Complete directory
Explore every watch point in reverse video-date order, then in timestamp order within each video.
Clearing approaches to landing beaches exposed minesweepers to enemy fire, while supporting warships were better placed to provide cover.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
The smaller Vosper's hull and steering behavior could follow a rough sea more naturally than the larger Schnellboot's power-dependent approach.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Converting old flush-deck destroyers into fast minesweepers encouraged the US Navy to expect destroyer-like armament and versatility from later purpose-built sweepers.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Sweeping ahead of landings continued from North Africa through Normandy and southern France, while a Dunkirk experiment showed the danger of towing paravanes from fast MTBs.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Locally based gunboats and torpedo boats could have made the Japanese water crossings into Singapore much more difficult.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
CB90-class boats could give landing craft an armed escort if an assault ship traded one larger landing-craft position for several fast boats.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
River-class patrol ships prioritize fishery and constabulary duties, while Britain's small-boat industry preserves the capacity to build attack craft if needed.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Minesweepers could clear a threatened route effectively when observers identified the drop area, but an unobserved submarine or aircraft minelaying sortie left shipping exposed.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Hull, torpedo-launch method, crew practice, enemy, and sea state made attack boats more specialized to local waters than large ships.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Motherships promised to multiply small striking units for a decisive battle, but the Pearl Harbor midget-submarine plan added complexity without placing force where it could exert lasting pressure.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Royal Navy small-boat operation and experimentation continued into the late 1950s and 1960s, preserving designs that could be ordered rapidly in a new war.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Special-forces raiding craft preserve part of the fast small-boat idea, but an armed CB90-type vessel is a closer modern equivalent to an MTB or E-boat.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
An RNLI-derived attack craft concept combines 40 mm guns, anti-ship missiles, lightweight torpedoes, and a rotary-wing uncrewed scout.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Commanding a Ton-class minesweeper, Michael Clapp maintained course and fire discipline while aircraft and boats conducted threatening mock attacks.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
American destroyer escorts could be built to full warship standards, while British frigates expanded production through civilian yards and reduced standards.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
A CB90 hull could be adapted for remote operation, but it would be an uncrewed surface vessel rather than an aerial or underwater vehicle.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Submarine-laid mines faced heavy patrols near major ports, while aircraft-laid mines became easier to locate when radar sightings and signals intelligence revealed the drop area.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Mines from the world wars and even the Russo-Japanese War can survive in salt water and become especially hazardous when newly freed from the seabed.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Sunderland and Swordfish crews watched for mines and passed suspected locations from visual sightings or radar contacts to minesweepers.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Fishing trawlers already possessed the handling skills and towing arrangements needed to drag sweeping gear through a minefield.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
A whale could trigger a contact mine but would not normally create the magnetic signature needed to activate a magnetic mine.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
The ammunition wreck in the Thames Estuary remains dangerous because a mass detonation could combine a major blast with destructive water movement.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
After extensive reliance on converted trawlers, the Halcyon class marked the Royal Navy's move to a purpose-built interwar minesweeper.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Tribal-class destroyers used depth charges to disperse fish shoals that might conceal submarines approaching North African ports.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Armed decoy merchant ships made submarine commanders wary of apparently isolated targets and uncertain about how many weapons a convoy concealed.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Leonard C. Reynolds's Boats at War combines detailed drawings with accounts assembled from people who served in the craft and the operations they performed.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
HMS Belfast's early magnetic-mine damage led to a repair period that may have kept the cruiser away from some of the war's most dangerous early operations.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Tight-knit crews collectively tuned engines, fuel, and equipment, making operational speed and range diverge from trial figures.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
A Halifax- or Montgomery-scale explosion at Kiel could have struck a concentrated center of German submarine, warship, and possibly armored-vehicle production.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
A minesweeper facing mines, aircraft, surface craft, and submarines needed enough sailors for watches, weapons, damage control, ASDIC, and sustained operations.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
The 1,040-ton Spica class carried guns, torpedoes, mines, and 34-knot speed, placing it outside the unrestricted sub-600-ton category despite Italian claims.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Japan explored an air attack on the Panama Canal but did not carry it out because limited aircraft would face a well-defended target zone.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Elco boats were the more numerous American PT design, while Higgins boats earned a reputation for being tougher and more reliable.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
The resources devoted to aircraft-carrying I-400 submarines could have produced more useful long-range attack boats for operations off the United States.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Britain combined fast rescue launches with seaplanes capable of landing near downed aircrew, a mission later transformed by helicopters.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
The Des Moines class could maintain its headline twelve-round-per-minute rate for a time, but sustained output tended to fall and depended on careful maintenance.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
A large destroyer might physically accept a six- or even eight-inch gun, but 4.5- to 5-inch weapons offered the useful rate of fire and handling needed in combat.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
A 2,000-ton, 20-knot escort with four-inch guns and many depth charges fit the treaty logic that produced Royal Navy sloops.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Sending Yamato into more battles would not fix Japan's numerical problem unless it served a coherent attempt to seize Hawaii and force the United States to fight on Japanese terms.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
A Japanese occupation of Hawaii would demand more merchant shipping but push American submarine, carrier, and supply operations much farther east.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Japan lacked enough escorts to protect merchant shipping and should have exploited treaty exemptions to build a much larger sloop force.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
The unrestricted-submarine-warfare charge against Karl Dönitz was weakened when Admiral Nimitz confirmed that US submarines had followed comparable practices in the Pacific.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Japan possessed troops and landing ships for a simultaneous opening assault, provided the army and navy cooperated and exploited surprise fully.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Japanese planners did not dismiss American submarine skill, but they trusted anti-submarine capabilities derived from First World War experience that had since atrophied.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Working around treaty limits produced genuine design advances as navies searched for more capability within fixed categories.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
Japan needed specialized transport arrangements for Yamato's enormous turrets, showing that a capable factory and shipyard are useless if their products cannot move between them.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
River-class frigates offered a larger, tougher, and more standardized escort than the smaller Castle-class corvette.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·
British armament works and shipyards benefited from long-established industrial clusters in which one supplier attracted another and transport links already served naval construction.
From Minesweepers, Torpedo Boats & Gunboats – the ‘Littleships’ of the big war ·