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ORIGINAL: Zorch

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

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ORIGINAL: Zorch

The real important question is who will have the best Covid-19 April Fools Day joke?

Or Halloween costume?

Why don't we skip the next 6 months in the calendar? Let's bag April, May, etc. and resume with October 1. It worked before [:D]

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

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ORIGINAL: Zorch

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

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ORIGINAL: Zorch

The real important question is who will have the best Covid-19 April Fools Day joke?

Or Halloween costume?

Why don't we skip the next 6 months in the calendar? Let's bag April, May, etc. and resume with October 1. It worked before [:D]

A medically induced coma? That could also work for weight loss!

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

.

[image]local://upfiles/37002/2B9F2A0E0DA64B4786F3777F18B074C4.jpg[/image]

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I stood there for several minutes pondering our formation, pondering the likelihood of another Arg strike before dark.
At this moment Hermes was about four miles north of Invincible. John Coward in the improving Brilliant was keeping ‘goal’ for us and, ranged in a north-south line facing west, the fleet auxiliaries formed what I hoped was some kind of a ‘chaff’ wall in case of incoming threat. In the most brutal terms, I could afford to lose a big merchant ship, or even a tanker, a whole lot more than I could afford to lose a carrier – not that I thought very highly of either option. It was simply a matter of the lesser of two evils.

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ORIGINAL: L0ckAndL0ad

Wasn't sure where to post this, so I'll leave it here.

Some time ago I've seen AARs where people used less valuable ships, like unarmed transports, as pickets, to lessen/divert the offensive enemy effort. A tactic which most of us may reasonably call gamey, abusive and non realistic.

Today I stumbled upon this while reading "One Hundred Days" by Sandy Woodward (about the Falkland War), and thought many of you on these forums may find it interesting:

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I stood there for several minutes pondering our formation, pondering the likelihood of another Arg strike before dark.
At this moment Hermes was about four miles north of Invincible. John Coward in the improving Brilliant was keeping ‘goal’ for us and, ranged in a north-south line facing west, the fleet auxiliaries formed what I hoped was some kind of a ‘chaff’ wall in case of incoming threat. In the most brutal terms, I could afford to lose a big merchant ship, or even a tanker, a whole lot more than I could afford to lose a carrier – not that I thought very highly of either option. It was simply a matter of the lesser of two evils.

There were A LOT of things going wrong during this conflict, and this particular part was written just after yet another British ship was lost due to unreliable SAMs, and Woodward found himself short of escort/screening ships, and reliable anti-aircraft weapon systems in general.

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I know, it's just me, but sometimes I get into some really deep thinking, and I was wondering, when astronomers decided Pluto wasn't a planet anymore, why didn't they rename it Dopey, Doc, Bashful, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, or Sneezy?

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ORIGINAL: witpqs
Point taken, but if I am reading this correctly they were still part of the same formation ("a 'chaff' wall" isn't going to work if the chaff deploying ships are too far away, far enough away to be pickets), so the lesser value ships were not sent out on their own.

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Her [Atlantic Conveyor's] war had lasted exactly thirty days and, even without her final mission accomplished, we still owed her a considerable debt. Not least, I suppose, because she was in a dead line between Hermes and Ambuscade. If the Conveyor had possessed a chaff system and decoyed the missiles, they might have come straight on for the carrier. We may, or may not, have been able to divert them yet again.

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ORIGINAL: L0ckAndL0ad

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ORIGINAL: witpqs
Point taken, but if I am reading this correctly they were still part of the same formation ("a 'chaff' wall" isn't going to work if the chaff deploying ships are too far away, far enough away to be pickets), so the lesser value ships were not sent out on their own.

I don't think Woodward meant actual "chaff" in case of auxiliaries. He meant using these ships as decoys his carriers may hide behind. This is what actually happened soon after, when they lost SS Atlantic Conveyor.

Battle Group came under attack from enemy planes that came in low and launched a couple of ASMs. HMS Ambuscade deployed chaff. Enemy ASMs targeted the decoys and went through the chaff cloud. Going further, the missiles locked on to the next thing they saw - SS Atlantic Conveyor. If it wasn't there, it was likely that the carrier HMS Hermes would've been targeted instead.

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Her [Atlantic Conveyor's] war had lasted exactly thirty days and, even without her final mission accomplished, we still owed her a considerable debt. Not least, I suppose, because she was in a dead line between Hermes and Ambuscade. If the Conveyor had possessed a chaff system and decoyed the missiles, they might have come straight on for the carrier. We may, or may not, have been able to divert them yet again.

So while it is true that these ships weren't simply sent forward without any support (in fact, Conveyor, being the biggest of all, was kept further back than others in previous days), they were used to shield the most valuable ships of the group, carriers, in time when armed escorts were in short numbers.

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I know, it's just me, but sometimes I get into some really deep thinking, and I was wondering, when astronomers decided Pluto wasn't a planet anymore, why didn't they rename it Dopey, Doc, Bashful, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, or Sneezy?

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ORIGINAL: L0ckAndL0ad

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ORIGINAL: witpqs
Point taken, but if I am reading this correctly they were still part of the same formation ("a 'chaff' wall" isn't going to work if the chaff deploying ships are too far away, far enough away to be pickets), so the lesser value ships were not sent out on their own.

I don't think Woodward meant actual "chaff" in case of auxiliaries. He meant using these ships as decoys his carriers may hide behind. This is what actually happened soon after, when they lost SS Atlantic Conveyor.

Battle Group came under attack from enemy planes that came in low and launched a couple of ASMs. HMS Ambuscade deployed chaff. Enemy ASMs targeted the decoys and went through the chaff cloud. Going further, the missiles locked on to the next thing they saw - SS Atlantic Conveyor. If it wasn't there, it was likely that the carrier HMS Hermes would've been targeted instead.

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Her [Atlantic Conveyor's] war had lasted exactly thirty days and, even without her final mission accomplished, we still owed her a considerable debt. Not least, I suppose, because she was in a dead line between Hermes and Ambuscade. If the Conveyor had possessed a chaff system and decoyed the missiles, they might have come straight on for the carrier. We may, or may not, have been able to divert them yet again.

So while it is true that these ships weren't simply sent forward without any support (in fact, Conveyor, being the biggest of all, was kept further back than others in previous days), they were used to shield the most valuable ships of the group, carriers, in time when armed escorts were in short numbers.

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

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ORIGINAL: L0ckAndL0ad

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ORIGINAL: witpqs
Point taken, but if I am reading this correctly they were still part of the same formation ("a 'chaff' wall" isn't going to work if the chaff deploying ships are too far away, far enough away to be pickets), so the lesser value ships were not sent out on their own.

I don't think Woodward meant actual "chaff" in case of auxiliaries. He meant using these ships as decoys his carriers may hide behind. This is what actually happened soon after, when they lost SS Atlantic Conveyor.

Battle Group came under attack from enemy planes that came in low and launched a couple of ASMs. HMS Ambuscade deployed chaff. Enemy ASMs targeted the decoys and went through the chaff cloud. Going further, the missiles locked on to the next thing they saw - SS Atlantic Conveyor. If it wasn't there, it was likely that the carrier HMS Hermes would've been targeted instead.

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Her [Atlantic Conveyor's] war had lasted exactly thirty days and, even without her final mission accomplished, we still owed her a considerable debt. Not least, I suppose, because she was in a dead line between Hermes and Ambuscade. If the Conveyor had possessed a chaff system and decoyed the missiles, they might have come straight on for the carrier. We may, or may not, have been able to divert them yet again.

So while it is true that these ships weren't simply sent forward without any support (in fact, Conveyor, being the biggest of all, was kept further back than others in previous days), they were used to shield the most valuable ships of the group, carriers, in time when armed escorts were in short numbers.

I understand. Be interesting to learn if those ships had literal chaff dispensers installed for the mission to South Atlantic.

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ORIGINAL: L0ckAndL0ad

Well, regardless of exact details (like range and positioning), what is interesting to me personally is the commander's intent. The first quote I posted above is Woodward's words. He intentionally put completely unarmed auxiliaries in a picket line formation to protect his two carriers, which were both armed with point defense SAMs.

That's something to think about.

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ORIGINAL: L0ckAndL0ad

Wasn't sure where to post this, so I'll leave it here.

Some time ago I've seen AARs where people used less valuable ships, like unarmed transports, as pickets, to lessen/divert the offensive enemy effort. A tactic which most of us may reasonably call gamey, abusive and non realistic.

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

There's another misconception at work here. Take the US during WWII. When the war started the Merchant Marine were automatically drafted into military service (and they knew that up front) and we lost a heck of a lot of those sailors in the Atlantic, fighting the war for us on freighters. They were soldiers just like any other. The Pacific is no different and which side you're on is no different. Did we ever sacrifice soldiers in a calculated way? You bet we did.

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I remember back in those days (maybe it's still true) you could sign up to serve in the Navy and you'd get there and a Marine Sgt might walk along the line you were in like Madeleine Kahn in History of the World Part I and pick guys out and say "you're in the Marines now, boy!"

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I do what it takes to win, as long as it could've happened. For me, if they coulda done it, I woulda done it. Historically the Japanese baited the US navy away from it's BBs by using CVs. It worked too! Sorta.

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

There's another misconception at work here. Take the US during WWII. When the war started the Merchant Marine were automatically drafted into military service (and they knew that up front) and we lost a heck of a lot of those sailors in the Atlantic, fighting the war for us on freighters. They were soldiers just like any other. The Pacific is no different and which side you're on is no different. Did we ever sacrifice soldiers in a calculated way? You bet we did.