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Sturgeon's House

The R Class Submarine


LostCosmonaut

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Stop covering for Downward because he strawmanned so hard trying to pretend this is an anti-Churchill rant when again what we were discussing was the institutional hubris that afflicted every First Lord of the Admiralty from 1890 to 1920 - including Beatty, Wilson, Churchill, and Fisher - all of which I mentioned with a particular failing attached to them.

 

That Downward is still strawmanning pretending that a few flawed battlecruiser designs is at issue (when the only time I even mentioned them involves a procedural fault by Beatty - he kept the safety fire doors open to increase rate of fire which allowed the magazine explosions to happen. That's not a design issue, that's a leadership issue - wherein an Admiral ignores basic safety features of a ship) really goes to show who's too busy trying to shit on an actual intelligent discussion because he can't handle the damn truth. That's the only childishness that's happening here, and stop pretending I or xthetenth are at fault because we're calling out Downward's bullshit of wanting to protect ze honor of the Royal Navy/Churchill when neither of us could care less about who he fanboys for.

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Stop covering for Downward because he strawmanned so hard trying to pretend this is an anti-Churchill rant when again what we were discussing was the institutional hubris that afflicted every First Lord of the Admiralty from 1890 to 1920 - including Beatty, Wilson, Churchill, and Fisher - all of which I mentioned with a particular failing attached to them.

That Downward is still strawmanning pretending that a few flawed battlecruiser designs is at issue (when the only time I even mentioned them involves a procedural fault by Beatty - he kept the safety fire doors open to increase rate of fire which allowed the magazine explosions to happen. That's not a design issue, that's a leadership issue - wherein an Admiral ignores basic safety features of a ship) really goes to show who's too busy trying to shit on an actual intelligent discussion because he can't handle the damn truth. That's the only childishness that's happening here.

I told Don to cut it out, too.

You're a very tenacious person, Zinegata, but you're going to have to learn one of these days that sometimes you can't just shake the rabbit until it's dead. All three of you can manage to get along; I don't care if you think he is strawmanning, I don't care if he is strawmanning.

I, and most others on this board, have the patience and composure to keep their tempers out of their writing. If you think that is hard, try arguing in person with someone who has an outrageous opinion, while keeping yourself composed. There is frankly no excuse for this lack of self-control in a text-based forum that allows post editing.

I don't want to ban you; some of your posting is good, and you'd probably just be mad at me and learn nothing anyway. Instead of all that, listen to me. You aren't responsible for what Donward posts, and neither is any other poster here responsible for what you or anyone else posts. You are responsible for what you post, and what you post is a reflection of who you are and your ability to control yourself.

Do it.

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Where would be a good place to restart? I've said my peace regarding the later institutional problems of the interwar and WWII Royal Navy and how its capabilities matched to its commitments and resources, so I'd personally prefer to have a return to status quo ante bellum.

 

I think that that would be trying to see whether the desire for a quick victory was rooted in post-Napoleonic political developments in the UK or whether it was an institutional misunderstanding of how to fight with maritime power and a desire to recreate a mythologized event that didn't really occur how they represented it as having occurred. Zin, you probably have a better idea than I do here, although I can't help but wonder whether things were shaped by an understanding that with the French relationship the way it was, a lengthy war would require a land commitment to keep them in as coalition partners, and so a more periphery oriented approach might not work, and a maritime victory might have to occur on a faster timeline than before without the luxury of forming new coalitions repeatedly. Do you have any information for or against that idea?

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The desire for quick victory frankly permeated all of Europe's militaries before the breakout, with the obsession with mobilizations and the cult of the offensive.

 

However, in naval matters, I would hazard that it was the dreadnought race itself which was part of the impetus for a quick victory. You had the British public lobbying for more spending on battleships before the war - "We want eight, we can't wait" was one of the chants if I recall correctly - and such impatience in getting battleships is probably going to be matched by wanting those battleships to actually win some battles.

 

I know you're trying to find a link between the new British-French alliance and try to find a way to link it with British naval strategy, but as Keegan noted the Admiralty in fact generally did not get involved in any of the joint armed forces meetings - whose very focus was finding out how to fulfill their obligations to the French. They were, to quote his First World War history, "aloof" to what the Army and the French were doing. In fact it's worth noting that the Grand Fleet never even joined forces with the French Navy in any operation - it was only for Gallipolli that the Royal Navy engaged jointly with the French and using only old battleships.

 

In any case, strictly speaking, the "alliance" hadn't been totally cemented from a legal perspective - hence the British needing the excuse of Belgian neutrality to get involved - and the French and British were in fact still arguing over some of the minor colonial issues that could have escalated.

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Fair enough, I was looking at that as something that might contribute to it, but I'm not wedded to the idea, I just wanted it comprehensively debunked.

 

It's very weird how disconnected the RN was to the overall situation of the UK.

 

The Admiralty was officially never integrated into the Ministry of Defense until after World War 2. The RN was in fact disconnected from the rest of the military and the government; a holdover from the time when the RN was more of a privateering force than a navy.

 

It's a very peculiar institution as far as militaries go.

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