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  1. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    Yeah you post on alltheworldsbattlecruisers.com too right? I think by March 1915 the gunnery issues were somewhat better understood and the predreadnoughts were no longer seen as a solution to it. I also think the mine bumper considerations were also a very secondary consideration, it wasn’t...

  2. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    Another POD presents itself: Beatty (who Fisher wanted to get rid of) is removed from command of the battle cruiser force, and is instead sent to the Dardanelles. It’s a prestigious enough assignment and it’s where the action is happening so he can’t feel too put off, and maybe Beatty would have...

  3. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    I think WW1 battleships, when used to transfer American troops across the Atlantic, carried over 1,000 soldiers at a time. Some battleships can be used as troop transports, other battleships can be used for shore bombardment, and then joined by their companions which have disgorged their troops...

  4. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    To a significant extent "transports" is the same thing as "warships", no? Ships like Majestic class battleships and the large protected cruiser HMS Terrible were disarmed (and their guns given to monitors) and served as troop transports. They could carry hundreds, if not thousands of troops at a...

  5. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    I thought the main threat to the battleships was the mines. I thought the battleships could cope with the mobile howitzer batteries and their limiting spotting/ranging capabilities because the warships were armored adequately against their smaller caliber fire, and because the warships could...

  6. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    Perhaps, but the resources available on exactly March 19th were not infinite. De Robeck started with ~18 capital ships, and six were now sunk/disabled. The main minefields remained practically untouched and the Turkish batteries were still operational. Another day as bad as March 18th and De...

  7. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    The civilian crews of the mine sweepers had been replaced after the failed attempts to sweep the fields at night on March 10th and March 11th. The night March 14th the naval crews tried to sweep the minefields, but failed and a third of the boats were put out of action by the fire of shore...

  8. Better Pre War AntiSub considerations.

    As a follow up, the Royal Navy’s chosen solution to the threat posed by U-boats (and torpedo boats, which occupied a similar mental space in pre/early-war planning) and commerce war was not the only one contemplated. Building patrol boats and inventing ASDIC probably wouldn’t have occurred to...

  9. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    Would they? I thought the Allied fleet (including the small and unarmored trawlers) was able to maneuver reasonably well in the ~10 mile stretch between Cape Helles and the Narrows in March 1915 because the forts were fewer / smaller / more easily suppressed, even though both sides were held by...

  10. Better Pre War AntiSub considerations.

    I think you're projecting views from a WW2 approach to submarine warfare back to the WW1 era. Building a fleet of escorts armed with Hedgehog Throwers and SONAR was just never going to happen with World War 1 technology. I think the early 1914 Royal Navy had a perfectly reasonable...

  11. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    I think forcing the Narrows would have led to those things. AIUI the Gallipoli peninsula itself was generally reliant on supply by sea, overland routes were within range of bombardment from ships on the Gulf of Saros or on the Sea of Marmara, and poor quality anyway. If an Allied fleet breaks...

  12. Could the Entente navies have forced the Dardanelles?

    Do you want to refine the parameters of the question more? I think Allies could have forced the Narrows March 18th if they brought the whole Grand Fleet of 20+ dreadnoughts to the attack, so it’s not materially impossible in the same sense “WI the Allies dropped an atomic bomb on Gallipoli” is...

  13. Freak chance--battleship sunk by bombers om the open sea--in 1917

    A 175 pound bomb sinking a battleship? I think that's practically the same thing as a battleship spontaneously combusting. Which did happen from time to time during World War 1, as in the case of the dreadnoughts HMS Vanguard and Leonardo da Vinci and the pre-dreadnought HMS Bulwark.

  14. What if Churchill didn't under-estimate the Turks at gallipoli?

    Sometimes I wonder what might have been accomplished if the British ignored the "sale" of the Goeben to Turkey, and sailed the entire Mediterranean squadron through the Dardanelles in mid August 1914. AIUI at that time the minefields were mostly the pre-war ones which the British naval attachés...

  15. Amphibious attack on Pola/Pula naval base and the Istrian peninsula during World War 1 / Gallipoli alternative

    What about infiltrating submarines or torpedo boats into the harbor in a night attack, like the initial Japanese attack on Port Arthur, or sinking block ships to immobilize the Austro-Hungarian fleet? Do you have a source on the defenses at Pola?

  16. Amphibious attack on Pola/Pula naval base and the Istrian peninsula during World War 1 / Gallipoli alternative

    In reading about Royal Navy planning prior to (and during) World War 1, it seems there was a lot of thought put into the "close blockade" or attacking/neutralizing the German navy in its bases - things like landing army divisions in Schleswig-Holstein, capturing Heligoland, sinking blockships...

  17. A better High Seas Fleet for WW1

    Arguably at the historical Jutland. It took me a long time to grasp how well Jellicoe handled the hand that was dealt to him. Jellicoe crossed Scheer's T twice and ultimately interposed his forces between the High Seas Fleet and its bases. Every option he left Scheer with at nightfall May 31st...

  18. A better High Seas Fleet for WW1

    I thought there was some evidence that the damage the 18" did to Furious was embellished. And I'm still not sure what problems occurred on Yamato/Musashi. What do you mean by that? How is Scheer supposed to get battleships on the flanks of Beatty without knowing exactly where Beatty was? Scheer...

  19. A better High Seas Fleet for WW1

    I thought HMS Furious shot its 18 inch cannon without undue issues. What issues did Yamato and Musashi have when they fired?

  20. Kaiser's fast battleships

    I think they just need literally anybody to work on any kind of proactive naval strategy going into the war. The Derfflinger class and Mackensens (if they were ever completed) basically were WW1 fast battleships. They could do all the things you’d hope a German fast battleship would.
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