Crown Colony class light cruiser:
I'd say none of these ships resemble the "tortoise" configuration Churchill was requesting. Just guessing: none were ever built, but then maybe I missed something?
Posted on 10/21/2009 4:53:08 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Yes, a bullet in the brain will sometimes require hospital care and surgery.
It's interesting that she lived throughout the war and the collapse of Germany, but died fairly quickly under British medical care.
Interesting little note about Udet, as well.
This letter from FDR is worth repeating:
"Dear Arthur:-"I am awfully glad to have yours of October first, for I had been thinking much of you and faith and wondering what you had been doing since those evil days at the beginning of September when the second attack on civilization as you and I know it began.
"All I can say is God bless you both and take care of yourselves and remember that F.D.R. is thinking much of you and of all you are doing.
"It is good to read what you say about India and the Near East -- and the other day came word of the excellent action of the Turkish Government.
"I myself am going through a bit of a fight -- words not bombs -- with the irreconcilable isolationists in both Houses of the Congress, but I am going to win out and I think the result will help the general picture because it will carry the main objective even though it may be modified in certain secondary respects.
"I gather the morale both in Britain and France is excellent -- keep it up.
"You and I, in spite of our infirmities can still carry on even though it may not be in uniform."
Can there be any doubt from this --
Crown Colony class light cruiser:
I'd say none of these ships resemble the "tortoise" configuration Churchill was requesting. Just guessing: none were ever built, but then maybe I missed something?
No, none of the “tortoises” were actually built. Churchill had a knack for hare-brained ideas (like the “Pyecrete Carrier”). Put the tortoise in the same category. Not all of his ideas were hare-brained. He was the first government official to see the potential of armored fighting vehicles, and pushed their development and use in WW1.
To work the thread back to my series on aircraft carriers, it became apparent during the war that there was no substitute for air superiority. Anti-aircraft suites and armor plates offered some protection to surface ships, but when you came down to it, they weren’t going to save a ship from determined air attack. In fact, I have a challenge for the members of the class; name examples of a surface force making a daylight foray into waters where the opponent had complete air superiority and accomplishing its mission. I can think of only one example off hand.
Based on that, it’s best the Brits didn’t pursue the “tortoise” concept to try to penetrate the Baltic.
Churchill:
"We must have a certain number of capital ships that are not afraid of a chance air-bomb. We have been able to protect them by bulges and Asdics against the U-boats. We must have them made secure against the air... We must work up to the old idea of a ship fit to lie the line against whatever may be coming."To come to the point. I want four or five ships made into tortoises that we can put where we like and go to sleep content. There may be other types which will play their parts in the outer oceans; but we cannot go on without a squadron of heavy ships that can stand up to the battery from the air.
"I wrote this morning about the Queen Elizabeth. But we must make at least five other ships air-proof -- i.e., not afraid of a thousand-pound armour-piercing bomb, if by chance it should hit from ten thousand feet.
"This is not so large a structural rearrangement as might appear. You have got to pull a couple of turrets out of them, saving at least two thousand tons, and this two thousand tons has to be laid out in flat armour of six or seven inches, as high as possible having regard to stability. The blank spaces of the turrets must be filled with A.A. guns..."
Churchill wants "tortoise" ships of the line to defend against air attacks! What did they say about old Babe Ruth? He was the home-run king, but also the strike-out king? Here I'd say Churchill swung and he missed. ;-)
Sorry to ask a stupid question, but does the "I" here refer to Richard Rhodes or to CougarGA7? If the latter, I am most impressed. But even if the former, then still much appreciate your contributions here!
I suspect the “tortoise” description was more a metaphor rather than an attempt to describe what the vessels would look like. The weight of the new deck armor would have to be offset somehow - it was a matter of mechanics.
In shipbuilding and especially warship building, compromises have to be made on armor vs armament vs stability. If you pile too much stuff on the topside above the center of gravity, the thing becomes dangerously unstable. It may do OK when undamaged, but if it is hit and flooding occurs, the vessel could turn over, even if the damage were not that severe.
The “R” class battleships and the “Queen Elizabeth” class battleships were all designed and built in the early 1900’s before bombing from airplanes was a consideration. And long-range gunnery at that time hadn’t developed so trajectories were relatively flat - no ‘plunging’ fire.
Therefore deck armor was unneeded.
Along comes WW2 and the airplane and long-range gunnery. What to do? Increase deck armor? Ok, then, we must take weight off somewhere else - turrets, guns, etc.
Or do we try to employ these vulnerable ships in areas only where the allies control the air? That’s what eventually happened - the older more vulnerable ships weren’t put in harm’s way as readily as more modern vessels. Even at that, see how easily the Japanese sunk the Prince of Wales, a modern battleship with modern AA and heavy deck armor.
One other interesting point. The “Town Class” cruiser in the first photo of your post is the HMS Belfast, now a museum ship in London. She was damaged early in the war by a mine and was repaired using external underwater “bulges” to reinforce the keel. These increased her stability dramatically and allowed her to keep her fourth triple 6” turret.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Belfast_(C35)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_class_battleship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth_class_battleship
The ‘Baltic’ thing was a leftover Churchill idea from WW1, the Gallipoi invasion. It cost him his career back then, as it was his idea. But like any politician, he always wants to undo his last defeat, so he brings it up from time to time.
Remember his “Soft Underbelly of Europe” meme? HAH! Tough old gut is more like it.
Now as to your question about daylight surface force in the face of air superiority. Off the top of my head, the escape of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau up the English Channel might qualify - but it wasn’t a raid, it was an escape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cerberus
I don’t consider the “Channel Dash” as an example; the Luftwaffe had knowledge of Operation Cerberus and kept an air umbrella over the ships during their daylight run.
I’m looking for examples where the ships didn’t have effective air cover.
The Dunkirk evacuation?
What would that be? I'm having trouble thinking of one.
The RAF contested the skies with every available fighter, and the Luftwaffe was fighting from airfields far to the rear. The Luftwaffe didn’t really have what I would call air superiority.
Dang. There goes my GPA.
The one that came to mind was “Operation Pedestal,” a desperate attempt to resupply Malta with a convoy in 1942. You can read a summary here:
http://www.usmm.org/malta.html
As you can see, enough of the convoy got through, enabling Malta to hold out. But the cost was brutal. This is close to being a “Pyhrric Victory.” Britain could not sustain too many more efforts at that cost.
Good call ...
Sorry, I meant me. A friend of mine was a caretaker for him when he was in his later years there. She arranged for me to go to his house that was basically on the Stanford campus to meet him. My father spent his entire career working for Los Alamos so he agreed to meet me since he was curious about what I knew of how things were going over there too. He was quite an impressive man.
Hmmmm... I saw that word "tortoise," and here's what came to my mind: ;-)
PAR35: "Yes, a bullet in the brain will sometimes require hospital care and surgery.
PAR35: "It's interesting that she lived throughout the war and the collapse of Germany, but died fairly quickly under British medical care."
What a crock!
"Unity Valkyrie Mitford (8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948), was one of the noted Mitford sisters. She was a prominent supporter of fascism and friend of Adolf Hitler."
Note the date of her death.
"After Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Unity was distraught. Diana told an interviewer in 1999:
“ She told me that if there was a war, which of course we all terribly hoped there might not be, that she would kill herself because she couldn’t bear to live and see these two countries tearing each other to pieces, both of which she loved.[1] ”
"Unity went to the English Garden in Munich, where she took a pearl-handled pistol, allegedly given to her by Hitler for protection, and shot herself in the head."
"Surviving the suicide attempt she was hospitalised in Munich, where she was visited by Hitler who paid her bill and arranged for her return home. In December she was moved to a hospital in Bern in the neutral country of Switzerland where her mother and youngest sister, Deborah, went to collect her. In a 2002 letter to The Guardian Deborah relates the experience:
“ We were not prepared for what we found - the person lying in bed was desperately ill. She had lost two stone, was all huge eyes and matted hair, untouched since the bullet went through her skull. The bullet was still in her head, inoperable the doctor said."She could not walk, talked with difficulty and was a changed personality, like one who had had a stroke. Not only was her appearance shocking, she was a stranger, someone we did not know. We brought her back to England in an ambulance coach attached to a train. Every jolt was agony to her.”
"Mitford returned to England with her mother and sister in January 1940 amid a flurry of press interest and her comment..."
"However, up to 11 September 1941 Mitford is reported to have had an affair with RAF Pilot Officer John Andrews, a test pilot... "
"She was taken seriously ill on a visit to the family-owned island of Inch Kenneth and was taken to hospital in Oban. Doctors had decided it was too dangerous to remove the lodged bullet, and she eventually died [May 28, 1948] of meningitis caused by the cerebral swelling around the bullet. "
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