Using Agincourt to explain collapsing assault waves
Successive game attacks prompt an Agincourt analogy: early failures leave disorder that makes each later wave harder to organize and advance.
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A delayed war would not make German commerce raiding easy
Test whether three extra peacetime years would let German surface raiders challenge a much larger and more modern Royal Navy.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Three more peacetime years transform the British capital-ship programme
See which British battleships and carriers might be ready if the European war began in 1942 rather than 1939.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Working 15-inch shells turn battlecruiser damage into probable loss
Follow the chain from armor penetration to flooding, lost speed, and destruction when heavy shells function as intended.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Thirteen battlecruisers could cover home waters and imperial stations
Map an enlarged pre-1914 battlecruiser force across the North Sea, Mediterranean, Australia, Indian Ocean, and South Atlantic.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Wind and ship movement made gas warfare unreliable at sea
Learn why gas masks and sealed compartments mattered, yet ports remained more plausible chemical targets than moving ships.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Australia's interim SSN fleet would be limited by cost and capacity
Assess whether Australia could realistically acquire five Virginia-class submarines before an AUKUS-designed successor enters service.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Citadel overpressure matured with nuclear and chemical defence
Trace the move from pre-war experiments to sealed, overpressurized command spaces intended to exclude contamination.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
German shipbuilding capacity constrains an arms-race response
A counterfactual naval question shows why available yards and industrial capacity can limit a German response even when more time is available.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
A chemical-weapon hit would not necessarily lose a battleship
Consider the practical damage-control questions behind a chemical hit on a warship: contamination, location, penetration, and getting the ship home.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Recycled turrets could turn retired battleships into new Vanguards
See why a short gap without one older battleship could be accepted if its 15-inch turrets returned in a much more capable Vanguard-type hull.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
A large cruiser is more plausible than an immediate battleship revival
Test predictions of a modern battleship revival against the more likely return of a heavily armed ship called a cruiser.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Why 15-inch Scharnhorsts would trade commonality for delay
Explore a German capital-ship alternative in which heavier guns improve standardization but postpone the ships that need them.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
A supersonic naval fighter changes Falklands carrier design and losses
Explore how a P.105-style supersonic fighter could force larger British carriers and produce a far stronger combat air patrol.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Warship washdown and fire suppression share the same water network
See how a frigate's external washdown sprinklers connect chemical, biological, and radiological protection with ordinary firefighting infrastructure.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
An eight-ship battlecruiser force implies a rolling replacement cycle
Follow how the Royal Navy might replace Invincible-, Indefatigable-, Lion-, and Tiger-era battlecruisers while maintaining two squadrons.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Gun stocks did not solve the 15-inch turret bottleneck
Distinguish the Royal Navy's reserve of 15-inch barrels from the industrial capacity needed to manufacture complete turrets.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Dominion fleet choices mixed local budgets with Admiralty influence
Ask how Britain might persuade the Dominions to adopt a common cruiser design despite their different budgets and priorities.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Peacetime is the best moment to expand naval industry
Understand why expanding yards, armor, turbines, and gun production is easier before war consumes labour and transport.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
A treaty sloop could combine light guns with floatplane reconnaissance
Test whether a 2,000-ton treaty-limited vessel could carry light guns, catapults, and several reconnaissance floatplanes.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
The destroyer name records a shift from defence to attack
Trace the linguistic and tactical evolution from torpedo boat to torpedo-boat destroyer and finally destroyer.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
The Royal Navy often ordered a lifetime supply of gun barrels
Learn whether a navy bought replacement barrels with a battleship class or relied on later production.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Anti-ship missiles emerged from a long guided-weapon continuum
Follow anti-ship guided weapons from 1930s glide-bomb experiments through German wartime systems and Allied development.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Longer naval guns demand more than stretching the barrel
See how barrel weight, stiffness, handling machinery, and droop limit proposals for extremely long naval guns.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Modern sea-power reading should combine Australian and strategic studies
Get a reading route into contemporary sea power through Australian studies and work by leading naval strategists.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Floatplane sloops could extend convoy reconnaissance and ASW
Explore how a class of small aviation escorts might have given Atlantic convoys their own airborne submarine search.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Active anti-torpedo weapons remain ship self-defence systems
Ask whether torpedo-killing torpedoes would create a new escort type or stay aboard the ship they protect.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Gun decks became living space until the ship cleared for action
See how hammocks, officers' cabins, and heavy guns shared the same deck without crews routinely moving cannon for sleep.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
A 1942 war opens with more new cruisers and more AA conversions
Extend the delayed-war counterfactual from capital ships to Britain's modern cruiser classes and its programme for converting older hulls into anti-aircraft escorts.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Escort growth could outpace German U-boat expansion before 1942
Compare Britain's continuing destroyer and Hunt-class programmes with the limits on a peacetime German submarine buildup.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Global logistics worked against Britain's 24.5-inch torpedo
Compare a heavier torpedo's striking power with the number of weapons a globally deployed fleet can carry and resupply.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Age of Sail gunners chose hull or rigging by tactical need
Move beyond the simple claim that British ships shot hulls while French ships always aimed at sails and rigging.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
A delayed war gives the Royal Navy time to replace obsolescent carrier aircraft
Consider what might replace Swordfish-, Roc-, Skua-, and Sea Gladiator-era aircraft if war began in 1942.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Triple-turret guns were staggered to control muzzle-blast interference
Learn why the centre gun in some triple turrets appears recessed and how adjacent muzzle blasts could disturb shells.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Three more peacetime years reshape carriers and destroyer armament
Survey how a 1942 outbreak might change American buildup, British dual-purpose guns, and European carrier completion.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Liquid-propellant guns remained hazardous experiments
Follow why an apparently convenient liquid charge created difficult ignition, containment, and safety problems that kept experimental guns out of service.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
British wartime damage reports informed American carrier design
See how combat reports on damaged British warships crossed the Atlantic and influenced American design thinking.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Worldwide testing helped British magnetic torpedoes work
Learn why magnetic influence pistols behaved differently around the world and why global operating experience mattered.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Sending Yorktown east might have concentrated Japanese escorts
Test whether assigning a radar-equipped USS Yorktown to the Eastern Fleet would alter Japanese opening deployments.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
A magnetic Squid fuze had to survive launch, impact, and depth
Follow the engineering obstacles to replacing impact or depth settings on Squid ASW bombs with magnetic detonation.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Testing and institutional honesty separated torpedo programmes
Compare how German, British, and American institutions confronted unreliable torpedoes at the start of the Second World War.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
British aerial torpedoes also carried working magnetic detonators
Clarify whether Britain's successful magnetic detonators were confined to 21-inch ship and submarine torpedoes.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Dry-dock inspection could expose treaty-breaking cruisers
See how hull form and waterline observations gave naval constructors clues that a warship exceeded declared displacement.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
A layered reading route into the Song dynasty
Compare an accessible introduction, the Cambridge History of China, and an older biographical dictionary while learning why transliteration and source density complicate the field.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Song military centralization traded coup prevention for fiscal strain
Learn how the Song court centralized professional forces to prevent military coups, and why that system imposed a heavy financial burden.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Song militias saved money but revived the danger of local power
Compare the Song professional army with cheaper community militias whose local ties improved cohesion but worried the court.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Regional commands improved readiness while weakening court oversight
Examine a third Song model that fixed troops and commanders in regions to build cohesion at the cost of direct imperial control.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·
Song sea power grew from commerce and convoy protection
See why Song China developed sea power primarily to protect maritime trade rather than to pursue expansive overseas conquest.
From Bruships 106: Song Dynasty & Three New Books from Pen & Sword ·