Naval History Forums

lwd, a carrier would have been very usefull for the Regia Marina because it would have given the fleet the air cover that the Regia Aeronautica was never able to provide during the air. One can easily imagine that the outcome of the battle of Mapatan would have been very different if there was a CAP...

RF, while I agree with you on the fact that Mussolini was deeply responsible of the poor state and the poor conduct of Italian armed forces, I think that he shares with the naval staff the responsibility for not building an aircraft carrier. Sure, after the war, the Italian admirals said and wrote t...

Phil, I don't think that we should blame RM for the lack of fuel. As far as I know, RM did have strategic reserves, but they were hijacked by the Air Force, which had none, at the beginning of the war. Blaming the navy for not having an efficient sonar is also unfair since the navies that had sonar ...

Another case where the modern "apologists" have a fascinating way of twisting the truth into a very convoluted argument. Well, Phil, thank you for learning me that I am both a modern and an apologist (I don't know of what). I am also happy to fascinate someone, even if i would prefer to f...

Phil, I am not sure that the Regia Marina "failed totally strategically". Of course the Italian navy lost battles and was eventually defeated, but we shouldn't forget that the main purpose of RM was to protect the sea lines of communications between Italy and Lybia. And despite some heavy ...

"Salvo chasing has come many many times in my wargaming with my friends :) However, I can't remember any occasion during WW2 when a BB successfully managed to make such a thing. Hell, it was very hard even for destroyer Nowaki to escape from the 406mm 6-gun salvos... The reason why we don't see...

Hello John,

Thanks a lot !

Francis

Tiornu,

thanks for your kind answer. However I don't really understand why the rate of fire would be slowed. You can fire guns 1 and 3, then one or two seconds later, guns 2 and 4 ; a few seconds won't make any difference. Would you mind explain me ?

Best regards,

Francis

Their primary shortcoming was the inefficiency of their main batteries. Circumstances being what they were, they didn't get delay coils until 1942 (I think). Tiornu, I understand that the inefficiendy of their main battery you are talking about was hudge dispersion because of shell interference (th...

Dave Saxton wrote: The best WWII combat example of radar dependent shooting- indicating what radar direction can achieve- occured only 31 days after Tassafaronga. This was the Hipper's shooting at destroyers at Barents Sea.

Could you please tell more ?

I am talking about this article.

Regards,

Francis Marliere

Gentlemen, I have ordered and read the article 'Fast Battleship Gunnery'. While wonderfull, the article opens the way for more questions. First, the authors talk about a spreadsheet to download in INRO's website. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate that file. Could you please tell me where it is ? The ...

Gentlemen,

I am looking for a picture of RADM Howard F. Kingman and I can't find any on the web. Do you know where I can find one ?
I would also like to know who is the senor officer between admirals Kingman, Giffen, Griffin and McMorris.

Thanks for any help,

Francis Marliere

Jose, Dave,

thanks a lot for your kind and quick answer.

Best regards,

Francis

Gentlemen, I have a question about detection of radar emissions in WWII (ESM as we call it nowadays). I'd like to know if Scharnhorst in late 1943 could detect allied radars ? In one hand, one can read that Scharnhorst had a passive FuMB 4 Samos set (and may be a Sumatra one), but in another hand , ...