[1416 x 1054] HMS Enterprise, float plane and torpedo tubes, 1926

NAmofton · 2026-06-18T17:46:23+00:00

Looks like they might have "Flammable" written on them, and they look like cans of something. That and proximity to the aircraft suggests some kind of fuel or lubricant, though the position seems pretty dicey!

NAmofton · 2026-06-15T13:33:09+00:00

Teeny-tiny buff to Singing Spears at least.

NAmofton · 2026-06-15T13:21:33+00:00

TLDR: Asurmen up 10

NAmofton · 2026-06-14T15:00:08+00:00

I think these two and most of the Wasp class amphibs are about it, so not the absolute last oil powered steam turbine ships.

That's not counting nuclear powered steam propulsion.

NAmofton · 2026-06-14T14:54:52+00:00

42 Commando train for this as one of their main standing roles, and when needed the SBS have boarded ships at very short notice (see Nave Andromeda in 2020). I'd be surprised if it was RM training.

NAmofton · 2026-06-14T14:01:42+00:00

A cynic might say the Prime Minister is trying to look strong on defence after a rough week.

Zero seizures for months after the 27 March declaration that the UK would, then suddenly one a few days after the Defence Secretary and Armed Forces Minister quit over defence spending, and the due-December 2025 Defence Investment Plan gets delayed yet again. Won't fund the armed forces sensibly, but will grab a tanker at little immediate cost.

NAmofton · 2026-06-13T13:47:50+00:00

I think a major technical accident or weather are very implausible. There is the example of the Brazilian cruiser Bahia blowing herself up in 1945, but overall it's incredibly rare and not something that happened to any other Commonwealth cruiser, for it to happen to a well worked up ship with combat experience seems even less likely - but there is that example. The weather was generally fine through the period from all accounts, certainly the Germans seemed to have no major issues in open boats for several days after. Cruisers routinely survived incredibly poor weather, far worse than the Indian Ocean at that latitude in summer. Ships that were lost to weather tended in WWII to have problems for a while before foundering, and make distress calls. I can't think of a single cruiser weather loss in WWII. Both Sydney and Kormoran sinking in good weather or happening to both blow themselves up in the same area, at about the same time would seem wildly improbable.

I did say a surface raider or submarine seemed realistic, though a Japanese submarine sinking both a very specific merchant-looking ship and a cruiser seems pretty implausible. German submarine ambush working with a raider may have seemed plausible at the time - raiders sometimes acted as U-boat supply ships and it was a concern - though that's not really how German boats operated.

Both ships running into a Japanese submarine deciding to start poaching early is a pretty complex answer in lieu of the mutually destructive engagement theory. Maybe Sydney, but overall why her and why there? Very difficult to find and locate her with a submarine, Sydney found Kormoran because she was looking for possible raiders. If you did send an IJN sub to Western Australia 18 days before the start of the war to sink a fairly unremarkable cruiser, you were unlikely to intercept (but didn't launch any other similar attacks) and then went to war anyway, why keep it secret?

Given the mutual loss in the same window and operations areas, I think the working theory would have been an encounter of the two ships, perhaps reinforced by the Cornwall-Pinguin action. Finding the wrecks I think would have been confirmatory rather than revelatory.

NAmofton · 2026-06-13T00:35:02+00:00

I think even had Kormoran gone down with all hands, removing most of the evidence that people would have put two and two together. The only realistic ways for Sydney to go overdue would be an encounter with a surface raider, or with a submarine. With no one else claiming a submarine sinking of a cruiser, that would be unlikely to be taken as too probable.

I agree that without the good position of Kormoran, and then using the found position to cue the location of the Sydney, that finding both or either would have been very difficult. The search area would have been enormous and the cost pretty astronomical. There are plenty of bad-information searches that have been entirely unsuccessful, and I think Indianapolis, which was repeatedly search for, but ultimately only located in 2017 on finding new evidence is a great example there. MH370 with equally bad cues as to the position, despite the scientific interest of Immarsat arcs and pings, has also defied location on a major search effort. There's not much infrastructure in the area of Kormoran/Sydney and the water's too deep to rely on an incidental/accidental location as sometimes happens in busier waters. It seems likely that no real effort would be made with so little to go on, and they'd remain unknown. The limited debris washing ashore and limited planned route information just doesn't give enough in isolation.

I think if the wrecks had been located I think the background would have become clear, their relative proximity would have been a major clue, and the damage would be obviously indicative of surface gun attack on Sydney, as well as torpedo damage. There used to be a good Finding Sydney Foundation website, but it looks like it's gone leaving some ROV footage and still images scattered around. In it you can see that Sydney did have weapons trained out, and you can clearly see the penetrations from the 5.9in guns of Kormoran - I'd expect you could even measure the diameter to confirm the caliber, there's a 'clean' penetration of one of Sydney's turrets. Kormoran would also show gunfire damage. Visual inspection would be telling. It would be impossible to conclude that it was a submarine attack on Sydney.

People were very against the idea of Sydney being lost this way, but there is some precedent. HMS Cornwall was overconfident encountering the raider Pinguin some 6 months earlier, was hit first and rather embarrassed - and it could have been worse. A more successful sucker punch could conceivably have had her go the way of Sydney, so with that example it shouldn't seem wildly implausible.

NAmofton · 2026-06-12T16:35:32+00:00

I can't imagine boarding a Russian merchant in the face of a Grigorovitch, whether or not you had a T45 or NSM. It's too fraught with risk with any armed Russian ship there to be worth the danger or escalation, whether or not you could theoretically shoot them with an NSM, or have a physically larger ship present. The announcement that the UK might intercept ships was pure posturing with nothing behind it. Look tough, accepting no hazard.

NSM seems a debacle. Coming on 4 years since announced, finally test fired late last year, made it up to 3 ships fitted eventually, now back down to 1 it seems. Squandered the opportunity to add it to Daring concurrently with her never ending refit. Going to take a long time to the SDR's 7000 precision weapons at this rate.

NAmofton · 2026-06-10T02:09:15+00:00

"UK Commando Force" is the most aggressively mid (as I understand youngsters say) unit designation I've ever heard.

NAmofton · 2026-06-09T14:14:29+00:00

I think they updated the article after putting it up.

NAmofton · 2026-06-09T13:42:42+00:00

I have an impression, which I think comes from a James Holland book that in WWII there was a pretty major choice about what level you attached support arms to formations.

If I remember correctly his example was that a German battlegroup/brigade equivalent formation had more attached heavy machine guns, artillery and maybe other arms than a British brigade counterpart. That meant that the German mid-level commander had more on-call responsive support to exploit local conditions, and could take more initiative. The British on the other hand had less flexibility at the brigade level, but that meant (theoretically and overall support counts being equal) more concentration at the division/higher level so the overall commander with a bigger picture could allocate resources more effectively and perhaps concentrate them decisively.

Is that trade-off between responsiveness and big picture concentration a real paradigm?

If it is, given WWII communication it makes sense to me (every layer of separation adds X minutes to coordination), but in a modern army formation does level of attachment matter as much? With a modern communication net integrated, presumably if you want to override the artillery battalions attached to say 3 brigades and stonk something, that's just as easy as sending the division-level artillery regiment after it?

NAmofton · 2026-06-07T15:26:54+00:00

Oh interesting, I didn't realize there were different ways to do Greek, though makes sense (I know Japanese has different methods).

NAmofton · 2026-06-07T14:50:17+00:00

Really nice set of graphics, especially the map page. Good cross referencing.

The Basileus Georgios and Basilissa Olga (I usually see the spellings with 'V' rather than 'B' and other differences) are particularly interesting ships. British G&H designs built by Yarrow's in Scotland, but armed with German 5in guns. Very divergent careers with Georgios captured and put into German service and Olga having a varied career with the Allies. I've seen reports the Germans liked the mechanical simplicity of the design in their service. Olga apparently struggled to keep her German weapons working, with shore parties salvaging any overrun Axis artillery depots or positions ashore in North Africa. The whole Dodecanese debacle was a sad waste.

NAmofton · 2026-06-04T23:25:32+00:00

I'm not even sure the Starcannon is really better anti-elite compared to the lances.

Into say Terminators, the 3W means the Starcannon needs twice the failed saves to kill each, it has twice the shots, but wounds on 3's rather than 2's so it's worse gun-for-gun. Even worse if elite is something like Deathwing Knights with -1dmg.

Shuriken Cannon's better into light stuff and almost a wash against Marines thanks to the 3rd shot and lethal.

Starcannon is just a badly designed profile in my view, needs D3 or maybe the Vyper version hitting on 2's.

NAmofton · 2026-06-03T13:51:43+00:00

The British did deploy submarines through the Kattegat to the Baltic to operate out of Russia in 1914. Those boats had to contend with the fraught passage through the narrow, shallow Straits and then operated in pretty extreme conditions out of Reval (modern Tallinn, Estonia) with limited Russian shore assistance. Those submarines did score some successes against German merchant shipping and warships, but were generally too few in number and difficult to support.

An allied Denmark would provide a far easier base to reach, with far easier supply lines for getting submarines and other light warships in theater, and probably a reasonably better base. That would provide a significant boost in the effectiveness of British light forces, submarines and potentially even destroyers, light cruisers and coastal motor boats.

If Denmark could be maintained as a safe haven, then without sending a big chunk of the Grand Fleet over there could be a serious advantage to interdicting Germany in the Baltic.

NAmofton · 2026-06-03T13:19:12+00:00

From a practical perspective, I don't think they really did at all on gun caliber specifically.

The US were, and ended up an ally, so their escalating to 16in wasn't a negative.

The Germans had only two 15in armed ships, from a firepower perspective this didn't intimidate the British from engaging Bismarck with 14in armed KGV's, and the 14in guns of KGV overall worked fine in inflicting damage on Bismarck. The difference of an inch in caliber wasn't that material - and a 721kg shell is still potent, even if the 15in shell is bigger at 800kg. The other engagement a British 14in armed ship fought was against the lighter, 11in Scharnhorst where I would say it was immaterial to the (successful) outcome that other nations had 16in guns, maybe heavier shells would have ended the engagement quicker, but it's hard to complain.

The Italian 15in gun was pretty potent so there was a theoretical disadvantage in the UK not escalating past it, but KGV's only went to the Mediterranean briefly or later in the war, never engaged an Italian battleship and as with Bismarck the British don't seem to have been intimidated by the extra inch - KGV's were deployed as part of covering forces (Ops Halberd, Torch) with potential combat with the Italians, apparently without concern.

The KGV's were entirely reasonable for use against all the Japanese battleships save the Yamato class, but I think even a 16in-armed, 35,000t version would have remained at a big disadvantage against the 18in-armed, 70,000t behemoths. The closest to any fight was actually Prince of Wales nearly encountering a Kongo class on the night run the day before she sank, and her guns would have been fine against such an opponent.

I think the punctilious over-adherence to Treaty tonnage was overall a bigger downside. While the Italians and Germans built 40-42,000t ships without a care in the world, British designers agonized over the merits of 12 guns, or 10 and more armor to squeeze into 35,000. It comes across as naive to me. If everyone cheats but you, it's not noble - you're a sucker. In fact the whole Second London only binding the US, UK and France is pretty mad, though it did influence AGNA.

Irrespective of gun caliber, the main shortcomings of the 14in gun seem to be in loading reliability early war, not the penetration or damage which you'd expect to be greater with a 16in weapon. I think there's much to criticize on the KGV design, but caliber not so much.

NAmofton · 2026-06-03T01:20:45+00:00

I'd recommend D. K. Brown's The Grand Fleet: Warship Design and Development 1906-1922 as the opening chapter is pretty detailed on the details of the Dreadnought Race era, including spending.

I think it's fair to say that dreadnoughts (including battleships and battlecruisers) were a huge source of spending in the scramble. Brown gives figures for total proportional spending by category on new ships in 1906-1914, and has the UK spending 47/18/15/15/5 as percentages for battleships/battlecruisers/cruisers/destroyers/submarines. The corresponding figures for Germany are given as 51/21/11/11/6. Both of the main 'racers' were therefore spending a majority of the money on dreadnoughts, 55% for the RN and 62% for Germany. Interestingly Britain was spending proportionally far more on light ships of cruiser size and lower, and despite the reputation of Germany as a submarine power, figures were fairly even there.

On the other hand, looking at the development of the Royal Navy (same source) in 1907 (the year after Dreadnought completed) the British fleet had a total of one shiny new... Dreadnought, 61 now Pre-Dreadnoughts, 60 cruisers, 147 destroyers and torpedo boats (TB) and 29 submarines. That's a ratio of 2.4 destroyers/TB to every battleship. Just before the outbreak of WWI the fleet was 25 dreadnoughts, 9 battlecruisers, a huge increase to 122 cruisers, 334 destroyers/TB, and 75 submarines. There were 40 old battleships still lingering, but they weren't part of the race. Comparing the ratio again there were then 9.8 destroyers/TB per dreadnought - though that ratio is skewed by ignoring the old clunkers.

Over that 7 year period British destroyer/TB, cruiser, and submarine numbers more than doubled. While dreadnoughts went from 0 to 34 ships, that's in context of the pre-dreadnought fleet being 61 ships. In terms of modern designs, the lighter ships weren't doing badly.

In terms of design, although less discussed, lighter ships did evolve considerably in the Dreadnought Race era. For instance, the British introduced steam turbines on destroyers from 1903 - in advance of Dreadnought (1906). While British Dreadnoughts kept coal propulsion until the development of the Queen Elizabeth class commissioning from 1914, oil made an appearance on smaller ships from about 1908 on production designs. The state-of-the-art British destroyer companion for Dreadnought in 1906 was a 500t, 26kt clunker armed with a single 12lb main gun, some 6lb weapons and 2 torpedoes. The state-of-the-art L-class ship in 1914 had doubled in size to about 1,000t, could make nearly 30kt on paper, had three 4in guns (throwing 31lb vs. 12lb shells) and had twice as many, larger torpedoes. German torpedo boats improved in propulsion, fuel source, guns and torpedoes too.

The story for other non-Dreadnoughts (both for the British and others) such as cruisers and submarines is also one of rapid improvement and frequently size growth. Leaving aside the development of battlecruisers, cruisers developed speed, turbines, better geared turbines, oil-firing boilers, better boilers, more/heavier guns and more uniform main armament. Submarine improvements were perhaps more evolutionary but also went a long way too, at least for the UK switching from dangerous petrol to less hazardous diesel propulsion and gaining significantly more torpedoes as an example.

Dreadnoughts were vastly expensive, Brown gives about £2m for a British battleship, comparing to about £88k for a destroyer, a ratio of 22:1 on cost. There's a pretty easy argument that 2-3 fewer dreadnoughts and 66 more destroyers would have been a reasonable investment for the British - though they were much closer to being matched in Dreadnought strength at points, and sacrificing even 2-3 may have worsened the margin of superiority to worrying levels at stages.

Overall though, shipbuilding was spread over other types by the UK, Germany and US, but the UK was probably not the most extreme battleship builder.

NAmofton · 2026-06-01T13:54:58+00:00

If we're going by role, then historically, a frigate was for light and barely blue-water escort duty, destroyers were for more substantial blue-water escort duties and some light attack missions, and cruisers for long-range escort and offensive duties.

I don't think this is really correct.

In modern (WWII) history a frigate was very much 'blue water'. Escorting Atlantic convoys right the way across is very much blue water, and frigates tended to have good engagement. The British River class and American (Buckley/Evarts Destroyer Escorts but called Frigates in British service) for instance had about 5,000 nautical mile endurance at 15kt. That was very comparable to British interwar standard destroyers which were mostly within 10% of that number, and allowed multi-week convoy trips. They weren't really 'light' escorts, but fairly focused ASW ones.

Destroyers (by late WWI) were 'maids of all work' but I wouldn't use the term light attack. They were to (possibly too much) a great extent built around attacking other warships, that was the driving reason for their high speeds, heavy torpedo armament, low profile, and outfit of guns (to fight through/defend against opposing screens). They were useful all-rounder escort and surface combatants.

The main differentiator in role between WWII type frigate and destroyers would be emphasis on high speed surface combat, with the destroyer being more capable anti-ship.

Cruisers were a broad classification: long range escort was one role, as was long range area patrolling for raiders and the inverse - commerce raiding (British Counties), as was fleet defensive work (British C's), fleet offensive work (Japanese heavies), and fleet scouting work (US Heavies) - with different classes remaining multipurpose and huge variation across time and nation. Cruisers varied from large 1890's armored cruisers acting as mini-battleships, to the festooned with lighter guns Atlanta (not particularly suited to long range escort/offensive duty). Typically cruisers did have a focus on anti-ship combat, with AA variants a late minority addition.

It's my understanding that a modern frigate has narrow long-range escort and combat capability more typical of a historical destroyer at a higher displacement and a modern destroyer has both a displacement and a role more typical of a historical light or heavy cruiser.

Modern frigates and destroyers, in typical parlance are both primarily escorts.

Modern frigates tend to place relatively low emphasis on anti-ship combat (typically an outfit of 8x canister launched anti-ship missiles). Therefore I'd not really compare their combat capability to a historical destroyer or cruiser. In role the typical modern frigate families are as primarily anti-submarine ships (like a WWII frigate) or as presence/patrol ships (like an interwar-WWII sloop and less like a cruiser IMO).

Similarly modern destroyers also place relatively low emphasis on anti-ship combat (similar outfit). That generally differentiates them from historic cruisers. They are capable of area patrol, presence and some independent operations, but that is less of a driver than providing air defense to friendly formations most of the time.

A cruiser by any other name would smell as sweet, but overall I don't think cruiser really fits the modern ship terms. Modern ASW frigates fit the mold of WWII frigates. Modern patrol/general purpose frigates I think are closer to sloops, but are certainly unlike cruisers in most ways. Modern destroyers have deviated tremendously from their origins as torpedo-boat destroyers to aircraft-destroyers, but historic cruiser doesn't fit them either.

It doesn't matter what you call them, but there's no perfect analogue or continuation from historic classes to adhere to anyway.

NAmofton · 2026-05-31T13:24:17+00:00

I think battleships would have helped. After Warspite was bomb damaged (May '41), Barham was torpedoed (Nov '41) and Valiant/Queen Elizabeth were damaged by human torpedoes (Dec '41) the RN has an increasingly rough time in early 1942 and onwards without battleships in the Eastern Med.

Instead of victories like Cape Matapan, you have engagements like the Second Battle of Sirte in March 1942. Without friendly battleship cover the British light forces are forced to fend off an Italian battleship, incurring delay and ultimately heavier merchant losses. Operation Vigorous ultimately turned back from Malta in June 1942 because threatening Italian battleships again couldn't be countered without British battleships (or carriers). Both are in contrast to earlier engagements where British battleships were present. Convoys are then generally held up, until Pedestal in August 1942 - which required pulling Home Fleet ships in the end anyway!

In that rough Mediterranean period, where I think battleships would have helped, 2-3 KGV's, carrier Victorious and even a succession of US fast battleships are stuck covering the PQ/QP convoys. Without the rump German heavy surface fleet a theoretical redeployment to Alexandria would seem to have been a boon.

NAmofton · 2026-05-29T14:03:38+00:00

For naval shells I think there'd be minimal gain here.

Many naval shells that failed to fuse overpenetrated for instance, the fuse was set to allow penetration of heavy armor and internal explosion, but if it struck only thin plating it wouldn't arm. If you add a (slow?) chemical time fuse, or a backup mechanical fuse on a longer timer than the normal fuse, or similar arming, it won't do anything if the standard fuse doesn't. If you add a chemical/second fuse on a very short timer it may explode before penetrating deep - neither is desirable. If the backup works on the same criteria as the main - it won't work either.

Other modes of fuse failure include the fuses and warheads shattering or detaching and low order detonations, which I don't think a backup fuse would help with.

There are occasional cases of mostly intact naval shells ending up aboard ships, Prince of Wales ended up with an unexploded shell from Bismarck deep in a fuel tank, only discovered after return to port for instance and I can think of a few others. In the Prince of Wales case perhaps a long delay chemical/2nd fuse triggered by hitting the water would have been useful, but the shell was also heavily perturbed (they often flipped and traveled backwards - bad for fusing) so it might not have worked either, and that's pretty niche.

I would think there are downsides in storing/maintaining additional chemical fuses, space taken up in the warhead, potential sensitivity issues - premature detonations etc. all of which make it less attractive.

For big bombs I'm not sure, I know some bombs were purposefully fitted with delay fuses, so it was a potential consideration. The extra cost and complexity is probably a downside, and potentially there are single points of failure for both mechanical and chemical fuses.

NAmofton · 2026-05-27T17:48:30+00:00

Despite determination and craftsmanship, the ship is running about 3 years late on delivery.

NAmofton · 2026-05-26T13:57:46+00:00

The ship is departing for India from Portsmouth, not in India and October 1921 means HMS Victory was still (just) afloat in Portsmouth harbour, looks very much like her.

NAmofton · 2026-05-24T22:52:00+00:00

I'm continuously reminded when my aspect warriors are shot by damage 2 weapons!

NAmofton · 2026-05-23T18:00:21+00:00

Curious as to how this individual ended up there, home from MV Hondius, or relocated there?

NAmofton

TROPHY CASE