short Empires Total War impressions

[Xard]

Well part of the reason for naval awesomeness of Britain was the sheer size of its navy. Even the Germans recognized this as the lead up to Jutland demonstrated, with the Germans trying to cutoff parts of the British Grand Fleet.

 

I would label it a tactical win for the Germans as they sunk more ships and killed more people, but a strategic defeat, since their presence in the North Sea was heavily compromised. It lead to a shift towards submarine warfare.

 

Jutland was very important strategic victory for brits - it ensured that blockade of German ports was to hold on and block all supplies. Which would turn up to be single biggest reason for Germany's defeat in WWI. If Germany had won Jutland things might've ended very differently.

 

 

What I never got is why the British were so jealously of the Germans having a bigger fleet, and why that ought to be reason for the British to enter WW1. After all, they weren't threatened by it.

 

I'd say most glorious and greatest days of british navy (compared to its contemporaries) were from 1700 to end of 1800's... or something like that. They were still the greatest naval power in the world in WWI though. But isn't it clear why they were jealous over Germans building up their navy? I mean, it was all about power. And no superpower voluntarily lets other power to rise to threaten it.

 

Navy armament race had been going for years already, it wasn't even near the biggest reason Britannia ended up in world war. It was one of the factors though

 

edit:

 

It is more than a bit streching to call British Navy overrated due to one battle

It took half the British Navy to defeat the Bismarck in WW2. I mean c'mon, a single ship?

 

Roman Empire was as big as it could be. It covered most of the known world (well, for them known) and definetly all the important areas that were worth having. And as Mus? said Mongolian Empire wasn't much empire at all

Mongolians were hordes of saber-rattling warriors, that's hardly an Empire. The Romans at least made important influences in life and culture. The British too, they gave us Americans!

 

You by far underrestimate Mongolians. They were a lot more than "saber-rattling warriors". But yeah, it's not like they created an empire in sense of Persia, Macedonia, Rome etc.

 

You have to remember that by WWII British strenght had been already reduced and Bismarck was monster for a ship - just like Musashi (and that other ship) of Japan. Which yanks killed with Helldivers, lol

 

edit2: Helldivers, not bombers

 

Yanks had best tactics in the naval warfare in WWII I'd say. Germans did have teh submarines but... *shrug*

Edited May 20, 2008 by Xard

[Morgoth]

Armanent race or not, that's hardly a good reason to send your boys into death. Really, someone can argue for declaring war on a country due to direct threat, or due to the Treaty of Berlin, but Great Britain wasn't part of that treaty. And they never got penalties for this arrogant move.

 

Mongolians were savages. Period.

 

And yeah, the Bismarck was a monster. So, why did the oh so awesome British Navy haven't build it's own "Monsters" then?

[Xard]

Armanent race or not, that's hardly a good reason to send your boys into death. Really, someone can argue for declaring war on a country due to direct threat, or due to the Treaty of Berlin, but Great Britain wasn't part of that treaty. And they never got penalties for this arrogant move.

 

Mongolians were savages. Period.

 

And yeah, the Bismarck was a monster. So, why did the oh so awesome British Navy haven't build it's own "Monsters" then?

 

Because they weren't stupid enough to do that? All monster ships and other

[Hurlshort]

Um, the Mongolians took over China (The Yuan Dynasty). They established the Silk Road, hired Marco Polo, and created a pretty awesome postal service.

[Xard]

Yeah, that's what I ment they were not just bunch of savages

[alanschu]

The Bismarck is vastly overrated as a battleship, because people recognize that the Brits focused so much on taking it out. By 1941, the submarine warfare was already annoying the crap out of the United Kingdom. However, to combat submarines, destroyer escort, frigate, and corvette production was ramped up (i.e. really small ships), with ASW equipment. The big thing about the Bismarck, is it could safely demolish entire convoys, and their escorts, which would be devastating to the fleets. The strength of the convoy system is that it kept ships together (and therefore harder to find ships), and you could protect them easier with escorts since they'd share them. However, if a big ship of death with 16" guns that outrange any escort by several orders of magnitude, well...then bad news! Submarines would take out the odd ship in a convoy. A fast battleship would annihilate the convoy, and speed away before the heavy artillery could counterattack,

 

Then they'd have to ramp up escorts with capital ships, which is a waste of resources. With the Bismarck's speed, it could zip in, fire off a few rounds, and dart away. Plus, there is an added detriment to having capital ships as escorts to convoys. Transport ships are not fast, and the last thing the British Admiralty is going to want to do is provide slow moving capital ships as juicy targets to the submarine fleets. That's a target of opportunity that is going to get a full salvo of torpedoes fired at it.

 

 

Bismarck had some creative armor, which made it really hard to sink, and it did score a great hit on Hood to send it down, but attributes wise battleship to battleship, it didn't have a huge advantage over other battleships, and some (like the Iowa class to come later) significantly outclass it.

Edited May 20, 2008 by alanschu

[Morgoth]

Like I care.

 

But yeah, there's surely some truth to it. I'm just fickle like that.

[Hurlshort]

I think you can make they argument that any militant nation is savage, and really all the major empires in the world have relied on their military. Were the Mongols worse than the Romans, the Macedonians, or even the British Navy? They all have episodes of savagery in their history.

[Xard]

The Bismarck is vastly overrated as a battleship, because people recognize that the Brits focused so much on taking it out. By 1941, the submarine warfare was already annoying the crap out of the United Kingdom. However, to combat submarines, destroyer escort, frigate, and corvette production was ramped up (i.e. really small ships), with ASW equipment. The big thing about the Bismarck, is it could safely demolish entire convoys, and their escorts, which would be devastating to the fleets. The strength of the convoy system is that it kept ships together (and therefore harder to find ships), and you could protect them easier with escorts since they'd share them. However, if a big ship of death with 16" guns that outrange any escort by several orders of magnitude, well...then bad news! Submarines would take out the odd ship in a convoy. A fast battleship would annihilate the convoy, and speed away before the heavy artillery could counterattack,

 

Then they'd have to ramp up escorts with capital ships, which is a waste of resources. With the Bismarck's speed, it could zip in, fire off a few rounds, and dart away. Plus, there is an added detriment to having capital ships as escorts to convoys. Transport ships are not fast, and the last thing the British Admiralty is going to want to do is provide slow moving capital ships as juicy targets to the submarine fleets. That's a target of opportunity that is going to get a full salvo of torpedoes fired at it.

 

 

Bismarck had some creative armor, which made it really hard to sink, and it did score a great hit on Hood to send it down, but attributes wise battleship to battleship, it didn't have a huge advantage over other battleships, and some (like the Iowa class to come later) significantly outclass it.

 

That explains a lot, thanks alanschu. I wondered how Bismarck was so effective when its brethen were basically junkmetal

[alanschu]

Not to take toooo much away from it. Her speed was her greatest asset at the time though, as well as her armor (which is why she seemed unsinkable, even if the ship was pretty much a write off due to damage to the superstructure).

 

The Hood was an "older" ship with refits and a face of the british navy, so losing it was a blow to the RN. But at the same time, if you can score a hit that can hit an ammo magazine that splits a ship in two, that's some pretty fortunate luck. Bismarck did make things unpleasant on PoW though.

 

I remember reading an analysis between the flagship battleships for every nation here: http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm

 

The Iowa seems pretty darn impressive! Powerful armaments, and the ability to make them hit with accuracy during even evasive manouvers! If you could get some better FC on the Bismarck, she'd still be pretty scary! But the Iowas were Carrier escort BBs, so they were hella fast too. I love the Iowas haha. The Yamato is cool for **** envy reasons, but it sounds like even the 18" guns were outclassed by the Iowa's 16" batteries.

 

 

 

The link admits that Yamato and Bismarck are unfairly compared, since they wouldn't have received as many (or any) late war refits.

Edited May 20, 2008 by alanschu

[Xard]

And yet small buzz like Helldivers brought those mighty colosses down... or to be more exact under the water haw haw haw

 

Waste of money

[alanschu]

Yeah, Aircraft Carriers became the new Queens of the Sea. Force Projection of several hundred kilometers rather than much closer, and well....planes are cheaper to replace. Losing carriers is devastating though, as Midway demonstrated. 1000 lb bombs on vulnerable unprepared aircraft carrier decks can be quite devastating apparently haha.

 

The US was smart with their modern BBs. They saw the advantage of the aircraft carrier, and made their Battleships have ridiculous amounts of Anti-Aircraft artillery, as well as effectual dual purpose cannons. Getting into bombing/torpedo range of the Yamato is meh.....getting there on an Iowa is scary, because there is just so much saturation of fire! Keeping in mind of course that there is also a picket of escort ships, likely other smaller capital ships, in addition to a likely CV in the area, with its own heavy air defenses. I think there were even some cruiser variatons that were specifically AA cruiisers, that only had the dual purpose artillery rather than a main battery, just to maximize saturation. CLAA I think.

[Zoma]

Thanks to the British empire, there is such a place known as Singapore now.

 

Thanks to the British Empire, Singapore realizes the value of independence by being abandoned during Japanese occupation.

 

Thanks to the British Empire, China eventually breaks its grip from monarchy rule due to the results of the Opium War.

 

Thanks to the British Empire, China learns much from Hong Kong when its returned to the Motherland.

 

In all, the Empire had great influence in Asia to South East Asia.

Edited May 20, 2008 by Zoma

[Gorth]

I'd say most glorious and greatest days of british navy (compared to its contemporaries) were from 1700 to end of 1800's... or something like that. They were still the greatest naval power in the world in WWI though. But isn't it clear why they were jealous over Germans building up their navy? I mean, it was all about power. And no superpower voluntarily lets other power to rise to threaten it.

 

Navy armament race had been going for years already, it wasn't even near the biggest reason Britannia ended up in world war. It was one of the factors though

England pretty much "ruled the waves" from Aboukir Bay (1798) until the H.M.S. Dreadnought entered service in 1906. What was supposed to be ultimate terror weapon ended up being a shot in the foot. Suddenly England was only a single ship ahead of the rest of the world, rendering not only everybody elses, but also their own navy obsolete. At the end of WWI England "only" outnumbered Germany by slightly less than 2:1 in capital ships.

 

And you are right, it wasn't the biggest reason for England entering the war. It was a constellation of alliances and intrigues and strange event that would have made Tzeentch green with envy

[Gorth]

The link admits that Yamato and Bismarck are unfairly compared, since they wouldn't have received as many (or any) late war refits.

By 1945, the Bismarck would have been refitted with extra layers of barnacles all over

 

It would probably be a fairer comparison, if Bismarck (and it's often forgotten twin, the Tirpitz) were compared to the ships it was designed to go up against, those of The Royal Navy. The Yamato (and the Musashi and the Shinano, the last two were never finished and were not named) was designed to go toe to toe with the US Navy.

[sharkz]

The sun never set on the Birtish Empire. <3

I know who I'm playing as!

 

 

Motion Capture video:

http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/958390/empir...Cap_052208.html

Edited May 29, 2008 by sharkz

[Azarkon]

Plenty of other great empires in history: Macedonian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Chinese (Han, Sui, Tang, Ming, Qing) Empire, Byzantine Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Mughal Empire, etc. etc. etc. All have left indelible marks upon the peoples they ruled.

 

(Expansion time!)

Edited June 1, 2008 by Azarkon

[Checkpoint]

Plenty of other great empires in history: Macedonian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Chinese (Han, Sui, Tang, Ming, Qing) Empire, Byzantine Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Mughal Empire, etc. etc. etc. All have left indelible marks upon the peoples they ruled.

 

(Expansion time!)

Only the Holy Roman Empire should perhaps have been called the Not-So-Holy German Mishmash-of-Variously-Independent-Domains-Ranging-from-Smaller-Estates-to-Entire-Kingdoms. It was a conglomerate with little-to-no centralised power.

 

The popular notion is that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.

[Rosbjerg]

But then came the Prussians and Bismarck!

[Pidesco]

The popular notion is that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.

 

Where did you that quote from?

 

Edit: The answer is Voltaire.

[Checkpoint]

The popular notion is that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.

 

Where did you that quote from?

 

Edit: The answer is Voltaire.

I didn't know that. It's one of those quotes that gets thrown around, after all.

[sharkz]

Teaser trailer, I'm pretty sure it is ingame but it might not be. Hard to tell, but if it is... Fantastic.

 

[Moatilliatta]

At least it seems to tell us something about what feeling they're aiming for and I like.

[alanschu]

The link admits that Yamato and Bismarck are unfairly compared, since they wouldn't have received as many (or any) late war refits.

By 1945, the Bismarck would have been refitted with extra layers of barnacles all over

 

It would probably be a fairer comparison, if Bismarck (and it's often forgotten twin, the Tirpitz) were compared to the ships it was designed to go up against, those of The Royal Navy. The Yamato (and the Musashi and the Shinano, the last two were never finished and were not named) was designed to go toe to toe with the US Navy.

 

 

I think if the Bismarck had made it out into the Atlantic, it would have been happy hunting season for it for quite some time. Enough for the RN to divert its resources from the Mediterranean and the Far East.

 

The Bismarck did go up against a King George V (The Prince of Wales). Though I think it had pretty much just been commissioned.

[Monte Carlo]

What I never got is why the British were so jealously of the Germans having a bigger fleet, and why that ought to be reason for the British to enter WW1. After all, they weren't threatened by it.

 

You quote Wikipedia as a source? Please tell me you're not a history major.