires that don't benefit from government
> >protection support etc. there are a few but they are hard to find.
> >have any for my list?
> >
> >vince
>
> Not right off hand, but I can name thousands that are harmed by
> government regulation or interference. Such as lawyer labels on a
> step ladder costing more than the ladder itself.
>
the damage a product can do has nothing to do with its cost. This is one of the most
common problems we run into in teaching engineers about risk. they re hung up on the
product cost rather than the risk cost. The labels you describe cost nothing compared
to the injuries they can avert.
Vince
Fred J. McCall
:Alan Minyard wrote:
:
:> Not right off hand, but I can name thousands that are harmed by
:> government regulation or interference. Such as lawyer labels on a
:> step ladder costing more than the ladder itself.
:
:the damage a product can do has nothing to do with its cost.
Non sequitur. The damage an IDIOT can do to himself should not be
recompensable by getting a less than ethical lawyer. If it were not,
STUPID warnings would not be necessary.
:This is one of the most
:common problems we run into in teaching engineers about risk. they re hung up on the
:product cost rather than the risk cost.
You obviously aren't dealing with real engineers.
:The labels you describe cost nothing compared
:to the injuries they can avert.
Those labels prevent precisely ZERO injuries. What they do is protect
the manufacturer from 'loon suits' when someone tries to trim his
hedge with his lawn mower or mix a banana daiquiri in his shower using
an electric blender.
If the courts didn't accept 'loon suits' and used a 'reasonable man'
test instead of a 'stupid jury' test, all that would be unnecessary
and perhaps resources could be expended on things that would prevent
real accidents.
--
"But if this ever changing world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry...
Say live and let die."
-- Paul McCartney & Wings
Tank Fixer
<3D8B441B...@nospam.com>,
>
>
> Vince Brannigan wrote:
> <snip>
> > capitalists are always the same , lots of government subsidies, franchises
> > and intellectual property protection but none of that eveil government
> > control
> >
> > vince
>
> Evidently right-wing bigots have no monopoly on sweeping and
> unwarranted generalizations.
Shows what you know. Vince is hardly a right wing bigot...
--
--
Remember, Friendly fire, Isn't :
Vince Brannigan
"Fred J. McCall" wrote:
> Vince Brannigan <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
> :Alan Minyard wrote:
> :
> :> Not right off hand, but I can name thousands that are harmed by
> :> government regulation or interference. Such as lawyer labels on a
> :> step ladder costing more than the ladder itself.
> :
> :the damage a product can do has nothing to do with its cost.
>
> Non sequitur. The damage an IDIOT can do to himself should not be
> recompensable by getting a less than ethical lawyer. If it were not,
> STUPID warnings would not be necessary.
The recovery of damages is a policy question you have anormative view. Others differ .
> :This is one of the most
> :common problems we run into in teaching engineers about risk. they re hung up on the
> :product cost rather than the risk cost.
>
> You obviously aren't dealing with real engineers.
I assure you, that The Clark School of enigneering at the University of Maryland produces
real engineers.
> :The labels you describe cost nothing compared
> :to the injuries they can avert.
>
> Those labels prevent precisely ZERO injuries.
This is simply false. we have lots of dat on warnign labels.
> What they do is protect
> the manufacturer from 'loon suits' when someone tries to trim his
> hedge with his lawn mower or mix a banana daiquiri in his shower using
> an electric blender.
Would you like to provide a real world cite for any recovery by the supposed person with
the lawn mower?
> If the courts didn't accept 'loon suits' and used a 'reasonable man'
> test instead of a 'stupid jury' test, all that would be unnecessary
> and perhaps resources could be expended on things that would prevent
> real accidents.
You are welcome to come take my course
ENES435 Product Liability and Regulation; Key topics include, biotechnology, safety
regulation, federal preemption, product liability, professional negligence, antitrust,
privacy and information technology, risk modeling, environmental protection, patent,
copyright, trade secrets, reverse engineering, scientific and technological evidence,
international trade, engineering ethics. Examples include plane crashes, computer chip
protection, human machine interfaces, nuclear power plants, internet censorship, flood
control, earthquakes and biomedical technology.
Vince
Alan Minyard
Oh come on, Vince, do you really believe that anyone bothers to read
those silly stickers? They are there solely to avoid lawsuits brought
by "product liability" lawyers.
Al Minyard
Vince Brannigan
Alan Minyard wrote:
> The labels you describe cost nothing compared
> >to the injuries they can avert.
> >
> >Vince
>
> Oh come on, Vince, do you really believe that anyone bothers to read
> those silly stickers? They are there solely to avoid lawsuits brought
> by "product liability" lawyers.
yes they do. But warnings are part of a design hierarchy. you only get to use warnigns
when you have reduced the hazard to the required minimum.
Vince
Fred J. McCall
:And lo kgb on this day Fri, 20 Sep 2002 09:51:55 -0600 wrote
Uh, I think you misread that. I took it to mean that Vince using such
"sweeping and unwarranted generalizations" implied that "right-wing
bigots have no monopoly" on them, since Vince is obviously a LEFT-wing
loon.
--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
<tommel6@_feck_spam_hotmail.com> (Replacement Tommel) wrote:
> The Brits forgot/ignored all of the convoying lessons they learned
> in WWI...
Nope convoying on the Atlantic was imposed on the day Britain
declared war. It was accepted that even unescorted convoys were better
than routing ships independently.
Ken Young
ken...@cix.co.uk
Maternity is a matter of fact
Paternity is a matter of opinion
Nicholas Smid
"Vince Brannigan" <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:3D8B7C89...@verizon.net...
including the pooch is expencive so you might as well get something back for
all your effort. And if you think elected polititions are expencive on the
public purse you need to look at how greedy the self elected sub species
gets. Atleast you get the odd nice tabloid scandel for entertainment out of
the elected type.
But thats just my opineon, like heinlen said crooked politition is a
redundency.
>
>
>
>
Nicholas Smid
"John Gilmer" <gil...@crosslink.net> wrote in message
news:3d892edd$0$67...@dingus.crosslink.net...
>
>
> >
> > >I read in some history or another (sorry no source) that after the US
> > >entered the war it took a long time to convince the American
authorities
> > >that the convoy system was the way to go.
>
> The convoy systems works if the folks operating the subs insist upon being
> stupid. BUT the effective counter to the convoy system was the Wolf
Pack.
>
The wolf pack wasn't a magic bullet, even when the U-Boats had things pretty
much there own way only something like one in ten convoys were attacked.
Well the great majority of ships sailed in convoy over half the loses were
ships on there own, eather straglers or independents. A convoy of 40 +
ships is statisticly only a little more likely to be spoted than a single
ship and the basic rule of attacking ships is first you got to find them!
All a wolf pack realy did, in the days before escort groups got there acts
together, was let you get more or less desent results out of the less
skilled crews comeing out of German training. There were two 'Happy Times'
for the U-Boats, early on after they got there torpodos working, and in 42.
In 42 it was a matter of killing all those independents off the Americas,
the first one was the Grey Wolves, U-Boats operating solo under pre war
trained commanders against at best weakly defended convoys with many
independents.
> The submarine threat was reduced and eliminated by the production of more
> escort ships (including "jeep" carriers), air cover (including lighter
than
> air ships), and air and ship radar. The Germans did not deploy
sufficient
> snorkel (sp?) subs to make a difference to the allied countermajors. The
> allies might has won the "Battle of the Atlantic" a little sooner had many
> of the bombers wasted blasting German cities had been used in long range
> anti-submarine patrols.
>
I'd agree that a few squadrens of Lancasters or Halifaxes, say the number
lost in a few days operations, modified with Radar and long range tanks
would have helped alot in 42, though a more orginised use of what they had
would also have helped. But well VLR patrol aircraft and jeep carriers were
very nice to have on your team the U-Boats were basicly broken in May 43
before they came into the convoy battles in numbers. They did however see to
it the U-Boats weren't going to make a coms back.
>
Nicholas Smid
"Replacement Tommel" <<tommel6@_feck_spam_hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:amare...@drn.newsguy.com...
> On Wed, 18 Sep 2002 09:35:11 -0400, in article
<3D88810F...@home.com>,
> BobMac wrote:
> >
> >We're having an interesting time up here, what with CBC
> >tv discovering that they're 50 years old, and they're
> >rebroadcasting all kinds of stuff...
> >
> >One thing that cropped up was a 60 year old (to the
> >day!) radio play, produced as a propaganda effort in
> >partnership with the RCN. It was two guys arguing over
> >the validity of the convoy system.
> >
> >IN 1942! NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY GAWD-HELP-US TWO,
> >and they're still arguing about whether it's safer or
> >cheaper to try to protect merchant ships against the
> >U-boats, or just try to sneak them across
> >higgledy-piggledy!
> >
> >Have the rest of you heard any echoes of this? It was,
> >as implied by the source docs, taken as a serious
> >question at the time.
> >
>
> The Brits forgot/ignored all of the convoying lessons they learned in
WWI...
>
century before, atleast untill the threat of running out of tucker finaly
consentrated serten minds. Before that convoy escort wasn't consided sutable
employment for such dashing soughts as RN officers, tantamount to admiting
they couldn't stop the Germans operating in their waters. However they did
learn, proving even militaries can learn if you knock them on the head hard
enough, and in WWII they got it more or less right from the start, and it
was the USN's turn to drop the ball spectaculy.
> Hell, one of my hoser buddies told me that some bigwig Canadian MOD
official can
> barely remember Canada's war history... "Vichy" Ridge, indeed!
>
> -Tom
>
> "Lightfighters marching on to victory,
> We go where others dare not go,
> Though the heat or cold or snow..."
> - 10th MTN (LI) "Climb to Glory"
>
David Thornley
>On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 09:39:51 +0200, Fiji
><filip....@alcatel.huh.be> wrote:
>
>>"M.J.Powell" wrote:
>>
>>> It certainly was a serious question. Ask Admiral King who thought that
>>> the convoy system was an evil British invention, or similar.
>>
since the US enthusiastically used convoys after the war, I'd say
this is false.
>>The way I heard, King had enough escorts to protect either the convoys (had
>>they been used), or the troop ships, not both. He picked the troop ships.
>>Considering that in a time of war, the cargo of your troop ships is the end
>>product of your countries industry ... he made the correct choise.
>
That was one of the issues. This meant that there were fewer escorts
available for normal convoys. The alternative, as the British
demonstrated, is to lose transports.
>That is the appologists line but the mistake King made was
>believing that unescorted convoys were worse than no convoys.
>Given the information available to him, this is simple idiocy.
>
OK, what information available to him showed that unescorted
coastal convoys were useful enough to justify the cost of running
convoys (you lose maybe 30% of your shipping efficiency by
convoying, to throw out a figure)?
Obviously, escorted convoys are better than no convoys in a war
zone, and you can make a good case that unescorted oceanic convoys
are better than no convoys.
However, when the ships have to go in a fairly confined area,
does it really matter whether they do so singly or in groups?
I believe that King made a wrong decision, and certainly the
US coastal shipping was never all that well handled. However,
it was a reasonable wrong decision. King was far from being
a saint, but he wasn't dumb.
>In fairness to King, there was lots of other idiocy going around
>- no blackout on the east coast etc. etc.
The interservice battles over who should do what with aircraft
on ASW patrols were pretty bad, and gave the Germans a breather
before those planes were used effectively.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Fred J. McCall
:Alan Minyard wrote:
:
:> The labels you describe cost nothing compared
:> >to the injuries they can avert.
:>
:> Oh come on, Vince, do you really believe that anyone bothers to read
:> those silly stickers? They are there solely to avoid lawsuits brought
:> by "product liability" lawyers.
:
:yes they do. But warnings are part of a design hierarchy. you only get to use warnigns
:when you have reduced the hazard to the required minimum.
Which it probably already was BEFORE the lawsuit that engendered the
latest stupid warning.
I still think we need to shoot all the lawyers....
Peter Skelton
Thornley) wrote:
>In article <3d89dee9.52825121@news>, Peter Skelton <skel...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 09:39:51 +0200, Fiji
>><filip....@alcatel.huh.be> wrote:
>>
>>>"M.J.Powell" wrote:
>>>
>>>> It certainly was a serious question. Ask Admiral King who thought that
>>>> the convoy system was an evil British invention, or similar.
>>>
>Since US warships escorted convoys before the formal war started, and
>since the US enthusiastically used convoys after the war, I'd say
>this is false.
>
You'd be incorrect. King resisted learning from British
experience with great vigor.
>>>The way I heard, King had enough escorts to protect either the convoys (had
>>>they been used), or the troop ships, not both. He picked the troop ships.
>>>Considering that in a time of war, the cargo of your troop ships is the end
>>>product of your countries industry ... he made the correct choise.
>>
>That was one of the issues. This meant that there were fewer escorts
>available for normal convoys. The alternative, as the British
>demonstrated, is to lose transports.
>
>>That is the appologists line but the mistake King made was
>>believing that unescorted convoys were worse than no convoys.
>>Given the information available to him, this is simple idiocy.
>>
>OK, what information available to him showed that unescorted
>coastal convoys were useful enough to justify the cost of running
>convoys (you lose maybe 30% of your shipping efficiency by
>convoying, to throw out a figure)?
He had a war and a half of data.
>Obviously, escorted convoys are better than no convoys in a war
>zone, and you can make a good case that unescorted oceanic convoys
>are better than no convoys.
>
>However, when the ships have to go in a fairly confined area,
>does it really matter whether they do so singly or in groups?
Of course it does. There are two effects, the need to find
targets, and the rate at which you can do something about them.
Think of a duck hunter with a two barrelled shotgun. If a flock
of ducks goes over he gets two. If you keep the number of ducks
constant but cut the flock size in half, you double his bag.
>I believe that King made a wrong decision, and certainly the
>US coastal shipping was never all that well handled. However,
>it was a reasonable wrong decision. King was far from being
>a saint, but he wasn't dumb.
He was not dumb, but he was neither reasonable nor correct.
A while ago now, I posted a bit of whimsy in which I mentioned a
USN chief who had been pissed on by an RN poodle. Two different
priofessional historians asked if this was a real story and what
my source was - his Anglophobia is famous, but not
well-explained. It did warp his judgement.
____
Peter Skelton
Keith Willshaw
"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
news:K%aj9.51$w7.7...@ruti.visi.com...
> >>> It certainly was a serious question. Ask Admiral King who thought that
> >>> the convoy system was an evil British invention, or similar.
> >>
> Since US warships escorted convoys before the formal war started, and
> since the US enthusiastically used convoys after the war, I'd say
> this is false.
>
You are factually incorrect as a modicum of reserach will
show.
In 1942 the number Allied ships sunk jumped from 4,398 in 1941
to 8,245. During the first 6 months of the of the year some 397
ships totalling over 2 million tons were sunk off the US East coast
costing roughly 5000 lives. In the process only 7 U-boats were sunk.
U-Boat sailors referred to it as the second happy time as they
sank large numbers of ships and were almost completely unmolested
> >>The way I heard, King had enough escorts to protect either the convoys
(had
> >>they been used), or the troop ships, not both. He picked the troop
ships.
> >>Considering that in a time of war, the cargo of your troop ships is the
end
> >>product of your countries industry ... he made the correct choise.
> >
> That was one of the issues. This meant that there were fewer escorts
> available for normal convoys. The alternative, as the British
> demonstrated, is to lose transports.
>
No the alternative as demonstrated by the British is to
use convoys regardless. Even unescorted convoys suffer
fewer losses than indepents and the US could have done
what the British did for their coastal convoys and use
armed trawlers as escorts
> >That is the appologists line but the mistake King made was
> >believing that unescorted convoys were worse than no convoys.
> >Given the information available to him, this is simple idiocy.
> >
> OK, what information available to him showed that unescorted
> coastal convoys were useful enough to justify the cost of running
> convoys (you lose maybe 30% of your shipping efficiency by
> convoying, to throw out a figure)?
>
> Obviously, escorted convoys are better than no convoys in a war
> zone, and you can make a good case that unescorted oceanic convoys
> are better than no convoys.
>
> However, when the ships have to go in a fairly confined area,
> does it really matter whether they do so singly or in groups?
>
Yes as the massive decrease in sinkings when convoying
was belatedly introduced in late May and June showed
> I believe that King made a wrong decision, and certainly the
> US coastal shipping was never all that well handled. However,
> it was a reasonable wrong decision. King was far from being
> a saint, but he wasn't dumb.
>
But he got this one disastrously wrong.
Army Chief of Staff George Marshall wrote on June 19, 1942, to Admiral King:
"The losses by submarines off our Atlantic seaboard and Caribbean now
threaten our entire war effort ...I am fearful that another month or two
of this will cripple our means of transport that we will be unable to
bring sufficient men and planes to bear against the enemy in critical
theaters to exercise a determining influence on the war."
Things got so bad that the hard pressed RN even offered to
supply convoys escorts and did end up in giving a number of
corvettes to the USN in a form of reverse lend lease
> >In fairness to King, there was lots of other idiocy going around
> >- no blackout on the east coast etc. etc.
>
> The interservice battles over who should do what with aircraft
> on ASW patrols were pretty bad, and gave the Germans a breather
> before those planes were used effectively.
>
Keith
Alan Lothian
<aminya...@netdoor.com> wrote:
>>
> Oh come on, Vince, do you really believe that anyone bothers to read
> those silly stickers? They are there solely to avoid lawsuits brought
> by "product liability" lawyers.
>
All-time best (reported a few months back in New Scientist) was on the
back of one of those cardboard sunscreen things you put over the inside
of your car's windscreen to stop the interior turning into an oven.
"Remove before driving".
--
"The past resembles the future as water resembles water" Ibn Khaldun
My .mac.com address is a spam sink.
If you wish to email me, try alan dot lothian at blueyonder dot co dot uk
Vince Brannigan
Alan Lothian wrote:
> In article <h8npouci64m4i0qik...@4ax.com>, Alan Minyard
> <aminya...@netdoor.com> wrote:
>
> >>
> > Oh come on, Vince, do you really believe that anyone bothers to read
> > those silly stickers? They are there solely to avoid lawsuits brought
> > by "product liability" lawyers.
> >
>
> All-time best (reported a few months back in New Scientist) was on the
> back of one of those cardboard sunscreen things you put over the inside
> of your car's windscreen to stop the interior turning into an oven.
> "Remove before driving".
People also used them on the rear window of their cars. Hence the warnign
that they wer enot for permanent installation.
Vince
Fred J. McCall
It seems to me that we're back to the 'reasonable man' test again.
You know, given Vince's positions on this issue, it would seem that
there are TWO reasons for the 'loon warnings' on products. Both would
seem to related to lawyers.
1) Lawyers sue.
2) Lawyers use products and need these warnings.
David Thornley
>On Sun, 22 Sep 2002 03:43:38 GMT, thor...@visi.com (David
>Thornley) wrote:
>
>>OK, what information available to him showed that unescorted
>>coastal convoys were useful enough to justify the cost of running
>>convoys (you lose maybe 30% of your shipping efficiency by
>>convoying, to throw out a figure)?
>
>He had a war and a half of data.
>
coastal convoys, specifically?
>>Obviously, escorted convoys are better than no convoys in a war
>>zone, and you can make a good case that unescorted oceanic convoys
>>are better than no convoys.
>>
>>However, when the ships have to go in a fairly confined area,
>>does it really matter whether they do so singly or in groups?
>
>Of course it does. There are two effects, the need to find
>targets, and the rate at which you can do something about them.
Right.
This means that unescorted oceanic convoys are better than sailing
independently.
A convoy is a little easier to find than a single ship, but not by
a whole lot. Therefore, when ships go across an ocean in convoy,
many of them simply won't be found by the enemy.
When an enemy does find a convoy, it can scatter, so that not all
its ships are sunk. This is a lot better proportionally than a
ship sailing independently, which typically will be sunk.
Obviously if you have escorts, this is even better, since the
escorts can provide some protection to the convoy, whereas it would
be impossible to provide good escorts for single ships. If you're
short on escorts, you can escort at choke points, like approaches
to a port, where the enemy is more likely to find the convoy.
However, coastal shipping goes in fairly restricted areas, and is
therefore easier to find. If in convoys, the U-boats would shoot
it up a little slower, but it's a long voyage to the US coast and
back again, and taking longer to fire all the torpedos at targets
really isn't going to increase the cruise length much.
David Thornley
Keith Willshaw <keith@kwillshaw_NoSpam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
>news:K%aj9.51$w7.7...@ruti.visi.com...
>> Since US warships escorted convoys before the formal war started, and
>> since the US enthusiastically used convoys after the war, I'd say
>> this is false.
>>
>
>You are factually incorrect as a modicum of reserach will
>show.
>
Which facts? Are you disputing that US warships escorted convoys
before the war started, or that the US used convoys after the start
of the war?
>In 1942 the number Allied ships sunk jumped from 4,398 in 1941
>to 8,245. During the first 6 months of the of the year some 397
>ships totalling over 2 million tons were sunk off the US East coast
>costing roughly 5000 lives. In the process only 7 U-boats were sunk.
>
>U-Boat sailors referred to it as the second happy time as they
>sank large numbers of ships and were almost completely unmolested
>
Yup.
Bear in mind that it would have been a happy time no matter what, since
the British had lost the ability to read naval Enigma, while the Germans
had broken British codes. This meant that the Germans would have been
able to concentrate against convoys in considerable strength, had they
operated in the North Atlantic in such numbers.
>> That was one of the issues. This meant that there were fewer escorts
>> available for normal convoys. The alternative, as the British
>> demonstrated, is to lose transports.
>
>No the alternative as demonstrated by the British is to
>use convoys regardless. Even unescorted convoys suffer
>fewer losses than indepents and the US could have done
>what the British did for their coastal convoys and use
>armed trawlers as escorts
>
OK, demonstrate that *unescorted* *coastal* convoys would have been
a significant improvement. I know that escorted convoys are better
than no convoys, and that unescorted oceanic convoys are better than
no convoys.
Moreover, the US was attempting to fit out escorts as fast as possible,
and since there wasn't an immediate supply of armed trawlers I would
think that the situation in the US was different from that in Britain.
Morison writes that the US was arming about 100 civilian ships a month
at that point, and lots of those were merchantment.
>> OK, what information available to him showed that unescorted
>> coastal convoys were useful enough to justify the cost of running
>> convoys (you lose maybe 30% of your shipping efficiency by
>> convoying, to throw out a figure)?
>>
>> Obviously, escorted convoys are better than no convoys in a war
>> zone, and you can make a good case that unescorted oceanic convoys
>> are better than no convoys.
>>
>> However, when the ships have to go in a fairly confined area,
>> does it really matter whether they do so singly or in groups?
>
>Yes as the massive decrease in sinkings when convoying
>was belatedly introduced in late May and June showed
>
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc?
There were many differences in that situation. For one thing, the
US was providing escorts, however scanty, for convoys, and the
matter of ASW aircraft was being sorted out. The change wasn't
a case of simply changing from independent coastal shipping to
unescorted coastal convoys.
>Army Chief of Staff George Marshall wrote on June 19, 1942, to Admiral King:
>"The losses by submarines off our Atlantic seaboard and Caribbean now
>threaten our entire war effort ...I am fearful that another month or two
>of this will cripple our means of transport that we will be unable to
>bring sufficient men and planes to bear against the enemy in critical
>theaters to exercise a determining influence on the war."
>
Right. It was a critical situation, but that doesn't mean that the
measures taken were foolish.
>Things got so bad that the hard pressed RN even offered to
>supply convoys escorts and did end up in giving a number of
>corvettes to the USN in a form of reverse lend lease
>
Right, and they were useful. A corvette could at least prevent a
U-boat from methodically shooting up a convoy without interference.
Peter Skelton
Thornley) wrote:
>In article <3d8d5788.280346396@news>, Peter Skelton <skel...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>On Sun, 22 Sep 2002 03:43:38 GMT, thor...@visi.com (David
>>Thornley) wrote:
>>
>>>OK, what information available to him showed that unescorted
>>>coastal convoys were useful enough to justify the cost of running
>>>convoys (you lose maybe 30% of your shipping efficiency by
>>>convoying, to throw out a figure)?
>>
>>He had a war and a half of data.
>>
>Please expand on this. How much data was there on unescorted
>coastal convoys, specifically?
Failure to convoy in the Med in WWI effectively closed it to
allied shipping in WWI. Guess what happened when convoys started
again? East coast convoys (the British ones) were effectively
unescorted for the first year and a bit of the war. There are
other examples.
>>>Obviously, escorted convoys are better than no convoys in a war
>>>zone, and you can make a good case that unescorted oceanic convoys
>>>are better than no convoys.
>>>
>>>However, when the ships have to go in a fairly confined area,
>>>does it really matter whether they do so singly or in groups?
>>
>>Of course it does. There are two effects, the need to find
>>targets, and the rate at which you can do something about them.
>
>Right.
<s>
Here you snipped the important part of my post while putting up a
cloud of accurate but not at issue stuff, That is neither honest
nor nice.
If you care to talk about the second substatiative point, the one
at issue herer fine, say something.
____
Peter Skelton
Alan Lothian
<vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Alan Lothian wrote:
> >
> > All-time best (reported a few months back in New Scientist) was on the
> > back of one of those cardboard sunscreen things you put over the inside
> > of your car's windscreen to stop the interior turning into an oven.
> > "Remove before driving".
>
> People also used them on the rear window of their cars. Hence the warnign
> that they wer enot for permanent installation.
Oh, come on, Vince.
Vince Brannigan
Alan Lothian wrote:
> In article <3D8DB402...@verizon.net>, Vince Brannigan
> <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > Alan Lothian wrote:
> > >
> > > All-time best (reported a few months back in New Scientist) was on the
> > > back of one of those cardboard sunscreen things you put over the inside
> > > of your car's windscreen to stop the interior turning into an oven.
> > > "Remove before driving".
> >
> > People also used them on the rear window of their cars. Hence the warning
> > that they were not for permanent installation.
>
> Oh, come on, Vince.
I cover warnings of this type in my course on products liability and government
regulation. One of the most common errors made by design engineers is to fail
to anticipate how products will be used in the real world.
National Safety Council, Product Safety: Management Guidelines. National Safety
Council, Chicago. 1989, p. 43.
"Nevertheless, the manufacturer has a duty to make a product which is safe
under normal use and under reasonably foreseeable misuse or to warn about
substantial hazards that may result from normal user and reasonably foreseeable
misuse."
Weinstein, Alvin, Product Liability and the Reasonably Safe Product: A Guide
for Management, Design, and Marketing. John Wiley & Sons, New York. 1978, p.
41, 140.
"It is crucial to distinguish between warnings and instructions. Instructions
tell the consumer how to use the product effectively. Warnings inform the
consumer of the dangers of improper use and tell how to guard against those
dangers, if possible."
"...products must be designed for foreseeable use, not solely intended use.
This means that, once the functional aspects of a product are designed, a
subjective, analytical process must begin. This process must articulate the
types of use and misuse a product can suffer in the hands of all who may come
in contact with it. This process must anticipate the hazards and risks of
injury that are likely to be encountered by the users. Once this is done, the
product design must be reviewed and decisions made concerning which design
alterations, warnings and instructions must be incorporated to minimize or
eliminate the perceived risks of injury."
"First and foremost the manufacturer must assess the actual environment in
which the product will be used. The manufacturer will not be permitted to
define either by marketing techniques or ineffectively worded communication
with the user, a use environment inconsistent with the real world. A product
has a life of its own outside the walls of a design shop. A manufacturer must
come to understand the real life of his product. Similarly, a manufacturer must
know his user population, for they affect the scope and nature of product use."
Vince
Alan Lothian
<vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Alan Lothian wrote:
>
> > In article <3D8DB402...@verizon.net>, Vince Brannigan
> > <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Alan Lothian wrote:
> > > >
> > > > All-time best (reported a few months back in New Scientist) was on the
> > > > back of one of those cardboard sunscreen things you put over the inside
> > > > of your car's windscreen to stop the interior turning into an oven.
> > > > "Remove before driving".
> > >
> > > People also used them on the rear window of their cars. Hence the warning
> > > that they were not for permanent installation.
> >
> > Oh, come on, Vince.
>
> I cover warnings of this type in my course on products liability and
> government
snipped horrifying stuff.
Vince, there is a profound difference between idiot-proof and
idiot-resistant. The latter is a reasonable, although perhaps
unattainable goal. The former is an asymptotic impossibility. I hold in
my hand a cheap, disposable lighter; the EU sees fit to attach to it a
notice warning me that lighting this lighter near my nose may cause
burns. I expect they're right.
Alan Minyard
No, you are forced to "use them", and pay for them, not to reduce any
hazard to the consumer, but to protect yourself from predatory
lawyers.
Al Minyard
Vince Brannigan
Alan Lothian wrote:
> In article <3D8E15D9...@verizon.net>, Vince Brannigan
> <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > Alan Lothian wrote:
> >
> > > In article <3D8DB402...@verizon.net>, Vince Brannigan
> > > <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Alan Lothian wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > All-time best (reported a few months back in New Scientist) was on the
> > > > > back of one of those cardboard sunscreen things you put over the inside
> > > > > of your car's windscreen to stop the interior turning into an oven.
> > > > > "Remove before driving".
> > > >
> > > > People also used them on the rear window of their cars. Hence the warning
> > > > that they were not for permanent installation.
> > >
> > > Oh, come on, Vince.
> >
> > I cover warnings of this type in my course on products liability and
> > government
>
> snipped horrifying stuff.
>
> Vince, there is a profound difference between idiot-proof and
> idiot-resistant. The latter is a reasonable, although perhaps
> unattainable goal. The former is an asymptotic impossibility. I hold in
> my hand a cheap, disposable lighter; the EU sees fit to attach to it a
> notice warning me that lighting this lighter near my nose may cause
> burns. I expect they're right.
one other factor you find is a kind of cultural arrogance. the attitude is that
anyone who does not know what "I" know is an idiot"
I ask my class to find out where people learn about hazards in school (for the most
part they don't)
Sort of reminds me of the firsign theatre line "where are you from son,? Nairobi
ma'am, isn't everyone"
Disposable lighters often have adjustable flames and may surprise people with the
height of the flame who are used to matches.
vince
Alan Minyard
<vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
Vince, did it ever occur to you that your text books are just a
ridiculous as the incredible expense and waste that they engender??
Warning on a toaster "do not use in the shower or bathtub"
Al Minyard
Vince Brannigan
Alan Minyard wrote:
>
>
> Vince, did it ever occur to you that your text books are just a
> ridiculous as the incredible expense and waste that they engender??
>
> Warning on a toaster "do not use in the shower or bathtub"
>
>
we have a word for engineers who don't pay attention. we call them "defendants"
Vince
John D Salt
[Snips]
> one other factor you find is a kind of cultural arrogance.
> the attitude is that anyone who does not know what "I" know
> is an idiot"
I bow to your superior knowledge and experience of idiocy.
Perhaps there are, indeed, cultural milieux in which it is not
"idiotic" to attempt to drive a motor vehicle with a honking
great obstruction to one's rearward view in place. In the UK,
however, people who drive like that would generally be called
"defendants" (assuming they passed their driving test, which
seems unlikely).
All the best,
John.
Keith Willshaw
"John D Salt" <john...@NOSPAM.btclick.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9291E0653B5A...@217.32.252.50...
Alas there are a lot of them as is evidenved by the number
of motorists who dont bother to scrape the ice and snow
off the back window come winter time
Keith
Fred J. McCall
The 'we' in this case being greedy ambulance chasers.
A perfect example of why we should just kill all the lawyers.
--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney
Alan Lothian
<keith@kwillshaw_NoSpam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Alas there are a lot of them as is evidenved by the number
> of motorists who dont bother to scrape the ice and snow
> off the back window come winter time
>
Careful here, Keith. Viknce could *win* this argument if we carry on
like this.
Kerryn Offord
"Fred J. McCall" wrote:
>
> Vince Brannigan <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> :Alan Minyard wrote:
> :>
> :> Vince, did it ever occur to you that your text books are just a
> :> ridiculous as the incredible expense and waste that they engender??
> :>
> :> Warning on a toaster "do not use in the shower or bathtub"
> :
> :we have a word for engineers who don't pay attention. we call them "defendants"
>
> The 'we' in this case being greedy ambulance chasers.
>
> A perfect example of why we should just kill all the lawyers.
The only "good" lawyer is the one successfully representing "you".
James Hunter
"Vince Brannigan" <vze2...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:3D8E3626...@verizon.net...
But engineers also a word for lawyers who don't pay attention, we call
them the "dead man float".
> Vince
Fred J. McCall
Wrong.
Know what you need when you have 100 lawyers up to their necks in
sand?
A lawn mower.
[Hard to believe there isn't a warning sticker on lawn mowers about
that.]
Nicholas Smid
> In article <3d8d5788.280346396@news>, Peter Skelton <skel...@cogeco.ca>
wrote:
> >On Sun, 22 Sep 2002 03:43:38 GMT, thor...@visi.com (David
> >Thornley) wrote:
> >
> >>OK, what information available to him showed that unescorted
> >>coastal convoys were useful enough to justify the cost of running
> >>convoys (you lose maybe 30% of your shipping efficiency by
> >>convoying, to throw out a figure)?
> >
> >He had a war and a half of data.
> >
> Please expand on this. How much data was there on unescorted
> coastal convoys, specifically?
>
in narrow channels mostly with an 'escort' of a trawler and a couple of
ML's, ie basicly no escort, worked resonably well.
On the contory US east coast shipping was in no way confined to narrow
waters, the simplest protection of all would have been to tell the roaring
fools to steam directly out from the coast on leaving port, then when they
were between say 30 and 100 miles out turn to run paralel before turning in
at their destination. Having everyone trundling along as close inshore as
they could sail, huging the capes and light ships was plain stupidity, or
couldn't US coastel skippers find their way without shore lights to follow?
At worst in this case you could escort batches over the last stretch in and
out of port, and 100 miles out you have an open water convoy situation.
Iain Rae
>
> Alan Lothian wrote:
>
>
>>In article <3D8E15D9...@verizon.net>, Vince Brannigan
>><vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>Vince, there is a profound difference between idiot-proof and
>>idiot-resistant. The latter is a reasonable, although perhaps
>>unattainable goal. The former is an asymptotic impossibility. I hold in
>>my hand a cheap, disposable lighter; the EU sees fit to attach to it a
>>notice warning me that lighting this lighter near my nose may cause
>>burns. I expect they're right.
>
>
> one other factor you find is a kind of cultural arrogance. the attitude is that
> anyone who does not know what "I" know is an idiot"
> I ask my class to find out where people learn about hazards in school (for the most
> part they don't)
> Sort of reminds me of the firsign theatre line "where are you from son,? Nairobi
> ma'am, isn't everyone"
> Disposable lighters often have adjustable flames and may surprise people with the
> height of the flame who are used to matches.
As ably demonstrated by the late Mark McManus nearly setting Annette
Crosby alight in an out-take from Taggart.
Now I don't dispute that there are not some truly stupid safety
instructions out there, but equally there are some truly stupid people
out there as well. Given some of the warnings I'm assuming two things:
1. Somone has to have been stupid enough to do some of the things we're
ridiculing and tried to sue.
2. The courts have far better things to do than listen to Sony vs the
estate of the late idiot who took his 21" trinitron into the shower to
watch baywatch. If these daft warnings mean there's one less case per
year clogging up the courts it's worth it.
Besides it's somehow reassuring to know that there's people in the world
that are stupider then you are.
Jack Love
wrote:
>Vince Brannigan wrote:
>>
>> Alan Lothian wrote:
>>
>>
>>>In article <3D8E15D9...@verizon.net>, Vince Brannigan
>>><vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
><snip>
>
>
>>>Vince, there is a profound difference between idiot-proof and
>>>idiot-resistant. The latter is a reasonable, although perhaps
>>>unattainable goal. The former is an asymptotic impossibility. I hold in
>>>my hand a cheap, disposable lighter; the EU sees fit to attach to it a
>>>notice warning me that lighting this lighter near my nose may cause
>>>burns. I expect they're right.
>>
>>
>> one other factor you find is a kind of cultural arrogance. the attitude is that
>> anyone who does not know what "I" know is an idiot"
>> I ask my class to find out where people learn about hazards in school (for the most
>> part they don't)
>> Sort of reminds me of the firsign theatre line "where are you from son,? Nairobi
>> ma'am, isn't everyone"
>> Disposable lighters often have adjustable flames and may surprise people with the
>> height of the flame who are used to matches.
>
>
>As ably demonstrated by the late Mark McManus nearly setting Annette
>Crosby alight in an out-take from Taggart.
I loved the Taggart shows when we, briefly, got them here! Plots were
good and the accents were incredible...good for training the ear :)
Wish we could get them again or get them on DVD.
Iain Rae
well if you can handle PAL VHS
http://www.blackstar.co.uk/circle/search?words=taggart
I suspect that some will appear on DVD at some point (well if they can
do Robin of Sherwood :) )
kgb
Peter Skelton wrote:
>
> On Sun, 22 Sep 2002 03:43:38 GMT, thor...@visi.com (David
> Thornley) wrote:
<snip>
> >I believe that King made a wrong decision, and certainly the
> >US coastal shipping was never all that well handled. However,
> >it was a reasonable wrong decision. King was far from being
> >a saint, but he wasn't dumb.
>
> He was not dumb, but he was neither reasonable nor correct.
>
> A while ago now, I posted a bit of whimsy in which I mentioned a
> USN chief who had been pissed on by an RN poodle. Two different
> priofessional historians asked if this was a real story and what
> my source was - his Anglophobia is famous, but not
> well-explained. It did warp his judgement.
>
> ____
>
> Peter Skelton
I've not seen a detailed explanation either. However, it seems he
once told George C. Marshall something to the effect that "The
British were very nice to us in WWI. They even let us sail on the
same sea." So it appears that he found the British insufferably
arrogant. Since he was himself insufferably arrogant, the
reaction was predictable.
--
Kent G. Budge
Nibley's Gas Law of Learning:
Any amount of information, no matter how small, will
expand to fill any intellectual void, no matter how large.
Spamproof email: kgbudge at sandia dot gov
Fred J. McCall
:Now I don't dispute that there are not some truly stupid safety
:instructions out there, but equally there are some truly stupid people
:out there as well. Given some of the warnings I'm assuming two things:
:
:1. Somone has to have been stupid enough to do some of the things we're
:ridiculing and tried to sue.
:
:2. The courts have far better things to do than listen to Sony vs the
:estate of the late idiot who took his 21" trinitron into the shower to
:watch baywatch. If these daft warnings mean there's one less case per
:year clogging up the courts it's worth it.
A better solution would be to allow the courts to simply label these
as 'loon suits' and then fine or disbar the attorney who brings one.
That way, not only do you let the loons self-inflict and remove
themselves from the gene pool (although they're probably still doing
that; if they're stupid enough to use a toaster in the shower, they're
probably too stupid to read the warning label that says not to), but
you clean up some of the worse elements in the legal profession at the
same time.
--
"The odds get even - You name the game.
The odds get even - The stakes are the same.
You bet your life."
-- "You Bet Your Life", Rush
Vince Brannigan
"Fred J. McCall" wrote:
> Iain Rae <ia...@dcs.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> :Now I don't dispute that there are not some truly stupid safety
> :instructions out there, but equally there are some truly stupid people
> :out there as well. Given some of the warnings I'm assuming two things:
> :
> :1. Somone has to have been stupid enough to do some of the things we're
> :ridiculing and tried to sue.
> :
> :2. The courts have far better things to do than listen to Sony vs the
> :estate of the late idiot who took his 21" trinitron into the shower to
> :watch baywatch. If these daft warnings mean there's one less case per
> :year clogging up the courts it's worth it.
>
> A better solution would be to allow the courts to simply label these
> as 'loon suits' and then fine or disbar the attorney who brings one.
> That way, not only do you let the loons self-inflict and remove
> themselves from the gene pool (although they're probably still doing
> that; if they're stupid enough to use a toaster in the shower, they're
> probably too stupid to read the warning label that says not to), but
> you clean up some of the worse elements in the legal profession at the
> same time.
Ill give you the standard challenge. Give me a credible cite with a filing
number where an attorney field a legally frivolous lawsuit and Ill check it
out.
most of the claims for such lawsuits are
1) urban myths (never filed , including the famous lawnmower hedge ) case
2) real lawsuits that have been mischaracterized by omitting relevant facts
3) suits field pro se by lunatics of various types
4) lawsuits filed in which the stupid person is not the plaintiff i.e.
where the manufacture has been sued for the acts of an idiot c that they
facilitated..
one of the most common was the routine claim in ford explorer cases that the
user "overloaded the car" the problem was that the ford explorer plate only
said what allowed as the Gross vehicle weight. since the palate did not give
the weight of the vehicle, few consumers knew that putting 5 large adults in
the 5 person vehicle would "overload" a SUV that only had 1100 pounds of
total carrying capacity. (much less than for example a Ford Taurus). the
manufacture could trumpet that the stupid consumers had overloaded the
vehicle and it was their fault they suggested that consumers who wanted to
know if the vehicle was overloaded should drive to a local scale and have
the whole car weighed.
I do a lot of burn cases. people exposed to hollywood fires have no idea how
fast a fire spreads or that material can be both hard to ignite and
extremely flammable. .
That is why we put warnign labels on things.
Vince
David Thornley
Bernhard Rohrer <af...@griff.de> wrote:
>Indeed, however the percentage of ships which could maintain such speeds for
>> long enough were very low, had the Fast battery Subs arrived sooner it
>would
>> have reduced this percentage considerably. And the prospects for rescue
>for
>> the crew any ship caught solo were much lower
>
>Well, let's face it. If the Type XXI Subs had been available en masse (same
>building rate as type VIIs) in '42 or '43 the allies would have lost the
>battle of the atlantic anyway.
>
Thing is, by far the most effective use of U-boats against escorted
convoys was the mass surface attack at night, and the XXIs were at
least no better suited for that than the VIIs. As I understand it,
the main advantage of the XXIs was greatly enhanced underwater propulsion,
due to larger batteries. While this would have helped the subs
survive (the technique of having aircraft pin the sub underwater would
be much less useful, for example), it wouldn't have helped them
offensively.
They still would have had to use snorkels to recharge, and I'd assume
that recharging those batteries would have taken a while. They
still would have returned echoes. I doubt the engines were quieter,
and don't know that they could outrun a homing torpedo.
Not to mention Clay Blair's evaluation in "Hitler's U-Boat War",
in which he claims that the XXIs as built were not nearly as useful
as they sounded, due to design flaws and bad construction. I assume
that the quality control would have been better early on, but the
design flaws probably would have taken some serious work. It
was an ambitious project.
And one more thing: I'd think a XXI would be harder to build than
a VII, and so I'd think they could not have been turned out in
comparable numbers.
David Thornley
>On Sun, 22 Sep 2002 16:59:58 GMT, thor...@visi.com (David
>Thornley) wrote:
>
>>In article <3d8d5788.280346396@news>, Peter Skelton <skel...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>>On Sun, 22 Sep 2002 03:43:38 GMT, thor...@visi.com (David
>>>Thornley) wrote:
>>>
>>>>OK, what information available to him showed that unescorted
>>>>coastal convoys were useful enough to justify the cost of running
>>>
>>>
>>Please expand on this. How much data was there on unescorted
>>coastal convoys, specifically?
>
>Failure to convoy in the Med in WWI effectively closed it to
>allied shipping in WWI. Guess what happened when convoys started
>again?
Escorted or unescorted?
East coast convoys (the British ones) were effectively
>unescorted for the first year and a bit of the war. There are
>other examples.
>
"Effectively"? How many submarine attacks were there? One of the
nice things about Britain is that it's a lot smaller, and it's
possible to provide general coastal coverage much more easily.
>Here you snipped the important part of my post while putting up a
>cloud of accurate but not at issue stuff, That is neither honest
>nor nice.
>
I was expanding on your shotgun analogy.
>If you care to talk about the second substatiative point, the one
>at issue herer fine, say something.
Which was the second substantive point, the shotgun or the poodle?
I only found one substantive point, and answered it in detail.
Jack Love
wrote:
>>>
>>>As ably demonstrated by the late Mark McManus nearly setting Annette
>>>Crosby alight in an out-take from Taggart.
>>
>>
>> I loved the Taggart shows when we, briefly, got them here! Plots were
>> good and the accents were incredible...good for training the ear :)
>> Wish we could get them again or get them on DVD.
>>
>
>well if you can handle PAL VHS
>
>http://www.blackstar.co.uk/circle/search?words=taggart
>
>
>
>
>I suspect that some will appear on DVD at some point (well if they can
>do Robin of Sherwood :) )
>
That's a significant proof: please let me know when they do. I'll
probably have to jump through some hoops to get them but it will be
worth it. [I doubt Amazon will know to put them on my
'recommendations' list]
Keith Willshaw
> In article <3d8dfe22.323002617@news>, Peter Skelton <skel...@cogeco.ca>
wrote:
> >On Sun, 22 Sep 2002 16:59:58 GMT, thor...@visi.com (David
> >Thornley) wrote:
> >
>
> East coast convoys (the British ones) were effectively
> >unescorted for the first year and a bit of the war. There are
> >other examples.
> >
> "Effectively"? How many submarine attacks were there? One of the
> nice things about Britain is that it's a lot smaller, and it's
> possible to provide general coastal coverage much more easily.
>
This turns out to be incorrect
The distance from Scapa Flow down to the Channel is
around 800 miles. It was the impossibility of providing
such cover that led to the use of convoys and from
Sept 1939 to Jun 1940 the Germans had no ready
Atlantic bases and were mainly equpped with small coastal
submarines.
During this period the North Sea was their main hunting ground
Between Sept 1939 and March 1940 The number of ships sunk
by all means was
North Atlantic 75
South Atlantic 8
UK Waters 319
Of those 129 were sunk by mines, 16 by surface ships,30 by aircraft ,
5 by other causes and 222 by submarines
Only 60 of those sunk were in the Atlantic and a goodly number were
sunk by Surface raiders that were already at sea on the outbreak of war
Keith
Alan Minyard
>
>Ill give you the standard challenge. Give me a credible cite with a filing
>number where an attorney field a legally frivolous lawsuit and Ill check it
>out.
McDonald's coffee. And don't bother to "check it out", as I already
know that the fact that coffee is supposed to be hot is not a defense
in the "laughingly litigious world of lawyers".
Al Minyard
Brian Sharrock
"Jack Love" <jack...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:dkhtouokpus39b404...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 23 Sep 2002 07:48:03 +0100, Iain Rae <ia...@dcs.ed.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> >Vince Brannigan wrote:
> >>
> >> Alan Lothian wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>In article <3D8E15D9...@verizon.net>, Vince Brannigan
> >>><vze2...@verizon.net> wrote:
> ><snip>
> >
> >
people with the
> >> height of the flame who are used to matches.
> >
> >
> >As ably demonstrated by the late Mark McManus nearly setting Annette
> >Crosby alight in an out-take from Taggart.
>
> I loved the Taggart shows when we, briefly, got them here! Plots were
> good and the accents were incredible...good for training the ear :)
> Wish we could get them again or get them on DVD.
>
so that we can have teletext sub titles on! (Too poor to afford
the type of VCR that captures P888).
Although; it has been mildly amusing to see the _actor_ who played
"Mike Jardine(?)" pop up on 'The Bill' speaking in a very slow and
precise English RADA accent befitting his portrayal of an Englishman.
For those that don't know; - "He'd been muRRR'ded!" in Taggart.
--
Brian
Vince Brannigan
Alan Minyard wrote:
I measured coffee produced lby 20 household coffee makers. none produced
coffee over 160 degrees f, and most were at 140 that is what peope think of as
hot coffee. the coffee in the case was at 192 degrees Even Macdonalds expert
said the coffee was both undrinkable and dangerously hot at the temperature was
served. under the law of sales goods sold into an environment have to be safely
packed for delivery and use in that environment. Macdonalds made a business
decision to sell extremely hot coffee in a hazardous container to people in
cars. The judge did not find the case frivolous
Vince .
Peter Skelton
Thornley) wrote:
>In article <sQIi9.4741$cP3....@news.iol.ie>,
>Bernhard Rohrer <af...@griff.de> wrote:
>>Indeed, however the percentage of ships which could maintain such speeds for
>>> long enough were very low, had the Fast battery Subs arrived sooner it
>>would
>>> have reduced this percentage considerably. And the prospects for rescue
>>for
>>> the crew any ship caught solo were much lower
>>
>>Well, let's face it. If the Type XXI Subs had been available en masse (same
>>building rate as type VIIs) in '42 or '43 the allies would have lost the
>>battle of the atlantic anyway.
>>
>Thing is, by far the most effective use of U-boats against escorted
>convoys was the mass surface attack at night, and the XXIs were at
>least no better suited for that than the VIIs. As I understand it,
>the main advantage of the XXIs was greatly enhanced underwater propulsion,
>due to larger batteries. While this would have helped the subs
>survive (the technique of having aircraft pin the sub underwater would
>be much less useful, for example), it wouldn't have helped them
>offensively.
They had vastly improved targeting.
>They still would have had to use snorkels to recharge, and I'd assume
>that recharging those batteries would have taken a while.
4 hours in 24 to maintain 6 knots (from memory, beware)
They
>still would have returned echoes. I doubt the engines were quieter,
>and don't know that they could outrun a homing torpedo.
Much quieter. The homing torpedos were about 25 knots (I"ve also
read 18), the subs were good for about 20 sprint so outrunning
was not out of the question. Aircraft would have had a hard tome
getting a drop solution though.
>Not to mention Clay Blair's evaluation in "Hitler's U-Boat War",
>in which he claims that the XXIs as built were not nearly as useful
>as they sounded, due to design flaws and bad construction. I assume
>that the quality control would have been better early on, but the
>design flaws probably would have taken some serious work. It
>was an ambitious project.
Control was a problem until the albacore hull shape came out.
>And one more thing: I'd think a XXI would be harder to build than
>a VII, and so I'd think they could not have been turned out in
>comparable numbers.
The fleet could have been increased at a greater rate, wastage
being somehwhat less.
____
Peter Skelton
Alan Minyard
Precisely, which is why people hate lawyers (I am assuming that the
Judge was a lawyer, if not, my apologies to his Honor).
Of course the ridiculous award was reduced on appeal, the judges
evidently not being paid on a percentage basis.
Al Minyard
Peter Skelton
Thornley) wrote:
>In article <3d8dfe22.323002617@news>, Peter Skelton <skel...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>On Sun, 22 Sep 2002 16:59:58 GMT, thor...@visi.com (David
>>Thornley) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <3d8d5788.280346396@news>, Peter Skelton <skel...@cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>>>On Sun, 22 Sep 2002 03:43:38 GMT, thor...@visi.com (David
>>>>Thornley) wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>OK, what information available to him showed that unescorted
>>>>>coastal convoys were useful enough to justify the cost of running
>>>>
>>>>He had a war and a half of data.
>>>>
>>>Please expand on this. How much data was there on unescorted
>>>coastal convoys, specifically?
>>
>>Failure to convoy in the Med in WWI effectively closed it to
>>allied shipping in WWI. Guess what happened when convoys started
>>again?
>
>Escorted or unescorted?
This is pre-ASDIC, pre-radar. The escort does not matter.
>
> East coast convoys (the British ones) were effectively
>>unescorted for the first year and a bit of the war. There are
>>other examples.
>>
>"Effectively"? How many submarine attacks were there? One of the
>nice things about Britain is that it's a lot smaller, and it's
>possible to provide general coastal coverage much more easily.
Submarine attacks weren't worth the effort with convoying, the
subs went elsewhere. This is like when the RCN started convoy
from Halifax to Boston in WWII (1-2 escorts, an ex US 4 piper
incapable of ocean service and a 12 knot coastal minesweeper or
trawler to begin with,) The subs immediately moved south.
>>Here you snipped the important part of my post while putting up a
>>cloud of accurate but not at issue stuff, That is neither honest
>>nor nice.
>>
>I was expanding on your shotgun analogy.
You ignored that completely and went on with a rant about
detection.
>>If you care to talk about the second substatiative point, the one
>>at issue herer fine, say something.
>
>Which was the second substantive point, the shotgun or the poodle?
>I only found one substantive point, and answered it in detail.
You redelivered material on a point not at issue. Think a bit
about the shotgun. There is something quite important there you
haven't caught on to yet.
____
Peter Skelton
Jack Love
Jardine was killed??? Or, was that just his accent?