20 Comments

Hellmuth von Mücke and the Ayesha next? Please??

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and no decent antibiotics. more misery and tragedy long after.

whatever else one may believe, war is hell.

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SMS Emden, 1914: The Battle of Cocos Islands and the Most Famous Cruiser of the War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lurJ6Mw-RyA

Twelve minutes of your time. Less if you skip past the WOW ad at the beginning.

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But no one in any of the foreign ministries could be bothered to make some phone calls, to avoid that war.

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If I vote for Trump, I am no fascist!

If the “anti fascists” selected without any voting nominee had anything to offer they would not have to lie about fascism.

Slander does not sell, to me.

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whoops!

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:) I'm like "What the H311 did I say?!"

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Missed this the first time around. Did optimum manning cull the corpsman as well? (That would be such a navy thing.)

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We could hope it doesn't.

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I'm reminded of two incidents. The most recent was the movie Fury starring Brad Pitt, where an interior shot of the tank showed the skin of a casualty's face stuck to a bulkhead. The other was a first hand account of a victim of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. The person, IIRC a woman, was pinned beneath one of the slabs of concrete, and as the slab was moved she saw someone moving next to her that she hadn't realized was there. Unfortunately, she quickly realized the person was no longer alive and was stuck to the slab.

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Cdr S

I think this is in error:

"Look at that timeline for both ships. Also know, the SMS Emden had its CO ashore with a landing party of 50 out of a crew of 360."

The text above it says "Meanwhile, EMDEN's captain (Captain Von Muller), aware that his only chance lay in putting SYDNEY out of action quickly, maintained a high rate of fire"

and other sources say the XO led the shore party and did the E&E back to the fatherland... Mucke

Not a Navy guy, but my understanding is that shore parties are led by Senior LTs and Captains never leave their ships in dangerous waters.

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"The XO took her into battle with a short crew - with no hesitation or delay - and aggressively."

When comparing history with today- this is the big important note.

Do we have personnel who will act accordingly? The Iranian capture of our small boats comes to mind. Are our sailors trained, motivated, and driven like the Germans of a century ago??

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Assuming those are not rhetorical questions, the answer is “no.”

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This is what you get with professionals--on both sides.

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“Why can't we have this in our Navy?”

So-called Navy “leadership” is inadequate to the task of preparing the overall US fleet for the reality that war is Hell. They believe that it will be a technology driven battle space in which direct contact with the enemy will be minimized. Those who fought on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Vietnam) can attest to the fallacy of that mindset.

The American public is not ready for the the carnage that will result from the war with the PRC, which will make the GWOT casualty statistics look like a playground fight in comparison.

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It's interesting that she had a range clock...

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Emden lost because her crew was insufficiently diverse and inclusive. Nothing but white men! Some Women Of Color and LGBTQ in the crew would have made all the difference, and the improved decision-making, reduced bias, and increased innovation would have won the battle for the Kaiserliche Marine.

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aiming too high was the proximate cause of the loss :)

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💯

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