Bruships 85: Cruiser, New & Random Reading

Yes; Rodney, Renown, and Vian's force all used complete radio silence.

The Allies used the United Nations name during World War II while the postwar organization also built on earlier international institutions.

Yes; capable destroyer captains could move into larger-ship commands.

Until about 1975 at the latest, and possibly less.

A book reading follows pirate Ned Low's seizure of a Nantucket whaler and the brutal coercion of Wampanoag crewmen.

A reading traces the Harwich Force's scouting, torpedo attack, and rescue work at Dogger Bank.

No; treaty rules restricted Germany to older pre-dreadnought capital ships.

The danger did not seriously enter German planning because institutional confidence prevented the assumption from being questioned.

Not that recently, although Britain did acquire Soviet equipment during the Cold War.

Several conventions use Honourable, while Privy Council membership is a principal route to Right Honourable.

Radio use reveals locations and patterns even when messages remain encrypted.

Kuznetsov's 220 mm cruiser grew into a ship judged too large for fighting American heavy cruisers.

Yes; Britain knew the danger because it was exploiting other countries' signals itself.

There is no proof offered here, but covert recovery by specialist civilian-looking ships is treated as entirely plausible.

A design could be tactically poor yet strategically important if building it forced Britain and the United States to respond.

Britain and the United States likely would have retained and upgraded their own capital ships and sustained carrier construction.

The German carrier existed as a substantial powered hull even though fitting out and operational completion never followed.

They would cause panic, but finite and costly missile stocks would make replacement production and close-in defence crucial.

Soviet postwar capital-ship studies ranged from 73,000-ton battleships to Stalin's fast 305 mm battlecruisers.

A joking denial illustrates how severed cables could isolate an enemy while the responsible navy hid behind the ambiguity of underwater damage.

War could begin immediately, and widely dispersed modern technology might fall into hands the United States did not choose.

It had shipbuilding infrastructure, but whether that infrastructure could deliver the ships is a different question.

Yes; Venezuela considered British proposals as well as possible Swedish or Dutch cruisers.

About forty years is plausible, with a potentially enlarged Kirov-class successor replacing them around the early 1990s.

A conventional war would place both seabed communications cables and satellite links under immediate pressure.

Soviet light-cruiser studies narrowed from dozens of Project 65 variants to the conservative Project 68-bis series.

Detailed plans reveal how a Town-class cruiser worked as a physical space, not just a list of specifications.

Not exactly; the publicly known British vehicle is somewhat different, and the full inventory is not public.

A gun concept did not succeed, while a working air-launched anti-satellite test raised debris and weapon-integration complications.

Not necessarily; the Soviet designs' redundancy and robust engineering could have made them unusually survivable.

Individual performance metrics matter less than whether a ship fits its mission and operating environment.

Possibly, but the required launch attitude could overstrain the B-52, making a B-1 a more plausible platform.

Gaps in Origin of Species should be judged against the evidence available when Darwin proposed the theory, not against later scientific knowledge.

Compressing Southampton-class capability into a treaty hull produced cramped ships with little margin for wartime additions.

Both carriers, one Type 45 destroyer, and one Astute-class submarine.

A third shaft could improve redundancy, maintenance flexibility, and speed, but would require a longer carrier and dockyard tradeoffs.

They could form fast convoys that challenged U-boats, but would need new turbine-powered escorts.

He respects the design tradition but wants to inspect how the ship supports routine maintenance and overcomes fleet sustainment problems.

A capital ship's mere existence and visible scale can carry diplomatic weight even before its fighting qualities are tested.

Only partly; cross-connection helps, but a failed drive may still need shutdown, so additional complete shafts provide better redundancy.

The all-hands losses chiefly reflected the circumstances in which those ships were destroyed.

It added little to the diplomatic message and risked making the British squadron look outnumbered beside concentrated US forces.

We do have several estimates, and Steve R. Dunn's Blockade provides a useful treatment of them.

It was a vital theater and the strategic springboard for British movement toward India and the Far East.

No; it drew on its own history and capabilities, and Operation Corporate was assembled very quickly.

It was a fortuitous accident and technically plausible, but he would not conclude that the United States did it.

Variable-time and proximity fuzes could turn large shells into anti-personnel weapons against troops or open-deck crews.

A hydraulic winch system powered the earlier catapults.

Some were, especially mounts atop main turrets where blast made their positions unsafe during surface firing.

A hypothetical question leads into Soviet series-built minelayers, long-range cruiser submarines, and experimental midget boats.

Not especially; their limited torpedo load makes individual merchant sinkings expensive.

Most would become museum ships, though Arethusa might find a limited role because her 6-inch ammunition remains supportable.

It was the only surviving observation position after the ship's normal control stations were shot through.

Yes; a group of the first King George V-class battleships visited in 1914.

It is a very good name, though Dr. Clarke jokes that he would urgently request reassignment from an Ardent in wartime.

They would likely trigger a submarine-cruiser building race and could keep Western heavy surface ships in service to counter them.

It became effective after its jamming problems were solved, but that happened too late in the ships' careers.

The C and D classes are clear British examples, while he does not yet recommend a strong dedicated book on British Korean War operations.

Yes, as part of a task group showing that British forces could reach trade routes worldwide and exploit an opponent's need to disperse.

Probably not; a second Vanguard or a postwar Lion-class battleship would be more plausible.

Use John Lambert's work, especially the Norman Friedman volume drawing on the Lambert collection.

It served a similar presence function, but Britain had conducted comparable global cruises long before the American voyage.

Yes, but its importance depends heavily on each navy's geography, bases, and intended operations.

It likely would have destroyed most aircraft attacking through the anchorage approaches.

Almost continually; the deeper problem is having enough correctly trained and experienced personnel.

Probably not with only two Alaskas; the larger number of Iowa hulls made their retention more practical.

Because Britain conducted similar global deployments regularly, making this voyage seem less singular.

They could have followed a distinct path from the Iowas, possibly including a full Aegis refit.