Complete directory
Explore every watch point in reverse video-date order, then in timestamp order within each video.
An early attempt to let RAF bombers attack German ships in harbour foundered on weather, reconnaissance delays, and a target that moved before the strike arrived.
From WW2 in the Mediterranean up until November 1940: p2 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Longstanding British planning judged Taranto’s seemingly ideal position to be more vulnerable to carrier aircraft than the Italians believed.
From WW2 in the Mediterranean up until November 1940: p2 Taranto Long Patrol ·
The raid was a victory, but it neither destroyed the Italian fleet nor drew it into the decisive surface battle Cunningham wanted.
From WW2 in the Mediterranean up until November 1940: p2 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Removing Italian capital ships would let Britain interdict North African supply routes, time convoys around night cover, and reduce its Mediterranean burden.
From WW2 in the Mediterranean up until November 1940: p2 Taranto Long Patrol ·
A decisively neutralized Italian fleet might have changed Crete, the Indian Ocean, and British deterrence in the Far East.
From WW2 in the Mediterranean up until November 1940: p2 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Force H, the Mediterranean Fleet, submarines, and Barham had to be coordinated while Eagle’s absence left the strike with a single carrier.
From WW2 in the Mediterranean up until November 1940: p2 Taranto Long Patrol ·
The attack’s torpedoes used standard Royal Navy adaptations for stable, shallow-water entry.
From WW2 in the Mediterranean up until November 1940: p2 Taranto Long Patrol ·
The series places Taranto within decades of naval aviation thought, with the 1940 raid as the culmination of earlier experiments and plans.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Early ideas about attacking ships from the air aimed as much at unsettling a fleet in harbour as at sinking it outright.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Fisher's Baltic concept illustrates how British planners hoped to threaten German interests and compel a fleet action on the open sea.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
The Baltic scheme depended on a practical canal-denial operation, with mines or sacrificial cruisers proposed as ways to close the Kiel Canal.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Even small air attacks could erode a harbour fleet's credibility, morale, and ability to function as a deterrent.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Heligoland's position shows why geography and fortified approaches shaped the problem of attacking German harbour bases.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
The case for aerial torpedoes rests on the need to breach a hull and cause flooding rather than merely damage or burn a ship.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
The Sopwith Cuckoo was an early naval torpedo-attack aircraft, but its nose-down weapon entry made a shallow-harbour strike unreliable.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
HMS Furious shows how an experimental First World War carrier could sustain pressure on a fleet through repeated attacks.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Small First World War air groups led navies to consider multi-carrier concentration and repeated raids intended to provoke the German fleet.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Interwar torpedo bombers lacked the performance of later wartime aircraft, so carrier dominance was far from obvious to naval planners in the 1920s and 1930s.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
The Swordfish's value at Taranto lay in stable night flying and a reliable system for getting its torpedo into the water correctly.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Ark Royal's two-hangar layout is presented as a design for maintaining a ready striking force against fleets at sea or in harbour.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
Damage to three of Italy's six battleships at Taranto shows why a carrier strike could have a disproportionate effect against a relatively small battle line.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
The raid of 1940 culminated more than three decades of professional discussion, technical development, and operational experimentation in naval air strike.
From The Beginnings of Naval Aerial Strike: p1 Taranto Long Patrol ·
A recommendation for Simon Elliott's Roman Conquest of Britain, using Boudicca's revolt to show its accessible treatment of Roman rule.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
No sound, affordable book on China's overseas fishing fleet earns a recommendation, and one account shifts responsibility away from the actors conducting coercive activity.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
A counterfactual Taranto answer weighs an Illustrious-class carrier operating Sea Furies and Wyverns against 1940 Italian defences.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
A Boudiccan victory would open a much larger counterfactual because Rome's usual response to defeat was to return in greater strength.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Nicholas Tracy's Quiberon Bay study frames Hawke as a crucial predecessor to Nelson and examines the limits of line-of-battle tactics.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Ship design, especially the reasons behind a vessel's final form, is the naval subject he can discuss at greatest length.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Combining a cruiser and seaplane ship compromised both roles rather than solving Japanese scouting needs cleanly.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
If Britain knew exactly when Italy would enter the war, the Royal Navy would probably attempt a Copenhagen-style pre-emptive attack on the anchored fleet.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
A Saratoga-style carrier with cruiser guns is more coherent than a Tone-style hybrid, though its 8-inch battery would be better replaced with dual-purpose weapons.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Lawrence Paterson's First U-Boat Flotilla earns a recommendation for its depth, while prompting a call for an equally strong account of the opposing side.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Whether a torpedo clears a destroyer's rail depends on launcher height, but rails in the firing arc were normally lowered at action stations.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
John Paul Davis's study of England's civil war is recommended for its account of William Marshal and the 1217 struggle for Lincoln.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau better suited Germany's strategic limits than the larger Bismarck class.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Total Germany is recommended as an overview of the Royal Navy against the Axis, with a useful warning about the compromises of compression.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Removing the German battle fleet at the beginning of the First World War could free Britain to seek an amphibious route around the Western Front.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Demographic explanations for the Bonhomme Richard fire give way to training, teamwork and command preparation.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
If Force Z included a carrier and survived with moderate damage, the later ABDA naval command would probably form around that force.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
A promising Spanish Navy book is on the way, but it must be read and assessed before it can be recommended.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
A technology-transfer counterfactual shows how radar and late-war dual-purpose guns could reduce early British losses and strengthen destroyers against ships as well as aircraft.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
CVN-65 shared the support problems of a unique ship, intensified by the complexity of maintaining eight reactors.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
The two John Jordan treaty-era warship volumes provide a starting point for the Dutch navy in the East Indies.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
British Aircraft Carriers is endorsed as a solid published history of their design, development and service.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
Monica E. Simon's Two Courtiers uses conflicting immediate reports to ask whether Francis Lovell fought at Bosworth and why Henry VII named living opponents among the dead.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
A question about certainty in history becomes a compact guide to source bias, viewpoint and cross-checking.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
The reverse Copenhagen counterfactual explains why British fleet security was inseparable from Allied supply and survival in the First World War.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·
The older political-internment sense of concentration camp is distinguished from extermination camps while confinement based on Japanese ancestry is condemned.
From 21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat ·