soc.history.war.world-war-ii

In article <47E83031.ECB2A30D@comcast.net>,
Scott M. Kozel wrote:
>
>You could get sunk and lose most of your crew, regardless of which navy
>you were in.
>
And it happened to plenty of RN vessels. That was expected.

>The Sydney officers suspected that a German commerce raider disguised as
>a merchant vessel, was in the area.

And were reasonably confident of beating her. Even with surprise,
it's not like Kormoran survived the encounter.

>So if the enemy ship was a battleship, and cruising along and not
>engaging any of your forces at that time, should your light cruiser go
>out and span many miles to attack the battleship?

Nope. Let's be reasonable.

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.


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David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
david@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-