As the US Navy prepared to battle its way across the Pacific in the years leading up to World War II, it realized that it would not have the benefit of extensive forward bases to support the fleet on the road to Tokyo. The Japanese controlled most of the islands in the Central Pacific, and the Washington Naval Treaty prohibited fortification of the few the US did own, so they would probably be lost early in the war. Refueling at sea could help this, but many services couldn't be performed while the ship was underway. Instead, the US would have to figure out how to quickly turn a coral atoll lacking even reliable fresh water and lying several thousand miles from the nearest major permanent base into a forward anchorage where the fleet could rearm, resupply, and launch itself again into the Japanese defenses.

Destroyer Tender Dixie with her charges near Leyte

When the war began, most of the ships available for the advance bases were quite similar to those that had supported the fleet in World War I. Submarines and destroyers were supported by their type-specific tenders. While both types of ship had grown larger, more capable, and more self-sufficient in the interwar years, they still needed the support of tenders, with their extensive workshops, skilled technicians, and supplies of spare parts, ammunition, and food. Larger ships tied up alongside repair ships when they were unable to cope with problems using their internal resources. And hospital ships treated the sick and wounded, and evacuated them to the mainland. Read more...

For all of the disasters that bedevil American military procurement, we can always look to our closest ally, the UK, when we need to feel better about our ability to buy weapons. Twice in the last 40 years, the British have poured enormous sums of money into an airplane, and walked away empty-handed. To make matters worse, it was the same airplane both times, the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod.¹ I thus feel confident awarding the Naval Gazing Worst Procurement Ever trophy to the Nimrod.

The Nimrod MRA4

The Nimrod² was developed in the 60s from the De Havilland Comet, the world's first jet airliner, an airplane most famous for a series of crashes caused by fatigue cracking early in its career.³ But the Nimrod was based on a later Comet where they'd fixed that problem, and initially proved to be a reasonably good aircraft, being upgraded from the initial MR1 variant to the later MR2 maritime patrol and R1 signals intelligence versions. Read more...

While visiting Sister Bean in Boston, we drove down to see the USS Nautilus and the attached Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut. It was a bit of a drive, but what we found when we arrived proved that we'd made the right decision. The entire complex joined the list of the great military museums I've been to, instead of the merely good.

Me at a mockup control panel⁴

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The sail of NR-1

I suspect that many of you are surprised that I'm rating Nautilus above both Massachusetts and Midway. I am too, but they earned it. Even as we were walking towards the front doors, I was starting to see cool stuff I hadn't expected to run across. In that particular case, it was the sail and manipulator arm of NR-1, a nuclear-powered research submarine specializing in fine work deep underwater. It's impossible not to love a submarine that had wheels. Read more...

As you should expect by now, we're doing our biweekly open thread. Talk about anything you want that isn't culture war.

During the last OT, DirectrixGazer mentioned Neptunus Lex, who I had never heard of. I'm glad he did. Most of his writings can be found here, with the exception of his astonishing Rhythyms series, a portrait of a day aboard a carrier. Highly recommended.

In early April, 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a tiny cluster of land in the South Atlantic. The British mobilized their fleet to retake them, staging out of Ascension Island. On the 25th, a force retook South Georgia, a small island that Argentina had also captured, while the main task force closed on the Falklands themselves.⁵

Avro Vulcan XH558⁶

Six days after South Georgia fell, the British launched their first strike on the Falklands. The carriers had finally reached the South Atlantic, and were about to begin the campaign for air and sea superiority within the 200-mile Total Exclusion Zone. However, the honor of the first strike fell not to the Navy but to the Royal Air Force.

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It's time to return to the basic strategy of our hypothetical navy, a subject we've discussed at some length.

Dndnrsn: I apologize for my lateness. In my role as Proofreader-General, I was occupied fighting a different war: the war against the use of "impact" as a verb. Then there was the business with an ensign who insisted on writing "utilize" in memos instead of "use." Anyway, here I am. Thinking about overall strategy and the fleet: It's been established we're a medium power with an island to ourselves. The navy should be a priority, but I think there's a good argument for having a smaller navy than the UK: we aren't playing to memories of past glory. They are, which probably leads them to have a navy larger than they strictly need. If there is a "big" war, either we're on the same side as the US, or something went terribly wrong and we're screwed. We still want to be able to do stuff on our own that's smaller. We should be able to do one small thing on our own, or contribute to multiple small things, or contribute to one small thing so as to wear down our navy less. This should be the general military strategy, not just the naval strategy. This argues for maybe one carrier and some destroyers, probably some submarines, and smaller craft. Read more...

While I was visiting Sister Bean in Boston, I decided to have the second Naval Gazing meetup at the USS Salem, a heavy cruiser preserved at the former Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. Two readers showed up (along with Sister Bean and a few of her friends) and we had a really good time.

sd, Chris Silvia, me, Sister Bean, and a friend of SB⁷

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In 1895, tensions between Japan and China over control of Korea had flared into all-out war when the Japanese attacked a Chinese troopship and its escorts. World opinion was that the Japanese were doomed by the much larger Chinese Beiyang Fleet, but when the two forces met at the Battle of the Yalu River, the Japanese emerged victorious thanks to better training and more modern ships. The Chinese ships fell back to their base at Lushunkou, better known in the west as Port Arthur.

A month after their victory at sea, the Japanese crossed the Yalu River itself only to find that the Chinese army had mostly fled. The same day, troops landed to begin the siege of Lushunkou itself. Admiral Ding, commander of the Beiyang Fleet, was ordered to withdraw to Weihaiwei, leaving behind the only drydock capable of holding his battleships. This proved to be disastrous when Zhenyuan ran onto a rock while entering Weihaiwei harbor and had to be beached due to the lack of repair facilities. In early November, the Japanese cut the last land links between Lushunkou and the outside world. However, the heavily fortified naval base was considered nearly impregnable, and it was expected the Japanese would have a long fight on their hands. Read more...

Ships and ship types are often talked about using a set of shorthand letters to designate types. DDG. CVN. LHA. SSBN. DLG. While there are some good guides to the system online, I figured I should explain them here as well.

These codes originate in a standard set by the USN in 1920, to overhaul the designations then in use. All ships were assigned a two-letter code, and numbered sequentially within the code for their type. Around the time of WWII, three-letter codes became necessary to designate the bewildering array of ship types developed for a global naval war. It's continued to evolve since that day, and many of the rules have changed at some point or another over the past century, but the bones of the system are still identifiable.

The most important information is the first letter or two. This will tell you the broad type at a glance, with later letters giving more information.

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While in Boston visiting Sister Bean, we drove down with a couple of friends to Fall River, home of the USS Massachusetts and an hour or so south of downtown. I'd been in touch with the crew on the ship, and ended up meeting up with one of the people there, who took the day from good to incredible.

The group at Massachusetts. James Koppel, me, Sister Bean, and one of her friends

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Battleship Cove. L-R: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., Lionfish, Hiddensee and Massachusetts

Battleship Cove has four vessels. Besides Massachusetts, the only surviving US battleship to have fought another battleship,⁹ there was the destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., a Gearing class destroyer modernized in the 1960s for anti-submarine warfare, the submarine Lionfish, representing the fleet boats that strangled Japan, and the Hiddensee, a former East German missile corvette. There are also a pair of PT Boats on display nearby, PT-617 and PT-796. Read more...