And yet the marines still won’t shut up about the Navy breaking off close support to get sea room and freedom to maneuver rather than be sitting ducks off the coast.
Where it was spooked off the field of battle by destroyers and destroyer escorts.
The Battle off Samar tells you everything you need to know about the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Well, to be fair, the Navy did cut and run on the initial drop off but that was a learning experience for everyone.
Tom Lehrer predicted 90 minutes.
No. It didn’t. It went over the horizon because keeping a fleet, carriers and all, welded to a coastline day and night is risky in contested waters. The marines couldn’t see it. But it was still in the op area, still providing support. The Marines need to quit pissing and moaning about not getting to “see” the fleet and be grateful it didn’t stick around to be annihilated. Because then they’d have really been in a spot.
And lest we forget, there would have been four more heavy cruisers there to great the waking marines except for… you know, they got sunk overnight. Because they didn’t withdraw.
Well, and the Navy didn’t do very well at times even if they weren’t glued to the coast.
Are you familiar with the YouTube channel, The Operations Room? Drachinifel likes their work, which is how I found it.
Anyway, he has an animated The Battle of Tassafaronga 1942, the battle on November, 30 1942 in which a USN force of four heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and five destroyers go up against eight IJN destroyers doing a Tokyo Express run. It’s been called one of the worse defeats in USN history, with one heavy cruiser sunk and three heavily damaged while the IJN only had one destroyer sunk.
I am aware the USN performed poorly at Guadalcanal and have no problem hearing about it. What I have a very strong adverse reaction to is this USMC-centric myth that “they” (and it’s always you/we like it just happened and the people talking had something to do with it, not they/them like it happened the better part of a century ago) were somehow abandoned at Guadalcanal and left to fend for themselves by a cowardly fleet. My reaction might be explained in part because the first time I heard this myth of the Navy abandoning the Corps at Guadalcanal (for, like, totally no reason, and never mind the ships tht got sunk over night) I was in Iraq and some Marines, not surprisingly, wanted me to do something childish and stupid (not unlike their Guadalcanal myth) and if I didn’t it’d be “like Guadalcanal all over again!” Which is perhaps why I have such a visceral reaction. I mean, we’re literally in the middle of the g-damn *desert and they’re pissing and moaning about something that is supposed to have happened (but didn’t really) 70 years ago on the other side of the world…
Which is why there must never be a US Navy carrier named for a Marine, unless he or she becomes President, in which case it’ll be up to the SECNAV. And god help us if there should ever be a secretary of the Marine Corps. /triggered
*Okay, we actually weren’t “literally” in the middle of the desert as we were then in southern Iraq with access to the coast via a nearby waterway. Still.
Turns out I was Wrong, USS Clinton and USS George W Bush are incoming.
I was reading this thread - which is mostly bygone history without seeing the post dates and as World Peace has not been declared, musings on what stuff will be most useful to have for WWIII.
I thought the latest greatest plan for Taiwan is China sieges it for however long and the US Navy does something else somewhere far from the South China Sea. Yet from what I read about the moron nominated for SecDef I suppose anything can happen.
Canada is supposed to get 16 of their F-35’s in 2026 yet I dunno if WWIII can wait.
And this fine Star Trek ref was low hanging fruit now that he’s baaaack.
“that it should be hauled away as garbage.”
-Korax the Klingon, “The trouble with tribbles”
I wonder if there will be any potential for naval confusion over radio, or whatever, when discussing the whereabouts of the USS George H.W. Bush and the USS George W. Bush. Although I’m guessing they would refer to them by CVN fleet number, so maybe that would be no issue.
Just to clarify my point in relation to the thread topic, as Putin’s war seems like it’ll get him enough to call it a victory and is unlikely to become a naval conflagration in the Black Sea, that pretty much leaves Taiwan as the theater for China and the USA trying out their latest naval war tech and hypersonic and ballistic missiles (I’ve heard Guam would be a possible land staging area).
So it seems Taiwan is the only likely casus belli for whatever conflict between superpowers. I don’t see anyone fighting over Greenland (assuming that the rhetoric wasn’t a super-clever feint by Trump to get Denmark to increase defences there).
ETA: Yet even that comes across as off-topic as to naming of carriers. I don’t know how many China has commissioned vs the USA in the last 3+ years and as others have said, perhaps the next war will show the usefulness of having them at all. (sorry for straying off topic)
Yet if carriers win the day then Trump ought to have one named for him.
There might be an aircraft carrier named Donald Trump, but probably not an American one.
Yeah, in my previous Army days we once had 2 battalion commanders named “Steve” and it was never once an issue. At least not in a tactical situation. I never hung out with them outside of work.
I would suggest it is painted gold.
And it MUST have an electric catapault.
I would expect that the Navy and DoD is going to skip over Trump. I can’t imagine the SecDef or Secretary of Navy wanting to put up with the political headache of naming a carrier for him and dealing with the protests associated thereof.
The SecDef and each of the secretaries of the branches will be serving at Trump’s pleasure.
I definitely think honorary boat names should go to those who have died. And certainly Trump will want two non-consecutive carriers not just one. Maybe even a frigate or something for getting robbed in 2020.
Yes, but I’d imagine that by the time it comes to naming the next Ford-class carrier after the USS George W. Bush and some people were agitating for this next ship to be named for Trump, it would probably be in the 2030s, when Trump will have long since left office and perhaps even died by then.
If we were going to break tradition I’d like to see a next genration sub class named after Jimmy Carter. Carter class sub sounds really cool to me. Hard working nuclear powered keepers of the peace they would be.
Be still my heart . . .
That would be nice but it would cause confusion with the existing Seawolf sub Jimmy Carter.
If China sank the USS Trump in a future war over Taiwan, I would bitterly resent having to cheer for China. But it would be hilarious.
It would also be funny if the Navy decided to name a frigate after Trump to head off the aircraft-carrier debate. “Too bad, you already have one.” Plus, “frigate” is adjacent to another F-slur that would definitely get under his skin.