The Greatest Naval Battle in History

General naval discussions that don't fit within any specific time period or cover several issues.

Which was the greatest naval battle in history?

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frankwl
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by frankwl »

Has anyone ever noticed that when we discuss naval battles South America never seems to come up? While we concentrate on European non-battles apparently South American countries were frequently fighting it out in single ship and fleet actions that would do Nelson or Drake proud. Typical of non English speaking countries (of which I am a part) to ignore these great, small a American states. Brazil is the fastest growing economy in the world. I wonder what their navy will look like in 20 years?
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RF
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by RF »

frankwl wrote:Has anyone ever noticed that when we discuss naval battles South America never seems to come up? While we concentrate on European non-battles apparently South American countries were frequently fighting it out in single ship and fleet actions that would do Nelson or Drake proud. Typical of non English speaking countries (of which I am a part) to ignore these great, small a American states. Brazil is the fastest growing economy in the world. I wonder what their navy will look like in 20 years?
What time period are you considering? The last purely Latin American war was the Chaco War of 1929-1934 which was between the two land locked countries of South America. Prior to that the only major conflicts were the War of the Triple Alliance (almost entirely land based) and the War of the Pacific - which was a full blown naval war but rather a long time ago.

You could conjure up a hypothetical scenario of a general Latin American war, which could have happened. For example, on the basis of the actual wars fought, put them together and you could have a war of:

Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay versus

Chile, Paraguay and Ecuador.


Now how would that war pan out? Time for another thread??
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MVictorP
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by MVictorP »

Coming in late, I voted a bit hastily for Jutland, because it is the quintessential naval battle. Don't unedrestimate the result of the battle; A draw was all that Britain needed, lest Jellicoe lose the whole war in a couple hours.

If the German fleet had won (more decisively, that is), England's war effort would have been reduced to the minimum on the continent, as Germany controlled the channel. Jutland effectively saved the war for England. Okay, a "regime change" in this era wouldn't have the same implications, the Kaiser being a grandson of Victoria and all that. But still, I think Jutland's strategical importance is much diminished. These empires didn't send decades of economic efforts to Davey Jones' locker just for the macho heck of it.

I was also somewhat surprised to see that Actium wasn't there.
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RF
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by RF »

I don't understand why you believe that a German victory at Jutland gives them automatic control of the English Channel. They could try - as per the Flandern flotilla - but the narrowness of the Straits of Dover turns the Manche into something of a mousetrap for the German dreadnoughts. Apart from the fact that the French Navy will be there to oppose them (they were not involved at Jutland) there is the risk, particulary at night, from small torpedo carrying craft operating out of a large number of ports either side of the Manche. And the further the Germans penetrate, the further to go back.

Scheer I suspect will have learned from the Duke of Medina Sidonia that to control the Manche properly you need to control the land entrances......

The Germans winning at Jutland is more critical for control of the North Sea.
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neil hilton
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by neil hilton »

MVictorP wrote:
I was also somewhat surprised to see that Actium wasn't there.
Actium has been mentioned a couple of pages back but was missed in the initial line up.
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RNfanDan
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by RNfanDan »

:stop: I will reiterate what has essentially been stated previously, just because this thread has lengthened to this extent and it may easily be missed---SALAMIS--and yes, I am aware of Plataea, but that battle was predicated on Salamis to begin with. It's almost impossible to skip a link in the chain at any point along the way.

No subsequent major sea-battle in western history that has occurred -- Cape st. Vincent, Trafalgar, Lepanto, Jutland, Battle of the Atlantic, Midway, Leyte Gulf-- not one of these could have taken place without Salamis, which helped found western civilisation as we know it today.

I suppose there may very well have been some form of sea battle of similar import in an alternate world, had the outcome been different; but would any of what we have in THIS continuum (our internet discussion,for example) even have been possible?

I, for one, am grateful to those who made it all possible! :pray:
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neil hilton
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by neil hilton »

RNfanDan wrote::stop: I will reiterate what has essentially been stated previously, just because this thread has lengthened to this extent and it may easily be missed---SALAMIS--and yes, I am aware of Plataea, but that battle was predicated on Salamis to begin with. It's almost impossible to skip a link in the chain at any point along the way.

No subsequent major sea-battle in western history that has occurred -- Cape st. Vincent, Trafalgar, Lepanto, Jutland, Battle of the Atlantic, Midway, Leyte Gulf-- not one of these could have taken place without Salamis, which helped found western civilisation as we know it today.

I suppose there may very well have been some form of sea battle of similar import in an alternate world, had the outcome been different; but would any of what we have in THIS continuum (our internet discussion,for example) even have been possible?

I, for one, am grateful to those who made it all possible! :pray:
If the Persians had won Salamis they would have conquered Greece, no doubt. But this doesn't mean they could have held on to it, so western civilization as we know it may well not have been as altered as you would think.
Like any significant battle.
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lynn1212
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by lynn1212 »

in terms of tonnage, firepower, and area leyte was the largest and longest lasting of conventional battles. midway had a much greater impact on the direction and length of the largest naval war in history. however a good case could be made for the battle of the atlantic. the longest naval campaign in modern history , the largest number of ships ever, and it decided the outcome of the war in europe
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RF
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by RF »

True, but of course it was a campaign rather than just one battle......
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alecsandros
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by alecsandros »

Indeed...
For sheer ferocity I would mention 1st and 2nd naval battles of Guadalcanal... Point blank ranges, dozens of ships involved, hundreds of naval guns blasting away... Lots of damage on both sides...

For decisiveness, I would mention operation Rheinubung - and the chase of Bismarck... It changed the war of the Atlantic, and maybe the second world war alltogether...
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RF
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by RF »

Rheinubung was decisive in that the regular warships of the KM were no longer able to operate in the open Atlantic because of Allied radar and Hitlers' fears.

I doubt that it altered the course of WW2. That was decided on land by virtue of Hitlers' ego and mistakes.
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alecsandros
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by alecsandros »

RF wrote:Rheinubung was decisive in that the regular warships of the KM were no longer able to operate in the open Atlantic because of Allied radar and Hitlers' fears.

I doubt that it altered the course of WW2. That was decided on land by virtue of Hitlers' ego and mistakes.
I doubt it also. But the possibility existed....
Luboman411
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by Luboman411 »

This list is too Eurocentric for me (surprise, surprise). Obviously Trafalgar changed the course of world history by allowing the British to expand unimpeded into the rest of the globe by knocking out the only real naval power left that could halt them--the French navy. Midway stopped the Japanese dead in their tracks on their further expansion in the Pacific, while Leyte Gulf was by all accounts the largest naval battle so far in modern world history in terms of ships and planes engaged (along with tonnage, I believe, though I might be wrong on this count). Salamis could count since it did provide the Athenians their 100-year long respite from fighting the Persians, thus allowing for the Golden Age that brought about the intellectual ferment that laid the foundations for Western philosophy and civilization.

But Jutland was a draw, and really didn't mean much of anything--the Imperial German Navy by 1916 already had a thinning resource base upon which to draw, so even if the Germans had decisively engaged the British, the British had the long-term advantage in a naval war of attrition because they were not blockaded effectively like the Germans were. The pursuit of the Bismark shouldn't even be on this list--it's but an adventuresome footnote that really didn't change the great course of world history. Lepanto also didn't bring about an end to Turkish expansion (lest we forget the Siege of Vienna in the mid-1500s, the second Siege of Vienna in 1683, and eventual Turkish conquests into the Maghreb just south of the Iberian Peninsula in the late 1500s). Tsushima was important in that a modern Asian power beat a modern European power, but considering Japan's aggressive expansion a battle of this sort was bound to happen at some juncture in the 20th century. The Spanish Armada represented the aspirations of an expanding European power trying to destroy the bedraggled navy of a weak European state. For the world of the 1500s--where the Mogul Empire in India and the Ming Empire in China represented 75% of the world's population and 80% of the world's wealth and economic power--it didn't count for much.

At the very same time that the Spanish Armada was being assembled, on the other side of the world the Japanese under Toyotomi Hideyoshi were assembling a vast fleet that was many times larger than anything the Spanish were able to put together. Hideyoshi, like Philip II, had a megalomaniacal streak and wanted conquest, in this case to wrest Korea from Ming China. Some of the greatest naval battles in pre-modern world history were fought during these wars, which exhausted and defeated the Japanese as well as the Ming Dynasty. Hundreds of thousands of sailors fought hand to hand on hundreds of ships many times larger than anything the Spanish or English or Turks had (so blunting the historical importance of both Lepanto and the Armada even more). In the Eurocentric annals of naval history, these battles are barely even acknowledged as important.

Then there are the conquests of the Srivijaya Empire, a Malay empire that lasted from the 6th to the 13th centuries A.D. It managed to conquer a huge chunk of Southeast Asia with a navy so large that it awed the Tang Chinese and the expanding Arabs of the period. Surely some massive naval battles had to be fought then to cobble together these rich lands into a unified empire.

And these are but a few of the naval battles that non-Europeans were fighting that dwarfed anything the pre-industrialized Europeans were able to put together. I think the only naval battle that really matters in the great course of GLOBAL (not European) history is Salamis. Otherwise it wasn't until Trafalgar that European naval engagements were important.

Taking into account the huge sweep of 5000 years of history--and including the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia and China--I would have to say that Leyte Gulf is the largest battle in modern world history, the largest pre-modern naval battles were fought during Hideyoshi's attempt to conquer Korea in the late 1500s, and the most decisively important may have been Trafalgar, since it allowed the British to become the first global power to simultaneously defeat India (by expanding the East India Company) and China (during the two Opium Wars), a feat that had never occurred in world history (once again, if go by world history being outside of Europe).
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by alecsandros »

Maybe,
But Europe conquered pretty much all of the world in the XVI - XXth century.
I agree there were massive naval battles fought in the middle ages in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific, but they didn't change the fate of the world, like Trafalgar or the great battles of the 4th adn 5th Anglo-Dutch war did.

And in the industrial era, the Asian powers didn't had the initiative for to long - the only attempt by the Japanese against the US was short-lived.
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RF
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Re: The Greatest Naval Battle in History

Post by RF »

And that Japanese attempt was linked to and probably only took place because of an ongoing war in Europe where Japan had a substantial ally.

The activities of ambassador Hiroshi Oshima in Berlin during December 1941 and the orders he was given from Tokyo make it clear how important a German declaration of war on the USA was to the Japanese.
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