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Author Topic: First carrier raid  (Read 2231 times)

besilarius

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on: May 09, 2020, 10:23:51 AM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=3chSoV855cI&fbclid=IwAR3obPD06W1k_abWtMzZOBvCDoffL7nbkFdmz2ncXvuJUFwJj-Bl-2GWaP8

Nice video on the British raid on German Zeppelin's sheds.
Some filler is from the 30s and 40s.
These are jarring, but enjoy the film from WWI.

"These things must be done delicately-- or you hurt the spell."  - The Wicked Witch of the West.
"We've got the torpedo damage temporarily shored up, the fires out and soon will have the ship back on an even keel. But I would suggest, sir, that if you have to take any more torpedoes, you take 'em on the starboard side."   Pops Healy, DCA USS Lexington.


bob48

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Reply #1 on: May 09, 2020, 10:48:01 AM
Interesting - I'd not heard of that before.

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JasonPratt

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Reply #2 on: May 09, 2020, 11:05:32 AM
Reading through Churchill's partly-autobiographical volumes on WW1 ("The World Crisis"), I was very interested to see that while he hasn't gotten so far to talk about carrier raids on the Zep sheds (I'm in the middle of 1915 right now), in 1914 he was VERY MUCH involved -- as First Lord of the Admiralty, mind you -- in setting up ground forces in Europe to hit the Zep bases. Naturally most of his forces were naval.

Even more interesting, C traced the development of the tank back beyond the need to bust the trenches, to going after the Zep bases!

Why?! -- well it came about like this. In 1914, he was setting up temporary and mobile coastal bases on the mainland with airplanes, who although very shortranged at the time, could go after the Zep bases by going over the German defenses, thus catching the Zeps on the ground, or intercepting them before they got too high (or coming down to base).

The main problem with this strategy, was that the Germans countered by sending out cavalry forces small enough to move without much detection but large enough to bust up the small British airbases C was using; and they were super-mobile of course. Keep in mind, at this time the race to the sea hadn't started yet, and the Germans had good access on their right flank to hit the northern coast of Europe even though they were extending and pushing into France (mostly but not entirely southward toward Paris).

Churchill countered THAT by setting up armored car groups to act as ranging security, rapid mobile reserves, and ground-based interceptors for the cavalry raids. This worked even better than he had expected and hoped for!

The Germans countered THAT by giving the cavalry raiding groups orders to set up hasty blockades on the road, including trenches too wide for the armored cars to get past. This dramatically slowed down their ability to scout, respond, and intercept cav raids.

So Churchill started looking for ways to go over and/or around those blocks. The 'tank' (invented as an English term for disguising what the project was about) looked to be the most promising avenue, but of course at the time C was looking for small light tanks not the big heavy mobile gun forts that eventually got developed for busting trench warfare.

As things turned out, before the armored cars could be upgraded into small fast armored and armed tracked vehicles in workable numbers, the Battle of Marne converted into the Race to the Sea, and that eventually stopped both the German cavalry raiders and the need for a mobile defense against them on the ground. And of course air power started being developed better to scout, fight scouts, bomb, fight bombers, protect bombers, etc. Which led in its own time to better German defenses for the Zep bases against Entente air power.



besilarius

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Reply #3 on: May 09, 2020, 12:35:17 PM
Now that is very interesting.
Think that some time I read about Churchill getting armored cars for the Royal Navy, but had assumed they were for use in the desert, against the Turks.
Thanks for this gumdrop of knowledge.

"These things must be done delicately-- or you hurt the spell."  - The Wicked Witch of the West.
"We've got the torpedo damage temporarily shored up, the fires out and soon will have the ship back on an even keel. But I would suggest, sir, that if you have to take any more torpedoes, you take 'em on the starboard side."   Pops Healy, DCA USS Lexington.