It's time for our biweekly open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't culture war.
A few pieces of recent news. First, the new USS Montana commissioned last week. This either broke a century-old curse, or will bring about the end of the world. Jury is still out there. Second, Hershel "Woody" Williams, the last surviving WWII Medal of Honor winner, died last week.
Also, it's been a while since I did a book update, and I just cleared the 100,000 word mark in the process of working through the treaty battleships.
2018 overhauls are Rangefinding, SYWTBAMN-Aviation Part 2, The Great White Fleet Part 1, The Newport Conference and the US Dreadnought, my review of Batfish and Falklands Part 4. 2019 overhauls are Information, Communication and Naval Warfare Part 3, dndnrsn's review of Bavarian military museums, Rangekeeping Part 2, Impressment, my review of the WWI museum and Signalling Part 1. 2020 overhauls are my picture post of Iowa's Goat Locker, Coastal Defenses Part 4, The Pearl Harbor Rant, Mike Kozlowski's review of Fort Monroe and The Last Sailing Battle. 2021 overhauls are The 3T Missiles - Launch Systems, Postwar Battleships - US, Coastal Defenses Part 8 and Norway Part 3.
Comments
[meta topic]
You should strongly consider moving your blog to Substack, even if you plan to keep all the posts freely available.
The main advantage would be better technology and a better serving stack. Said Achmiz has provided an amazing community service by hosting this blog, but it is by far the slowest-loading site that I visit semi-regularly. The ability for users to subscribe to posts via email and a more sophisticated commenting system are also big advantages.
I would also expect that hosting on Substack would increase discoverability and audience reach. It's easier to find your blog via Substack's search feature or the Discover page than it would be to simply stumble on it by Googling something relevant.
Finally, I would imagine that some subset of the regular commenters here would be happy to become paid subscribers, even if there is no paywall. I don't think this would be hugely significant, but might still be nice.
Alternatively, you could find ways to significantly speed up the hosting of the existing site (move where it is hosted?) or migrate it to one of the Substack competitors (Bulletin, Revue, etc.)
In summary: I love the blog, would love more people to discover it, and think better hosting would help a lot with that. Substack seems to be the current consensus pick in that area, though there are alternatives available.
Man, I have had a very different experience than @alex with both this blog and Substack. I'm guessing that's because I find out about posts via the RSS feed on my phone, and then click through to specific articles from there. In my experience, this blog is really quite snappy and works pretty well that way. But I noticed just now that hitting the home page (the big article list on the frontpage) is in fact pretty slow. So maybe there's just some issue with that page?
My experience with Substack (using the same "RSS then click through" method) is just awful. It usually locks up for several seconds trying to render the content, the comments are difficult to deal with, and I generally just hate it.
Not to say that you shouldn't switch to some hosted platform if it would be easier, but just please not Substack!
All that aside, I love all the content. I just never comment because I'm such an amateur compared to y'all. But please keep it up, thanks!
Man, I have had a very different experience than @alex with both this blog and Substack. I'm guessing that's because I find out about posts via the RSS feed on my phone, and then click through to specific articles from there. In my experience, this blog is really quite snappy and works pretty well that way. But I noticed just now that hitting the home page (the big article list on the frontpage) is in fact pretty slow. So maybe there's just some issue with that page?
My experience with Substack (using the same "RSS then click through" method) is just awful. It usually locks up for several seconds trying to render the content, the comments are difficult to deal with, and I generally just hate it.
Not to say that you shouldn't switch to some hosted platform if it would be easier, but just please not Substack!
All that aside, I love all the content. I just never comment because I'm such an amateur compared to y'all. But please keep it up, thanks!
The Substack phone app is pretty solid, and works as a reasonable-but-not-great RSS reader as well.
There are also far fewer double-posted comments on Substack : )
Agree that this site is immensely slow loading - to the point that I thought it was a deliberate choice to drive off bots; isn't it?
That said, neutral on putting it on Substack vs not. If it's not broke, why fix it? Though I guess that does depend on whether you consider taking several seconds to load mostly plain text is 'broke' or not.
There's something wrong with the code that generates the homepage. Not sure exactly what it is, and Said Achmiz has looked into it some without success, although I should probably poke him about it again. Everything else works reasonably well.
Not a huge fan of going to Substack, mostly because I don't want to have to migrate everything there or deal with the mess it would make of the blog as a whole.
You could probably prevent double-posting by adding a unique constraint on something like (name, email, comment text, post id) in the DB. It'd only take one SQL query, assuming the webserver works in a vaguely normal way.
Continuing from my comments on the Dulin & Garzke Bismarck book in the last OT, I found something even weirder and more disturbing. When discussing the Second London Treaty, they state that the 45,000 ton limit was the result of the "if Japan doesn't sign" escalator clause. That's not true. The incentive for Japan to join was the 14" limit, raised to 16" if they stayed out. The 45,000 ton limit was introduced later by the various powers as a result of it becoming clear Japan was building bigger ships. This is really basic, and getting it wrong is more than a bit surprising.
Question for here or a future Coastal Defences article, do the land based light anti-tank missiles have a role in coastal defence? I'm thinking in particular of the optical fibre guided missiles which are almost impossible to jam, but also the laser guided ATGMs.
Sure, they do not have anywhere near enough explosive to sink or significantly damage a frigate, but would steering one into the bridge or main radar mast be enough for a mission kill?
The big concern there is range. Even the laser-guided ones have significantly less range when launched from the ground then from a plane at medium altitude. This was a serious problem with Hellfire on the LCS. But that aside, they would be extremely effective in that case, and the threat of such weapons will do a lot to keep the big ships from playing close inshore.
The further I go, the less impressed I am with the D&G Bismarck book. The details are all there, but the analysis is sorely lacking. Most notably, I should not have to do my own research in other books to realize that the initial range requirement for their first 35,000 ton battleship was 60% greater than the USN was using, and that's why the design looks so weird relative to other treaty battleships. Yes, you gave a bare range figure, but did not mention that it is completely bonkers.
@Hugh One area where the (relatively) short range of ATGMs is less of an issue is in complicating amphibious landings. Landing craft are typically much smaller than even the lightest warship, and much more vulnerable to being sunk by such weapons, as they have to come close to the shore to do their job.
https://www.navalgazing.net/Falklands-Part-1
Guerrico is over a thousand tons (so far bigger than a LCM) and took serious damage from lighter, and shorter ranged weapons than, say, a Kornet.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33557180
They effectively mean that a team that can travel by truck or helicopter (or many cars) could have the same effect on an attackers plans as the Oscarsborg fortress once did.
https://www.navalgazing.net/Norway-Part-3
First, apologies for the issues with the comments. I'm aware of them and have passed word to Said Achmiz.
In the meantime, there is the Commenter account (password commenter) which will get you past the captcha, although you will need to edit your name back.
Second, what is wrong with documentary producers? Why are they seemingly unable to distinguish between someone who knows naval history and someone who has a PhD in an unrelated field and will say stupid stuff on camera?
Good news, the CAPTCHA seems to be fixed now.
Why are they seemingly unable to distinguish between someone who knows naval history and someone who has a PhD in an unrelated field and will say stupid stuff on camera?
Well, don't keep us in suspense. What documentary, and what did they get wrong?
Wouldn't the relatively low speed and non-sea-skimming altitude of ATGMs make them fairly easy prey for Phalanx or Goalkeeper-type gun CIWS? Their range is also usually short enough that a 57mm or 76mm gun working as a CIWS could probably take out the launcher - maybe even semi-automatically (as counterbattery fire, essentially).
I suppose that does just shift the vulnerability, though.
I'm going to keep that under wraps for now while I decide how loudly to complain.
@bean,
Cynical mode here: maybe they do know the difference, and seek out the unrelated PhDs on purpose. Actual subject matter experts might say boring stuff like, "it's complicated," or "well, there are nuances to it," and generally take way too long to explain things. OTOH Joe Random-Doctorate doesn't actually know anything about the subject, so he'll express his uninformed but very simple opinions in the form of pithy quotes which will get people's attention.
@Jade Nekotenshi,
That sounds right. But a Harpoon (for example) costs nearly 10x as much as a Hellfire (for example). Individual rockets for Javelin are even cheaper than that - and Javelin is on the expensive end for man-portable systems. Of course the short range of ATGMs would seriously limit how many of them could engage a given target, but in theory they might still have the potential to swarm a target and overwhelm it with sheer numbers. Especially if said target was closing the coastline with intent to land troops.
@Philistine
Several other historians that at least work for institutions I am aware of are featured in that episode, and I believe the person in the thumbnail for a later episode is Norman Friedman. Which is what makes this particularly baffling.
The Navy announced its verdicts regarding the USS Bonhomme Richard fire. I'll link a very secondary source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7SSdlyW8dQ
You know how, in Open Thread 106, @doctorpat suggested giving the Air Force's A-10Cs to Ukraine? Well, the Air Force has stated that they're open to the idea:
Wow. I'd be surprised and gratified if the Navy was paying attention to us, and just surprised if the Air Force was. Still, a pleasant surprise. Now, how to use this power...
(And yes, I know this isn't them actually listening. I just hope Ukraine decides to request the things.)
bean:
But would they actually want them? Are they enough of an improvement over an Su-25 to be worth going through the trouble of transitioning? Somehow I doubt it.
There's a couple of areas where I see clear advantages over the Su-25. One is availability. I don't know how many Su-25s the Ukrainians have, but they definitely aren't getting more, while there should be well over 100 A-10s available on pretty short notice. Secondly, it's equipped for NATO PGMs, not Soviet ones.
In more on-topic news, Russia and Ukraine have signed a deal mediated by Turkey to allow a limited lifting of the blockade on Ukrainian ports. Ukraine will be allowed to export grain on ships inspected by Turkey. In return, Russia will also be able to export grain and fertilizer from its Black Sea ports.
Wait! Americans are going without Russian fuel, but Europeans are still buying Russian bread?
Not so much the Europeans as a whole swath of poorer countries, from Egypt to Indonesia. Russia and Ukraine both were major grain suppliers to Africa and Southeast Asia, and when the war started and Ukrainian ports were blockaded, there were major price increases in bread, noodles and other staple foods in many countries.
If this deal hadn't been reached, and Ukraine had lost its grain harvest entirely, there were real concerns about mass famines in e.g. North Africa.
Isn't the ability to cause famine the whole point of having a navy?
Less glibly, grain is fungible and every ship going from Azov to Tunis free one in New Orleans to go to Rotterdam instead. To say nothing of the opportunity this gives the Turks to engage in smuggling.
I feel like this is a trial balloon for the end of the fuel embargo. The humanitarian arguments are the same, and this deal already allows the export of Russian petrochemicals.
Well yes, but what do the Russians care about famines in Africa? If the grain was going to the Ukraine they would presumably not make any agreements. (Though that does raise the question of why they're allowing the payments to enter the Ukraine, which can use them to pay for weapons.)
Under the classical law of the sea, grain was not contraband of war and could not be lawfully seized; a neutral ship carrying grain to a third party would not be fair prize. I don't know if Ukraine has a merchant navy, but anyway lots of other people do. Obviously a lot of that law went by the wayside in the total conflicts of the twentieth century, but perhaps it will make a reappearance in this more limited conflict?
Rolf Andreassen:
Ukraine are going to be getting all the weapons and ammo they can fire no matter what Russia does.
Then why have a blockade at all?
It does seem to me that there is some value to the Ukrainians in being able to just place orders for guns that they pay for with money, rather than having to go begging around the Western capitals and rely on the attention span of their publics.