Alternate warships of nations

No, no... They decide that Britain and everyone else is WRONG and that straight coal is the only viable fuel option. (And that's only because almost no one will buy your argument for sticking with sails and oars :)

++Snip++
Wood burner? With a wooden hull?

Henrietta.jpg


Henrietta from Around the world in 80 days (1956).
 
I'll never understand how an utter prig like Fogg managed to get the girl. Just look at how he treats his valet, he's a b*stard.
Well it was set in the 1800's wasn't it? Rich people were a bit like that back then.... Heck, some still are today.

And the hero always gets the girl. We all know that is the legal requirement in all films (Assuming it is a male hero of course).
 
You can actually make a reasonable sounding argument in favour of a mixed fuel boiler between the wars as a way to ensure that you actually have fuel available if your country has any coal mines of its own while still being able to pour on the oil for high speed steaming.

Very, very true, but thought we were still in the context of someone sabotaging their own navy :)
Sorry if that wasn't the intent

Randy
 
I'll never understand how an utter prig like Fogg managed to get the girl. Just look at how he treats his valet, he's a b*stard.

In which media? He was a 'standard' English Gentleman in the book, albeit with an obsession with schedules and time. He mellowed a bit towards the end and ends up seeing time and schedules and his other obsessions for what they are and learning to be a better man. Yes he does tend to treat Passepartout rather like a slave and/or a valuable piece of equipment but the journey finds them ending up actually caring, (still in a "Gentleman"/"Servant" manner of course, must maintain propriety after all :) ) about each other.

The hope-eternal is that given a chance a b*-tard can change their ways :)

Randy
 
1925
After complaints from the US about rum running from the British Virgin Islands Britain reluctantly forms the West Indies Coast Guard using surplus Flower Class Sloops and Coastal Torpedo Boats left over from WWI.

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In 1918, fhe Royal Navy Air Service, fed up with their latest biplane aircraft running into the wire fence at the end of the landing deck, has HMS Furious re-worked with a simple wooden deck extension to supprt a 'fly around and try again' approch ..... (the angled deck is, of course, later extended and built into new British aircraft carriers)
[original image Wikipedia]
HMS_Furious_1918_reardeck-flyaroundCoversion.jpg
 
They'll still have to send her in for a rebuild as turbulence from the bridge and funnel will still make landing on challenging for even the best pilots. (It was turbulence that was the problem landing on both Furious and Vindictive not the length of the landing on decks).
 
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McPherson

Banned
They'll still have to send her in for a rebuild as turbulence from the bridge and funnel will still make landing on challenging for even the best pilots. (It was turbulence that was the problem landing on both Furious and Vindictive not the length of the landing on decks).
They also need to do something about that crash safety air bag parked at the land-on. It is a non-stopper. (Joke.).
 
So assuming you could put any Allied Naval Officer in command of protecting the landings at Guadalcanal who would you put in charge? I'd go for Lee and put him in the North Carolina since unlike Washington she's in Theater
 
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McPherson

Banned
So assuming you could put any Allied Naval Officer in command of protecting the landings at Guadalcanal who would you put in charge? I'd go for Lee and put him in the North Carolina
Crutchley on the scene probably, or knowing what I know now, Norman Scott. Maybe Crace, if he had just shut up and learned to play nice with Americans. Or William A. Glassford. As 8th Fleet Actual, he did "alright" in the Mediterranean.

Fletcher has to stay with the Bird Farms and Lee has to stay with him. Also rules out Kincaid, because he is screen. As for Turner, can we ship him off to London with Stark? The real problem is Ghormley. Much as I have heartburn with the Bull, he would be a good fit for WATCHTOWER.
 
Crutchley on the scene probably, or knowing what I know now, Norman Scott. Maybe Crace, if he had just shut up and learned to play nice with Americans. Or William A. Glassford. As 8th Fleet Actual, he did "alright" in the Mediterranean.

Fletcher has to stay with the Bird Farms and Lee has to stay with him. Also rules out Kincaid, because he is screen. As for Turner, can we ship him off to London with Stark? The real problem is Ghormley. Much as I have heartburn with the Bull, he would be a good fit for WATCHTOWER.
I said any Allied Naval Officer they don't have to be in theater. And yeah Ghormley probably should have been sent home to have his dental problems worked on.
 

McPherson

Banned
I said any Allied Naval Officer they don't have to be in theater
The problem is plug and play. If I could pull from off the shelf, somebody who would be a good brawler in a naval meeting engagement, most of the USN candidates are too junior at the moment. PACFLT has them in her destroyer captains, but that requires time to promote them up past the gun-clubbers currently crowding and wasting space on USN cruiser bridges. The other service is the Royal Navy. They are up to their ears in U-boats, so their first team is out at it in the Atlantic Ocean and is focused on that problem. Most of their other good surface warfare admirals are either in the Med with Cunningham, are DEAD (Lancelot Holland for example.), or in the political doghouse, thanks to Dudley Pound and his clown club of politicals. The Pound Puppies were a freaking disaster for the RN until Cunningham came in and cleaned out the Admiralty.

I do not want anybody from Eastern Command at all unless he wears a halo, can walk on water, is Lumley Leyster, Bertram Ramsey or William Slim, preferably all five.
 
Hmmmm maybe have Burke in charge of the DDs? Sure their torpedoes such in this time period but between them they do sure have a lot of tubes. And give the cruisers to Scott. Make sure to arrange for Bode to fall overboard and be consumed by a shark
 
Hmmmm maybe have Burke in charge of the DDs? Sure their torpedoes such in this time period but between them they do sure have a lot of tubes. And give the cruisers to Scott. Make sure to arrange for Bode to fall overboard and be consumed by a shark
The last would save a lot of poor innocent men at Savo Island.
 
Ghormley aside, I think the commanders are less important, at least in the surface units, than the complete lack of training at all levels. Experienced crew had been yoinked to crew new vessels, the cruiser-destroyer groups kept being hastily thrown together without any time to train together, and prewar training was inadequate to begin with.

Fix that before getting a better commander.
 
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