OT-esque - the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05

[anarchyintheuk]

Just from Tsushima I think some of the findings at the time were:

1) that speed was still important (it allowed Togo to choose his range)
2) homogeneity of ships and squadrons (it was easier to control ships of equal ability)
3) combat ranges were farther than prewar expectations, which
4) made big guns easier to spot than intermediate batteries
5) considering the condition of the Russian fleet at the battle it reinforced the need for forward bases to maintain a fleet
6) the night torpedo attack was considered very successful, so the IJN continued to emphasize it in doctrine and training

I'd like to see one of the foreign observer reports to see if they had witnessed the night torpedo attacks and, if the did, what they thought of them.

One of the things stressed by the IJN was the importance of maintaining their loc between Japan and Korea during the war. Seems to be one of the lessons that they didn't idealize prior to WW2.

All the ships were coal burners.

[Anthropoid]

Interesting. Following is the core message in the opening of the wiki page for Battle of Tsushima. Be interested to hear what some of you guys think of the points here. As a non-naval expert, two things stick out to me (in bold).

Admiral Heihachiro Togo destroyed two-thirds of the Russian fleet under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky. Historian Edmund Morris calls it the greatest naval battle since Trafalgar.[1] It was the largest and only major naval engagement fought by pre-dreadnought battleships, and the [1] only sea battle in history in which steel battleships fought a decisive fleet action. In addition, much to the Russian Navy's credit, Admiral Rozhestvensky's battleship fleet conducted a voyage of over 18,000 nautical miles (33,000 km) to reach the Far East.

Prior to the Russo-Japanese War, countries constructed their battleships with mixed batteries of mainly 150 mm (6-inch), 203 mm (8-inch), 254 mm (10-inch) and 305 mm (12-inch) guns, with the intent that these battleships fight on the battle line in a close-quarter, decisive fleet action. The battle [2] demonstrated that big guns with longer ranges were more advantageous during naval battles than mixed batteries of different sizes.

Regarding the two emboldened sections, number two almost seems contradictory to number one, at least from an historical perspective. Sure, maybe in 1905 "big guns with longer ranges were more advantageous" but then given that this was _the only_ engagement in history in which steel battleships, i.e., big gun platforms (right?), fought a decisive battle, doesn't history show that that advantage was at best ephemeral if not context specific?

It is just about as far away from my work on parental-bonding, eating, drinking and obesity as could possibly be conceived, but I just cannot escape a fascination for the cultural evolution of -=-=-ships, guns, torpedoes, planes, and bombs-=-=-=- circa 1900 to 1945. Given the VAST quantitites of resource and effort allocated to these matters, not to mention the lives, both lived and lost, and the poltical-social geographic implications, it is just an amazing topic.

Reading the "Eclipse of the Big Gun" book a bit more last night, the key thing that strikes me is the relative LACK of good empirical understanding of the myriad engineering, technological and tactical/doctine underlying the often tradeoff-based decisions made by nations as to how to design their navies. It is almost like the need to do something, _anything_ was perceived as being so much better than doing nothing that a great deal of investment was made into prospective "Death Stars" that ultimately proved to be sand-castles? Sorry if I now really am getting this off-topic, we can take it back to the Eclipse thread if so . . .

[DuckofTindalos]

Well, it IS Wikipedia...

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Well, it IS Wikipedia...

Yeah, a communally constructed website featuring the sum total of human knowledge where something is eventuallly and inevitably going to be subjected to the editorialization of experts from around the world is bound to have say different things that some books which often express the viewpoint of a _single_ "scholar" and are often published primarily because they are projected to have commercial value by a publishing house whose primary motivation is to make money, in contrast to the Wiki-volunteers' unpaid commitment to knowledge . . .

For example:

The Blitzkrieg Myth compared to Wiki page on Blitzkrieg.

David Irving's Hitler's War and the War Path compared to Wiki page on The Holocaust.

No doubt there is bullshit on many Wiki pages, at least for a while, i.e., until it gets edited by those who notice it and know better. Even in those cases where a topic is prone to highly polarized opinions, over time, I've observed that the process of communal editing at Wiki results in (a) access to editing being limited to those who are willing to take the time to become registered editors; (b) opposing but reasonable views being given sufficient coverage to keep a naive reader informed; (c) extreme views being largely noted as being such and kept to a minimum.

Sure, doing a thesis project including a robust bibliography is always 'better' than checking out wiki, but who has the time for that? In my experience wiki is an excellent starting point for most topics of human knowledge.

[DuckofTindalos]

Wiki-volunteers' unpaid commitment to knowledge

Was that sarcasm? I'm a bit distracted and can't really tell...

[Anthropoid]

No sarcasm intended. Why do you not take wiki seriously Terminus?

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

No sarcasm intended. Why do you not take wiki seriously Terminus?

Websites in general must be taken with a grain of salt since they don't go through the same QA and peer review process that published literature does. Wiki is especially suspect due to it's nature.....a free encyc that anyone can contribute too. Yes, there are some QA controls in place but its a big job for an ever growing website. Some here too still recall the famous Ki-30 Ann Wiki incident as well......

[DuckofTindalos]

Precisely because it CAN be edited by every whackjob on the Internet.

I looked for info about the Ki-30 once, and found the article to be mainly about the aircraft's use against Chinese civilians, complete with a link to a propaganda movie about Japanese atrocities in China, with the soundtrack consisting entirely of screaming and explosions.

The original creator of Wikipedia has publicly stated that he considers it "broken beyond repair".

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

Well given this thread has been pretty slow, I don't think I'm at risk of 'hijacking' here, but kick me out if so . . . What I'd like to hear you guys talk about is: the naval warfare innovations, and insights that were gained from this war. I seem to recall reading about some of the battles in this war being unprecedented in their use of relatively new technology or tactics? Most of the ships at this time were still coal-burners right?

They all were coal burners. Oil wouldn't be introduced as a primary means of propulsion for battleships until the next decade. As with any battle, a multitude of "lessons" were derived from the battle....as many wrong as right. Many of the more important lessons were not acted on given that the fight involved an Asian power (of which as has been mentioned, there was an ingrained disposition against, and that many of the warships involved were obsolete or obsolecent in comparison to new warships being planned or actually on the docks.

The British for example, derived from the battle that HE shells could be decisive in the battle....a facet which failed to take into account the condition of the Russian warships at the time of the battle nor that many many HE shells were required to disable whereby a few well placed AP could do the job much faster, a facet which helped retard British AP development all the way into WWI. The Range increase came as a suprise yet ultimately was not acted on....even as late as 1910, estimated ranges for a typical battle were still considered to be around 10k or less despite advances in gun and fireC tech...little greater than that attempted at Tsunshima. The speed aspect was noted but IMO was not as decisive as some felt. The Russians were more hurt by their ship dispositions than the speed gap of which the former was further exaserbated by said speed gap + lackluster Russian leadership response.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

No sarcasm intended. Why do you not take wiki seriously Terminus?

Websites in general must be taken with a grain of salt since they don't go through the same QA and peer review process that published literature does. Wiki is especially suspect due to it's nature.....a free encyc that anyone can contribute too. Yes, there are some QA controls in place but its a big job for an ever growing website. Some here too still recall the famous Ki-30 Ann Wiki incident as well......

Don't want to get this _truly_ off topic here, but the QA and peer review process that published literature uses, and which is viewed in prevailing wisdom as the "Gold Standard" of new knowledge creation and dissemination, is frankly "broken beyond repair."

Try publishing in a high-impact factor journal without being an acquaintance if not friend/ally of the editorial board: ain't happening.

Try publishing negative-findings, even on a question for which there is sparse or uneven existing empirical evidence: almost certain doom to a manusript submission--UNLESS there is an prevailing faction on the editorial board that would like to see the prevailing generalizations get toppled because it would advance their agenda . . .

Try publishing a theoretical piece that runs counter to established dogma in a myriad of disciplines: unlikely to be accepted in any given topic's 'flagship' journal.

Now, most of these critiques of peer-reviewed lit don't really apply to Wiki, since wiki is not intended to be a medium for publishing original research. But the point is that: _NO_ medium of information exchange is without flaws.

As I was trying to point in in my quoted comparisons, many books are equally, if not more corrupted and biased than is their corollary wiki page. The 'scientific' peer-reviewed literature is chock-full of bandwagoning, and byzantine 'technical' explorations of topics that are primarily nothing more than needles in haystacks. The peer-reviewed pieces that honestly advance knowledge are a slim majority if not a minority IMHO, at least in the social and psychology lit that I tend to read.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid


Don't want to get this _truly_ off topic here, but the QA and peer review process that published literature uses, and which is viewed in prevailing wisdom as the "Gold Standard" of new knowledge creation and dissemination, is frankly "broken beyond repair."

Now, most of these critiques of peer-reviewed lit don't really apply to Wiki, since wiki is not intended to be a medium for publishing original research. But the point is that: _NO_ medium of information exchange is without flaws.

As I was trying to point in in my quoted comparisons, many books are equally, if not more corrupted and biased than is their corollary wiki page. The 'scientific' peer-reviewed literature is chock-full of bandwagoning, and byzantine 'technical' explorations of topics that are primarily nothing more than needles in haystacks. The peer-reviewed pieces that honestly advance knowledge are a slim majority if not a minority IMHO, at least in the social and psychology lit that I tend to read.

I wasn't meaning to imply that published literature has 100% QA. If that were the case we would not need a review process. However i would disagree with the opinion that it is equally or worse off vs. the Internet because there is no official process in place to peer review websites. I could put up a website tomorrow and basically put anything i want in it, post anything i want, cite anything i want in the way i want it. Historians attempting to publish a major piece of history come under greater scrutiny and have to post their credentials and research in full if they wish to be taken seriously. Perfect? no. But there is a process. Some websites have better credability than others....some are very good in fact but ultimately, anyone and everyone can do a website. Writing a good book on a historical subject is another matter.