Lawyers, Guns, and Money has been on a roll lately, and their recent posts posts about the battle of Jutland are no exception. (Click here, here, and here for the first three in this series.)
Aside from being just plain good reading, it's also worth remembering Jutland in light of current events. Two decades after Jutland, this kind of battle was already largely obsolete. By World War II, the submarine and the airplane both made clashes between surface fleets the exception, not the rule. The Kriegsmarine's menacing battleships, such as the Bismarck (pictured here) turned out to be effective raiders on Allied shipping, not instruments of sea control. Even if the Nazis had built a larger surface fleet, the Allies likely would have used submarines and aircraft to hunt them down and kill them long before the German navy could force a Jutland-like decisive battle. That sort of asymmetric escalation would have proved far cheaper, more effective, and more obvious than a tit-for-tat construction of more British and American navy's battleships.
I'm sure you can see where I'm headed with this. It took only 26 years, between the battles of Jutland and Coral Sea (the first naval clash in which the ships never saw each other), to make the dreadnought, the battleship, and their kin obsolete. (Well, not exactly. They still played an important role in supporting amphibious landings at Normandy, Tarawa, and elsewhere.) If US conventional forces were rendered obsolete in most conflicts, such as the counterinsurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, how long would it take? And would we even recognize the moment of obsolescence when it arrived?
The Bismarck spent a great deal of time in port, including safe havens in the Norwegian fjords, from which it would occasionally sortie for a raid. How different is that picture from conventional American and Iraqi forces, sheltered in their bases, venturing forth only for the occasional raid or patrol?
Danke.
Although I had initially envisioned it as a four part series, I'm going to add a fifth as general wrap-up and summary thoughts.
Posted by: Rob | 05/22/2006 at 11:19
Sehr gut!
Posted by: Kingdaddy | 05/22/2006 at 13:50
Interesting analogy, KD. Perhaps it would have been better if you mentioned Tirpitz, not Bismarck: she did indeed spend the war mostly in Norwegian fjords, menacing passing convoys, only fired her main armament once low-angle in order to bombard a platoon's worth of Norwegian resistants, and eventually sank in her fjord.
The next step in the analogy was what the Royal Navy and the RAF did to her - she was crippled by midget submarines (kinda like smuggling a bomb into the camp), and finally bombed to buggery by RAF Lancasters.
Notably, though, to actually sink her for good and all the RAF had to design a new kind of bomb.
What might be the insurgent Tallboy?
Posted by: Alex | 05/23/2006 at 02:57
Four points, two major, two minor:
Tirpitz and Scharnhorst still managed to tie down a lot of manpower and ships, even if they never sortied.
The short lifespan of the battleship is a bit atypical; its predecessor, the sailing ship of the line, lasted for over a century without much change in design. The bolt-action rifle lasted more than sixty years. The flintlock musket lasted a century and a half. The lancer lasted for, I don't know, millennia.
The Tallboy wasn't developed to hit Tirpitz, though it worked well that way; it was developed as an 'earthquake bomb' for large industrial and strategic targets.
It's "Fear God and Dread Nought" - the pun works better that way. ("Fear God and dread nothing" or "Fear God and HMS Dreadnought".)
Posted by: ajay | 05/24/2006 at 07:17
Actually, the Bismarck spent little time in port or in the fjords - she was sunk on her maiden voyage. The Tirpitz, however, did spend most of her war in port.
Posted by: Harry | 05/24/2006 at 08:36
Hello everyone ...
Excellent blog ... I love your blog ... every day we thank God for making this wonderful world we live in and give us the ability to feel love for others and we also have to see to the love of God comes first in our hearts every day so be stronger ...
Thanks a lot
Coral T. Rose
Posted by: buy viagra | 05/18/2010 at 13:08
The Ditch (Le Fosse), a film mbt shop exploring Chinese labor camps for dissidents, is a late addition to Venice Film Festival entries vying for the Golden Lion award.Directormbt shoes Wang Bing's entry is a documentary-like project set in the late 1950s, when China's communist government condemned to forced labor thousands of citizens who were considered dissidents for a variety of reasons.For the film discount mbt, the director said he interviewed many survivors of Jiabiangou Camp and "learned from them about the realities of their time there."The screenplay mbt
Posted by: met | 09/07/2010 at 02:08
ggbjn
Posted by: custom kicks online | 11/03/2010 at 23:55
Well, this is my first visit to your blog! We are a group of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us valuable information to work on.
Posted by: authentic nikes | 11/04/2010 at 00:38
I think about this all the time too. Have you seen Commentary magazine lately? They have some guy who was all rah rah invasion of Iraq and is now rah rah on the invade Iran tip. My God. What fools.
Posted by: Nike SB Dunk | 11/09/2010 at 17:37
In the third, nike basketball shoes I think that Wesley Clarkâs recent analysis of how America defeated the Soviet Union is on the mark,and that we will have to continue to push the contradictions on the various parties that are still entranced by the Marxist fallacies.retro jordans This requires engagement with Russia and the former Warsaw pact nations to keep Russia on track and to try to minimize backsliding in parts of the old SU. nike basketball shoes We need to work China off against North Korea, newest nike shoes and we will at some point need to deal with Castro and his few remaining Western friends.
Posted by: newest air jordans | 11/24/2010 at 01:24
In all likelihood,Women Timberlands the Germans could blow a Air Force
Ones hole through one or more sections of it, in which case Women
Parda shoes the French army would have Authentic Air Jordans to rush to plug these holes before the operationally nimble Wehrmacht could exploit them.
Since the Belgian gap was a hole that already existed in the Maginot Line Wide Women Shoes Kid Kicks.
Posted by: authentic ugg boots adelaide | 12/12/2010 at 23:49
Im so glad to read the full version of your article. I still look forward for the continuation of this.
Posted by: hollywood bistro | 06/23/2011 at 00:33
I follow you VIA GFC and I love your blog!
Posted by: Timberland Boot Shop | 03/09/2012 at 12:05