Oh yes the great British navy. I'm thankful to this day that they defeated (single handed mind you) the worlds most irrelevant surface fleet who was less than 1/10th in size of just their very own Atlantic fleet. They used the same tactics to sweep away the Japanese in the pacific also.....errr wait[8|]
ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
ORIGINAL: warspite1
Hey kids - this is what happens when an 11-inch armed pocket battleship takes on one 8-inch and two 6-inch armed cruisers of the Royal Navy.
Noo....
This is what happens when a damaged pocket battleship gets scuttled. Those 6-inch popguns can't wreak this sort of havoc by themselves.
ETA: The
Bismarck was scuttled. [:'(][;)]
warspite1
Hee hee - I was waiting for someone to comment [:D]
[Turns to face audience] For those, like CB, who don't know about war and grown up stuff an' s^&*, let me confirm:
- The Royal Navy force was out-ranged and out-gunned.
- However, Commodore Henry Harwood knew all he had to do was inflict enough damage on the Graf Spee to ensure that - one way or the other - she wasn't getting home.
- Sadly, because the German ship had a better reach, he knew any action was going to be painful for his force of British and Kiwis.
- But, in the finest traditions of the RN, he put himself and his ships in harms way to get the desired outcome.
- Having done that, there was no way home for Graf Spee.
- Langsdorff chose to scuttle his ship.
- Job Done.
[Sits back and takes a sip of the cup of tea that has just been served by his faithful manservant Geeves] [:)]
Re the Bismarck. [Assumes serious tone once more]
- Scuttled schmuttled. I actually had an online conversation with someone once that went something like this
- Because Bismarck scuttled herself, all the glory and honour of the battle went to the Germans and none to the British.
- After I managed to pick myself up from laughing so hard I almost cracked a rib, I politely pointed out that he was of course correct, after all:
- After Bismarck had scuttled herself, Hitler declared a national holiday and a two-day period of celebration to honour the fact that the
Kriegsmarine had won such a great and glorious victory. Bismarck of course was sunk, Operation Rheinubung (to get at the North Atlantic convoys) was
a total failure, 2,000 German sailors were dead and the battleship was lost to the German OOB forever..... but hey, no matter. The important thing was that the Bismarck's crew had scuttled her. [Visions of Hitler dancing through the corridors of the Reichkanzelei singing "Happy Days are here again la la la la la"]
- The fact that prior to this act, the RN had turned her into a totally useless burning hulk, totally beyond repair, seems to have been completely lost on the OP.... hey ho...
- Interesting that on that basis, the Battle of Midway was actually a glorious Japanese victory [;)][:D]
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