Flamborough Head - 2
Sinking of the *Eliat *- 2
Sinking of the Repulse/PoW - 1
Sticking with
Coral Sea - 2 votes
Operation Dynamo - 2 votes
Adding:
Flamborough Head - 1 vote
Philippine Sea - 2
INS Eilat - 2
Flamborough Head - 1
Sinking of the Eliat - 2
Flamborough Head 2
Denmark Strait - The Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen of Germany meet the Prince of Wales and the Hood of Britain. 1
Returning to:
Operation Dynamo – 2
The sinking of the INS Eilat, 1967 – 2
Entering the waters:
Flamborough Head – 1
I’ll keep trying to knock out the not-a-naval-battle entries:
Operation Dynamo: 2
Cartagena de Indias: 2
Last one is a toughie. I don’t think any of the Pacific War battles deserve to go this early; and while Flamborough Head was insignificant in the contest of the wider war it (and Lake Erie) set the tone for the US Navy, which has had just a little influence on matters naval. So Jones and Perry get a pass for a couple of rounds. Denmark Straight and Force Z were huge psychologically, even if they added up to not much in substance. I’ll go with the Eilat, simply because of its small scale and lack of a wider context - there was no war to influence and 40+ years on the influence of SSMs is still open to question.
Sinking of the Eilat: 1
4th Round round: I added my votes to the below…didn’t change anything.
Flamborough Head - 13
The sinking of the INS Eilat, 1967 - 13
These 2 are eliminated.
Others got:
Operation Dynamo - 6
The Battle of the Philippine Sea - 4
Coral Sea - 3
Cartagena de Indias - 2
Hampton Roads - 2
Black May - 2
Sinking of the Repulse/Prince of Wales - 2
Denmark Strait - 1
Taranto - 1
Remaining:
Actium - Octavian defeats Mark Antony; takes Roman Empire.
Battle of the Aegates Islands – Rome ends 23-year First Punic War, assumes lasting naval dominance
Aegospotami - Lysander’s destruction of the Athenian navy finished the Athenian Empire.
Bismarck Sea: The Cannae of airpower vs naval power
Black May-when the Western Allies got the upper hand against the u-boats for good.
Cape Bon ( 468 ) - Vandals destroy combined Roman fleet, nail in the coffin for the Western Empire.
Cartagena de Indias – British beaten by Spain in Colombia
Chesapeake: French defeat British; Cornwallis doomed
Coral Sea – Introduction of aircraft carriers facing each other
Denmark Strait - The Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen of Germany meet the Prince of Wales and the Hood of Britain.
Diu: Portuguese smash the Ottoman/Mamluk/Indian fleet
The Downs - Larger Spanish fleet crushed, rise of Dutch dominance.
Operation Dynamo – Evacuation of Dunkirk allowed the Allies to live to fight another day
Falkland Islands in World War 1 seems pretty decisive.
Glorious First of June: Decisive British win over French
Gravelins: Spanish Armada turned back by England to meet their famous fate.
Hampton Roads: USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia - first ironclad duel
Hansan - Brilliant maneuvering leads to key victory in Imjin War.
Jutland During WWI- Germany effectively neutralized.
Lake Erie: Perry defeats British fleet; “We have met the enemy…”
Lepanto: Ottoman high water (heh) mark
Leyte Gulf: Swan song for Imperial Japan
Manila Bay – Led to Dewey being given the unique (at least for USA) honor of Admiral of the Navy
Marmara (677) - Greek Fire stopped the Arabs outside Constantinople - and the Byzantines would roadblock Islam for another 700 years.
The Masts - Arabs/Islam take to the sea and kick Byzantium butt.
Midway: U.S ambushes Japanese fleet
Myeongnyang - Shattered remnants of Korean fleet holds off and smashes a massively larger Japanese invasion fleet.
New Orleans: Farragut captures biggest Confederate city
Pearl Harbor - Japan is allowed to run amok and capture large amounts of territory
The Nile: strategically more important Napoleonic battle than Trafalgar
Noryang – Japanese invasions of Korea repelled
The Battle of the Philippine Sea - aka The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot - The USN destroyed the remnants of the IJN carrier force.
Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse - The blow from which the British Empire never recovered
Quiberon Bay - the cherry on the Year of Victory, it secured control over the Atlantic for Britain and doomed French Canada.
Salamis: Greeks turned back Persian fleet
Sluys - Massive French invasion fleet annihilated, preempting a descent on England.
Second Battle of Syracuse/Sicilian Expedition – Athenian expedition cut off/wiped out.
Taranto: ascendancy of the airplane over the “fleet in being” (even more notable considering the small, weak, obsolescent air units involved)
Trafalgar: Brits won against France/Spain in Nap.war
Tsushima - Japan annihilates the Russian fleet
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
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.
Round 5 due by say 2:00 Central Tuesday. (2 days from now).
Denmark Strait 2
Hampton Roads 2
Prince of Wales/ Repulse 1
Hampton Roads - 2
PoW/Repulse - 2
Bismarck Sea - 1
Sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales – 2 for reasons I’ve already given
Denmark Strait – 2. I just can’t see this as being decisive in any way. (Although it did inspire a good Johnny Horton song.)
Bismarck Sea – 1. We’re going to have to get rid of some of the Pacific battles and I don’t see this one being as important as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and Midway.
Continuing with:
Operation Dynamo – 2
New targets:
Denmark Strait – 2
Bismarck Sea – 1
I am going to go with
Hampton Roads - 2
Denmark Strait - 2
Agree with some WWII Pacific has to go so switching from Taranto to
Bismarck Sea - 1
I am going to go on voting for Operation Dynamo & Cartagena de Indias until they go, dammit.
Seriously, how was Cartagena de Indias a naval battle? The only Spanish ships present were scuttled (unsucessfully) as blockships; the decisive action was a failed infantry assault on one of the forts, or more accurately the forts delaying the land forces long enough for the yellow fever to do its work.
Last vote seems to be choice between Hampton Roads (no - it had a major impact on naval development and few victories have been more decisive than the Virginia vs the Cumberland), Bismarck Sea (small-scale but very decisive and showcased the dominance of airpower over surface ships), Force Z (again very decisive on the small scale and while irrelevant strategically - the PoW and the Repulse were seriously outmatched by the Japanese surface forces opposing them and Force Z’s dispatch was only ever a token gesture - it was a heavy blow psychologically) and Denmark Strait.
I’ll go with Denmark Strait - spectacular but not even a decisive victory on the small scale, given the the Bismarck took damage that ultimately doomed her. On the larger scale - so what? If the Hood had survived her subsequent military service would likely have been limited to distant convoy escort or shore bombardment; if the Bismarck had escaped she would most likely have shared the fate of Gneisenau & Scharnhorst .
To sum up:
Operation Dynamo : 2
Cartagena de Indias : 2
Denmark Straight : 1
D’oh! Missed the weekend vote.
Operation Dynamo: 2
Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse: 2
Denmark Strait: 1
Operation Dynamo : 2
Noryang : 2
Cartagena de Indias : 1
Any chance we could eliminate more than 2 at a time until we get down to a top 25 or so? The list is rather long at the moment and it will likely be weeks before hard choices (requiring discussion/arguments) need to be made.
Setting targets on:
Hampton Roads: 2
Cartagena de Indias: 1
Bismark Sea: 2
Decisive in the sense that the entire Japanese force of 16 ships was sunk, but in the grander scheme of the Pacific War, not one of the most decisive (in the sense of influential) battles.
Grrrr…
That should be “Bismarck Sea”
5th Round round:
Denmark Strait - 10
Hampton Roads - 8
Operation Dynamo - 8
These 3 are eliminated.
Others got:
Sinking of the Repulse/Prince of Wales - 7
Bismarck Sea - 6
Cartagena de Indias - 4
Noryang - 1
Remaining:
Actium - Octavian defeats Mark Antony; takes Roman Empire.
Battle of the Aegates Islands – Rome ends 23-year First Punic War, assumes lasting naval dominance
Aegospotami - Lysander’s destruction of the Athenian navy finished the Athenian Empire.
Bismarck Sea: The Cannae of airpower vs naval power
Black May-when the Western Allies got the upper hand against the u-boats for good.
Cape Bon ( 468 ) - Vandals destroy combined Roman fleet, nail in the coffin for the Western Empire.
Cartagena de Indias – British beaten by Spain in Colombia
Chesapeake: French defeat British; Cornwallis doomed
Coral Sea – Introduction of aircraft carriers facing each other
Diu: Portuguese smash the Ottoman/Mamluk/Indian fleet
The Downs - Larger Spanish fleet crushed, rise of Dutch dominance.
Falkland Islands in World War 1 seems pretty decisive.
Glorious First of June: Decisive British win over French
Gravelins: Spanish Armada turned back by England to meet their famous fate.
Hansan - Brilliant maneuvering leads to key victory in Imjin War.
Jutland During WWI- Germany effectively neutralized.
Lake Erie: Perry defeats British fleet; “We have met the enemy…”
Lepanto: Ottoman high water (heh) mark
Leyte Gulf: Swan song for Imperial Japan
Manila Bay – Led to Dewey being given the unique (at least for USA) honor of Admiral of the Navy
Marmara (677) - Greek Fire stopped the Arabs outside Constantinople - and the Byzantines would roadblock Islam for another 700 years.
The Masts - Arabs/Islam take to the sea and kick Byzantium butt.
Midway: U.S ambushes Japanese fleet
Myeongnyang - Shattered remnants of Korean fleet holds off and smashes a massively larger Japanese invasion fleet.
New Orleans: Farragut captures biggest Confederate city
Pearl Harbor - Japan is allowed to run amok and capture large amounts of territory
The Nile: strategically more important Napoleonic battle than Trafalgar
Noryang – Japanese invasions of Korea repelled
The Battle of the Philippine Sea - aka The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot - The USN destroyed the remnants of the IJN carrier force.
Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse - The blow from which the British Empire never recovered
Quiberon Bay - the cherry on the Year of Victory, it secured control over the Atlantic for Britain and doomed French Canada.
Salamis: Greeks turned back Persian fleet
Sluys - Massive French invasion fleet annihilated, preempting a descent on England.
Second Battle of Syracuse/Sicilian Expedition – Athenian expedition cut off/wiped out.
Taranto: ascendancy of the airplane over the “fleet in being” (even more notable considering the small, weak, obsolescent air units involved)
Trafalgar: Brits won against France/Spain in Nap.war
Tsushima - Japan annihilates the Russian fleet
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
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
Round 6 due by say 2:00 Central Thurs. (2 days from now).
Continuing with:
Bismarck Sea – 2
Hoping to send to watery graves:
Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse – 2
Hansan – 1
How come? Of the three Imjin War battles on the list, Noryang would seem to be the crying out to be removed.