Bad ideas in military history

[HansMustermann]

High price to pay to put a incompetent brother on a throne...

TBH, I also suspect it wasn't even the only price for that idiocy.

If you pay attention to what's happening elsewhere, Russia -- who had been another fairly voluntary and steadfast ally -- starts being hella worried about having Napoleon's troops on their border in Western Galicia. They first withdraw from the Continental System (the blockade of the UK), and eventually, after Napoleon also backs out of a royal marriage with their princess and goes for Austria instead, they get insecure enough to demand that Napoleon withdraws his troops from their border. Napoleon declares war on Russia in response, and we know how THAT went.

Now some of that is not the only problem there. The Continental System was hard on the Russian economy, so there's also that as motivation, but you have to wonder about how an ally would suddenly rather start trading with the enemy instead of blockading them... right after you attacked another ally.

The fears of an invasion through that province, however, are pretty well documented. And again, you have to wonder about the chronology and Russia going from ally to fearing an invasion.

So yeah, the price to pay for the <bleep>-up in Spain was high by itself. But it may have also paved the way for a much bigger <bleep>-up and a MUCH higher price to pay down the line.

 

[Trebuchet]

I don’t remember British BCs exploding without being hit by enemy shells. Are there really such cases?

Not a BC, but battleship HMS Vanguard exploded while sitting quietly at anchor in Scapa Flow. Japanese battleship Mutsu did likewise during WWII. The Imperial Japanese Navy modeled itself heavily on the RN.
I'm pretty sure there are other examples of capital ships spontaneously exploding.

 

[steenkh]

Thanks. You guys (and gals) put the ‘E’ in ISF !

 

[HansMustermann]

To keep the bad ideas flowing, I'll nominate the Shinano, i.e., the one Yamato class battleship turned in a hurry into an aircraft carrier. Specifically the "in a hurry" part. They did a thorougly rush job.

The Shinano had significant flaws that made it botch even its initial launch off the slipway, and put it back into the same dock for repairs.

More importantly, pretty much nothing was properly sealed, much less tested to be airtight. There were walls with simple holes for the cables or pipes to pass through, and some of the airtight bulkheads were missing. The quality of construction in places was also sub-par.

It was also slow. Very slow.

Most of the damage control equipment was missing. (E.g., no working pumps, both handheld or fixed for fire suppression.) And the crew also... to say they were green, is giving them too much credit. It even included a few hundred dockworkers who were conscripted straight out of repairing it (after the previous botched launch) to manning it.

The destroyers that were supposed to escort it were also denied any time to repair and recuperate after the previous battle they were in.

This all would come to bite it in the ass when straight away it would run into a US submarine. Things went hilariously slapstick when the destroyers failed to even attack the lone US sub, and the whole group was reduced to trying to outrun the sub, at a MARGINAL speed advantage over the sub. Which evaporated when some bearings started to overheat (remember, it had been running at flank speed to BARELY outrun a submarine), forcing it to dial back the speed by 2 knots. Then for whatever reason it turned around and started going TOWARDS the submarine, which decided to do a turn and attack it from the side.

The destroyers would continue to be useless. One of them literally passed over the US submarine right as it was at periscope depth lining its shots and failed to even detect it.

And then when the torpedoes hit... remember all those things wrong with the Shinano? Yeah, now's where they'd bite it in the ass. Structural beams buckled or broke, just because they were poor quality. Welds sheared. A flood which was originally deemed manageable, turned into a doomsday scenario, where not only water could rush through those unsealed holes, but also pulled sailors through them. And soon thereafter it just sank.

So yeah... cutting corners in a warship? Specifically cutting corners when it comes to keeping the water out as much as possible? Generally a bad idea

 

[Doubt]

To keep the bad ideas flowing, I'll nominate the Shinano, i.e., the one Yamato class battleship turned in a hurry into an aircraft carrier. Specifically the "in a hurry" part. They did a thorougly rush job.

To be fair here, they just did not have the resources by then to build it right. They knew they had a POS on their hands. It was what could be done with what they had left. The bad part was that they bothered to do it rather than spend the resources they had on something less ambitious like more destroyers or maybe more depth charges.

IIRC, by this point in the war, US subs had started hunting destroyers instead of running from them. Even when the ships were intact, they were hurting for depth charges making them into prey instead of predators.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I would assume that the Japanese ought to be familiar with the game of Go. And thus with the idea that sometimes not doing anything is better than doing something counter-productive

 

[kookbreaker]

The Shinano is also weird in that they tried to make it into some kind of "support carrier" rather than a front line carrier. I don't mean like a smaller US Escort Carrier, its actual purpose was unclear and seemed like the IJN was just trying to get planes onto the sea while pretending they could avoid the risk inherent in doing that.

 

[dudalb]

The concept of the Battlecruiser was to be able to outfight anything you couldn't outrun, and outrun anything you couldn't outfight. That was demonstrated in the Battle of the Falklands, where the battlecruisers were able to do both against Von Spee's ships, although the outcome might have been different had Von Spee retained some AP ammo, since he scored several hits to one British in the earlier stages.
The gaping hole in the concept was the very real possibliity of BC's coming up against one of their own kind. Especially one that may have been a knot or so slower, had an inch or so smaller guns, but was better armored and better trained. That was what was wrong with Beatty's bloody ships.

You are right.
I think the whole battlecruise concept was mistaken. And it got's if final blow when the Hood went down.
The US did complete 2 Battlecrusider in WW2..the Alaska and the GUam, but they were expensive white elephants. One that was under constraction was cancelled, and it'snearly complete Hull was sued for a light Carrier.

 

[HansMustermann]

Technically they were called "large cruisers" rather than "battlecruisers", though one can make a very convincing case that they were supposed to fit the battlecruiser role to the letter. Well, at least when they were originally designed. Afterwards an even more convincing case could be made that nobody had any clue WTH role would the navy need them for.

 

[lobosrul5]

Technically they were called "large cruisers" rather than "battlecruisers", though one can make a very convincing case that they were supposed to fit the battlecruiser role to the letter. Well, at least when they were originally designed. Afterwards an even more convincing case could be made that nobody had any clue WTH role would the navy need them for.

I don't think there was anything wrong with them per se given that they were designed in 1938. Japan has some really big effective heavy cruisers that ours were outclassed by. Remember, in 1938 no one knew how effective carrier airpower was going to be. So having some cruiser killing "super cruisers" seems reasonable to me. The fact that they didn't go oh well, this is dumb, and scrap them on the drydocks by 1943 was however pretty thickheaded.

A much dumber ship class the USN did during the war was the Saipan class of light carriers. After we lost two Independence class light aircraft carriers the navy hurried two replacements, the improved Saipan classes.... because for some reason they wanted to keep the exact same number of light carriers. What made their whole being really stupid is by the time they were laid down we were launching the far larger, far more capable, Essex class carrier like once a month.

 

[HansMustermann]

Yes, as I was saying, when originally designed they were supposed to just fit the battlecruiser role. Later, they didn't really have a role for them any more. Or am I missing some subtle thing you're trying to tell me there?

 

[HansMustermann]

More bad ideas: not trusting the newfangled equipment and insisting on doing dead reckoning like in the good ol' days (calculating where you are by how fast you reckon you've been going and in what direction), even when more accurate navigation data is transmitted to you. Resulting in the disaster at Honda Point, aka, when the whole team does a hard Notser IRL. (I.e., runs aground.)

 

[Trebuchet]

The Shinano is also weird in that they tried to make it into some kind of "support carrier" rather than a front line carrier. I don't mean like a smaller US Escort Carrier, its actual purpose was unclear and seemed like the IJN was just trying to get planes onto the sea while pretending they could avoid the risk inherent in doing that.

My bold. Desperately so, due to having lost 2/3 of their fleet carriers at Midway

You are right.
I think the whole battlecruise concept was mistaken. And it got's if final blow when the Hood went down.
The US did complete 2 Battlecrusider in WW2..the Alaska and the GUam, but they were expensive white elephants. One that was under constraction was cancelled, and it'snearly complete Hull was sued for a light Carrier.

Actually USS Hawaii was not converted, just eventually scrapped.

Technically they were called "large cruisers" rather than "battlecruisers", though one can make a very convincing case that they were supposed to fit the battlecruiser role to the letter. Well, at least when they were originally designed. Afterwards an even more convincing case could be made that nobody had any clue WTH role would the navy need them for.

The "large cruisers" were a pet project of FDR. To have been true battlecruisers, I think, they needed actual battleship armament, perhaps six of 16"/50. And would still have been of very little use. But that would have at least saved the expense of developing a new 12" gun.
They also handled badly. I read an anecdote somewhere of Alaska's skipper steaming in circles for a full hour with the helm centered, just to prove the point.

 

[Axxman300]

How about Operation Rheinübung, May, 1941?

The Germany KM had a decent plan on paper, with Bismarck, Tirpitz, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen. But Gneisenau was damaged in an airstrike, and Tripitz wasn't ready yet. The wise move would have been to wait until one or both ships were available.

But no, the German Navy got happy feet, and sent Bismarck out with Prinz Eugen, and no coordination with their U-boats. In fact, they didn't even tell Hitler they'd sailed.

Compounding things, the Bismarck hadn't undergone full sea trials yet, and her command doesn't bother to top-off their fuel tanks before hitting the open ocean. The mission fell apart after their run-in with the Royal Navy, and while the Hood was sunk, Bismarck took a round that punctured a fuel tank, and her big guns knocked out her radar. Throw in the fact that the British pinned their ears back, and were filled with extra resolve to put Bismarck on the sea floor, and this mission was over before it started. The many bad decisions made by Bismarck's command after Denmark Strait just piled on to her demise.

I don't see a scenario where Bismarck and Prinz Eugen survive a successful cruise in May, 1941. Even had they successfully attacked a convoy, the RN would have been waiting for them on the way back.

And I suppose we can also argue the issue of pre-WWII reliance on centering naval tactics around battleships in general too. This wasn't just a German thing.

 

[erwinl]

How about Operation Rheinübung, May, 1941?

The Germany KM had a decent plan on paper, with Bismarck, Tirpitz, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen. But Gneisenau was damaged in an airstrike, and Tripitz wasn't ready yet. The wise move would have been to wait until one or both ships were available.

But no, the German Navy got happy feet, and sent Bismarck out with Prinz Eugen, and no coordination with their U-boats. In fact, they didn't even tell Hitler they'd sailed.

Compounding things, the Bismarck hadn't undergone full sea trials yet, and her command doesn't bother to top-off their fuel tanks before hitting the open ocean. The mission fell apart after their run-in with the Royal Navy, and while the Hood was sunk, Bismarck took a round that punctured a fuel tank, and her big guns knocked out her radar. Throw in the fact that the British pinned their ears back, and were filled with extra resolve to put Bismarck on the sea floor, and this mission was over before it started. The many bad decisions made by Bismarck's command after Denmark Strait just piled on to her demise.

I don't see a scenario where Bismarck and Prinz Eugen survive a successful cruise in May, 1941. Even had they successfully attacked a convoy, the RN would have been waiting for them on the way back.

And I suppose we can also argue the issue of pre-WWII reliance on centering naval tactics around battleships in general too. This wasn't just a German thing.

I don't know.
Up until this point, German surface raiders had been fairly succesful.
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had just returned from their raid, as did Hipper (solo raid) and Scheer (also solo raid).
So the fact that there were only two ships available in the end was not such a bad thing.

What was more of an issue was that the window for raiding was closing fast. Summer was coming and with that short nights to hide in.
As Bismarck was not ready earlier and waiting on Tirpitz would mean that the earliest possibility for a raid would be somewhere in september or so, the decision to do a raid when Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were ready and then afterwards concentrate all the German ships in Brest was not a bad on in itself.

We can't really fault Lutjens from not knowing he had already been spotted in Bergen (well, we can a bit), and maybe not even for going forward after the battle of Denmark Straits (this one can be debated, but if the endresult was a wish to concentrate all the ships in Brest, a real case can be made for continuing). For let's face it. Returning back to Bergen at that point would risk being intercepted by forces from Scapa Flow.

Up to that point, I can't really fault Lutjens.

Where we get a real major 'Whoopsie' is with the large message send from Bismarck to Germany. That one is simply stupid beyond believe.

 

[erwinl]

You are right.
I think the whole battlecruise concept was mistaken. And it got's if final blow when the Hood went down.
The US did complete 2 Battlecrusider in WW2..the Alaska and the GUam, but they were expensive white elephants. One that was under constraction was cancelled, and it'snearly complete Hull was sued for a light Carrier.

Are you sure about the whole battlecruiser concept?
If we look at the amount of punishment a ship like the Lion took over the entire war, they were very durable ships.
One of the reasons a lot of them got so much damage and losses was that theyr were used so much. This opposed to the battleships, that stayed more or less passive in Scapa Flow.

Problem was that it was only during the '30s that technology had progressed enough that you could have speed and armor.

It was precisely the speed of the battlecruisers that made them so useful for the respective naivies.
We see this in WWII with the Japanese navy as well. Which ships got the most use out of them? The Kongos, becauses these had the speed needed for their operations.
Or the American navy, where the older, slower battleships, those that were available shortly after Pearl Harbor, weren't used either, other than for shore bombardment.

And going back to Jutland. Let's not forget that Malaya came very, very close to following the battlecruisers Queen Mary and Indefatigable in going up in a big cloud (I believe, but am not sure, that Invincible hadn't exploded yet, when Malaya almost did).
Battleship guns were getting so powerful by this time, that all ships, be they battleships or battlecruisers turned into 'eggshells with hammers'. And that being the case, having speed does help more, than not having it.

 

[HansMustermann]

Sad to say, though, no, Operation Rheinübung was wrong from the start. And it couldn't be anything else, because the doctrine behind it was wrong.

The idea (and problem) behind it wasn't just having more or bigger guns to shoot at convoys. A bunch of light cruisers could have done that job better than the Bismarck and cost less. You don't need 15" guns to sink a merchant ship. A 6" can even disable a destroyer in 1 or 2 hits, and can do horrible stuff to a thin-skinned freighter even with the HE round. The problem was that the UK had started adding older battleships as convoy escorts, and cruisers or even Scharnhorst class were a bit outgunned by those and had to run away. Enter the "bright" idea that you could have a big ship like the Bismarck "tank" the enemy BB, while the cruiser(s) have a go at the convoys.

But think about the cost there for a moment. You'd end up with a capital ship in drydock for repairs for months after a sortie that actually worked like that. It's months and months of high costs for each such misadventure. And for what? For a bunch of merchant ships that cost the UK less to make?

That is, if you even make it back with the Bismarck. I mean, let's say it passed unseen and unscathed into the Atlantic, met such a convoy, and took about the same damage as it did in the encounter with the Hood. NOW WHAT? You're limping home from an even bigger distance.

What you'd really want is really to keep at the hit and run attacks. As in, just run if you see a capital ship. And for that you really don't need a battleship.

 

[jeremyp]

Then there's the US Air Farce, which has spent the last 35 years trying to get rid of the A-10 because it doesn't look cool. Who cares if it just works?

But it doesn't just work. They definitely do need to get rid of it. The A10 is only good in uncontested airspace. If you sent any to Ukraine, they'd all be gone in a couple of days.

The gun isn't much good either. They tested it in pretty much ideal conditions on 60's era US tanks and found it could disable them but the assessment was that it wouldn't be effective against later Soviet tanks. Not that you'd want to get close enough to the enemy to use the gun. The A10 might be able to survive battle damage that other aircraft can't but all that gets you is the safe return of the pilot. The aircraft itself is out of action until it is repaired. In the first Gulf War, the A10's had to be restricted from flying to deep into Iraq because they were too vulnerable.

It's much better to stand off and hit targets from a distance with missiles, which the A10 did quite effectively in the first Gulf War although there were too many friendly fire incidents due to its lack of equipment to tell the difference between friend and foe. But any aircraft can do that and something like an F35 can do other things too.

The F35 is too expensive, I hear you say. Well no it isn't when you consider it can do other things than close air support* and is much more likely to survive any given mission unscathed. Also, the A10c upgrade negates most of the cost advantage the original A10 had.

Yes, continuing with the A10 is a Bad Idea™.

*The "close" in "close air support" does not mean the aircraft is close to the target but that the target is close to your own troops.

 

[erwinl]

Sad to say, though, no, Operation Rheinübung was wrong from the start. And it couldn't be anything else, because the doctrine behind it was wrong.

The idea (and problem) behind it wasn't just having more or bigger guns to shoot at convoys. A bunch of light cruisers could have done that job better than the Bismarck and cost less. The problem was that the UK had started adding older battleships as convoy escorts, and cruisers or even Scharnhorst class were a bit outgunned by those and had to run away. Enter the "bright" idea that you could have a big ship like the Bismarck "tank" the enemy BB, while the cruiser(s) have a go at the convoys.

But think about the cost there for a moment. You'd end up with a capital ship in drydock for repairs for months after a sortie that actually worked like that. It's months and months of high costs for each such misadventure. And for what? For a bunch of merchant ships that cost the UK less to make?

What you'd really want is really to keep at the hit and run attacks. As in, just run if you see a capital ship. And for that you really don't need a battleship.

Yes and no.

You're right that any actual shooting/fighting would have these dangers and likely results.

That is not the only effect with having a ship like the Bismarck running around in the Atlantic ocean though.
As long as she was free to raid, convoys had to be rerouted, had to wait until sufficient heavy escorts (other battleships), can be found and arranged for sailing with them. Each battleship used as a convoy escort is a battleship that can not be used for another task.

It all adds up as a kind of virtual attrition. Not enough of itself to do much, but it comes on top of ships sunk by U-boats/mines/aircraft.
And for these results to matter you do have to threaten the convoys with a ship like the Bismarck. Anything else, like light cruisers (should the Germans ever have that would be suitable for this task) would not work. And maybe you get lucky and have more cases like PQ-17.

The German navy, alone of all the armed forces of nazi Germany, did have the right idea concerning the nature of this war. It being a war of attrition and such.
This was something the rest of Germany's armed forces never totally accepted.

 

[HansMustermann]

I don't think they would just for 1 more Nazi Battleship. They didn't for the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, for a start.