Business dealmakers move into government
The novel's business and finance dealmakers in government are compared with Donald Trump's staffing approach.
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Explore every watch point in reverse video-date order, then in timestamp order within each video.
Oil scarcity drives Red Storm Rising's NATO war
A destroyed Soviet petrochemical plant creates an oil emergency that leads the Kremlin toward war with NATO and an occupation of Iceland.
Red Storm Rising has shaped decades of classroom war games
The novel's many decision points have supported decades of classroom wargames in which students test alternate choices and outcomes.
Criticism from both sides suggests a balanced Cold War scenario
Former Soviet officers and Americans object in opposite directions to the novel's capability judgments, suggesting that its Cold War balance may lie near a useful middle ground.
Abercrombie-class monitors built around 14-inch guns
The Abercrombie class combines shallow draft, heavy armor, slow machinery, and a twin 14-inch turret in a monitor designed around coastal bombardment.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
How the Greek battleship Salamis supplied British monitor guns
Four Bethlehem Steel turrets stranded by the British blockade became the armament for purpose-built monitors instead of the Greek battleship Salamis.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
Army artillery needs shaped the shallow-draft monitor
The Army needed heavier fire closer to shore than deep-draft pre-dreadnoughts could provide, so the monitor hull was designed around the available 14-inch turrets.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
Monitor weight distribution traded speed for gun stability
A centered arrangement balances turret and machinery weight, but only 2,310 indicated horsepower moves the broad monitor at low speed.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
American neutrality changed the monitors' proposed names
Plans to name the four monitors for Grant, Lee, Farragut, and Jackson were abandoned while the United States still claimed neutrality.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
Maritime trade links slavery, naval funding, and suppression
Profits and shipping from the Atlantic slave trade helped sustain British naval power before the Royal Navy later took part in suppressing the trade.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
Harland and Wolff adapted its building dock for broad monitors
Abercrombie and Havelock fit together in a Belfast building dock, while their heavy turrets required fitting on the Clyde.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
HMS Abercrombie in the Eastern Mediterranean
Commissioned in May 1915, Abercrombie spent the war supporting operations around the Dardanelles, Aegean, and Palestine.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
HMS Havelock shifted from the Dardanelles to coastal guardship
Havelock left the Dardanelles in 1916 to guard Lowestoft, then followed an obscure path through disarmament, reserve use, and repeated sale.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
Salamis grew amid the Greek-Ottoman dreadnought race
The unfinished Salamis evolved into a plan for a fast, heavily armed battleship while Greek and Ottoman planners watched dreadnoughts offered across the international market.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
Industrial capacity let Britain turn surplus guns into monitors
Britain could improvise new monitor hulls around imported turrets because decades of naval and merchant investment had created spare yards and fitting capacity.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
HMS Raglan supported the Palestine campaign before Imbros
Raglan bombarded Ottoman positions and supported the Third Battle of Gaza before a sortie found the monitor force without its battleship cover.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
Battle of Imbros exposed slow monitors without heavy escort
Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli overmatched Raglan and M28 at Imbros after the slow support ships were left without a capable covering force.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
E14's failed counterattack followed the Battle of Imbros
British submarines could not exploit Yavuz's mine damage: E12 was unavailable, while E14 failed to find the battlecruiser and was lost during its return.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
HMS Roberts became a guardship and experimental platform
Roberts moved from Eastern Mediterranean service to coastal defense, then survived for trials involving an airship-base proposal and underwater protection.
From Naval Fire Support of the WWI Western Front: Long Patrol, Part 2, Abercrombie Class ·
A fictional nuclear coercion plan without a working remote detonator
A shelf-building aside recalls an unnamed geopolitical thriller in which a covert Russian nuclear operation against Japan fails because the weapons have no viable remote-detonation system.
Why the Adriatic became a littoral grudge match
The World War I Adriatic was a confined littoral theater where French difficulties and Italy's entry produced an unusually bitter naval contest.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Why some medical ships avoid hospital-ship status
The Adriatic's attacks on medical shipping lead to a distinction between legally protected hospital ships and less restricted first-response vessels with similar capabilities.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Why Adriatic accounts are hard to reconcile
Uneven French, Italian, Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian accounts make even mutually observed Adriatic incidents difficult to reconstruct.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Why HMS Dreadnought deserved preservation
Dreadnought's submarine attack also supports the case for preserving the era-defining battleship as a museum ship.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Kleinkrieg as attrition before decisive battle
Kleinkrieg is defined as small forces wearing down a stronger fleet until decisive action becomes possible or the larger force is consumed piecemeal.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Austria-Hungary's capable but overlooked navy
Austria-Hungary was a major empire with a substantial, competently organized fleet shaped by rivalry with Italy.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
The Adriatic as a strategic cul-de-sac
A cul-de-sac analogy shows how geography compressed hostile fleets into one narrow sea with only the Strait of Otranto as a practical exit.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
French command and the Allied Adriatic imbalance
The prewar division of responsibilities left France leading in the Mediterranean, but weak results forced Britain and other Allied navies to reinforce the Adriatic campaign.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
The Battle of Antivari and the opening blockade war
The heavily superior Allied fleet catches the protected cruiser Zenta while trying to break Austria-Hungary's blockade of Montenegro.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
A captured French submarine becomes U-14
The French submarine Curie is trapped by defenses and salvaged as Austro-Hungarian U-14; U-12's attack then forces the battleship Jean Bart out for repairs.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Mines and U-4 keep pressure on Allied escorts
A mine sinks the French destroyer Dunois, and U-4 later damages HMS Dublin as small weapons continue to disrupt larger Allied forces.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
U-5 hunts French armored cruisers for days
Georg von Trapp's U-5 chases Victor Hugo and stalks Léon Gambetta, exposing weak escort coordination in a confined sea.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
An informal way to read the semi-dreadnought label
SMS Radetzky supports an informal distinction between ships designed before Dreadnought and transitional battleships that absorbed only part of the new model.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Could trawler nets still trouble a nuclear submarine?
Net-based anti-submarine tactics could no longer haul a nuclear submarine to the surface, although a heavy net could still foul or impede the boat.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Italy enters the war and Ancona is bombarded
Austria-Hungary answers Italy's declaration of war with a rapid, fleet-wide bombardment of Ancona and other coastal targets.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
SMS Radetzky suppresses Montenegrin coastal guns
Radetzky destroys Montenegrin artillery threatening an Austro-Hungarian fleet base and removes a local danger without a fleet engagement.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Were Adriatic torpedoes technically reliable?
The Adriatic torpedoes are described as reasonably effective weapons whose results depended on accurate firing and capable commanders, unlike the later US Mark 14.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Sabotage and the loss of Benedetto Brin
Italian-speaking Austro-Hungarian saboteurs reportedly gained access to Benedetto Brin, exposing elementary shipboard security failures before destroying the battleship.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Conflicting sources on Szent Istvan at Ancona
A live challenge over Szent Istvan's participation exposes a three-versus-four-dreadnought conflict in accounts of the Ancona bombardment.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
What the Otranto Barrage was meant to contain
The Otranto Barrage used the Adriatic's obvious exit as a containment line, although weak Allied execution made a closer blockade of Austro-Hungarian ports doubtful.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
The dispersed small-war campaign of 1916
In 1916, submarine attacks, hospital-ship violations, Q-ships, troop transports, and seaplane anti-submarine strikes spread the campaign across many small actions.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Mines and escort mistakes at Durazzo
An Austro-Hungarian raid runs into mines near Durazzo, but the Allied interception loses focus when French destroyers leave the main cruisers to finish a crippled opponent.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Why the Otranto Barrage remained porous
Most Austro-Hungarian convoys passed the barrage, while minefields did not eliminate the central problem of submarines slipping through.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
A night destroyer clash defeats itself
Four smaller Austro-Hungarian destroyers escape six French opponents after communications failures and collisions disrupt the Allied response.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Professionalism inside the Austro-Hungarian fleet
Crew swimming instruction and effective leadership support the argument that Austria-Hungary fielded one of the Central Powers' more professional naval forces.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Why Italy worried the Royal Navy more than Germany
World War II memory often overstates Germany's surface fleet and understates Italy's greater readiness and strength in the Mediterranean.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
Why Italy and Austria-Hungary carried an old grudge
Habsburg opposition to Italian unification, Austrian rule in northern Italy, and territorial rivalry help explain the campaign's exceptional bitterness.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·
What Austro-Hungarian submarines achieved
A fleet-level tally and U-14's individual results show how a small submarine arm imposed losses disproportionate to its size.
From Patreon 18 "Fast attack craft, ie. torpedo-, U- and gunboats in WWI Adriatic "Klein Krieg" ·