I think he really think the french surrender at the drop of a hat but ttl they commit suicide trying to take th enemy?You're repeating yourself, lad
What do you mean?
I really hate that notion.
The Unwanted Clairvoyant. A different French strategy in WW1
- Thread starter jeandebueil
- Start date
I really hate that notion.
You're repeating yourself, lad
What do you mean?
Crashing that seaplane onto an enemy ship's bridge, that's something that isn't going to be forgotten. I just thought it might have an impact on pop culture in the years to come.
I was thinking more along the lines of being the wounded guy who who volunteers to hold off the enemy. Or defiant to the last. Or never giving up.
First on all, bravo! Superb update as always!
The sinking of the Protected cruiser is very accurate, a ship of that era had next to no protection against torpedoes and one would have been enough, four would have gutted her like a fish. Fortunately it seems her wing magazines didn't go up which happened to the Bouvet and its why she sank so quickly, she literally sank in 2 minutes :s
This engagement is turning into a huge free-for-all brawl which is why, if they trained for night fighting during this period, it was mainly for anti-torpedo boat defence, NOT a fleet engagement and you're seeing basically why really no one in the 1900's in a pre-radar or decent optics period wanted to fight at night. Unlike the Nelsonian era, where once an Admiral had given his orders and the battle was joined, the fight was very much down to the individual Captains and other senior officers to fight their own ships and the like. WW1 and the pre-dreadnought era placed a huge emphasis on obeying the chain of command. This was pretty much adopted by everyone and battles were to be very tightly controlled from the deck of the Flagship and Division leaders.
Now at night, with poor radios, jamming on morse, and being unable to see flags its up to Division or even squadron commanders or individual captains to apply their own initiative and act/react. The data overload for the Commanders is going to be HUGE and with limited vision, and possibly the only indications of ships (but who's, what heading, what speed?) might be the brief flashes of guns in the dark..chaos does not even being to describe it. This battle has every chance of turning into a Anglo-Dutch era free wheeling brawl once the main French force arrives. Because then its going to be even harder to know who is what, the risk of friendly fire could be quite real and I feel that the Agean is going to be the final resting place for a large number of ships and their brave crews.
With all the ships coming in from multiple directions or trying to head their own way, its also in a fairly small and rather constrained battlespace. This is a knife fight in a phone booth, where everyone's blindfolded and there's crackers and smoke grenades being set off near constantly.
And even if the KuK force 'breaks even' or gets away, each loss is irreplaceable and you just KNOW that the Italians are going to be looking on doing this;
And if the KuK suffers heavy losses, even at the expense of the Allies, then this will almost certinally embolden the Italians to 'redress' any issues they might perceive with their borders with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And will basically then result in this
At a political and military level, they'll smell blood in the water and its just too much of a chance to refuse.
Fear not, that's not a notion: that's one example among millions when it comes to men having no other option during this war. It's not because one pilot whose plane was diving anyway chose to crash into a ship that the French will adore him as the new type of French heroism.
Grim fact: do you know that the Entente was reluctant until the very end to give parachutes to the pilots OTL because they thought it would encourage them to be more coward: when a French pilot was in his plane, he had two options: be successful and go home or die.
And in 1918, there are at two examples of British regiments who literaly fought to the last man against the Germans during the first days of the Spring Offensive: that's suicidal bravery involving thousands of men and yet suicidal bravery didn't become a British sterotype.
So this example is anything but a Kamikaze one: we're so focused on this concept because of 1945, 2001 and everything after 2001 in our Western culture that we think of kamikazes when we read a pre-45 example.
The pilot isn't going to be forgotten by his family for sure, the press will speak of him for a few weeks but when another example of heroism will come out, the pilot will be replaced by another I think. He will be decorated and get a promotion after his death and that's it.
The man chose his way to die rather than choosing to kill himself. A kamikaze loaded with bombs can still choose to give up instead of killing himself until the last minute (and some did chose to live).
I'm sorry if this example started a polemic.
A traditional English translation of "οἶνοψ πόντος" in Homer's Odyssée which he uses to refer to the Aegean.
Oh, I read it in the Philippe Jacottet's translation: the famous "mer vineuse". Thanks my teacher in Highschool, we only had to read some chapters but I read it entirely and then read it again when I studied Greek History in College. Such a great work, the kind of I should read again every decade or so.
I understood that. It was more his second sentence I was talking about.I think he spoke of 1940.
Ehrrr, sorry but I suck when it comes to undertones. I prefer direct/frank comments, even the harsh ones
.
Driftless
Donor
I can't cite any source right now, but I believe other non-Japanese aviators did similar crash attacks, once their planes were severely damaged. "I'm going down - so are you".... I think there would be a certain level of fatalism within some of those early military aviators; as just flying had very high risk in that era and then add the uncertainties of combat flight operations.
Faeelin
Banned
The American stereotype ignores French performance in the Great War and focuses on the fact that they surrendered in 1940.
And generalise the French as cowardly people who surrender. Mostly pointing to Sedan in 1870 and Paris in 1940.
It's, to put it simply, full of garbage.
It's very nice of people, really.
But as I pointed out in my previous post on this subject: I had undestood the meaning of the first sentence (the one you're talking about), I was asking about the meaning of the second one "I give up but I'm taking you with me" from Some Bloke. Like I said, I suck when it comes to undertones.Already working on it.
Just a friendly link regarding the history of colours, that is all.Ehrrr, sorry but I suck when it comes to undertones. I prefer direct/frank comments, even the harsh ones
Some general observations, and a couple constructive criticism's. Steam ships are incredibly quiet. I served aboard ships with Gas turbines and diesels. Boarded or worked on some hundreds of sailing vessels of various sizes. And worked on an ore freighter with steam turbines, she was by far the quietest ship of the lot except for the sailing vessels. It is possible VTE are noisier than the steam turbines, but I doubt it to be by much. We often surprised waterfowl sleeping on the surface at night, it was that quiet.
Sighting another vessel, at night, with only a pair of bino's, is really, really hard. The ocean, at night, is dark as fuck. Can it be done? Absolutely. History proves that. The difficulties though should not be overlooked, as they are real. I went through John Campbell's "Jutland" again over the last few days and judging by the night actions covered in it, (that being, as far as I can tell, the closest analogy) hits at the ranges in this battle are realistic. Getting hits though, is again, very, very hard to do. These guns are all moved via handwheels, one for elevation and one for train (side to side), some under power and others, most in fact, via the muscles of the biggest deck apes on the ship. There will be two gunsights (optical sights) per mount unless its a very light caliber one, and each of these must be aligned together. By this time I believe the larger ships will also have to align the individual turrets together so they can all point at the same target Now, twine your fingers together, thumbs up. Overlap one thumb over the other, covering it, and extend your arms. Look at your thumbs, using one eye at a time, keeping the other closed. See the difference? That's parallax. That's what the different mounts on a ship have to overcome. It will take some seconds for each mount to swing out to where a threat may be, and in that brief time the gun captain is trying to find the target for the pointer and trainer, with, hopefully, information from your lookouts on an exact bearing to start looking, because quite honestly, you can't see much from behind a gun shield or in a turret. Now take into account the roll of the ship. In daylight, 4000's yds is pointblank range. At night? Not really. It is if you hit. But at 4000 yds, even a tiny difference in timing on when you squeeze the trigger of the firing key means the difference in a hit and a miss. Too soon and the shell plows into the sea before it hits. Then it either sinks, skips and flies over the target or possibly into it. Fire too late and it just goes off into the distance to kill a school of fish. ANY type of sea makes shooting and hitting, especially at night considerably more difficult than during daylight. How are these problems overcome? Searchlights. Which brings me to the constructive criticisms.
I don't see the aircraft working as was written. These aircraft (whether FBA A or Caudron, I cant determine which Foudre carried at this time) are not suited to taking off from open water, ie, at sea. They need a sheltered bay to do this. Taking off in daylight is hazardous, attempting to do so at night is suicidal. Hitting even a small wave, 2 or three feet tall when taking off means you have an excellent chance of ripping off one of the wing floats or dipping the wing and crashing. During daylight you can see enough to judge reactions. You cant at night. That's why the Foudre has to anchor somewhere in a sheltered bay to launch the aircraft, and they have hours to come up with a way to light the water surface that doesn't blind the pilot so he can do this. The FBA C has a range of 168 miles or 300 KM ("Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft:1914 to the present", p88, plate 42, so the FBA A she carried will have less range) so Foudre has to be close enough to allow the planes to take off, find the MN Fleet, search for the KuK fleet, and return. The aircraft have no radio. Do they have a radium dialed compass? If not, they are navigating via flashlight, which isn't going to help their night vision. If the planes do take off, what are the chances they find one of the fleets? Those old ships are quiet, the aircraft is noisy as an enthusiastic whore on fleet payday. Both fleets will know an aircraft is aloft before the plane sees them. Both will know who it belongs to. As Jean stated, this is a moonless night, at this time of year I don't think there will be any phosphorescence to show a wake, nor enough light to see one. According to these sources:
https://books.google.com/books?id=S...uth adriatic sea cloud cover december&f=false
https://books.google.com/books?id=I...uth adriatic sea cloud cover december&f=false
the weather in the southern Adriatic in December is normally cloudy, often foggy, and stormy. Simply taking off, and finding the enemy fleet will therefore be extremely difficult, if not impossible. If somehow the pilots DO manage to do this however, they then have to illuminate what ships they find, however briefly. As I said before, there is a vast difference in Illuminating pyrotechnics and Signal Pyrotechnic devices. The best option for them is to simply fire flares from flare pistols such as this ( https://www.gunauction.com/buy/10750642) , which was a weapon in production in 1914. This will give but a few seconds of light, fewer than designed as they will need to fire them downward to work. Making "flare bombs" ie, lighting a bundle of handheld flares tied together, in a windy cockpit while they shoot flaming bits of phosphorous around, with a tank of gasoline overhead in a biplane covered in flammable fabric, doesn't seem wise to me.
Look, all these ships have searchlights, USE THEM. That's what they are there for, that's what the navies of the world trained to do, and historically in most nighttime naval actions they were used. See a target, illuminate it if it fails the signal light challenge, and open fire. Doing it that way gives time for your guns to get on target, and its a halfway decent target this way. Once the other guy is burning turn them off so you don't become a target (or as big of one as your still shooting fireballs waaaay bigger than a house out of your muzzle) and pound away.
This is a great TL Jean, I hope you continue it, and hope that what I wrote is useful in doing so.
Sighting another vessel, at night, with only a pair of bino's, is really, really hard. The ocean, at night, is dark as fuck. Can it be done? Absolutely. History proves that. The difficulties though should not be overlooked, as they are real. I went through John Campbell's "Jutland" again over the last few days and judging by the night actions covered in it, (that being, as far as I can tell, the closest analogy) hits at the ranges in this battle are realistic. Getting hits though, is again, very, very hard to do. These guns are all moved via handwheels, one for elevation and one for train (side to side), some under power and others, most in fact, via the muscles of the biggest deck apes on the ship. There will be two gunsights (optical sights) per mount unless its a very light caliber one, and each of these must be aligned together. By this time I believe the larger ships will also have to align the individual turrets together so they can all point at the same target Now, twine your fingers together, thumbs up. Overlap one thumb over the other, covering it, and extend your arms. Look at your thumbs, using one eye at a time, keeping the other closed. See the difference? That's parallax. That's what the different mounts on a ship have to overcome. It will take some seconds for each mount to swing out to where a threat may be, and in that brief time the gun captain is trying to find the target for the pointer and trainer, with, hopefully, information from your lookouts on an exact bearing to start looking, because quite honestly, you can't see much from behind a gun shield or in a turret. Now take into account the roll of the ship. In daylight, 4000's yds is pointblank range. At night? Not really. It is if you hit. But at 4000 yds, even a tiny difference in timing on when you squeeze the trigger of the firing key means the difference in a hit and a miss. Too soon and the shell plows into the sea before it hits. Then it either sinks, skips and flies over the target or possibly into it. Fire too late and it just goes off into the distance to kill a school of fish. ANY type of sea makes shooting and hitting, especially at night considerably more difficult than during daylight. How are these problems overcome? Searchlights. Which brings me to the constructive criticisms.
I don't see the aircraft working as was written. These aircraft (whether FBA A or Caudron, I cant determine which Foudre carried at this time) are not suited to taking off from open water, ie, at sea. They need a sheltered bay to do this. Taking off in daylight is hazardous, attempting to do so at night is suicidal. Hitting even a small wave, 2 or three feet tall when taking off means you have an excellent chance of ripping off one of the wing floats or dipping the wing and crashing. During daylight you can see enough to judge reactions. You cant at night. That's why the Foudre has to anchor somewhere in a sheltered bay to launch the aircraft, and they have hours to come up with a way to light the water surface that doesn't blind the pilot so he can do this. The FBA C has a range of 168 miles or 300 KM ("Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft:1914 to the present", p88, plate 42, so the FBA A she carried will have less range) so Foudre has to be close enough to allow the planes to take off, find the MN Fleet, search for the KuK fleet, and return. The aircraft have no radio. Do they have a radium dialed compass? If not, they are navigating via flashlight, which isn't going to help their night vision. If the planes do take off, what are the chances they find one of the fleets? Those old ships are quiet, the aircraft is noisy as an enthusiastic whore on fleet payday. Both fleets will know an aircraft is aloft before the plane sees them. Both will know who it belongs to. As Jean stated, this is a moonless night, at this time of year I don't think there will be any phosphorescence to show a wake, nor enough light to see one. According to these sources:
https://books.google.com/books?id=S...uth adriatic sea cloud cover december&f=false
https://books.google.com/books?id=I...uth adriatic sea cloud cover december&f=false
the weather in the southern Adriatic in December is normally cloudy, often foggy, and stormy. Simply taking off, and finding the enemy fleet will therefore be extremely difficult, if not impossible. If somehow the pilots DO manage to do this however, they then have to illuminate what ships they find, however briefly. As I said before, there is a vast difference in Illuminating pyrotechnics and Signal Pyrotechnic devices. The best option for them is to simply fire flares from flare pistols such as this ( https://www.gunauction.com/buy/10750642) , which was a weapon in production in 1914. This will give but a few seconds of light, fewer than designed as they will need to fire them downward to work. Making "flare bombs" ie, lighting a bundle of handheld flares tied together, in a windy cockpit while they shoot flaming bits of phosphorous around, with a tank of gasoline overhead in a biplane covered in flammable fabric, doesn't seem wise to me.
Look, all these ships have searchlights, USE THEM. That's what they are there for, that's what the navies of the world trained to do, and historically in most nighttime naval actions they were used. See a target, illuminate it if it fails the signal light challenge, and open fire. Doing it that way gives time for your guns to get on target, and its a halfway decent target this way. Once the other guy is burning turn them off so you don't become a target (or as big of one as your still shooting fireballs waaaay bigger than a house out of your muzzle) and pound away.
This is a great TL Jean, I hope you continue it, and hope that what I wrote is useful in doing so.
You definitely did with your comment and I will use them from now onwards.
The planes used by the Foudre were cauldron in 1914: good planes for their time but of course fragile. The seaplanes could took off in open seas but the Foudre hadn't a catapult so the ship, while not needing to be in a bay, had to use a crane (they did so during 1911-1912 exercises). I'm now aware of the extreme vulnerability of the seaplanes at night and this is already included in my other updates.
For the searchlights, same thing, will do the same.
I only disagree for the weather: december in the Adriatic is rainy and foggy along the Coasts, not in open sea but of the winter winds.
Seriously Oldbill, you seem to be a real expert about naval stuff (plus it looks like you served), so please, don't hesitate to PM me for tips, advices about naval warfare during ww1. I will never know enough and if I can make this TL even more plausible, please PM me.
Thanks again.