20th Round round. We down to final 5 so will do 1 at a time elimination and 2 votes per person.
Diu is outta here
Remaining:
Marmara (677) - Greek Fire stopped the Arabs outside Constantinople - and the Byzantines would roadblock Islam for another 700 years.
Midway: U.S ambushes Japanese fleet
Salamis: Greeks turned back Persian fleet
Trafalgar: Brits won against France/Spain in Nap.war
Eliminated:
Sinking of the Lusitania – One sided, but helped doom the Germans in the big picture.
Kamikazi “divine winds” origin – Mongol invasion of Japan fails due to typhoon
H.L. Hunley sinking the Housatonic - The first submarine to sink an enemy vessel.
Baltimore - AKA the attack on Fort McHenry
Flamborough Head – I have not yet begun to fight!
The sinking of the INS Eilat, 1967 - the first battle vessel sunk using ship-to-ship missiles.
Denmark Strait - The Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen of Germany meet the Prince of Wales and the Hood of Britain.
Hampton Roads: USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia - first ironclad duel
Operation Dynamo – Evacuation of Dunkirk allowed the Allies to live to fight another day
Bismarck Sea: The Cannae of airpower vs naval power
Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse - The blow from which the British Empire never recovered
Cartagena de Indias – British beaten by Spain in Colombia
New Orleans: Farragut captures biggest Confederate city
Falkland Islands in World War 1 seems pretty decisive.
Lake Erie: Perry defeats British fleet; “We have met the enemy…”
Cape Bon ( 468 ) - Vandals destroy combined Roman fleet, nail in the coffin for the Western Empire.
Noryang – Japanese invasions of Korea repelled
Coral Sea – Introduction of aircraft carriers facing each other
The Battle of the Philippine Sea - aka The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot - The USN destroyed the remnants of the IJN carrier force.
Taranto: ascendancy of the airplane over the “fleet in being” (even more notable considering the small, weak, obsolescent air units involved)
Manila Bay – Led to Dewey being given the unique (at least for USA) honor of Admiral of the Navy
Jutland During WWI- Germany effectively neutralized.
Leyte Gulf: Swan song for Imperial Japan
The Yalu - Japan’s victory was the start of Japanese imperial expansion, and a death blow to the Qing Empire.
Yamen – Mongol-controlled Yuan Dynasty crushed Song Dynasty in China
Glorious First of June: Decisive British win over French
Pearl Harbor - Japan is allowed to run amok and capture large amounts of territory
Quiberon Bay - the cherry on the Year of Victory, it secured control over the Atlantic for Britain and doomed French Canada.
The Masts - Arabs/Islam take to the sea and kick Byzantium butt.
Second Battle of Syracuse/Sicilian Expedition – Athenian expedition cut off/wiped out.
Chesapeake: French defeat British; Cornwallis doomed
Hansan - Brilliant maneuvering leads to key victory in Imjin War.
Sluys - Massive French invasion fleet annihilated, preempting a descent on England.
Lepanto: Ottoman high water (heh) mark
Actium - Octavian defeats Mark Antony; takes Roman Empire.
The Downs - Larger Spanish fleet crushed, rise of Dutch dominance.
The Nile: strategically more important Napoleonic battle than Trafalgar
Tsushima - Japan annihilates the Russian fleet
Gravelins: Spanish Armada turned back by England to meet their famous fate.
Aegospotami - Lysander’s destruction of the Athenian navy finished the Athenian Empire.
Myeongnyang - Shattered remnants of Korean fleet holds off and smashes a massively larger Japanese invasion fleet.
Battle of the Aegates Islands – Rome ends 23-year First Punic War, assumes lasting naval dominance
Black May-when the Western Allies got the upper hand against the u-boats for good.
Diu: Portuguese smash the Ottoman/Mamluk/Indian fleet
21th Round round. We down to final 5 so will do 1 at a time elimination and 2 votes per person.
Marmara is outta here. WHile I agree it probably should have been outted sooner…the idea of a big Byzantium win making it this far doesn’t trouble me. Byzantium is one of the biggest punching bags in history and them winning big…is something
Remaining:
Midway: U.S ambushes Japanese fleet
Salamis: Greeks turned back Persian fleet
Trafalgar: Brits won against France/Spain in Nap.war
Eliminated:
Sinking of the Lusitania – One sided, but helped doom the Germans in the big picture.
Kamikazi “divine winds” origin – Mongol invasion of Japan fails due to typhoon
H.L. Hunley sinking the Housatonic - The first submarine to sink an enemy vessel.
Baltimore - AKA the attack on Fort McHenry
Flamborough Head – I have not yet begun to fight!
The sinking of the INS Eilat, 1967 - the first battle vessel sunk using ship-to-ship missiles.
Denmark Strait - The Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen of Germany meet the Prince of Wales and the Hood of Britain.
Hampton Roads: USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia - first ironclad duel
Operation Dynamo – Evacuation of Dunkirk allowed the Allies to live to fight another day
Bismarck Sea: The Cannae of airpower vs naval power
Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse - The blow from which the British Empire never recovered
Cartagena de Indias – British beaten by Spain in Colombia
New Orleans: Farragut captures biggest Confederate city
Falkland Islands in World War 1 seems pretty decisive.
Lake Erie: Perry defeats British fleet; “We have met the enemy…”
Cape Bon ( 468 ) - Vandals destroy combined Roman fleet, nail in the coffin for the Western Empire.
Noryang – Japanese invasions of Korea repelled
Coral Sea – Introduction of aircraft carriers facing each other
The Battle of the Philippine Sea - aka The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot - The USN destroyed the remnants of the IJN carrier force.
Taranto: ascendancy of the airplane over the “fleet in being” (even more notable considering the small, weak, obsolescent air units involved)
Manila Bay – Led to Dewey being given the unique (at least for USA) honor of Admiral of the Navy
Jutland During WWI- Germany effectively neutralized.
Leyte Gulf: Swan song for Imperial Japan
The Yalu - Japan’s victory was the start of Japanese imperial expansion, and a death blow to the Qing Empire.
Yamen – Mongol-controlled Yuan Dynasty crushed Song Dynasty in China
Glorious First of June: Decisive British win over French
Pearl Harbor - Japan is allowed to run amok and capture large amounts of territory
Quiberon Bay - the cherry on the Year of Victory, it secured control over the Atlantic for Britain and doomed French Canada.
The Masts - Arabs/Islam take to the sea and kick Byzantium butt.
Second Battle of Syracuse/Sicilian Expedition – Athenian expedition cut off/wiped out.
Chesapeake: French defeat British; Cornwallis doomed
Hansan - Brilliant maneuvering leads to key victory in Imjin War.
Sluys - Massive French invasion fleet annihilated, preempting a descent on England.
Lepanto: Ottoman high water (heh) mark
Actium - Octavian defeats Mark Antony; takes Roman Empire.
The Downs - Larger Spanish fleet crushed, rise of Dutch dominance.
The Nile: strategically more important Napoleonic battle than Trafalgar
Tsushima - Japan annihilates the Russian fleet
Gravelins: Spanish Armada turned back by England to meet their famous fate.
Aegospotami - Lysander’s destruction of the Athenian navy finished the Athenian Empire.
Myeongnyang - Shattered remnants of Korean fleet holds off and smashes a massively larger Japanese invasion fleet.
Battle of the Aegates Islands – Rome ends 23-year First Punic War, assumes lasting naval dominance
Black May-when the Western Allies got the upper hand against the u-boats for good.
Diu: Portuguese smash the Ottoman/Mamluk/Indian fleet
Marmara (677) - Greek Fire stopped the Arabs outside Constantinople - and the Byzantines would roadblock Islam for another 700 years.
Well, my WW2 fanboi wants to vote for something not Midway related, but we’ve got the battle that allowed Western Civilization to become what it is today and the battle that ushered in the Pax Britannica - so, of the three left -
I’ve been noodling for weeks over Trafalgar’s final position. While I accept the logic that Japan was ultimately doomed with or without Midway, Trafalgar may not even have been the most decisive battle Nelson fought, if you look at Aboukir Bay/the Nile.
Both Midway and Trafalgar served as archetypal examples of dynamic new methods in naval warfare. But Salamis was for all the marbles, culturally speaking.
Not without regret, I’ll settle for voting against Midway, despite having recently read a brilliant and revealing treatment of that battle, Shattered Sword.
I seem to have missed the last couple of rounds (oops - not that I have much idea what I would have voted for).
Of the last three, Salamis was for all the marbles if you buy Herodotus’s account and if you assume that a victorious Xerxes would have created a Satrapy of Greece and had it stick around long enough to matter. Both of which appear probable but not certain.
Midway was hugely influential if you assume that a defeat would have been more than a speedbump on the USN’s march across the Central Pacific. The US was always going to win, but how they won mattered.
Trafalgar, of course, was Trafalgar. You can argue that the Nile was more strategically important (you can also argue that Brueys’s fleet was already badly depleted, Napoleon’s army was effectively trapped, and the greatest strategic outcome of the campaign was Nelson’s failure to send Napoleon to the bottom of the Mediterranean on his way to Egypt), but fifty years after Trafalgar people (not just in the UK) looked at the world around them and said “this all came from Trafalgar”. They didn’t say that fifty years after Midway. Did they say it fifty years after Salamis, as Athens and Sparta squared up for the war that would cripple Greece? Maybe.
Just to add that Shattered Sword is, imo, an excellent treatment of the Battle of Midway from the Japanese perspective, and certainly lays a number of “Midway Myths” to rest, along with Fuchida’s credibility, but that verges on spoiler material, so…go read it!
22nd Round round. We down to final 5 so will do 1 at a time elimination and 2 votes per person.
Midway is history.
Remaining:
Salamis: Greeks turned back Persian fleet
Trafalgar: Brits won against France/Spain in Nap.war
Eliminated:
Sinking of the Lusitania – One sided, but helped doom the Germans in the big picture.
Kamikazi “divine winds” origin – Mongol invasion of Japan fails due to typhoon
H.L. Hunley sinking the Housatonic - The first submarine to sink an enemy vessel.
Baltimore - AKA the attack on Fort McHenry
Flamborough Head – I have not yet begun to fight!
The sinking of the INS Eilat, 1967 - the first battle vessel sunk using ship-to-ship missiles.
Denmark Strait - The Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen of Germany meet the Prince of Wales and the Hood of Britain.
Hampton Roads: USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia - first ironclad duel
Operation Dynamo – Evacuation of Dunkirk allowed the Allies to live to fight another day
Bismarck Sea: The Cannae of airpower vs naval power
Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse - The blow from which the British Empire never recovered
Cartagena de Indias – British beaten by Spain in Colombia
New Orleans: Farragut captures biggest Confederate city
Falkland Islands in World War 1 seems pretty decisive.
Lake Erie: Perry defeats British fleet; “We have met the enemy…”
Cape Bon ( 468 ) - Vandals destroy combined Roman fleet, nail in the coffin for the Western Empire.
Noryang – Japanese invasions of Korea repelled
Coral Sea – Introduction of aircraft carriers facing each other
The Battle of the Philippine Sea - aka The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot - The USN destroyed the remnants of the IJN carrier force.
Taranto: ascendancy of the airplane over the “fleet in being” (even more notable considering the small, weak, obsolescent air units involved)
Manila Bay – Led to Dewey being given the unique (at least for USA) honor of Admiral of the Navy
Jutland During WWI- Germany effectively neutralized.
Leyte Gulf: Swan song for Imperial Japan
The Yalu - Japan’s victory was the start of Japanese imperial expansion, and a death blow to the Qing Empire.
Yamen – Mongol-controlled Yuan Dynasty crushed Song Dynasty in China
Glorious First of June: Decisive British win over French
Pearl Harbor - Japan is allowed to run amok and capture large amounts of territory
Quiberon Bay - the cherry on the Year of Victory, it secured control over the Atlantic for Britain and doomed French Canada.
The Masts - Arabs/Islam take to the sea and kick Byzantium butt.
Second Battle of Syracuse/Sicilian Expedition – Athenian expedition cut off/wiped out.
Chesapeake: French defeat British; Cornwallis doomed
Hansan - Brilliant maneuvering leads to key victory in Imjin War.
Sluys - Massive French invasion fleet annihilated, preempting a descent on England.
Lepanto: Ottoman high water (heh) mark
Actium - Octavian defeats Mark Antony; takes Roman Empire.
The Downs - Larger Spanish fleet crushed, rise of Dutch dominance.
The Nile: strategically more important Napoleonic battle than Trafalgar
Tsushima - Japan annihilates the Russian fleet
Gravelins: Spanish Armada turned back by England to meet their famous fate.
Aegospotami - Lysander’s destruction of the Athenian navy finished the Athenian Empire.
Myeongnyang - Shattered remnants of Korean fleet holds off and smashes a massively larger Japanese invasion fleet.
Battle of the Aegates Islands – Rome ends 23-year First Punic War, assumes lasting naval dominance
Black May-when the Western Allies got the upper hand against the u-boats for good.
Diu: Portuguese smash the Ottoman/Mamluk/Indian fleet
Marmara (677) - Greek Fire stopped the Arabs outside Constantinople - and the Byzantines would roadblock Islam for another 700 years.
Midway: U.S ambushes Japanese fleet
Final round due by 2:00 Central Monday.
