Complete directory
Explore every watch point in reverse video-date order, then in timestamp order within each video.
Mitchell's publicity campaign led the War and Navy Departments toward the joint exercises known as Project B.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
An enemy fleet could avoid shore-based aircraft while attacking the trade those aircraft could not reach.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Aircraft procurement prices omit operating and training costs, while figures from different decades distort Mitchell's comparison with a battleship.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Before Project B, the Navy had already attacked Indiana from the air and used controlled charges and practice bombs to study accuracy and damage.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
The agreed rules expose the central conflict: the Navy wanted progressive damage evidence, while the Air Service wanted an unrestricted sinking demonstration.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Multiple airfields and supporting infrastructure complicate the cost and coverage of a bomber-based coastal defense.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
The sandbank suggestion ran against the requirement to keep sunken target ships from becoming navigation hazards.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
The test force combined American, British, and Italian bomber designs against old, stationary ships with no crews, maneuver, fighters, antiaircraft fire, or damage control.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
The heaviest bombs appear to have been permitted, with a restriction on how often they could be dropped.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Two aircraft are tentatively credited with carrying a single 2,000-pound bomb, but the visual references do not clearly identify them in the captions.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Project B's daylight and good-weather limits served both aircraft operations and the Navy's need to board targets for inspection.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Mitchell initially observed the rules while fighters simulated antiaircraft suppression and bombers attacked smaller targets before Ostfriesland's staged strikes began.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Ostfriesland had closed watertight doors, but no crew to shore up or repair leaks.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Six heavy bombs fell in quick succession against a limit of two, interrupting the inspection sequence intended to measure Ostfriesland's accumulating damage.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Near misses tore hull plating and produced progressive flooding, but the rushed sinking prevented engineers from determining which leaks a crew could have contained.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Rule-following experiments still informed damage-control practice and the subdivision of later US battleships.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Moffett, Roosevelt, and Sims were already advancing naval aviation when Mitchell's bombing demonstration became a claim to credit for its development.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Leaked bombing reports complicated Washington naval conference diplomacy by casting doubt on the value of the ships governments intended to limit.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Mason Patrick asserted command authority over Mitchell and brought engineering and wartime Air Service experience to the task.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Mitchell's damaged Army-Navy relationships weakened joint exercises and operational learning before the Second World War.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
A bomb-by-bomb record of damage could guide improved subdivision and resistance to bombing.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Mitchell's success with junior supporters coexisted with difficulty engaging peers who challenged his assumptions.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
The practical threat depended on delivery method, aircraft range, and a ship's defenses, as Royal Navy planning for armored carriers illustrates.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
The Royal Navy anticipated dive-bomber attacks but struggled to secure realistic training and suitable aircraft policy through the RAF and Air Ministry.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
Better preparation of Army air units for attacks on shipping is proposed as a benefit of closer interwar Army-Navy cooperation.
From Patreon 104: What could have been learned if Billy Mitchell had followed the rules in 1921? ·
A procurement warning starts with the habit of chasing new equipment before reinforcing existing programs, support lines, and hollowed-out capabilities.
From Musings on Procurement ·
Calling tanks, warships, and other military equipment toys obscures the lives placed at risk when those systems fail in combat.
From Musings on Procurement ·
Examples from Ajax, French carrier construction, Zumwalt, Arleigh Burke, and LCS show how politics and program momentum can distort procurement choices.
From Musings on Procurement ·
No political system or national culture eliminates procurement error, and copying an ally's equipment can substitute appearance for a force designed around domestic needs.
From Musings on Procurement ·
The procurement framework starts with national self-knowledge: trade exposure, demography, economy, industrial base, imports, domestic yards, and political expectations.
From Musings on Procurement ·
British, French, and American approaches to ownership, domestic construction, employment, and yard capacity show that industrial policy is part of the requirement rather than a cost-free procurement preference.
From Musings on Procurement ·
The War of 1812 example shows why heavy frigates solve some threats but cannot replace ships of the line when the opponent and mission set change.
From Musings on Procurement ·
A country's maritime exposure, alliances, defensive depth, and expeditionary obligations shape what it must buy and what it can afford to ignore.
From Musings on Procurement ·
Resource choices, environmental protections, political conventions, foreign influence, and divisions inside other states all affect the threats a defence plan must address.
From Musings on Procurement ·
Procurement supports deterrence, diplomatic isolation, and conflict termination as well as combat, so the right form of overwhelming force depends on what a country can deploy credibly.
From Musings on Procurement ·
A British force-design example links the Queen Elizabeth class to amphibious flight decks, docks, escorts, and missile capacity instead of evaluating each ship program alone.
From Musings on Procurement ·
Post-Cold War procurement rested on assumptions about remote peer conflict, optional wars, and continuing economic growth that are challenged here.
From Musings on Procurement ·
A three-tier framework separates essential, necessary, and desirable capabilities while placing logistics and infrastructure firmly among the essentials.
From Musings on Procurement ·
Admiration for warships and respect for their crews are separated from glorifying weapons or treating combat decisions as easy.
From Musings on Procurement ·
Strike aircraft and long-range missiles have little deterrent value when national leaders and adversaries both know the country will not authorize their use.
From Musings on Procurement ·
European maneuver warfare, the Arctic northern flank, and transatlantic reinforcement demand different formations, transport plans, and naval protection.
From Musings on Procurement ·
British, American, Canadian, French, Italian, and Danish procurement mistakes are easy to cite partly because their decisions receive public scrutiny and sustained specialist debate.
From Musings on Procurement ·
The budget section weighs raising spending, reducing costs, off-the-shelf buying, domestic production premiums, alliances, and failed common requirements.
From Musings on Procurement ·
An off-the-shelf unit price is not the cost of a domestic production program once a country adds factories, specialist transfers, training, and a short national run.
From Musings on Procurement ·
A proposed British-Dutch amphibious program exposed incompatible expectations for ship size and self-defence before the partners had agreed on a common requirement.
From Musings on Procurement ·
A shared hull family can adapt to different missions, but savings shrink when partners finance opposite ends of the design range and buy major systems separately.
From Musings on Procurement ·
American amphibious designs are too large and personnel-intensive for the British requirement, so an allied design is not automatically a suitable purchase.
From Musings on Procurement ·
When spending, cuts, and partnerships cannot reconcile requirements with resources, hollowing every capability preserves an impressive inventory but leaves no force ready for crisis.
From Musings on Procurement ·