Greatest admiral of all time

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

Who was the greatest admiral in History?

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Karl Heidenreich
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Danelov:
Nelson and Nimitz.

Also in the "club" Raiso Tanaka, Gunichi Mikawa and Raymond Spruance.


Out of the "club" Woodward in the Falklands, he had loss several ships againts obsolete Argentinian planes(Exception the Super Etendard of the ARA)and his strategie is quite discutable in the landing phases and in the "bomb alley".
I will not be harsh with Woodward. In theory he was outgunned: the Argentine french-built fighters were supersonic air superiority fighters with very good and heroic pilots while the British Harriers were just "attack" or "air support". Still they managed to defeat the Mirages and SuperEtendard. And the Argentine Air Force put quite a fight, very different from the Army, and they flew almost-suicide sorties against the British blewing some important ships (Sheffield, Antelope, etc.)
Woodward gamble did pay off very good results against a stubborn and valiant enemy. He may be put into the club... and he had been the only Admiral after WWII that has faced real naval combat against a serious enemy (let´s face it, the US Navy hasn´t faced a real enemy in combat since WWII: Vietnam, Libia and Iraq aren´t quality for the USN).

Gary:
Nelson
That´s it, friend, by vast majority. :D

Still mine is Togo leading his ships on board Mikasa, or cold blooded Nimitz.

Very best regards.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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Bgile
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Post by Bgile »

I too would vote for Nelson.

w.r.t. the Falklands, the Argentine Air Force and Navy were severely handicapped. By the time they arrived at the battle area they only had a small amount of fuel for air combat. Add to that the unfamiliarity with correct tactics to use against Harriers. Finally, the latter had the latest sidewinder missiles rushed from the US for the campaign. These weapons were far superior to anything the Argentine AF possessed.

All things considered, the Argentine armed forces (except the army) did a standup job. They fought valiantly against a modern military.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Bgile:
I too would vote for Nelson.

w.r.t. the Falklands, the Argentine Air Force and Navy were severely handicapped. By the time they arrived at the battle area they only had a small amount of fuel for air combat. Add to that the unfamiliarity with correct tactics to use against Harriers. Finally, the latter had the latest sidewinder missiles rushed from the US for the campaign. These weapons were far superior to anything the Argentine AF possessed.

All things considered, the Argentine armed forces (except the army) did a standup job. They fought valiantly against a modern military.
Yes Bgile, they fought valiantly. It was a shame their army commanders maintained the profesional soldiers in the continent and sending only recruits without proper supplies to the Falklands. I believe that the cruiser General Belgrano sinking had a lot to do with this attitude. Anyhow, the Argentine Air Force put quite a fight and gave the British many and painfull casualties. If not Margaret Thatcher was the PM I doubt that any other British politician could had their country united facing those terrible air strike by the Argentine Air Force.

Best regards.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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Gary
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Post by Gary »

Hi all.

I assume you have heard the old joke?


What does Mrs Spock have in commom with Port Stanley airfield?


..................They both got f***ed by a Vulcan

:D
God created the world in 6 days.........and on the 7th day he built the Scharnhorst
Danelov
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Woodward in the Falklands

Post by Danelov »

Certainly, the Fuerza Aerea Argentina and the Armada República Argentina planes had maked a brillant participation in the Falkland War ; not doubts about that, and the results would be wortest for the British Forces if many bombs were dropped a little more high of the fuses were adapted for this low attack profil.
THat´s not the point.
And also not: " and he had been the only Admiral after WWII that has faced real naval combat against a serious enemy "

That´s also true.

The point, we speaking about Admirals skills and here you have:

Woodward was in incredible advantagous position againts the Argentinian.

-Argentine Navy neutralised after the sink of "Belgrano" by HMS Conqueror.A minimum of three other British submarines guarantee the blocus of the Argentinian Navy at port.
-Hourly actualised reports vía spy satelite photos courtesy by USA
-Codes EXOCET trasmited by Aerospatile to decode the missiles of the Argentinian Navy for the ECM of the British ships.
-Sidewinders missiles last generation and installation courtesy of USA last minute delivery.
-Helicopter radars for low tracking targets AEW instalattion courtesy of Thorn-Emi
-Full support of USA for logicistics.
-Colaboration for the British of "friend" nations of Argentina , like Brasil and Chile to support planes, helicopters and others.
-Woodward know exactly the aproach heading of the Argentinas planes ; this last were limited by his profil and fuel to follow a limited path.
-Etc

The point, there were few excusses to loss so many ships after a so advantagous position.
The points to consider:

-A picket position of British ships in the path of the Argentinian planes,far of the landing area with enough time to give the alert. Yes, the "trauma" Exocet was great by the British but "El que no riesga no gana".
-Carriers near of the aproaching path to send Harriers CAPs for interception and not OVER THE LANDING AREA. That was exaclty that the cause of the sucess of the Argentinian planes.THe Daggers and Skyhawks were intercepted a few miles of his targets , or directly over.The idea was to intercept the Argentinian planes before the dropping zone, if not possible to destroy the plane, oblige this one to drop ordinance.
-A general underestimation of the ofensive capacities of the Argentinian pilots.
-A revised AAA dispositive in the San Carlos bay.

Certes, the Royal Navy of 1982 is not the Navy of 1945, and the technical defects of British ships in AAA for example or others, are naturally relative out of the competences of Woodward.The weather was also a serious challenge but was also the same for the Argetinian forces. And certes also , the lack of experience in Task Force war operations after many years of peace maneuvers.
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Re: Woodward in the Falklands

Post by ostriker »

Danelov wrote: -Codes EXOCET trasmited by Aerospatiale to decode the missiles of the Argentinian Navy for the ECM of the British ships.

And despite this, i can tell you that was not a good thing for french people to go in England after this war :lol: :lol:
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Antonio Bonomi
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Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Ciao all,

my full respect and admiration for Horatio Nelson.

There are several other good ones ( Yamamoto, Nimitz, Scheer, etc etc ).

Been Italian I cannot resist and underline Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio among the various good ones we had thru our maritime history.

Just for the record.....


Question : does anybody recall which model of airplane launched that Exocet missile ?

Ciao Antonio :D
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Karl Heidenreich
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Antonio, very best regards, I just found this:

Sinking of HMS Sheffield

"A French Dassault Super Étendard like one that attacked the SheffieldTwo days after the sinking of General Belgrano, on 4 May the British lost the Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield to fire following an Exocet missile strike. Sheffield had been ordered forward with two other Type 42s in order to provide a long-range radar and medium-high altitude missile "picket" far from the British carriers. After the ships were detected by an Argentine Navy P-2 Neptune patrol aircraft, two Argentine Navy Dassault Super Étendards were launched from their base at Río Grande, each armed with a single Exocet missile. Refuelled by an Air Force KC-130H Hercules after launch, they went in at low altitude, popped up for a radar check at 50 miles and released the missiles from 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 km) away.

Glasgow, Sheffield's sister ship and the north of the three-destroyer picket, had detected the two Étendards on their first pop-up, and warned the fleet-wide anti-air warfare coordinator in Invincible. Invincible dismissed the report as one of the many false alarms already that morning. Glasgow continued to monitor that bearing and detected the second pop-up, and this time the tell-tale Exocet seeker radar via the ship's ESM equipment. Again Invincible ruled the detection as spurious, but Glasgow continued to broadcast handbrake, the codeword for Exocet radar detected.

The first missile missed HMS Yarmouth, due to her deployment of chaff in response to the warning, whilst Glasgow repeatedly tried, without success, to engage the other with Sea Dart. Still Invincible ruled this was a false alarm.

Sheffield was unable to directly detect the seeker radar as, in a case of bad timing, the SCOT satellite communications terminal was in use which deafened the onboard electronic warfare support measures (ESM) equipment. It is not known why she did not detect the missile on radar, or why she did not respond to Glasgow's warnings, but no chaff were fired, and a shipwide warning of attack went out only seconds before impact when a watchkeeper identified rocket trails visually.

Sheffield was struck amidships, with devastating effect. Whether the warhead actually exploded is debated, but raging fires started to spread, ultimately killing 20 crew members and severely injuring 24 others. Whilst alongside rendering assistance, Yarmouth repeatedly broke off to fire anti-submarine weaponry in response to SONAR reports of torpedoes in the water (later believed to have been a misdiagnosis of the outboard motor of the small inflatables helping with firefighting).

Sheffield was abandoned several hours later, gutted and deformed by the fires that continued to burn for six more days. She finally sank outside the MEZ on 10 May, whilst under tow from Yarmouth, becoming an official war grave. Although the loss of life was obviously regrettable, in one sense the Sheffield served its purpose as a part of the battle group—taking the missile instead of the larger, more important aircraft carrier it protected.

The tempo of operations increased throughout the second half of May. UN attempts to mediate a peace were rejected by the British, who felt that any delay would make a campaign impractical in the South Atlantic storms. The destruction of Sheffield had a profound impact on the British public, bringing home the fact that the "Falklands Crisis", as the BBC News put it, was now an actual shooting war."


About Andrea Doria. Probably we, Westeners, owe more to him than to anybody else. He put Europe out of the reach of the savage muslim invaders that wanted to "convince" by the sword that Alah had to be our Lord. God bless Andrea Doria and everyone now fighting to prevent Islam from spreading to our free and fair society.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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marcelo_malara
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Post by marcelo_malara »

Fourteen Super Etendards had been bought before the war, brand new, but just only 5 were delivered with five Exocet missiles before the embargo. They were intended to be used from the carrier 25 de Mayo, but the little carrier hadn´t the power to catapult a fully loaded Super Etendard. So they were used mostly from land bases by the Navy´s Air Wing.
Two Exocets were launched to the Sheffield, only one scoring. Other two were used against the Atlantic Conveyor, a container ship transformed in VTOL carrier.
After the war ended the remaining 9 aircraft were delivered.
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Post by ostriker »

marcelo_malara wrote:Fourteen Super Etendards had been bought before the war, brand new, but just only 5 were delivered with five Exocet missiles before the embargo. They were intended to be used from the carrier 25 de Mayo, but the little carrier hadn´t the power to catapult a fully loaded Super Etendard. So they were used mostly from land bases by the Navy´s Air Wing.
Two Exocets were launched to the Sheffield, only one scoring. Other two were used against the Atlantic Conveyor, a container ship transformed in VTOL carrier.
After the war ended the remaining 9 aircraft were delivered.
I know people who after the war went in England and were insulted by civilian :shock: because of France sold missile and aircraft to Argentina.

For the main topic, i vote for the admiral Villeuneuve of course :lol:
No it was a joKe.

I vote for Horatio Nelson of course !
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Antonio Bonomi
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Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Ciao all guys,

I have read some time ago that there was a possibility that one of those missiles been launched by an Aermacchi training airplane flying just above the water lever, but maybe it was about a different story, I was just curious.

Ok, thanks for the very precise infos :D .


YES, Andrea Doria does deserve our full respect, especially now that we understand better what was the problem they were facing, now we know and feel a bit more the real situation than 30 years ago at school.

Also Caio Duilio did great against the Cartagena people from the Roman Empire stand point.
He built and lead to victory for the first time Rome fleet against the best fleet available on the mediterranean sea at that time, inventing new weapons too ( the tool to hit the enemy ships at water level and the moveable hooked bridge to engage them on combat ), a great admiral.

Ciao Antonio :D
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José M. Rico
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Post by José M. Rico »

Surely not the greatest Admiral, but we Spaniards commemorate Don Álvaro de Bazán, the marquis of Santa Cruz. Álvaro de Bazán was one of the Spanish commanders at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. In 1582 he defeated a French fleet at the Battle of Terceira securing the Azores Islands for Spain and completing the annexation of Portugal. Álvaro de Bazán was probably to have commanded the Spanish Armada against England in 1588 but he died before it sailed. There is a bronze statue of him in the square in front of the city town hall in Madrid, and the newest class of F-100 AEGIS frigates of the Spanish Navy is named after Álvaro de Bazán.

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Post by ostriker »

José M. Rico wrote: the newest class of F-100 AEGIS frigates of the Spanish Navy is named after Álvaro de Bazán.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... /f-100.htm
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marcelo_malara
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Post by marcelo_malara »

I have read some time ago that there was a possibility that one of those missiles been launched by an Aermacchi training airplane flying just above the water lever, but maybe it was about a different story, I was just curious.
Hi Antonio:

I don´t think it is posible. I doubt if the Aeromachi (which was a training aircraft) could have lift the missile, but most important, you need a radar to set the initial target position in the missile, which flyes under inertial guidance for most of the trip, turning on its own radar in the final stages. And the Aeromacchi definitively has not radar.
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Post by RNfanDan »

I voted "other" because my nod goes to Collingwood, the true victor at Trafalgar and even more experienced in command than his contemporary and pal, Nelson. Nelson may have had the swagger and the publicity, but it was Collingwood that enabled Nelson to become what he did. Like Beatty in a later era, Nelson was the showman while others ran the show; in Nelson's day, that was Collingwood.
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