soc.history.war.world-war-ii

thornley@visi.com (David Thornley) wrote:
>
> Scott M. Kozel wrote:
>
> The job of a light cruiser is not normally to engage battleships,
> although they certainly would if it seemed called for. The job
> of a light cruiser is to operate against suspected enemy surface
> raiders (well, of cruiser size or lower).
>
> >If the officers of
> >the light cruiser did not attack in that situation, would they be "cowards"?
>
> Read about what happened to Troubridge in WWI when he decided that
> four old armored cruisers were not a match for a German battlecruiser
> during the daytime (he did plan to engage at night, if he could).
> The RN is big on not backing down.
>
> It makes a certain amount of sense. The RN has normally been
> considerably larger than its adversaries, and if it cripple an
> enemy warship and lose one of its own it's usually a good deal.

We're talking about the RAN, not the RN, and while the RAN stemmed from
many of the same traditions as the RN, the RAN had few enough cruisers
that losing one had a large negative impact.