WWII Atlantic theatre greatest battle

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Karl Heidenreich
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WWII Atlantic theatre greatest battle

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Hi,

In WWI we can concur that the greatest naval battle is, obvious, Jutland. And in WWII we can talk about a lot of naval battles in the Pacific: Midway, Coral Sea, Leyte, etc. etc. I believe that there may be an agreement that Midway is the greatest there. Isn´t it?
Whilst in the Atlantic (Mediterranean included) which you consider the biggest?
The Battle of River Plate? Operation Juno? Operation Rheinubung (DS or the May 27th)? Cape Matapan? Cape North? Taranto?
Let´s take the U-Boat arm out of this and concentrate in a great surface encounter.

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RF
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Post by RF »

There are loads of issues here!

How do you define a battle, separate from a campaign?

The Battle of the Atlantic, the German submarine campaign did indeed cover the entire Atlantic, it extended to the Indian Ocean and one U-boat sank a ship in the Tasman Sea and then attacked another ship off the east coast of New Zealand, so how do you define the perimeters of that battle?

I terms of sea area the largest clearly defineable sea battle was Midway, as Yamammoto made it such a complex and spread out operation. Jutland, in comparison was very compact.

But how would you define the operations of the hilfskreuzer, a weapon expressly intended to operate in those sea areas thousands of miles away from the regular battle fronts? They ended up operating everywhere, and indeed had to move further afield as U-boat ranges extended - so the hilfskreuzer ''battlefield'' extended from Arctic Ocean to Southern Ocean, the whole Atlantic, the whole Indian Ocean, the whole of the Pacific! In fact the only significant sea area they didn't operate in was the Med!

Another issue in dealing with something like Karls' question is time scale. How do you effectively timescale a battle from a campaign, in such a way everbody can accept?
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Karl Heidenreich
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Let´s take the U-Boat arm out of this and concentrate in a great surface encounter.
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Gary
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Post by Gary »

The Denmark Strait is a contender.
Its certainly the most famous.
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Post by Bgile »

The first battle of Guadalcanal. The melee.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Bgile:

Sorry, it´s only for Atlantic battles. The Pacific ones are greater but not part of this.

I´ll say, like Gary, that DS is the most famous. But in scope, what about the KM operation to seize Norway?
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Post by miro777 »

hey....
as a fan of the SH...
i would say the greatest battle was the one at the North Cape...

although i agree that the DS is the most known one....

you could also add the destruction of the convoy HC-87 (is it??) by Admiral Scheer...or the battle between the British auxiliery ship and HK Thor...

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Post by RF »

miro777 wrote:hey....
as a fan of the SH...
i would say the greatest battle was the one at the North Cape...

although i agree that the DS is the most known one....

you could also add the destruction of the convoy HC-87 (is it??) by Admiral Scheer...or the battle between the British auxiliery ship and HK Thor...

adios
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The convoy was HX-84. For the most part the convoy of 34 ships scattered and escaped, only five merchant ships sunk, three more damaged, apart from Jervis Bay.

The invasion of Norway was a two month campaign, and while the initial invasion was a major operation for the Kriegsmarine, the total effort on both sides was less than that put into Rheinubung.
Remember that for the latter the British had to bring in their Mediterranean Fleet, the British effort took up the bulk of their major surface fleet units. The German effort, apart from Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, involved shipping movements and escorts in the Baltic as well as the disposition of supply ships in the Artic, Norway and the Atlantic.

So I would go for Rheinubung as a whole. If that is too big to be a ''battle'' as opposed to a campaign, then Denmark Strait would have to be first, and the destruction of Bismarck in the 27th May action would be second.

If on the other hand, we are looking at single one on one ship actions, the biggest events would be the three engagements Thor had with the British AMCs. Here I am going on strict ''one on one'' actions not one German ship vs. several British ones.
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Post by RF »

I might add that I would place the River Plate battle at number three.
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Post by miro777 »

hey...

i agree with Thor having some great battles...

DS would be no.1 too....


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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

No.1: Denmarck Straits
No. 2: Cape Matapan
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Post by RF »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:No.1: Denmarck Straits
No. 2: Cape Matapan
But Cape Matapan is in the Med.... I thought you wanted Atlantic Ocean only?!?
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Atlantic Theatre, that includes the Mediterranean.
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Post by RF »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:Atlantic Theatre, that includes the Mediterranean.
So we could nominate Malta. It did receive the George Cross - until at least Dom Mintoff returned it......
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