Some Interesting Military Data

[BlackBat242]

I think he was worried that the discussion was heading towards the political reasons for target selection, and whether one system, or target set, was more politically/morally acceptable than another.

That kind of discussion is subject to being stomped on by the mods.

As long as the discussion sticks to "just the facts", and doesn't head into "why/right-wrong", it is fine.

 

[kilemall]

I think he was worried that the discussion was heading towards the political reasons for target selection, and whether one system, or target set, was more politically/morally acceptable than another.

That kind of discussion is subject to being stomped on by the mods.

As long as the discussion sticks to "just the facts", and doesn't head into "why/right-wrong", it is fine.

Oh, that.

Yes it would be quite easy to see an excellent thread scuttled by too much pol-talk given the rules here. I wouldn't want that, but I think military choices and effects are within the bounds, long as it stays military and maybe a bit economics.

 

[mike wightman]

This thread has been a very useful source of ideas.

Timerover's intent I think is to use it as a data dump for his real world historical data as he comes across it - there have been some real gems which are highly relevant considering the TL range Traveller covers.

What usually happens if you want to discuss something further is to start a new thread quoting the post that piqued your interest in discussion.

That way we can discuss ramifications, interpretations, extensions, implications, extrapolations all without derailing the thread.

 

[Timerover51]

I think he was worried that the discussion was heading towards the political reasons for target selection, and whether one system, or target set, was more politically/morally acceptable than another.

That kind of discussion is subject to being stomped on by the mods.

As long as the discussion sticks to "just the facts", and doesn't head into "why/right-wrong", it is fine.

That is the focus and reason for the thread. Basically to provide some knowledge of the military and history to those on the forum that have never served. We did have a very good discussion on the merits of the bayonet much earlier in the thread.

 

[Timerover51]

Much of the credit for the success in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea goes to the US and Australian Air Forces, but the Navy was involved in two ways. First, it was the code breakers at Pearl Harbor who picked up the information on the convoy and cued the reconnaissance planes into locating it. The US was working very hard to avoid tipping the Japanese to the fact that their codes were being read, so a successful detection by aerial reconnaissance was crucial to the air attacks.

Second, the PT Boats stationed in New Guinea also made a contribution to the battle. The following comes by the book by Robert Buckley, At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy, published by the Naval Historical Division.

At 2310 the 143 and 150 saw a fire ahead, to the north. On close approach they saw it was a cargo ship, Oigawa Maru of 6,493 tons, dead in the water, with a large fire in the forward hold and a smaller fire aft. It seemed to be abandoned. At 800 yards the 143 fired a torpedo which exploded near the stern and the ship began to heel to port and settle in the water. Five minutes later the 150 fired a torpedo at 700 yards. This one exploded amidships and the ship sank, stern first, with a brilliant blaze of fire just before she went under.

On the 4th of March our planes returned and strafed everything afloat in Huon Gulf. Thousands of Japanese troops from the sunken transports were adrift in collapsible boats. For several days, the PT's, too, met many of these troop-filled boats and sank them. It was an unpleasant task, but there was no alternative. If the boats were permitted to reach shore, the troops, who were armed with rifles, would constitute a serious menace to our lightly held positions along the coast.

At daylight on March 5, Jack Baylis in PT 143 and Russ Hamachek in PT 150 sighted a large submarine on the surface well out to sea, 25 miles northeast of Cape Ward Hunt. Near it were three boats: a large one with more than 100 Japanese soldiers and two smaller ones with about 20 soldiers in each. The men were survivors of the Bismarck Sea battle; the submarine was taking them aboard. Each PT fired a torpedo. The 143's ran erratically. The 150's ran true, but missed as the submarine crash dived. The PT's strafed the conning tower as it submerged, then sank the three boats with machine-gun fire and depth charges.

Note, the torpedoes used by the PT Boats at this time were 21 inch Mark 8 torpedoes originally used by the 4-piper destroyers in World War 1. They were slow and did have reliability problems. When the boats were switched to side-launching the Mark 13 aerial torpedo, they had more success.

Edit Note: Using a smaller craft to finish off or board crippled ships would be a viable tactic for Traveller Space Combat. As I am not that great a fan of space combat, I do not know if there are provisions for missile armed small craft in the standard ship listing.

 

[JimMarn]

I've read that the PT boat WW2 history is not well known, nor well detailed. Some PT units had to scramble in the early days of WW2 to get out before capture by the IJN. So their combat logs are likely lost. I know bombing attacks took out such records for all units involved; navy, air forces, and infantry/tanks.

Does that book you mention help with that ? How difficult and/or costly would that book be ? Most of the WW2 documentary books I have cover the Atlantic Ocean and Europe.

Oh, have you read 'Grey Seas Under' ? I think I have the title correct. Its about a Canadian tug boat cmopany that owund up doing some patrol boat, freighter, and other sea rescues during WW2. Note that most of the book talks about their sea salvages rather than WW2 salvages.

 

[JimMarn]

Here it is:

GREY (Gray) SEAS UNDER - Atlantic Rescue - Saga of the Salvage Tugs Book (1) One by Farley Mowat

Its a book about the tug named 'Foundation Franklin'. I read it years ago. Apparently the author now has several books about salvage tugs as this is 'Book One'.

I read it years ago in paperback.

 

[MThompson016]

Yes, there are armed small craft. Actually, this would be a use for smaller military/paramilitary spacecraft and starships.

 

[Enoki]

There are a number of sources on PT boats and WW 2 actions available. What they all pretty much show is that as combatant vessels the PT was pretty marginal. The number of ships torpedoed was small and their armament was such that they weren't great AA or anti-small craft combatants due in good part to the instability of their movement making accurate fire difficult.

Allied PT / MBT did poorly with torpedoes in part due to lack of training with these weapons for the crews and in part due to lack of any aiming / targeting system beyond the Mk I eyeball.

German S-Boats did better because of better crew training but mostly against slow moving merchant ships. Against "real" naval vessels their tactics were mostly run and evade as were the Allied ones.

Where Allied small combatants like this were useful were as scouts, doing things like Air / Sea rescue, and escorting small craft (like landing craft) convoys and the like where they offered adequate protection without the use of heavier naval vessels.

 

[Condottiere]

In Traveller terms, probably two hundred tonnes, with a torpedo and a secondary weapon system.

Three hundred if you want to add drop tanks, which makes it short of a Gazelle.

 

[Timerover51]

I've read that the PT boat WW2 history is not well known, nor well detailed. Some PT units had to scramble in the early days of WW2 to get out before capture by the IJN. So their combat logs are likely lost. I know bombing attacks took out such records for all units involved; navy, air forces, and infantry/tanks.

Does that book you mention help with that ? How difficult and/or costly would that book be ? Most of the WW2 documentary books I have cover the Atlantic Ocean and Europe.

You can find the reference on PT Boats in HTML format at Hyperwar on the Internet:

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/CloseQuarters/index.html

You might also try for it through interlibrary loan, or find a used copy online.

Buckley served with the PT Boats in the Pacific, in New Guinea and the Philippines, so had a first-hand experience with the boats.

Oh, have you read 'Grey Seas Under' ? I think I have the title correct. Its about a Canadian tug boat cmopany that owund up doing some patrol boat, freighter, and other sea rescues during WW2. Note that most of the book talks about their sea salvages rather than WW2 salvages.

Yes, I have read Mowat's book on the Foundation Franklin, and also the one on the Foundation Josephine, called The Serpent's Coil, covering the salvage of a Liberty Ship partially capsized by the shifting of its ballast. The Foundation Josephine was a member of the Bustler-class of British wartime ocean salvage tugs. Looks like you can still find them readily through Amazon.

 

[JimMarn]

I saw 'They Were Expendable' many years ago. I remember Bulkley. I had read enough to know that the wooden mallet was used more often than the movie portrayed it. While that movie did have some errors in it, I found it very informative on PT Boat tactics.

Bookmarked the link, thanks !

 

[Blue Ghost]

The Battle of Niagra Falls

Here's another one; often thought to be "an old wives tale" or some kind of "mass delusion" or "hallucination" gone wrong, or just a bunch of people making stuff up, a U-Boat was floated from the bottom of the Great Lakes;

http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/usa-mysterious-nazi-submarine-from-wwii-discovered-in-great-lakes/

 

[BlackBat242]

I saw 'They Were Expendable' many years ago. I remember Bulkley. I had read enough to know that the wooden mallet was used more often than the movie portrayed it. While that movie did have some errors in it, I found it very informative on PT Boat tactics.

Bookmarked the link, thanks !

I have a copy of the book - and many of the errors are present there as well - including the claims of sinking Japanese cruisers and damaging Japanese battleships.

You must remember, though, that the book was written in May-June 1942 (and published later the same year), mostly from interviews with 4 junior officers of Bulkeley's PT squadron. There was no recourse to any official USN documents, much less reports from the IJN units involved, or especially any classified information - it is purely what the men involved THOUGHT had happened, and what they thought they had done!

 

[kilemall]

Here's another one; often thought to be "an old wives tale" or some kind of "mass delusion" or "hallucination" gone wrong, or just a bunch of people making stuff up, a U-Boat was floated from the bottom of the Great Lakes;

http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/usa-mysterious-nazi-submarine-from-wwii-discovered-in-great-lakes/

Snopes says false.

 

[Enoki]

Now, one US PT boat gun system used primarily, if not entirely, in the Mediterranean late in the war that would be something of a good carryover to Traveller would be the Thunderbolt gun mount. This mount had 4 20mm cannon and 2 .50 machineguns on a powered mount operated by one man. It could deliver a massive amount of firepower while the ammo lasted.

Later the .50 machineguns were removed because they were found really unnecessary and made the mount more complex. For close-in ship defense something like that with gauss or laser technology could be devastating.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Snopes says false.

I've been had. It's a joke rag with a bunch of joke headlines. When will I ever learn...

 

[Drakon]

Snopes says false.

I have often wondered if this story came about when the U 505 was transported to the museum of science and industry in chicago. I got to visit the U505 shortly after bootcamp, and being a sailor was allowed topside.

 

[Timerover51]

Here's another one; often thought to be "an old wives tale" or some kind of "mass delusion" or "hallucination" gone wrong, or just a bunch of people making stuff up, a U-Boat was floated from the bottom of the Great Lakes;

http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/usa-mysterious-nazi-submarine-from-wwii-discovered-in-great-lakes/

There is a German World War One submarine located on the bottom of Lake Michigan, the UC-97. It was brought into the Great Lakes following World War one as part of the Victory Bond drive, and was part of the US reparations, along with several other subs. The submarine was partially dismantled in Chicago for examination of various pieces of equipment, and then taken out into Lake Michigan to the north of the Chicago lakefront and sunk by gunfire from USS Wilmette in 1921. The reports on the dismantling are located at the Chicago branch of the National Archives, and I have copies of most of the reports, as well as copies of the deck logs or the two US naval vessels involved, the USS Hawk and the USS Wilmette. The reports detail what was removed, which man or men did the removal, and how much they were paid.

 

[JimMarn]

There is a German World War One submarine located on the bottom of Lake Michigan, the UC-97. It was brought into the Great Lakes following World War one as part of the Victory Bond drive, and was part of the US reparations, along with several other subs. The submarine was partially dismantled in Chicago for examination of various pieces of equipment, and then taken out into Lake Michigan to the north of the Chicago lakefront and sunk by gunfire from USS Wilmette in 1921. The reports on the dismantling are located at the Chicago branch of the National Archives, and I have copies of most of the reports, as well as copies of the deck logs or the two US naval vessels involved, the USS Hawk and the USS Wilmette. The reports detail what was removed, which man or men did the removal, and how much they were paid.

First I've heard of that one. Again, most of my info on WW1 is the trenches of Europe, Galipoli, and the Africa campaign between the British and the German Colonies. I do know the British blockade was busted when 3 British cruisers were sunk by U-boats.

So, do you where I can get info on WW1 U-boats and destroyers ?